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86. I ask emphatically, is it reasoning, to have recourse 
to the magic talisman of infinite time, as the solution of 
every difficulty? Is it not more rational to invoke the aid of 
an intelligent Creator ? If it be replied that an intelligent 
Creator belongs to the regions of the unknowable, does not an 
inexhaustible past eternity equally belong to them ? Does it 
not leave the origin of intelligence utterly unsolved ? 
87. Our author justly remarks, that if the power of thought 
fills us with astonishment, that of feeling is no less marvellous. 
“A divine force,” says he, “ reveals itself in the sensations of 
the lowest animal as much as in the brain of a Newton.” 
After giving utterance to this great truth, a number of reason- 
ings follow, for the purpose of proving that neither the one nor 
the other is divine. “ If,” says he, “ under certain conditions, 
motion can be transformed into heat, why may it not, under 
other conditions, be transformed into thought, into sensation, 
or even into self-conscious reason and will?” Why, indeed? 
Because the one class of phenomena are entirely different from 
the other. Any philosophy worthy of the name ought to give 
proof of its assumed facts, instead of taking them for granted, 
by asking others to prove their impossibility. 
88. This school of philosophy is forced to admit that there 
are certain organisms which are formidable obstacles in the way 
of elaborating the universe without the aid of an intelligent 
Creator. Of these, the eye may be taken as a crucial instance. 
(C It is formed,” says Strauss, “ not in the light, but in the 
darkness of the womb, yet it is admirably adapted to light which 
has had no concern in its formation.” A similar difficulty is 
well put by another writer, quoted by our author, respecting 
the instincts of animals. “ These latter enable them to perform 
from their birth, with hereditary finished art, to which the 
highest reason might have prompted them for their well-being, 
without any thought, experience, or practice on their part, or 
any instruction, example, or pattern.” Pantheism endeavours 
to account for this by assuming the presence of unconscious 
intellect in the universe. 
89. Let it be observed that our sole experience of intellect 
is as an attribute of conscious beings. If philosophy is to rest 
on a basis of fact, the existence of unconscious intellect diffused 
in the universe is a gratuitous assumption. No doubt many 
intellectual processes take place in our minds without leaving 
any trace on the memory ; perhaps without emerging into direct 
consciousness. This is especially the case with such actions as 
have become habitual. But this affords no proof of the presence 
of intellect in a wholly different class of beings. If unconscious 
