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that it can generate these, which reason recognises as much 
higher and further removed from the category of material 
substance. 
Thus Science is compelled to assume the negative principle 
that in Nature itself there is no initial source of causation : a 
principle which is common to religion also, pointing as it does 
to one primal source of all causes in the Being of God. 
1 9. There is no doubt, however, that this question of causa- 
tion, and with it also the relation between Science and Religion 
in regard to causation, has till our own time been somewhat 
obscured by the unscientific use of the word force, as if it 
were a reality in itself like motion its effect. Force is no 
doubt a very convenient word to use when we understand its 
meaning. But that force has an objective existence can never 
be proved, and it is not only an “ unfruitful ” idea, but one 
apt to lead into error. Dr. Carpenter, I observe, in a late 
Essay on “ The Force behind Nature,” challenges this view, 
and protests against force being treated as a mere creature of 
the imagination. He grounds his protest on the fact that our 
senses give us an idea of force in pressure and resistance. But 
this is to confound the idea which the sense view of nature 
suggests with that which Science concludes. Our senses 
suggest that the yellow colour of the primrose is an objective 
existence in the flower; but Science concludes that the objective 
reality is something quite different from colour. The sensation 
of pressure is quite familiar to us ; so is that of colour. But 
what in each case is the physical antecedent of the sensation ?* 
20. The history of the modern discoveries which have led 
to the present use in scientific researches of the idea of energy 
which is measured by the work done, instead of that of force 
which is measured by quantity of motion, I assume to be 
sufficiently known. The theory of the correlation of all 
* One danger attending the popular use of the word “ Force” is, that 
some not only consider force as a real entity, "but almost deify it. They 
invest it with mysterious attributes, and when they speak of the First Cause, 
conceive of some primal force which is the source of all the various forces in 
Nature. Dr. Carpenter does not mean this ; for in his essay (which 
originally appeared as an article in the first number of the Modern Review ) 
he quotes with approbation language of Sir John Herschel, who speaks of 
force as “ indisputably connected with volition, and by inevitable consequence 
with motive, with intellect, and with all those attributes of mind in which 
personality consists.’' And he himself deems it “ absurd and illogical to 
affirm that there is no place for a Cod in Nature, originating, directing, and 
controlling its force by His will.” Yet the very title of the essay, “ The 
Force behind Nature,” illustrated as it is by a steam-engine working the 
machinery of a cotton factory, appears to me calculated to mislead, and to 
obscure the true idea of the relation of God to His universe. 
