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Now I grant that, at first, the statement is startling. The authors may- 
have intended to startle, in order to compel thought. For myself, though 
alive to its possible abuse, I am, on reflection, ready to adopt it. 
For I take it to mean no more than this : that the vocation of the man 
of science, the distinctive work which God has given him to do, and which 
it is his “ bounden duty ” to do, is to investigate physical phenomena and 
their causes ; to relegate every such phenomenon to its corresponding 
physical cause, if it has one ; and if no such cause exists, to show its non- 
existence, i.e. to explore the chain of physical causation to its first link ; 
and as in every successive link the cause is but the effect in the link im- 
mediately preceding, the process extends backwards indefinitely, though 
necessarily not infinitely. But in every case, in the absence of, at least, 
overwhelming probability to the contrary, the presumption will be, and 
ought to be, that physical effect is preceded by physical cause : this is the 
essential condition of his working at all. It is always so. The spectrum- 
analyst presumes that every substance under properly arranged conditions 
will present some kind of spectrum ; the chemist, that every compound 
substance is a combination of elements in some definite proportions ; the 
biologist, that every organism has had a similarly organized immediate pro- 
genitor ; the zoologist, that every example of an animal whose ordinary 
mode of reproduction is known has been produced accordingly ; and every 
one of these men will work on that presumption, unless in any given case 
it is plainly untenable. So, generally, the scientific man must work on the 
principle that physical phenomenon involves physical cause, till the contrary 
be proved ; and this is nothing but “ to put back the direct interference of 
the Great First Cause — the unconditioned — as far as He possibly can in 
time,” not because he wishes to be rid of it, or fancies that the process of 
“ putting back ” can go on for ever, but simply because God has given him 
work to do which he can do in no other way ; and therefore fidelity to his 
vocation and to his God demands it of him. 
No doubt the godless investigator may abuse his vocation. He may 
worship secondary causes and deny the First altogether, or only recognize 
Him as exerting a momentary creative energy, followed by a virtual self- 
extinction in favour of an endless routine of blind automatic “ law.” 
Both these theories are practically atheistic. The one denies the existence, 
the other the providence of God. But the atheism of the latter is in no 
wise the necessary result of his veneration for “ law.” A saint may place 
the immediate intervention of the Creator at a point equally remote. His 
humility may forbid him to say, “ I have reached the limit of the chain : 
beyond this there is nothing but the fiat of the Supreme Will.” He knows 
that a point exists where the Creator and the created stand face to face ; 
but though it may be impossible at some conjecturally attainable point to 
predicate 3 absolutely the continuity of physical causation, its necessary dis- 
continuity is obviously equally unpredicable ; and in such a case I think duty 
requires that (practically) science should have the benefit of the doubt, and 
that the inquirer should never despair of ultimate success in a search for 
what he cannot, perhaps, at the time even hypothesize. There is no neces- 
sary tendency in this to get “ rid of any reference to agency governed by 
personal will ” (para. 10), since intellect and religion seem satisfied by the con- 
ception (to quote the words of Professor Nicholson lately delivered to this 
Institute) of the “ Government of the world by Providence, acting through 
and by secondary causes and according to invariable laws.” Unroll the 
coil of secondary causes as far back as we will, if we hold fast by Providence 
we are secure. For it excludes for ever the idea of a world “ constructed 
