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force, it is a very easy and simple inference that its total is invariable. But 
to speak of this as a great scientific discovery is a mere illusion. Mr. Brooke 
has charged one passage of my paper with misplaced ridicule. It is really 
nothing more than an exact and logical description of the error involved 
in Mr. Spencer’s theory. An eternity of possible future actions of force is 
summed up into a total ; and then, having replaced present, actual force, 
by a formula, which includes all the past, present and future, the unchange- 
ableness of this total, from time to time, is taken for some great discovery. 
I should be sorry to appear to speak with contempt of any person of high repu- 
tation. But there is a great temptation, in these days, where there is general 
reputation for ability, to disguise and overlook the most serious logical con- 
tradictious, and reviving the principle of human authority, to apply it to these 
newest names in sciences, so as to create a real danger and stumbling-block 
to the faith of Christians. Mr. H. Spencer, no doubt, is a person of great 
ability and intelligence ; but when I examine his work closely, I know of 
none which abounds more in direct and fatal contradictions. I believe that 
I have done him no injustice in my remarks. He has been seeking to build 
up a philosophy which treats theology as an impossible science, and gets 
rid of the Great First Cause, the God of the Bible, altogether. But the 
basis of the whole argument lies in proving, first, that the principles of religion 
and science are alike inscrutable, and then in dismissing theology as hopelessly 
dark and blind, and treating science as an open field for fresh discoveries. 
If the inscrutable nature of its first principle is a reason why nothing can be 
known in religion, the argument will equally prove that nothing can be 
known in science. I believe, with him, that much is known, and can be 
known, in physical science, though all its fundamental ideas lose themselves 
in mystery. And in like manner we can know, and ought to know, much 
concerning the character and works of the Supreme Creator, while we. con- 
fess, with Hooker, and Scripture itself, that" His nature is unsearchable, His 
greatness beyond our capacity and reach.” My object has been to show that 
Mr. Spencer’s First Principles do not give us any clear conception of his 
so-called Persistence of Force, but that he contradicts himself at every 
step, when he would explain his own meaning. As to the conservation 
of energy, that is, of Vis viva, I deny altogether that it is an 
a priori truth. It is the result of a special dynamical hypothesis, which 
might or might not be confirmed by inductive observation. We have no 
right beforehand to assume its truth as self-evident. It is a doctrine 
which Newton did not hold, but its reverse. When imposed upon our faith, 
not as a probable deduction from the facts of science within certain defined 
limits of mere mechanical change, but as an a priori truth, which is to 
sweep away all religious faith as superstitious error, and put the universe 
under the dominion of a blind Fate, we are bound to oppose it with all our 
might, and show the gigantic delusion and falsehood on which it rests. The 
theory, in the shape it has latterlyassumed, is false to the best interests and true 
dignity of man in the present life, as well as to the hopes of the life to come. 
