97 



and conflicting hypotheses, that some scientific men have been 

 guilty of, in reference to Force, Energy, and Motion. This alone, 

 if satisfactorily accomplished, were worth an effort; still that 

 consideration only would not have induced me to enter the 

 lists against such men as Tyndall, Thompson, Tait, &c., while 

 other, and more apparently practical matters were demanding 

 my immediate attention. The hypotheses of ^'the Conserva- 

 tion of Energy,^' and " the Perpetuity of Motion,^^ are, how- 

 ever, not mere abstract reasonings, devoid of interest to the 

 moralist or the theologian ; but reasonings, if such they may 

 be called, that would land him where he by no means wishes 

 to go. In Biology they lead to Evolution, in Theology to 

 Pantheism, in Philosophy to Materialism, and in Morals to 

 Necessitarianism. A very few quotations will at once make it 

 evident that these are the views and purposes of those also who 

 teach these hypotheses, that they are not blind to the ultimate 

 issue of their own teachings, but rather, perhaps, this foreseen 

 issue may be one cause of their earnestness. Be this as it 

 may, we must not blame them if we remain blind to the 

 character of the abyss in which they would plunge us, for their 

 statements are distinct enough. Mr. Herbert Spencer writes, — 

 " If it can be shown that the persistence of Force is not a 

 datura of consciousness ; or if it can be shown that the several 

 laws of Force above specified are not corollaries from it ; then, 

 indeed, it will be shown that the theory of Evolution has not 

 the certainty here claimed for it. But nothing short of this 

 can invalidate the general conclusions arrived at.^^ ^ Again, 

 on page 246 he writes, — The continuity of Motion, like 

 the indestructibility of Matter, is clearly an axiom under- 

 lying the very possibility of a rational theory of Evolution. 

 That kind of change in the arrangement of parts, which 

 we have found to constitute Evolution, could not be deductively 

 explained were it possible for motion either to appear or disap- 

 pear." He elsewhere carries out the hypothesis to its legiti- 

 mate issue, and maintains that thought is nothing more than 

 converted heat, or chemical affinity ; a mere mode of motion. 

 On page 280 of the " Principles" we read, " Various classes 

 of facts thus unite to prove that the law of metamorphosis, 

 which holds among the physical forces, holds equally between 

 them and the mental forces. Those modes of the Unknowable 

 which we call motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, &c., are 

 alike transformable into each other, and into those modes of 

 the Unknowable which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, 

 thought : these, in their turns, being directly or indirectly re- 



* " First Principles," p. 488. 



