138 
authors), as meaning “ an active principle, inseparable from 
matter, and supposed to induce its various changes” (p. 10). 
He speaks, not quite consistently indeed, of an “ ultimate 
generating power ” of such forces as belong to light, heat, 
electricity, magnetism, motion, and chemical affinity (p. xiv). 
This however was not only his language when we heard him 
some ten years ago at Nottingham ; but ill his recent edition 
of his work. It did not pass as ‘'unscientific” then. We 
were, and are, of course, far from adopting it. 
74. The objective element of the Universe, according to our 
authors, is Energy (p. 176, edit. 3); and intelligence, and life, 
and force, are apparently regarded as non-objective. Whether 
matter be objective — though it is the vehicle of the energy, it 
is really hard to say. It becomes difficult too, to ascertain 
whether there are forms or energy which exist unassociated 
with matter. The universe of atoms, it is admitted, “ certainly 
cannot have existed from eternity ” (p. 9, edit. 4), for the atom 
has the look of a manufactured article ; but the “ primordial 
stuff” from which atoms are manufactured is eternal; and 
thus atoms are developments from the Unseen. What the 
molecular constitution of the Unseen Universe may be our 
authors do not say, beyond this — that the “same stuff” goes 
to the making of the “unseen and seen Universe” (p. xv, 
edit. 4, and § 262). To which section of the universes, Energy, 
or Life, may belong, must seem comparatively unimportant, if 
nothing exists but the same stuff. 
75. One admission of our authors in this last edition is re- 
markable, and we wonder that they do not see how far it 
reaches, as a disturbing element. It is this. “ In former 
editions we have given undue prominence to the argument for 
the Unseen, derived from the future degradation of the energy 
of the present visible universe.” If the doctrine of the Dis- 
sipation of Energy be hesitatingly relied on, a startling number 
of our authors' inferences are seriously affected. On the other 
hand, if it be logically admitted, the doctrine of the Conserva- 
tion of Energy must be re-stated. Our authors, however, are so 
much more capable of dealing with this matter than we are, that 
we will not dwell on it, in the present state of physical problems. 
76. We will now conclude, by turning to the Theological 
suggestions of this work, which in the fourth edition are but 
little alleviated. Our interest in the whole volume has been a 
religious one, and must remain so. Its great value is, that it 
has driven Science to Philosophy, and will compel physicists to be 
thinkers, or to be shut up as hitherto, to “intellectual confusion.” 
The fundamental question for our authors to consider in 
