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affection of the “ sensory/* and intelligence the action of the 
“ cerebral** ganglia. Philosophy wants not new names, bat 
to know what force itself really is, what sensation is, what 
intelligence is, what thought is. These are questions that are 
not answered, in a philosophic sense, by a mere sophism or 
change of terms. Until we are told what force is, “ the law 
of reason** cannot be said to be “ concentric ** with the “law 
of nature,** and the mind of the philosopher, like that of the 
child, cannot “ rest in peace.** A miracle, like other pheno- 
mena, has its forces proximate and remote — and that which 
binds the consequent to its antecedent, is also here, as else- 
where, neither seen nor weighed. The theologian, therefore, 
may be said to be as much, but no more, in the dark, than the 
natural philosopher ; for both are crying out in the old language 
of nature*s felt wants, showing us how little we have, after all, 
as yet advanced, “ Oh that I knew where I might find Him ! 
that I might come even to His seat ! . . . . Behold, I go for- 
ward, but He is not there ; and backward, but I cannot per- 
ceive Him : on the left hand, where He doth work, but I can- 
not behold Him ; He hideth Himself on the right hand, that 
I cannot see Him.** * Force ! why who has ever tried to con- 
ceive what this word can mean further than his own conscious 
efforts of volition, as by a sort of figure, enable him ? This very 
word, upon which so much empty eloquence has been lavished, is 
borrowed from personal agency and transferred by the natural 
philosopher to an impersonal, unseen, imponderable some- 
thing, which he can neither see, nor hear, nor weigh. How 
then can he “ rest in peace ** by the mere transference of what, 
after all, may be, so far as he can prove, a misplaced title ? 
“ As I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar 
with this inscription, to The unknown God.** Might not St. 
Paul have said as much of “ certain philosophers of the Epi- 
curean** sort in this age? Force, so far from throwing any 
light upon the pathway of the natural philosopher, may be a 
word serving but to conceal from his gaze that light of heaven 
which in his pride or self-sufficiency he spurns. I say this may 
be so in some cases ; it is not so in most cases : for example. 
Sir John Herschel regarded force — yes, even the “force of 
gravitation — as the direct or indirect result of consciousness or 
will existing somewhere.** f But behind the phenomenal, 
there is not simply the cause or force producing it, but also, in 
the case of rational agency, purpose, qualities, &c. ; in other 
words, that which is ethical or moral, that which arouses a 
third kind of operation in the beholder’s mind. The miracle 
* Job xxiii. 
t Outlines of Astronomy, fifth, ed., p. 29. 
