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transformable into the original shapes." In complete harmony 

 with the foregoing, we find Mr. C. Bray stating that the airs 

 that man has given himself, and his assumption of superiority 

 over all his brethren of the sentient creation, are a little ridicu- 

 lous,, viewed in this light of the persistence of force.""^ If the 

 following be not Pantheism, we are at a loss to know what 

 Pantheism can mean : — ^'^ We find, then, but one thing in the 

 world — Force ; and what is that ? Force and Power are the same, 

 and Power we cannot separate from that source of all Power, — 

 from God, — Power is God. We say ' the Power of God,^ as 

 if it could be separated from Him, or delegated ; but this is 

 entirely inconceivable. The only one thing we find anywhere 

 is God." The following can scarcely be classed under any of the 

 heterodox isms with which we are familiar, — it sounds startling 

 in the extreme ; still, if energy persists, and motion never 

 begins nor ends, it is a logical consequence, and fair statement 

 of a universal fact. ^* Heat and electricity are constantly passing 

 oflp from the body ; so is mind. We influence every one and 

 every thing about us, and are influenced by them. We 

 photograph our mental states on all the rooms we inhabit.'''' If 

 this be true, the walls of some rooms must have strange 

 pictures latent on their surfaces, — the photographs on our own, 

 for example, must be of a very conflicting character, seeing how 

 diverse are the mental states occasionally found here. It is 

 not, however, our purpose here to expose what we think are 

 fallacies in the above specimens of that which we cannot believe 

 to be sound philosophy, but only to justify the introduction of 

 this subject to the Society, and to show how it is that we can 

 quote the words of Dr. Bence Jones as expressing our own senti- 

 ments when he says, " I hold that the clearness and breadth or 

 dimness and narrowness of our ideas regarding matter and 

 force must constitute a good or a bad foundation of all the 

 knowledge we possess, not only in medicine, but in every other 

 science." 



2. Physical science is at present in so chaotic a state in reference 

 to the nature of Force and its manifestations, and the utterances . 

 of physicists are so contradictory and confused, that it is difficult, 

 if not impossible, to arrive at any well-defined statement of the 

 general hypotheses they desire to enforce. The only possible 

 course, therefore, is to examine their separate utterances regard- 

 ing Force, Energy, and Motion ; expose their errors as we pro- 

 ceed ; contrast these with our own belief ; and finally criticise 

 the assumptions in which they mostly agree. This course may 



* " On Force and its Mental Correlates," p. 38. 



