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when it is in active energy, to describe it as such, and nothing 
more ? I contend that it does not. What follows the ignition 
of the match, and its application to the barrel ? The calling 
into activity of a number of forces, which are adequate to 
effect their destructive work. Are they nothing but antece- 
dents? The mind refuses to regard a bare antecedent as ful- 
filling its conception of a force. 
15. What is the real state of the facts ? A volition deter- 
mines on the action ; and the understanding suggests the 
means adequate to accomplish it. The volition sets in action 
the bodily apparatus of nerves, muscles, &c. These kindle the 
match by friction. The match ignites the powder in the 
barrel, and liberates its forces ; the barrel, the entire magazine. 
The explosion calls into activity a terrific force : this occasions 
a concussion of the atmosphere : the concussion effects the 
details of the work of destruction. 
16. In a popular sense all these things are designated causes. 
Some of them are evidently more than bare antecedents. They 
are forces in energy. The conception of such a force implies 
the presence of a power adequate to effectuate the result. If 
it be urged that the force and the result are necessarily united 
together as antecedent and consequent, a true philosophy is 
bound to account for that necessity. It cannot be given by 
experience; and is something different from a mere pheno- 
menon. If we affirm that the necessity is the result of a 
primal law, then we have arrived at the existence of a truth 
which must have a universal validity independently of pheno- 
mena. 
17. Now, a necessary law cannot be arrived at as a bare 
result of experience, or have any place in a phenomenal 
universe. It is only conceivable as inherent in something 
underlying phenomena. It follows, therefore, that whenever a 
pantheistic or atheistic philosophy postulates the existence of 
necessary law, without which it cannot advance a single step 
in creating the universe without a God, it is compelled to 
admit the existence of truths valid for all space and all time ; 
and thus to subvert the foundation on which it rests. How 
can we affirm that such exist in a universe in which we can 
know nothing but phenomena? If there be none other, 
philosophy must be impossible. 
18. A system which refuses to take cognizance of the facts 
of consciousness, and to probe them to the bottom, must be 
necessarily one-sided. It is true that they cannot be weighed 
in scales, or measured by the finest instruments; which a 
certain class of thinkers assert to be the only criterion of truth. 
