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the Divine will; but just as matter, while undergoing integra- 
tion, has become differentiated into existing organisms with 
their organs by evolution, so it would seem probable that 
force (or motion, as H. Spencer calls it) has become dif- 
ferentiated too. Hence the variety of forces which modern 
science recognizes as convertible or homologous, as well as 
the diversity of function obtaining among the varieties of form. 
After all, therefore, what I have here called evolutive forces 
in the organic world may prove to be only particular phases 
of those which conspire to constitute animal and vegetable 
life. And just as in the vital force itself it is usual to recognize 
two such phases, viz., the vegetative and reproductive, so 
the power of development or continual advance or alteration 
from an assumed type may ultimately appear as particular 
forms of life-force issuing in those results which we are accus- 
tomed to look upon as designed. 
Again, I would urge, how all this is carried out I do not pre- 
tend to say. We know that “ God's ways are not our ways," 
and I would only paraphrase that remark by observing that as 
man is external to the works and forces of nature, upon which 
he operates and produces results which are simply the issue of 
combinations of nature's forces which are adjusted by his 
will, and rendered subservient to it ; so God would seem to 
operate through His works. This particular aspect of His will, 
which is here represented by evolutive forces, appears to be 
internal to them, and may hereafter prove to be differentiations 
of perhaps one single force originally infused into matter, 
when “ the Spirit of God f brooded ' upon the face of the 
waters." 
In endeavouring to represent under the name of forces 
nature's execution of the will of God, I confess it must 
be very inadequate to silence the objection of those 
naturalists and philosophers who, judging from the apparent 
immutability of nature, not only deny the existence of design 
in the physical world, but also the efficacy of prayer in the 
moral. 
With regard to the former difficulty, I think it is aggra- 
vated by the general idea of God being like man, an artificer ; 
so that human relations have clothed the Deity in a somewhat 
false aspect. For an examination into nature seems to show 
that this is not the usual way in which God works. All is by 
“ law the use of the imperative mood in the words “Let there 
be " of Genesis, would seem to be not so much the expres- 
sion of one who creates, directly and with his own hand, as 
that which indicates agents external to the Creator, who has 
