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period during the infinity of future time reproduce our own 
personal existence, and even hold us responsible for what we 
have done in our previous state of being ? To do so would 
only be to add one wonder more to the multitude of wonders 
which it is declared to be able to effect. Against this most 
serious contingency this philosophy has nothing to offer, but 
its dogmatic assertion that personal existence, after its fleeting 
phenomenal appearance, must sink into eternal silence. 
52. Let us now examine some of the processes by which it 
attempts to account for the origin of the existing order of 
things. With respect to some of the processes by means of 
which it affirms the universe of matter to have been constructed, 
we need have no difficulty. They may have been the very 
means which the Creator has employed to effectuate His pur- 
poses ; and to accept them as denoting the law according to 
which creation has been evolved is quite consistent with a belief 
in Theism. As all His manifestations with which we are 
acquainted are in conformity with law, and involve the use of 
means, so there is no difficulty in conceiving that Grod’s 
creative work has been conducted in conformity with a definite 
law and order, and that He has made use of means in effecting 
it, instead of creating each separate existence immediately. On 
the contrary, it is highly probable that such would be the mode 
of His action. 
53. But this is widely different from the assumption that 
the Cosmos can have been built up by the action of blind forces 
without the aid of intelligence and will. Law, however con- 
venient as a term, denotes nothing but an invariable mode of 
action. In itself it embraces no conception of energy or 
power, although nothing is more common even in philosophic 
language than to confound this conception with it. But it is 
impossible to build the universe without the energetic action of 
both these. Unless forces have an action given to them, they 
can effect nothing, — confusion, not harmonious arrangement, 
will be the results of their operations. These can only be found 
in intelligence and will. As far as human experience extends, 
forces acting in conformity with blind laws, have never pro- 
duced a single adaptation, order, or arrangement, but destruction 
only. This philosophy, for the purpose of enabling it to dis- 
pense with the directing power of intelligence and will, postu- 
lates an eternity of time, during which forces have acted, and 
affirms that this can produce all the results of intelligent volition. 
54. Having evolved the matter of the universe into planets, 
suns, and systems, by means which the Theist need not dispute, 
as long as they have an omnipotent intelligence at their back s 
