A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE 
43 
protoplasm and life are necessarily linked together: . . .if 
it be admitted that we find in nature no reason why events should 
occur together except the fact that they do, is it not clear that we 
can give no reason why life and protoplasm should be associated 
except the fact that they are? And is it not equally clear that this 
is no reason why they may not exist separately?" 
The next step in this survey and analj^sis of fundamental as- 
pects of nature brings us to positive belief itself. As so often said, 
science quite fails to find in matter and motion any intrinsic 
virtue which sustains and directs the sequence of phenomena, and 
is absolutely restricted to the discovery of the mere sequence which 
itself calls for (metaphysical) explanation. Hence there is nothing 
in science which has any bearing on the causal origin or on the 
reality of anything in nature, and we must go elsewhere for the 
foundations of the belief that we may entertain in respect to such 
matters. Brooks believes that ''nature is intended" to be as it 
is, and is a language which a rational being may read. Since the 
rational being is perhaps himself a part of nature's mechanism, this 
is equivalent to saying that one part of the mechanism is cognizant 
of the purpose that animates the whole. This purpose is the effect 
of a power, a sustaining and directing intelligence outside nature, 
to which both the origin of nature and its maintenance from day 
to day are due. It is not something which once for all set a deter- 
minate cosmos spinning along the path of time with a full comple- 
ment of eternal iron laws." It is something which is at work 
now, under every phenomenon. This is obviously Brooks' belief, 
although being no propagandist he is far from enforcing it, indeed 
leaves it in a measure to be inferred. What he wishes to make 
plain is that science does not tell us why events happen a- we 
learn they do, and so it tells us nothing of ultimate reality. The 
question why the events we expect (from experience) should be 
those that come to pass concerns not science but "the natural the- 
ologian; for it is the same as the question, What is the Cause of 
Nature? To this all must seek an answer for themselves; for 
each has at his command all the data within the reach of any 
student of science." 
