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happened to be m the furnace; that the water just happened to 
boil after the fire had somehow become lighted ; and so on He 
would regard, and rightly, the assertion as a mere truism to 
doubt which would indicate insanity ; that the cause of all the 
changes he saw there must be one or more minds conscious of 
what they were doing. I hold it just as impossible for an 
honest observer to come to any other conclusion when ob- 
serving the machinery of nature, combining in all its parts to 
produce the beautiful fabrics of the organic world, with their 
matchless hues and endless varieties of form. 
10. Did the changes in nature all run, as it were, parallel to 
each other, not crossing nor concentring, perhaps the proposition 
might not be so self-evident as it is. But instead of that they are 
all focused or centred to a few points, so that changes at first 
appearing the most diverse and disconnected, gradually con- 
verge and mingle to produce some one result, which could not 
have been produced without such union; this result, in its 
turn, commingling with some other result similarly produced 
and originating a still higher unity. Changes are taking place 
in the leaves of far-off trees, as they purify the air; in the 
bodies of animals and plants around, as they cook the soil into 
possible human food ; are taking place in the distant sun, by 
which other changes are produced in the space immediately 
surrounding him. These changes approach each other as I 
breathe the air and eat the animal, till they blend in the struc- 
ture of the eye, which opens and drinks in the light ; so that 
these three great lines of change all converge to that glorious 
point of vision. 6 
1L If the inspection of a machine necessitates or renders 
self-evident the affirmation of a conscious agent, the inspection 
of nature, for exactly the same reasons, renders the same affir- 
mation necessary in regard to it. This axiom is often obscured bv 
confoundmg cause with condition. When the question is asked, 
W hat was the cause of that ?” the answer is frequently given 
in terms of the conditions. Suppose I blow up a rock by gun- 
powder, if I be asked the cause of the explosion, and reply that 
th . e ^tact of a little red-hot wire with the powder I 
sha 1 be incorrect : that was only the condition under which the 
explosion occurred ; the cause, in its strict meaning, was my 
de S1 re to blow up the rock. I, the agent, was the real caused 
all else were only conditions m accordance with which I acted 
Cause replies to the query, why ? Condition replies to the query,* 
n°w/ If this distinction were kept steadily in view, it would 
free the discussion on causation from much of the fog by which 
it has been enveloped and manifest the impossibility of doubting 
that the cause of all changes must be a conscious agent. 
