./• 

 
 TWO PAPERS. 
 
 I. 
 
 On the Eelation between Science and Religion, 
 tlirongli the principles of Unity, Order, and 
 Causation. 
 
 By the Bight Reverend BISHOP COTTERILL, 
 D.D., F.E.S.E., Edinburgh. 
 
 n. 
 
 On the Bearings of the Study of K^atural Science, 
 and of the Contemplation of the Discoveries 
 to which that study leads, on our Religious 
 Ideas. 
 
 By G. G. STOKES, Esq., M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., 
 
 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge 
 University . 
 
 READ IN 1880 
 
 BEFORE THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, OR 
 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 WITH SPECIAL APPENDIX. 
 
 [Published— with the discussions and other matter— in the Society's 
 Journal, received, post-free, by Members and Associates.] 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 E. STANFORD, 5b, CHARING CROSS, S.W. ; 
 
 EDINBURGH; R. GRANT k SON. DUBLIN: G. HERBERT. 
 
 PARIS : GALIGNANI & CO. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 ANS'^N, D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 900, BROADWAY. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Owing to the increasingly wide circulation given to certain 
 writings of Herbert Spencer, Matthew Arnold, and others 
 whose works have an analogous tendency, including the publi- 
 cations of the Secularists,* the Institute has decided to issue a 
 People's Edition of the following Papers. 
 
 As all are aware, 
 
 The author of the first Paper is known as being one of the 
 most powerful, deep thinkers upon Philosophical questions, and 
 with Metaphysicians he takes his place in the first rank. 
 
 The author of the other Paper is a leader in the Scientific world 
 and second to none among English Physical Science Men. 
 
 F. PETPvIE, Hon. Sec. 
 
 * At a recent Council meeting communications were read from 
 members in India and the Colonies showing that Mr. Bradlaugh 
 and the London secularist societies are actively supplying those 
 places with pseudo-philosophical and quasi-scientific literature in- 
 tended to promote scepticism in regard to the Christian Religion 
 (Translations of such papers into the dialects of India are also circulated 
 now), and that the Colonial press is being used with a similar purpose 
 (The writers allude to the effects being already apparent.) Letters 
 were also read showing that, with the view of meeting the evil, many 
 greatly desired that the People's Editions of the Institute papers should 
 be as widely circulated, lists of colonial booksellers being forwarded by 
 some correspondents with a view to aiding the Council in placing 
 the People's Edition within reach of colonists. (English, American, 
 and Colonial correspondents assign as a reason for this, that they find 
 in the papers of the Institute a careful examination of those questions 
 or theories of Philosophy and Science which are said to militate 
 against the truth of Revelation, and which questions are used against 
 it by its active and unscrupulous enemies.) 
 
 New People's Editions. 
 
 0/t the Nature of Life. By H. A. Nicholso7i, M D.yF.R.S.E., 
 
 Professor of Natural History at St. Andreio's Universiti/. 6d. 
 
 On the Data of Ethics A Reply to Herbert Spencer's new 
 
 Work). By Professor Wace, 31. A. 6d. 
 
 {The cordial welcome given to Professor Lias' Paper on *' Matthew 
 
 Arnold and Modern Culture'' seems to loarrant a further issue thereof.) 
 
 Victoria Institute, 
 
 7, Adelphi Terrace, 
 W.C.
 
 ON THE RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND 
 RELIGION THROUGE TEE PRINCIPLES OF 
 UNITY, ORDER, AND- CAUSATION By tlie Right 
 Rev. Bishop Cotteeill, D.D., F.R.S.E. 
 
 My Lords and Gentlemen,* 
 
 I WILL not venture to question the judgment of the Council 
 of your Society when from time to time they invite others 
 of its members, besides those whose time is largely devoted to 
 scientific pursuits, to deliver its annual address. Yet when 
 they claim, as they justly may, the co-operation of those of us 
 who cannot presume to speak with authority on any special 
 
 * Delivered as an Annual Address. 
 B
 
 branch of science^ you will not expecfc from us the kind of aid 
 which is so effectually rendered by the eminent scientific men 
 who take a large part in the work of your Institute ; you will 
 allow us to speak from our own point of view,, and of those 
 aspects of the question of the Relations between Religion and 
 Science with which our minds are most familiar. 
 
 In addressing you^ therefore^ on the present occasion I do 
 not propose to undertake that^, which perhaps is the proper 
 duty of one selected to deliver this address, i.e. to bring before 
 you the present state of the great question, commenting on 
 the latest discoveries or speculations which directly or in- 
 directly may seem to affect it. I will assume that I shall be 
 allowed to take a somewhat different, and in one sense a wider 
 scope, and to discuss some fundamental principles, which have 
 in my judgment a very important bearing on the purposes for 
 which this Institute is founded. 
 
 1. In a paper which I had the honour of reading before 
 your Society two years ago, I examined the Relations between 
 Scientific Thought and Religious Belief in one particular 
 direction. It appeared to me, that in pursuing one of the 
 primary objects of this Institute, — I mean, investigating scien- 
 tific questions ^^ with the view of reconciling any apparent 
 discrepancies between Christianity and Science,'"' — a preli- 
 minary question ought never to be overlooked; viz., what 
 ground there is for the ^'' popular notions as to the authority of 
 scientific thought, and its right to control and dictate to the 
 intellect."'' For, in discussing these apparent discrepancies, 
 whatever they may be, there is some danger, if not of our- 
 selves supposing, yet of allowing others to suppose, that if we 
 fail in discovering the true solutions, we have to choose 
 between Faith and Reason, and balance, one against the other, 
 the realities of a spiritual world, and those of the world of 
 Nature which is no less truly God's. I therefore thought it 
 necessary to point out, that the claim, too often tacitly implied, 
 if not expressly asserted, that Science is a tribunal before 
 which Religion is on its trial, whether it is or is not in accord- 
 ance with Reason, is wholly untenable; and that neither on 
 the plea of being the teacher of necessary truth, nor on that of 
 establishing any principle contradictory of the Divine Will in 
 the Universe, is Science at all competent to interfere with 
 Religious Belief. Since that time a work has appeared,^ 
 in which the author has investigated, with singular acuteness 
 
 * " A Defence of Philosophic Doubt : being an Essay on the Foundations 
 of Belief." By Arthur James Balfour, M.A., M.P. London. 1879. 
 
 I III 1^
 
 and powei'j those claims on tlie part of Science which I then 
 challenged. Although his line of argument is different from 
 jnme, — for he has discussed fully and with much skill the philo- 
 sophical aspects of the question, — and though on some points 
 his reasoning seems to me not conclusive, yet the practical 
 results of Mr. Balfour^s argument so entirely coincide with 
 those which I urged as essential to truth, that, as my subject 
 to-day is cognate to that which I then discussed, I will hrst 
 confirm the conclusions of that paper by a brief quotation 
 from this work of an original and independent thinker. 
 
 2. Having observed that many believers in Religion, how- 
 ever widely they differ practically from unbelievers^ yet agree 
 with them " in thinking that no more certain warrant for a 
 creed can be found than the fact that Science supports it ; no 
 more fatal objection to one than the fact that science contra- 
 dicts it '^ ; the result being '' that it seems to be assumed that 
 the logical relation which subsists between the doctrines of 
 actual Science and of actual Religion is a fact of transcendent 
 theological importance,^' he continues "^ (pp. 302, 303) : — 
 
 " I might insist on the evil done by such a state of things, both to 
 religion and to science, but at this moment I wish rather to enter my protest 
 against the principle from which the evil itself ultimately springs. Has 
 Science any claim to be thus set up as the standard of belief ? Is there any 
 ground whatever for regarding conformity with scientific teaching as an 
 essential condition of truth, and nonconformity with it as an unanswerable 
 proof of error ? If there is, it cannot be drawn from the nature of the 
 scientific system itself. We have seen in the preceding pages how a close 
 examination of its philosophic structure reveals the existence of every 
 possible philosophical defect. We have seen that whether Science be regarded 
 from the point of view of its premises, its inferences, or the general relation 
 of its parts, it is found defective ; and we have seen that the ordinary 
 proofs which philosophers and men of science have thought fit to give of its 
 doctrines are not only inconsistent, but are such as would convince nobody 
 who did not start (as, however, we all do start) with an implicit and inde- 
 structible confidence in the truth of that which had to be proved. I am 
 far from complaining of the confidence. I share it. My complaint rather 
 is that of two creeds [the religious and the scientific] which from a 
 philosophical point of vieivf stand, so far as I can judge, upon a perfect 
 equality, one should be set up as a standard to which the other must 
 necessarily conform." 
 
 3. That until the principles here asserted are recognised as 
 the basis of the mutual relations of Religion and Science, the 
 work of reconciling their apparent discrepancies will be both 
 endless and unprofitable, I have no doubt whatever. We, on 
 the Christian side, not only admit, but earnestly maintain, 
 that while the creed of Religion is consistent with Reason, yet 
 
 * " A Defence of Philosophic Doubt," &c. t The italics are mine. 
 
 B 2
 
 it could not be constructed by Reason^ and it requires in us a 
 bigber faculty, viz., tbat faitb wbicb is '^tbe substance of 
 tbiugs boped for, tbe evidence of tbings not seen,^^ to supple- 
 ment buman reason and make tbe foundations of Religion in 
 our own minds secure. We contend tbat, on tbe otber band. 
 Science is in a similar position ; tbat to construct its creed 
 Reason needs to be supplemented by mucb tbat is not strictly 
 logical, by a scientific " instinct,^^ an unreasoning and certainly 
 not infallible intuition, wbicb some men possess in a far bigber 
 degree tban otbers, and tbe necessity for wbicb leaves tbe 
 world in general mucb more dependent on autbority for tbeir 
 scientific belief tban men ever are, or bave been, in Religion, 
 wberever tbey bave access to Holy Scripture. For tbere 
 neitber is, nor can be, any standard and guide for tbe scientific 
 intuition, sucb as tbe Bible supplies for faitb. 
 
 4. It is not my purpose, bowever, to-day to discuss furtber 
 tbis aspect of tbe Relations between Religion and Science. I 
 bave referred to it only to clear tbe way for anotber view of 
 tbese Relations. Tbe objects of tbis Society bave indeed a 
 wider scope tban any in wbicb Science and Cbristianity are 
 regarded as at variance or even divergent. Botb are God^s 
 gifts, and are intended to be, in different spberes of man^s 
 being, means for raising bim above tbe region of mere sense, 
 and educating bim for tbis life and tbat wbicb is to come. To 
 prove tbat tbere is no conflict between tbem is doubtless 
 necessary ; for God is One, and all tbat proceeds from Him 
 must be in barmony. But for tbe same reason tbat assures us 
 tbat true Science and true Religion cannot be at variance, 
 it also follows tbat tbey must bave some correlation or cor- 
 respondency. So far as tbeir various creeds are sustained by 
 Reason, tbey bave more or less common ground, and we migbt 
 naturally expect tbat tbey would be found to sustain eacb 
 otber. It will, I trust, be neitber uninteresting nor unprofit- 
 able for tbe purposes of our Institute to examine witb some 
 care — so far as my limits will allow — tbe fundamental principles 
 of tbis correlation. 
 
 5. I sball, perbaps, best explain tbe question before us by 
 referring to tbat classification of tbe several spberes of buman 
 tbougbt wbicb in my previous paper I adopted from Ficbte, 
 and wbicb is, at all events, sufficiently distinct and compre- 
 bensive for our present purpose. In tbis analysis, tbe first 
 and lowest mode of regarding tbe universe is tbat of sense ; 
 we may consider (on some accounts at least) tbe scientific, view 
 as next in order; in tbat wbicb we called the poetic ov spiritual 
 mode, tbe mind looks tbrougb nature to unseen ideals of good- 
 ness and beauty; tbe religious view sees God in all, and 
 
 J
 
 regards tlie whole universe as of God, and in God, and for 
 God, while the highest of all, which we called the theosophic, 
 can only be attained through Revelation, and is the comple- 
 tion and fulfilmenu of the religious^ through the knowledo-e of 
 the true relations of the universe to God, and of God to the 
 universe in the Incarnate Word Jesus Christ. When I speak 
 to-day of Eeligion, I include in this the latter sphere of 
 thought, for the one is not complete without the other. 
 
 In regard to all these distinctions, I pointed out that, 
 ''although each higher sphere of thought contains nothing 
 contradictory to those which precede it in order, yet the ideas 
 of the lower do not of themselves direct us to the higher, but 
 they may, in some cases, even seem to be opposed to it ; ^' 
 '' some new power is required in order to pass from one 
 phase or sphere of thought to the higher.''^ But it is equally 
 important to observe that, although the lower mode of thought 
 seems at times a hindrance rather than a help to attaining the 
 conceptions required for the higher, yet it may be, neverthe- 
 less, essential to those conceptions, and of great value in their 
 development. Although the acutest perception of the objects 
 of sense is consistent with the absence of all conception 
 of law in nature, and, indeed, what has been called the " crude 
 realism '' of the sense view of nature often seems at variance 
 with the scientific, and creates prejudices which Science only 
 gradually dispels, yet not only is physical science itself depend- 
 ent on the trustworthiness of the senses, so far as their 
 powers extend, but it is largely aided by them throughout 
 its whole extent, its conclusions being either derived from, 
 or verified by, the accurate observation of sensible objects. 
 On the other hand, although the conclusions which Science 
 draws from the evidence of the senses may differ widely from 
 those conceptions which belong to the sense mode of thought, 
 which confounds subjective perceptions with objective realities, 
 yet it is the very trustworthiness of the evidence which the 
 senses afford that enables Science to correct the conclusions 
 which the senses suggest.* The relation again which exists 
 between the scientific view and the poetic is sufficiently ob- 
 vious, though it indicates, as indeed the history of man proves, 
 that in order of development the poetic precedes the scientific. 
 For while it does not require Science or law for its own ideas, 
 it seems doubtful if any scientific conception could be formed 
 without the aid of the imagination, which is the active faculty 
 
 * Mr. Balfour, in his chapter on " Science as a Logical System," appears 
 to me to have discussed the question to which I here refer somewhat 
 illogically.
 
 6 
 
 in tlie poetic mode. Indeed^ the subject of the use and abuse 
 of the imagination in Science is one which might be dis- 
 cussed with ahuost as much profit as that of its use and abuse 
 in Religion. For the substitution of the imagination for the 
 scientific intuition has been the cause of almost as many 
 superstitions in Science as ever have obscured Keligion. 
 And it might be easily shown that it is to scientific super- 
 stitions on the one side^ or to religious superstitions on the 
 other, that the apparent discrepancies between Science and 
 Religion are mainly due. For example, materialism in all 
 its forms is nothing else than a superstition, due to the 
 imagination attributing to matter properties and qualities 
 which Science itself contradicts. 
 
 6. Enough, however, has been said to explain the question 
 at issue ; that is, what connection there is between the scien- 
 tific and the religious view of the universe. My argument 
 to-day must be limited to one aspect of this very large question, 
 which, perhaps, has not received sufficient consideration. It 
 may be thus stated. The princi_ples which Science is compelled 
 to postulate, without which it could have no existencCj which 
 it therefore seehs to trace in Nature, and which, though it 
 never can prove them to he universally true, yet so far as 
 its powers extend it does verify, are common to Science and 
 Religion. Of these principles Religion supplies the on ly rational 
 and adequate basis ; indeed, the only basis that is not contra- 
 dictory of Science. 
 
 It is obvious that for this argument it will be necessary to 
 consider carefully, and somewhat in detail, what the scientific 
 view of the universe actually is ; and, rapid and imperfect as 
 our survey must be, it must be comprehensive in its range. 
 
 7. Science, as distinguished from such knowledge as we 
 receive either from the immediate perceptions of the senses, or 
 from intuitive cognitions, may be defined as the knowledge of 
 the relations of natural existences or phenomena. Without 
 admitting that all human knowledge is relative, we must allow 
 that scientific knowledge is by its very nature so limited. It 
 has been formed by observing the common elements in the 
 different phenomena of the universe, and so tracing unity in 
 the diversity of Nature, the One in the Many. And practically, 
 as -the actual outcome of such investigations, the scientific 
 mode of regarding the universe means a view of its existences 
 and phenomena, not as isolated objects, but as belonging to a 
 universal order; that order being twofold, — first, the contem- 
 poraneous, or that in which time is not a factor; and, secondly, 
 the consecutive, or the order of succession in time of natural 
 phenomena. We cannot always treat of these two forms of
 
 order separately^ for they are intimately connected ; yet it is 
 important to observe the distinction. It is in the consecutive 
 order^ in which time is a factor, that Science attains its highest 
 sphere, viz., that knowledge of phenomena as sequences of 
 cause and effect which enables us to infer, by the process of 
 deduction, particular results from general laws. But through*^ 
 out the whole range of Science the three following principles 
 will be found to be always postulated, — Unity, Order, and 
 Causation ; and these, not as separate principles independent 
 of each other, but the order is assumed to be the expression 
 and manifestation of unity by means of causation, which itself 
 proceeds from the unity, and, so far as it is the subject of 
 exact Science, is identical with continuity. 
 
 8. (I.) The simplest form of Science, it is evident, consists 
 in that recognition of common elements in diverse objects 
 which enables us to classify these objects. And we must 
 observe that even in this very first step in Science, in which 
 law means nothing more than the order of contemporaneous 
 existences, unity must be assumed, before we can assure our- 
 selves that Science is possible. For without unity all know- 
 ledge is fragmentary, and order, which is the expression of the 
 relations of the different existences to one another and to the 
 whole, could never be investigated. The order also, which is 
 required to be available for scientific knowledge, must be 
 fixed and determinate in such a sense that its variations will 
 be according to order, and not irregular or promiscuous. 
 
 But it is important to observe what is implied in the order 
 which Science recognises in the universe. It involves the idea 
 implied in the Greek word Koafiog, that is, the suitable 
 arrangement and adaptation of the different parts of the whole. 
 Without discussing the somewhat diSicult question of scientific 
 classification, it is sufficient to say that the order demanded 
 by Science implies a whole so divided and subdivided, with 
 relations between the several parts, that in a complete 
 scientific scheme the exact position of any particular 
 object may be determined with certainty; and any such 
 scheme is truly scientific in proportion as the order is not 
 artificial and technical, but conformable with that which Nature 
 itself indicates. For it must be observed that the order of 
 Nature does not consist of a series of existences differing from 
 one another by imperceptible degrees. Such a universe is quite 
 conceivable, but in it Science would have no place, because 
 natural classification would be impossible. In the universe as it 
 is, while the number of those existences, the differences between 
 which are accidental to the individual, is indefinite, yet the 
 number of different classes of such identities is finite, and the
 
 8 
 
 aiflerences between these classes, instead of being infinitesimal, 
 Rre sufficient distinctly to separate one class from another. 
 To apply the terms of Evolution to the contemporaneous order 
 of Nature, Science proceeds on the assumption that there is a 
 limited number of integrations in Nature; and the office of 
 Science is to determine these integrations with exactness. For 
 example, while the material constituents of this earth and its 
 surroundings are readily recognised even by the senses as 
 different from one another ; yet this order, as observed unscien- 
 tifically, is more or less confused. It belongs to Science to 
 (^assify them as distinct integrations, and to exhibit each of 
 thom as possessing its distinctive character and properties. 
 Chemistry, which investigates the composition of these several 
 constituents, throws further light on the order in the unity of 
 the visible universe, by proving that everything material is 
 composed of a small number out of some sixty or seventy 
 elements, of which many are of rare occurrence, while some 
 may be traced in other worlds than our own ; and not only is 
 each of these elements itself a definite existence, distinct 
 from every other, — a separate integration, — but the sub- 
 stances which are chemical combinations of these elements 
 have the same character, being not uncertain or irregular 
 mixtures, but combinations in definite and fixed propor- 
 tions. There is no confusion, such as must have been the 
 result of chance, nor yet is there, except in the case of crystal- 
 lization, that symmetrical or geometrical regularity, which 
 y.mght seem to indicate that mechanical law could have deter- 
 mined the arrangements. Scientific thought, indeed, which 
 in all directions seeks for unity in Nature, its own sphere, sug- 
 gests that under different conditions from those that exist at 
 present on this earth all these distinct elements might be 
 reduced to one primary element. It seems not impossible that 
 the progress of spectroscopy may lead to some discoveries as 
 to the relation of the molecules of the different elements that 
 might be sufficient evidence of this. Yet this would not bring 
 us in the least nearer the cause of these integrations in the 
 order of Nature, much less would it enable us to explain the 
 properties of the different elements and their combinations. 
 It is hopelessly beyond the power of Science to determine how 
 the unity, which Science is compelled to postulate and endea- 
 vours to trace, can be consistent with an order in which the 
 existences are so very different in their properties from one 
 another. Science demands unity, and demands ako causes for 
 the differences ; but it finds in this part of Nature nothing to 
 satisfy the two principles. Where (we ask) must we look 
 for a rational basis for both principles ? Science cannot help
 
 9 
 
 us here ; it leaves a void which clearly compels us to look for 
 a profounder basis for the unity of Nature than any which 
 Nature can itself provide. 
 
 9. The view which Science exhibits in inorganic nature 
 of distinct integrations iii its order is illustrated also in 
 living existences ; and first of all in the distinctness of these 
 from all other existences. The phenomena which are charac- 
 teristic of living matter (I use the words of Professor Huxley) 
 are strongly marked off from all other phenomena.* Certain 
 properties distinguish it absolutely from all other kinds of 
 matter; '^our present stock of knowledge furnishing no 
 kind of link between that which is living and that which 
 is not." These properties are, — first, the chemical consti- 
 tution of living matter, as it invariably contains a par- 
 ticular compound of carbon, water, and nitrogen, only found 
 in organic matter, which is the chief constituent of the 
 '^ protoplasm " of which the organism is constructed. The 
 second distinctive property of living matter is its universal 
 disintegration and waste by oxidation, and its re-integration, 
 not by external accretion, as a crystal increases in size, but by 
 introsusception of fresh and suitable material. The third pro- 
 perty is its tendency to undergo cyclical changes ; each indi- 
 vidual form, when it has passed through these changes, ceasing 
 to possess the properties of living matter, though continuing 
 and multiplying its existence by its seed or other portions of 
 itself, which, in their turn, all undergo the same cycle of 
 changes. No other form of matter whatever (I still quote from 
 Professor Huxley) exhibits these properties, or any approach 
 to the remarkable phenomena of the two last properties. 
 Living matter has indeed other properties peculiar to itself, 
 though not so distinctly marked. Its activities depend more or 
 less on moisture and heat. Complete desiccation is fatal to living 
 matter, as are also extremes of temperature. Besides these, 
 organisation, or the possession of special instruments for special 
 purposes, is usually characteristic of these existences, and is 
 often, even in what we might consider a simple form, exceed- 
 ingly complicated. And, we may add, in living matter a new 
 idea is introduced into Nature, that of an existence composed 
 of many very different molecules of matter, which yet is one 
 individual. 
 
 10. We have, then, here, in the order of the Universe, a 
 class of existences definitely marked off from the rest by the 
 possession of properties, different not only in degree but in 
 
 * EnajclopcBclia Britannica. Ninth edition. Biology. — T. H. H.
 
 10 
 
 kind, from those of other material existences. Science, intent 
 as it is on tracing unity, confesses that it can find " no kind 
 of link " between them. Is there, then, a real break in unity 
 because we cannot find continuity in Nature ? If we believe 
 in that rational basis of unity beyond Nature which Eeligion 
 supplies, we shall not wonder that Science cannot trace the 
 continuity here, when continuity cannot be traced even among 
 the constituents of dead matter. The same remark applies 
 to the distinctions between the main divisions in this general 
 class of living existences. The tendency of the scientific 
 mind, whenever it shrinks from recognizing a deeper founda- 
 tion of the unity and order of the universe than any that 
 Nature can supply, is, in disregard of distinctions which 
 unprejudiced reason recognizes as fundamental, to assume that 
 the vegetable, animal, and human types, are all connected 
 together in a continuous order, and that the apparent gulf 
 between the animal and the vegetable, and the far greater 
 abyss that separates man and the brutes, do not exist. 
 Yet to establish this, it is necessary to neglect indications 
 of a break of continuity which Nature itself suggests, — 
 such as the fact that the animal in all its forms requires 
 nutrition which living organisms alone produce, while the 
 vegetable in all its forms can supply its waste from inorganic 
 matter, — and, further, to argue illogically that because we 
 cannot always distinguish the primary forms of each, there- 
 fore distinctions do not exist, — which evolution from a 
 structureless germ contradicts. While the distinctions be- 
 tween the two classes which are more fundamental than 
 those that are merely physical must be neglected for this 
 purpose. The most highly - developed vegetable has no 
 consciousness of its own existence, much less anything re- 
 sembling intelligence. And if the physical characteristics 
 of man differ less widely from those of the most highly- 
 developed animal than the animal differs from the vege- 
 table; yet reason, with its godlike powers of speech and 
 abstract thought, its apprehension of the beautiful, and its 
 conscience of good and evil, constitutes an essential distinction 
 between the man and the mere animal, to which all the resfc 
 of Nature can supply no parallel. Why is Science to be 
 searching for a unity in which these essential differences must 
 be neglected, and violence done to the dictates of reason by 
 denying them ? Surely, to the unprejudiced mind, they are 
 in themselves sufficient to prove that the true basis of the 
 unity of that universe in which differences so essential are 
 found, must be sought in Him in whom all things, dead 
 and living, rational or irrational, subsist. A belief in one
 
 11 
 
 living and true God supplies a rational basis : nothing else 
 can. 
 
 11. Tlie character of that order of Nature which Science 
 desiderates in the inorganic world is very clearly exhibited in 
 the world of organic existences. Indeed^ the classification of 
 these existences in the natural histories of the vegetable and 
 animal kingdoms, if arranged according to the relations and 
 connections of the organization of the several forms beginning 
 from the lowest, illustrates, far more precisely than any 
 definitions could explain, what is the meaning both of the order 
 and of the unity of Nature. Without inquiring at present into 
 the causes of the order, it is obvious that from the simplest 
 forms both of vegetable and of animal life to the highest. Nature 
 exhibits an ascending scale, — not that of an inclined plane, but 
 in distinct steps, and these not running upwards all in one series 
 in the same direction, but branching off in many different 
 directions. The integrations both in vegetable and in animal 
 life are, indeed, by no means so definite as those of the 
 chemical elements and combinations which seem positively to 
 contradict the idea of continuity in Nature itself. Yet that 
 there is not in organic matter a continuous series of inter- 
 mediate existences connecting the species and genera and 
 higher divisions one with another, and that wide lacunce often 
 are found, are facts which cannot be questioned, however they 
 may be explained. 
 
 12. In the contemporaneous order of Nature, animate and 
 inanimate, viewed as a whole, the harmony of the several parts 
 and the adaptation of one to another, have been often noticed 
 as evidences of design ; in other words, as proofs of the unity 
 and order of Nature having its basis in one Supernatural and 
 Infinite Reason. As it would be absurd to attribute this 
 harmony and adaptation to chance, the only kind of explana- 
 tion that can be given of it by tbose who deny the necessity 
 for a supernatural foundation for the order of Nature, is that 
 one part of Nature has the power of adapting its forms and 
 existences to the conditions of the other. This, of course, still 
 leaves the question untouched, whence this strange power of 
 self-adaptation is derived, for science and self-causation in 
 Nature are contradictory. To this question I must again refer 
 under the head of the consecutive order of the universe. But 
 this theory of self-adaptation, at all events, can only be true 
 within certain limits, and does not touch the general argument 
 from the harmony of the inorganic world tvith the vegetable, 
 the animal, and the human existences ; and of all these one with 
 the other. For example, to all living existences, — at least, so far 
 as we know anything of them, and to reason from ignorance
 
 12 
 
 instead of knowledge is not Science, — it is essential, first, tliat 
 there should exist in the universe certain chemical elements, 
 and these in particular combinations ; secondly, that the 
 temperature should be confined within certain definite limits. 
 '' Habit,^' to use the words of Professor Huxley, " may modify 
 subsidiary, but cannot affect fundamental, conditions/^ And 
 what cause in Nature itself can Science assign; or imagine with 
 any probability, either for the necessary existence of these 
 particular elements in the universe, or for the extremes of 
 temperature, in any part of the universe, being confined within 
 the limits which make life a possibility ? In this earth, though 
 the average temperature were to continue exactly the same, 
 yet, if the maximum and minimum temperatures were altered, 
 the whole world would be a desert. 
 
 13. Before proceeding to examine the question of the con- 
 secutive order of the universe, it will be necessary to consider 
 a little the meaning of that word cause, which I have used more 
 than once with reference to its contemporaneous order. For 
 there is no part of Nature- as regarded by Science, from which 
 the idea of causation can be excluded, although, strictly, it 
 implies a succession of events. And as much confusion of 
 thought is often introduced into this subject of causation, 
 through ambiguity in the use of the word, it will be well to 
 call attention to certain facts in this part of our general 
 subject which may assist in guiding us. The word cause, in 
 reference to the phenomena of Nature, for example, is popu- 
 larly used in more than one sense. Some of these phenomena 
 are, we know, in a greater or less degree, subjective. An image 
 in a looking-glass, and the rainbow as an arch in the sky, are 
 purely subjective forms. They are effects produced on the 
 eye of the beholder in a certain position by light, — in one in- 
 stance proceeding from a certain object and reflected in the 
 mirror ; in the other, proceeding from the sun and reflected 
 in drops of water. Jn these cases. Science examines and 
 determines the causes of the phenomena; that is, the reasons 
 why they are to us such as they are. The explanation is a 
 geometrical one, and may be represented by a figure. Colour, 
 again, is subjective in a diff'erent sense. There is that in 
 Nature (viz., the different lengths of the light undulations) 
 which is the external cause of the sensations of colour, 
 although the sensation itself is purely subjective. Science 
 proceeds a step further in the succession of physical causes by 
 the explanation now generally accepted, viz., that in the 
 retina there are three kinds of nerve-fibres, the excitations of 
 which give respectively the sensations of red, green, and 
 violet ; the combinations of these in diff'erent proportions pro-
 
 13 
 
 ducing the sensations of every shade of colour. But the 
 cause of the colour sensations being produced by these nerves, 
 or of the union of sensations of red and green (for example) 
 being yellow,, science cannot explain. It must be observed 
 that, in every process of causation, there are really three 
 elements, — the antecedent, the consequent, and the reason of 
 the sequence. And the causation is completely known only when 
 all three are known. When, as we shall tind is the case with 
 physical energies, the consequent is the continuance of the 
 antecedent in another form, the whole causation is explained. 
 But this Science cannot prove to be the case in the transition 
 from a physical impression to a sensation.* 
 
 Such considerations lead us to look for some basis of the 
 general idea of causation more comprehensive and more pro- 
 found than any of the various meanings of the word. We 
 may, I think, confidently assert that there is no idea that can 
 satisfy the mind, or that is sufiicient to connect together the 
 various modes of causation, and to underly them all, and give 
 meaning and reality to them all, except that which is implied 
 in reason. Science, just so far as it is the exponent of reason, 
 compels us to look to this as the basis of all sequences of 
 cause and effect ; and certainly no reason can be an adequate 
 basis for all that there is in Nature, except that which is 
 infinite. 
 
 14. Thus far, then, we have traced in the contemporaneous 
 order of the universe the three principles. Unity, Order, and 
 Causation, all of which it is necessary for Science to postulate 
 in its investigations into Nature. There can be no doubt that 
 
 * "When we pass from the objective to the subjective, from the non ego to 
 the ego, sometimes, as in the case of colour, there is no congruity whatever 
 that our minds can discover between the antecedent and the consequent. 
 In the case of form, of which the mind receives knowledge by touch as 
 well as by sight, the case is different. And our reason relDelled, when we 
 were told, as we were told in some uu philosophical books on Optics, that the 
 inverted image on the retina was set on its feet again by the mind correcting the 
 mistake ! If that were so, undoubtedly Idealism would be the only possible 
 philosophy. But it is absurd to suppose that there need be such complicated 
 mechanical apparatus to produce an impression of the form corresponding 
 to the object, if the sensation represented something totally different. 
 Again, in regard to sound, we could not conceive it possible that the sensa- 
 tion of a treble note could be produced by a long wave, or that of bass by a 
 rapid vibration. Yet here, again, why a particular form of wave should 
 produce the sensation which recognises what we call the tone or tlrphre of a 
 voice or instrument is only partially explained by saying it is due to the 
 harmonics. In light there seems nothing whatever, in the present state of 
 our knowledge, that would indicate any correspondence between the different 
 colours of the spectrum and the comparative lengths of the light undu- 
 lations.
 
 14 
 
 ttese principles are common to Science and Religion ; for all 
 Religion begins in the belief in the existence of One almighty, 
 infinitely wise, and omnipresent God, above all, through all, 
 and in all. That the Being of God is an adequate basis for 
 these principles is self-evident, and we have found sufiicient 
 proofs that such a basis cannot be discovered in Nature itself; 
 in fact, a basis in Nature would be a contradiction of the very 
 principles which are supposed to be based on it ; for Science 
 assumes the order in the unity to be the result of causation. 
 But if anything in Nature could be the basis of causation, it 
 must be itself uncaused. Yet Science assumes, as a principle 
 necessary to itself, that every existence and phenomenon in 
 Nature has a cause. To suppose, for example, that the atoms 
 are self-caused is not only unprovable, but is a contradiction of 
 Science; for if those things of which all Nature is com- 
 posed have the source of causation in themselves, it cannot 
 be assumed that anything whatever in Nature is the subject 
 of causation. 
 
 15. (II.) But all these conclusions will be more clearly 
 illustrated in the examination of the scientific view of the con- 
 secutive order of the universe. In this we have to deal with 
 those laws of Nature, as they are called, which represent the 
 order in which certain phenomena or existences follow one 
 another in succession. Here, again. Science is compelled to 
 postulate that there is an order, that events or phenomena do 
 not follow one another promiscuously ; and further, that there 
 is a unity in the order, and that both this orderly succession 
 and the variations in it are the result of sequences of cause 
 and efiect. Science also assumes a unity in all the apparent 
 diversity of these sequences, and continually searches after 
 a connection between the various causes, the efi'ects of which 
 are subjects of its observation. 
 
 The confidence that there is an established order in the 
 universe is the only ground on which empirical laws, which 
 cannot be determined as sequences of cause and effect, can 
 ever have the sHghtest value in Science. In fact, it is the 
 profound conviction in the human mind of order and unity 
 being fundamental principles in the universe, that produces, 
 in those who have not sufiiciently considered or apprehended 
 the equally fundamental principle of causation, too much 
 confidence in empirical laws. Indeed, so deeply rooted is this 
 confidence in the order of the universe, that it is a very 
 common belief in the unscientific mind that a law of Nature, 
 instead of being an order due to causes which, under other 
 conditions, might produce another order, is an independent 
 entity, possessing some power of causation in itself. Of all 
 
 4
 
 15 
 
 the idola which have imposed on the understanding of man 
 none is more irrational than this false notion of law. But it 
 is not sufficiently realised, I think, that even in regard to 
 dynamical laws, which rise far above the category of those 
 that are merely empirical, it is necessary for Science to make 
 assumptions which require some basis outside Nature itself. 
 To exhibit this we must briefly examine the history of the 
 development of Science in this direction. 
 
 16. The most familiar instance of the progress of Science 
 from empirical laws to dynamical — I mean that which we 
 have in the Science of Astronomy — is also the most instruc- 
 tive. How the unsystematic order of the heavenly bodies 
 observed by ancient Astronomers was by the genius of 
 Copernicus expounded in the true system of the universe; 
 how this system received further exposition by the three 
 phenomenal laws discovered by Kepler ; and how these em- 
 pirical laws were exhibited by Newton as necessary results of 
 a universal law of gravitation, are facts too well known to 
 require more than the briefest notice. The assumption of the 
 very simple law that the force of gravity is proportional to 
 the product of the gravitating masses directly and inversely 
 to the square of the distance between them, enables Science, 
 by a mathematical process, not only to determine the order of 
 the motions of the heavenly bodies, but also the perturbations 
 of that order, and by accurate observations to verify the con- 
 clusions; and it has enabled mathematicians not only to ex- 
 plain phenomena already observed, but even to discover the 
 existence, and determine the conditions, of others not yet 
 observed. It is obvious that a general law of this kind has 
 an authority which no merely phenomenal law can possess. 
 Its discovery — or rather, I should say, its application — is a far 
 higher act of human reason ; its accuracy may be tested to an 
 almost unlimited extent by the aid of mathematics ; and we 
 cannot but accept the law as a part of the established order 
 of the universe which governs a very large class of secondary 
 and phenomenal laws, and the determination of which is thus 
 a long step in the direction of the interpretation of that order. 
 Bat, observe, one step and nothing more. If gravitation is 
 the cause of many effects in the order of the universe, what 
 is the cause of gravitation ? We cannot be surprised that 
 the natural feeling in the scientific mind is that some cause 
 must exist in Nature itself. Newton himself considered that 
 it was impossible for any one " who has in philosophic matters 
 a competent faculty of thinking,'^ to allow the possibiUty of 
 action at a distance, such as gravity seems to imply. Yet 
 none of the hypotheses, as yet suggested to account for
 
 16 
 
 gravity^ except that of Le Sage, has any claim whatever to be 
 a scientific exposition.* However^ this only leaves us with a 
 still more difficult question, viz., what can be the cause in 
 Nature of ultra mundane corpuscles flying about in all possible 
 directions, in infinite numbers, and with enormous velocity ? 
 Sooner or later, it seems, we must get beyond Nature. A 
 hypothesis of all this ultra mundane energy, of which only an 
 infinitesimal part afiects Nature at all, looks very like a 
 confession of this truth. 
 
 17. However, there is a more fundamental question still, to 
 which I must briefly refer. It is well known that all the mathe- 
 matical investigations^ by which from Newton's time the results 
 of the law of gravitation have been determined, are founded 
 on three Laws of Motion, as they are called. What are these ? 
 Are they self-evident axioms which reason cannot question 
 without self-contradiction ? or are they assumptions necessary 
 to Science, which it verifies, so far as it is able, within the 
 limited range of our experience, from the agreement with 
 observation of the conclusions made on that assumption ? The 
 fact that the truth of these laws was so long questioned and 
 so slowly apprehended by the human mind, sufficiently indi- 
 cates that they are not self-evident identities. Let us take 
 the first and simplest of these laws. A body at rest will con- 
 tinue at rest, and a body in motion will continue to move with 
 the same velocity in the same direction, unless acted on by 
 some extraneous force or cause of motion. In other words, it 
 continues in the same state as regards motion, unless there is 
 some cause of change of state. Now the principle of con- 
 tinuity, which is assumed here, to those of us who are familiar 
 with it in the dynamical problems of the universe, and with 
 the necessity of it to all scientific investigation, may appear 
 almost self-evident. But if we should be asked on what grounds 
 we have this conviction, independent of the very incomplete evi- 
 dence that Nature supplies, we certainly could not answer, as we 
 must with regard to a mathematical axiom, that it expresses an 
 identity. The existence of a state and its continuance are two 
 totally diff'erent ideas. We must look further for the reason 
 why we assume continuity. Religion points us to a sufficient 
 and rational basis, viz., that Nature subsists in One Who is 
 eternal and unchangeable, and both its continuity and its 
 changes have their adequate cause in Him. Is there any other? 
 
 18. This principle, in fact, involves a second, viz., that in 
 Nature there is no self- causation. The second law of motion, 
 which has sometimes been called ^^ the law of independence/' 
 
 * Unseen Universe, Article, 140-141. 
 
 J
 
 17 
 
 affirming that the effects of forces, or causes of motion, are 
 under all circumstances equivalent to those causes, enlarges 
 this view. The result of the various causes acting together 
 can be neither more nor less than if they acted separately. 
 Whether the particle on which they act is at rest or in motion 
 does not affect this. Neither the state of the body, nor the 
 combination of the causes, alter the law of causation. In other 
 words, matter is merely inert or passive. There is no power 
 in it either to generate motion or to change motion. We are 
 driven, therefore, to look for an original cause of motion out of 
 the material universe. And if of motion, how much more of 
 life, sensation, consciousness, intelligence ? For it is absurd to 
 suppose that matter cannot generate motion in itself, and yet 
 that it can generate these, which reason recognises as much 
 higher and further removed from the category of material 
 substance. 
 
 Thus Science is compelled to assume the negative principle 
 that in Nature itself there is no initial source of causation : a 
 principle which is common to religion also, pointing as it does 
 to one primal source of all causes in the Being of God. 
 
 19. There is no doubt, however, that this question of causa- 
 tion, and with it also the relation between Science and Religion 
 in regard to causation, has till our own time been somewhat 
 obscured by the unscientific use of the word force, as if it 
 were a reality in itself like motion its effect. Force is no 
 doubt a very convenient word to use when we understand its 
 meaning. But that force has an objective existence can never 
 be proved, and it is not only an '^unfruitfaP^ idea, but one 
 apt to lead into error. Dr. Carpenter, I observe, in a late 
 Essay on '' The Force behind Nature,^^ challenges this view, 
 and protests against force being treated as a mere creature of 
 the imagination. He grounds his protest on the fact that our 
 senses give us an idea of force in pressure and resistance. But 
 this is to confound the idea which the sense view of nature 
 suggests with that which Science concludes. Our senses 
 suggest that the yellow colour of the primrose is an objective 
 existence in the flower; but Science concludes that the objective 
 reality is something quite different from colour. The sensation 
 of pressui-e is quite familiar to us ; so is that of colour. But 
 what in each case is the physical antecedent of the sensation ?* 
 
 * One danger attending the popular use of the word " Force" is, that 
 some not only consider force as a real entity, but almost deify it. They 
 invest it with mysterious attributes, and when they speak of the Fii-st Cause, 
 conceive of some primal force which is the source of all the various forces in 
 Nature. Dr. Carpenter does not mean this ; for in his essay (which 
 originally appeared as an article in the first number of the Modern Rrrii'n)
 
 18 
 
 20. The history of the moclern discoveries which have led 
 to tlie present use in scientific researches of the idea of energy 
 which is measured by the work done, instead of that of force 
 which is measured by quantity of motion, I assume to be 
 sufficiently known. The theory of the correlation of all 
 physical forces, followed by the discovery of the mechanical 
 equivalent of heat by Dr. Joule, and by the molecular and 
 atomic theories, has opened to Science even a wider field than 
 was opened by Newton's use of the law of gravitation. In 
 this new development of Science a principle is accepted which 
 was recognised by Newton as an interpretation of his Third 
 Law of Motion, but which it remained for modern Science to 
 propound in the present form of conservatioyi of energy ; viz., 
 ^' that in any system of bodies whatever to which no energy is 
 communicated by external bodies, and which parts with no 
 energy to external bodies, the sum of the various potential and 
 kinetic energies remains for ever unaltered. '^ This is really 
 only another form of that principle of continuity which we 
 found in the First Law of Motion, though in this modern 
 form it is more than ever apparent that the continuity cannot 
 be accepted as a self-evident axiom. Indeed, this law of 
 the conservation of energy is as luminous an instance as could 
 be found anywhere, of Science being compelled to assume a 
 principle which it can never absolutely prove, but which it 
 verifies as far as it can by observation of the results obtained 
 on the assumption. It cannot be proved as a proposition 
 in Eu(5lid is proved.* The difficulty of proving it experi- 
 mentally is even greater than that of proving the First Law of 
 Motion by direct experiment. Strong indirect confirmation 
 of its truth can be obtained, and whenever the law can be 
 brought to the test of experiment it is found true. But what 
 is it (we may ask) that in the absence of anything approaching 
 complete proof satisfies the scientific mind as to the universal 
 truth of the law ? Undoubtedly the conviction that permanence 
 or continuity is a fundamental principle of the universe ; or, as 
 Religion would express it, that the universe subsists in God. 
 
 he quotes with approbation language of Sir John Herschel, who speaks of 
 force as " indisputably connected with volition, and by inevitable consequence 
 with motive, with intellect, and with all those attributes of mind in which 
 personality consists." And he himself deems it " absurd and illogical to 
 affirm that there is no place for a God in Nature, originating, directing, and 
 controllmg its force by His will." Yet the very title of the essay, " The 
 Force behind Nature," illustrated as it is by a steam-engine working the 
 machinery of a cotton factory, appears to me calculated to mislead, and to 
 obscure the true idea of the relation of God to His universe. 
 * See Conservation of Energy, by Balfour Stewart.
 
 19 
 
 21. But this law of the conservation of ouorgy, which is the 
 result of fiu'ther insight by science into the consecutive order 
 of the universe, is followed by another law which, to the un- 
 scientific mind, appears like a contradiction of the former, 
 viz., the dlssiijatioiL of available encnjy. While the conserva- 
 tion of energy points to permanence, this indicates a process 
 of dissolution ; that is, unless it should be checked (as Clerk 
 Maxwell has shown to be possible) by the interposition of 
 intelligence. I notice this because, though not directly 
 bearing on my present argument, it both strengthens it and 
 nearly affects the general question of the relation between 
 Science and Religion. Were it not for this second law, which 
 indicates that the present visible universe has had a beginning 
 and must have an end, the scientific principle of continuity 
 might seem to mean that the universe is eternal, and subsists 
 in God, in the Pantheistic sense, as belonging to His Infinite 
 and Eternal Being. But we learn, not only that the per- 
 manence which it has in its Creator is consistent with its being- 
 subject to cyclical changes, but that its order and its Causa- 
 tions, if left to themselves, must terminate ; which is the 
 strongest conceivable proof that the origin of these is not in 
 Nature itself. In fact, this law of dissipation is the very 
 intei^retation of the law of conservation that Religion as a 
 whole requires. The first religious view of the existences oi 
 the universe is, '^ He hath made them fast for ever and ever. 
 He hath given them a law which shall not be broken '' : * 
 which is also the fii'st scientific view. The profounder re- 
 ligious view, the theosophic, is, " They shall perish, but Thou 
 shalt endure : as a vesture shalt Thou change them, and they 
 shall be changed : but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall 
 have no end.-'^f Or, to use the singularly exact language 
 of the Apostle Paul^J "The Creation was made subject to 
 vanity ^^ ; that is, to instability and liability to change and 
 decay ; and this (he adds) for some special purpose on the 
 part of Him who made it subject ; as if Divine intelligence 
 (as Science itself indicates) might have prevented this, if some 
 higher purpose had not intervened. 
 
 22. But it is especially in reference to causation that this 
 new scientific development illustrates my present argument. 
 It was impossible, until the transformation and conservation of 
 energy were discovered, to explain clearly the strict and 
 proper meaning of causation in the physical universe. Modern 
 Science, however, enables us to interpret this very definitely 
 
 * Ps. cxlviii. 6 {Prayer Booh version). 
 t Ps. cii. 26, 27. X Rom. viii. 20. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 indeed. If tlie cause is the energy A, the eflPect proper is the 
 sum of the energies a^ a2 ag &c., into which^ by impact or any 
 other action, the original energy is transformed. For example, 
 if one body impinges on another, the original energy is 
 changed,-^partly into those of the resulting motions, partly 
 into heat. And the sum of these resulting energies is exactly 
 equal to the original energies, and is its only proper effect. 
 But suppose that the body struck is on the edge of a table or 
 a precipice, and the two bodies fall on the ground, then their 
 kinetic energies, when they strike the ground, are greatly in- 
 creased j but this is merely because the effect of the collision 
 has been to convert potential energy into kinetic. Or suppose 
 that the body struck contains some explosive substance, the 
 effect of the percussion is then vastly greater than the initial 
 energy ; but this is because the blow has disturbed the un- 
 stable equilibrium of the molecules of the chemical mixture, 
 and the proper effect of the initial cause, though it remains 
 unaltered, is quite lost in the incidental effects. In this case 
 also, what we may consider as potential energies are sud- 
 denly changed into the kinetic energies of elastic gases. 
 Another well-known case of a small initial cause resulting, 
 from a similar reason, in effects far beyond those properly due 
 to it, is seen in the spread of fire. A lighted match falls 
 on a curtain, and a whole city is burned to the ground. This 
 instance is sufficient to prove that in the case, not only of 
 those substances (such as explosive mixtures) the chemical 
 stability of which is very small, but of those also the chemical 
 stability of which is considerable, the complete results of the 
 initial cause often consists of two totally different kinds of 
 effects ; — first, of the effects proper, which are equivalent to 
 the cause; and, secondly, of effects due to energies trans- 
 formed or. set free from their potential form, which bear no 
 definable proportion to the original cause. 
 
 23. Such instances are sufficient to prove how much am- 
 biguity there is in this subject, and how necessary it would be, 
 in any Science of causation in Nature, to distinguish between 
 the sequences of cause and effects when the latter are nothing 
 more than a continuity of the transformed cause, and are exactly 
 equivalent to it ; and when the effects are those which result 
 from the transformation of potential into kinetic energies. 
 The transformation of itself does not necessarily imply any 
 expenditure of energy to produce it ; but, whether this be the 
 case or not, it is evident that, as there is no determinable 
 relation between the initial cause and the ultimate result, the 
 effects of causation in Nature, so far as sequences of this sort 
 occur, are absolutely incalculable -, and that, however the
 
 21 
 
 whole system of animate and inanimate existences may be 
 limited by the law of the conservation of energy, it is, neverthe- 
 less, nnscientitic and indeed absurd to regard the universe as 
 a piece of mechanism, the consecutive order of which could be 
 determined as a problem in dynamics. 
 
 24. For it must be observed that into terrestrial pheno- 
 mena (at least) this kind of indeterminate causation enters very 
 largely, because the physical changes amongst these pheno- 
 mena are in a great measure due to the changes of chemical 
 combinations which are acted on by the various energies of 
 heat, electricity, magnetism, actinism, and such like. The 
 question of chemical equilibrium and the comparative stability 
 of chemical combinations has attracted some attention in recent 
 times, but the question, as a whole, is not within the range 
 of exact science.* Clerk Maxwell succeeded in tracing a con- 
 nection between some of the empirical generalisations of 
 chemistry and the laws of the conservation and dissipation of 
 energy. But it is evident that nothing short of the absolute 
 stability of chemical structures, which would be fatal not only 
 to all life, but to all the variety of Nature, could make sequences 
 of cause and effect in physical phenomena on this globe, in all 
 cases or even generally, determinable. And this consideration 
 leads to the remarkable conclusion that, whilst Science is com- 
 pelled to postulate both order and causation for its investiga- 
 tions, it never can possess the power, in many of the pheno- 
 mena of Nature, to prove that the order is due to the causa- 
 tion ; for the results of the causation, instead of being definite 
 and orderly, are, so far as we can understand them, and to an 
 extent apparently undefinable, quite indeterminate. And yet 
 Science would contradict itself, and, in fact, could have no 
 foundation, if the order and the causation had not some 
 common basis. One Divine Reason, underlying at the same 
 time the order and the causations, can alone supply a sufficient 
 basis for both. 
 
 25. I would call attention, in passing, to the confirmation 
 of this truth, of Ecason being the basis of the whole system 
 of the universe, that is afforded by the view of causation which 
 we have been considering. Science, at all events at present, 
 can give no explanation of the comparative stability and iu- 
 stabihty of the different constituents of the material universe ; 
 and yet on this the order of Nature very largely depends. 
 If the arrangements of the energies in the chemical com- 
 bination of hydrogen and oxygen in water, for example, or in 
 
 * See paper on "Chemical Equilibrium," by M. M. Pattison Muir, 
 Nature^ April 1, 1880).
 
 22 
 
 carbonic acid gas^ whicli supplies food to plants^ were less or 
 more stable than they are^ or if the atmosphere were a 
 chemical combination at all, stable or unstable, the present 
 system of organic life would be impossible. It is, indeed, 
 with reference to organic life that the considerations I have 
 suggested are of most importance. The relation of living 
 matter to physical energies is one, all must allow, of in- 
 superable difficulty. Living matter has powers of adopting, 
 transforming, directing, and applying, those energies which 
 are not only quite unintelligible to us, but which have no 
 parallel in dead matter. Our knowledge of this fact is, how- 
 ever, not scientific knowledge. It is a fact of which it is 
 impossible for Science to find the cause in Nature ; for even 
 if the functions of life were proved to be connected with 
 magnetism or any other physical energy, that would simply 
 indicate, as in the case of sensation, the antecedent to the 
 effect, not the reason of the sequence. And that life is an 
 ultimate fact in Nature is confirmed by the researches of 
 Science, which can discover no origin of life except living 
 matter itself. And all we can say as to the relation of cause 
 and efiect in this sphere of Nature is that the phenomena of 
 life are the results of continuity, but since it is the very 
 characteristic of living matter to call physical energies into 
 active operation, and to spread as a fire spreads from the 
 smallest initial cause to an extent unlimited, this whole sphere 
 is one which lies entirely beyond the range of exact Science. 
 
 26. But though Science in its highest form, as determiniDg 
 exact sequences of cause and eff'ect, can have no place here, yet 
 in its lower oflice of investigating by observation the consecutive 
 order of phenomena, it has more trustworthy guidance here 
 than in inorganic Nature. As one characteristic of living 
 matter is that it is the subject of cyclical changes, the question 
 of consecutive order necessarily belongs, to some extent, to 
 all scientific researches into organic existences. And in the 
 cyclical changes of all these existences there is a phenomenal 
 law of order, originally observed by the poet Goethe, and in 
 modern times more distinctly defined in what is known as the 
 Law of Evolution, the truth of which may be tested almost 
 without limit, and which holds, in the organic world, nearly the 
 same position as the law of gravitation holds in the inorganic. 
 And this law is so entirely in accordance with the principles of 
 the contemporaneous order observed in Nature, that though no 
 doubt it is impossible to prove its universal truth, or even to 
 verify it as a dynamical law may be verified, yet it commends 
 itself with almost irresistible force to the scientific mind as a 
 general expression of the order of Nature, and to the religious
 
 23 
 
 mind also (as it seems to me) as having its basis in Him Who 
 is everywhere the Author of the same order. I am convinced 
 that the more the law itself is carefully studied and clearly 
 understood (and its study, apart from the obscure and repul- 
 sive terminology which has been introduced into this branch 
 of Science, is as interesting as it is instructive), the less liable 
 will the mind be to be carried away by those premature and 
 unscientific conclusions which, by the world in general, are 
 often confounded with the law itself. 
 
 27. The law, as it is observed in individual organisms, 
 where we can trace it throughout the whole process, is (we 
 must remember) simply the order of the changes through 
 which every such organism passes from its initial structureless 
 germ to its complete development. It is the same law in the 
 vegetable and the animal, in the apple-tree and the elephant, 
 in the sparrow and the human body. It does not in the least 
 account for the differences between these existences, or give 
 any explanation of them, much less is it a cause, in any proper 
 sense of the word, of their being what they are. It only 
 affirms that the operation of the different causes, to which the 
 development of the organism is due, must follow a certain 
 order. The causes themselves, if we consider the case of an 
 individual existence, are obviously twofold. 
 
 First, the antecedent life, or lives, of which its own life is 
 the continuity. 
 
 Secondly, in a subordinate and very limited degree, the envi- 
 ronments or conditions of the organism during its development. 
 The first of these is undoubtedly in all cases the dominant 
 cause. It is not only contrary to all experience that the 
 derived existence should not be identical in kind with its 
 antecedent or antecedents, but it would be inconsistent with 
 the principle of continuity. But for this cause to produce its 
 effect, certain environments or conditions are essential to the 
 normal development. The absence of these, or any defect, or 
 even excess in them, may render the development imperfect or 
 abnormal, or even prevent it altogether. The limits of the 
 effects that can be produced on the development of an indi- 
 vidual organism by the alteration of its environments is a 
 subject on which little is known with accuracy ; indeed, these 
 effects are generally so small,"^ that it is only by observing the 
 
 * The instance that at first sif^ht seems the most startling is that which 
 is afforded in the natural history of bees —of the queen bee being developed 
 by additional food and heat (especially the former) from the larva of a 
 workmg bee. But as the working bee is an undeveloped female, this is 
 merely the case of a complete normal development requiring a certain amount 
 of food and heat. There is a similar instance, I am informed, in the natural 
 history of the tcrmiks, or white ants.
 
 24 
 
 accumulation of the efifects, after many successive generations, 
 that any approximation can be made to a scientific treatment 
 of the subject. This, as is well known, has an important 
 bearing on a much larger question than that of the consecu- 
 tive order of the cyclical changes of an individual existence : 
 viz., whether it is possible that, through the accumulated 
 effects of environments, there may have been an evolution 
 of the different types of organic hfe somewhat analogous 
 to that of the different stages of development in the in- 
 dividual. This generalization assumes that, besides the law 
 of continuity, which determines that each succeeding genera- 
 tion shall resemble that which preceded it, another class ^ of 
 causes, from generation to generation, may gradually modify 
 this resemblance, and, it must be observed (for this is 
 absolutely necessary to the theory), modify it continuously 
 in the direction of evolution, and also in such a manner 
 that the new types produced through these modifica- 
 tions shall be each of them a distinct integration. For the 
 theory is, that the result of the process is the present highly- 
 developed and accurately- defined contemporaneous order of 
 the organic world. 
 
 28. The question at issue, we must remember, is not whether 
 the process through which this order has been estabhshed 
 followed the law of evolution, — as much as this might, I think, 
 be inferred from the characteristics of Divine and Heason- 
 able order, and is, indeed, indicated by Revelation itself iu 
 the Scriptural account of creation ; — but whether the causns 
 of the process can be traced in Nature itself. And even if there 
 should be reason to suppose that the order of Nature has been 
 determined, to a large extent, by conditions such as those which 
 Mr. Darwin and his school consider sufficient, the question would 
 still remain, — "Whence does living matter derive the extra- 
 ordinary power of adapting its forms to these several conditions, 
 and especially of so directing all the successive infinitesimal 
 modifications produced by environments, that by these modi- 
 fications alone the whole of the order could be evolved. The 
 evolution of the Ascidian from the Moner is, in fact, more un- 
 intelligible, than that changes should be produced in the higher 
 orders of animals, unless some unknown power, such as that by 
 which the embryo grows in the womb, should have been the 
 cause of the development. For, however environments may 
 aid development, and the law of evolution may limit it, they 
 can effect nothing whatever of themselves. I have elsewhere * 
 
 Church Quarterly Bevieiv, July, 1878, on Evolution.
 
 25 
 
 suggested that the analogy of embryology itself points to the 
 probability of a period of genesis of Nature, during which other 
 powers were in operation than those which we can trace in 
 Nature in the present condition of the earth. But, indeed, not- 
 withstanding Professor Huxley^s late very positive assertion * 
 that it is impossible for the scientific mind any longer to 
 question the sufficiency of known causes for the evolution of 
 organic forms, the evidences of continuous progress in the 
 direction of evolution (which certainly the hoof of the horse and 
 other cases to which he refers are not), are at present so de- 
 fective that they can only derive any weight at all in the 
 question from the supposed necessity of Science tracing at the 
 same time both the order and the causation. 
 
 29. However, I am not now discussing, nor do I intend to 
 discuss, the subject of any discrepancies between science and 
 religion : both affirm the same fundamental principles, and 
 must also hold that these principles have a common root. 
 Science assumes them, and must do so as necessary to itself; 
 and it endeavours to prove its assumptions to be true by 
 the agreement of their results with its own observations. 
 Eeligion derives the same principles from its belief in 
 one Infinite and Almighty Intelligence, in Whom they 
 all subsist, and Who is the basis of them all. And it 
 confirms its belief by the evidences of order and design 
 which Nature exhibits. Often, indeed, as we have found 
 alike in the Unity, the Order, and Causation of the uni- 
 verse, it is absolutely impossible for Science to discover the 
 connecting links or prove the principles from Nature. As 
 the wise man said, — ^^ It is the glory of God to conceal 
 a thing.^^t But it is no part of Eeligion to question 
 the evidences which Nature gives of these principles so 
 far as Science is able to interpret it ; nor is it any part of 
 Science to imagine that it has discovered all the causes at 
 work in God^s universe, as if there might not be many far 
 more powerful and active than any which our very limited 
 experience and faculties apprehend. Meanwhile, Science itself 
 teaches us quite enough of the infinite complexity of the 
 causes at work in Nature, and of the indeterminate character 
 of their efi'ects, to prove that their operation not only can- 
 not preclude, but even demands the action of supreme and 
 infinite intelligence for the ultimate result. This (to use 
 the words of Professor Jevons) '^ must have been contained 
 
 * In a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution last March, entitled 
 " The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species." 
 t Prov. XXV. 2
 
 26 
 
 in the aggregate of the causes, and these causes, so far as 
 we can see, were subject to the arbitrary choice ^' (I should 
 say, are subject to the Will and Reason) " of the Creator.^^* 
 
 30. And this leads us to another truth, in which all these 
 principles, whether regarded from the scientific or the religious 
 point of view, meet and coincide. It is a common notion 
 that the effect of the scientific view of the universe, as com- 
 pared with those which our senses give us, is to get rid of 
 its mysteries, and make the whole intelligible. Religion, on 
 the contrary, is imagined to be full of unintelligible mysteries, 
 and its condemnation, with superficial minds, is, that it cannot 
 be understood. It is accepted by those who are ignorant of 
 Science, its adversaries maintain, because they are not familiar 
 with the solutions of the difficulties of Nature which Science 
 supplies. But so far is this from being true that the effect 
 of Science is to lead us to more serious diflSculties and more 
 incomprehensible mysteries than any of those which it solves. 
 The proof of this I must assume here ; but I will use the words 
 of one who will not be suspected of any prejudice in favour 
 of Religion. Speaking of ultimate scientific ideas, Mr. H. 
 Spencerf says : — 
 
 " The explication of that which is explicable does but bring out into 
 
 greater clearness the iuexplicableness of that which remains behind 
 
 Objective and subjective things " the man of science " ascertains to be alike 
 inscrutable in their substance and genesis. In all directions his investiga- 
 tions eventually bring him face to face with an insoluble enigma ; and he 
 evermore clearly perceives it to be an insoluble enigma. He realises with a 
 special vividness the utter incomprehensibleness of the simplest fact con- 
 sidered in itself." 
 
 The complete result then of our argument is, that as the prin- 
 ciples of Unity, Order, and Causation, which Science assumes, 
 have no adequate and rational basis in those things which 
 Science can investigate, and as in all cases in which Science 
 traces the principles to the utmost range of its own powers, 
 it is brought to that which to the human understanding is 
 incomprehensible J ; therefore we must conclude, from the 
 
 * I^rinciplcn vf tkience, ii., 462. 
 
 t First .Principles, second edition, p. 66. 
 
 X The universe is infinitely wide ; 
 
 And conquering Keason, if self-glorified, 
 
 Can nowhere move uncrossed by some new wall 
 
 Or gulf of mystery ; which thou alone, 
 
 Imaginative Faith ! canst overleap 
 
 In progress towards the fount of Love,— the throne 
 
 Of Power, whose ministers the records keep 
 
 Of periods fixed and Jaws established, less 
 
 Flesh to exalt than prove its nothingness. 
 
 Wordsworth.
 
 27 
 
 teachings of Science itself, that the ultimate basis of all cannot 
 be other than an existence incomprehensible to the human 
 mind. 
 
 31. This, however, as our previous investigations have shown, 
 by no means lands us in agnosticism, any more than Science 
 itself does. Science has been found to point continuously in 
 the direction of One infinite and almighty Intelligence as the 
 only explanation of the principles it requires. That which 
 these principles demand is what we know as reason. Indeed, 
 apart from all other evidence of this, since reason is mani- 
 fested in man, the highest existence known to us in the 
 universe, this at least must be found in the ultimate cause of 
 the universe. And if we ask still, why in One Who must, 
 it seems, from the very teachings of Science, be incompre- 
 hensible, we venture to speak of the human attribute of 
 reason, — the voice of Religion answers (and we are now out- 
 side the sphere of scientific thought, and must have Religion 
 for our guide, if we would have any at all), ''^God created man 
 in His own image, in the image of God created He him.'^ 
 
 32. It is not, of course, possible for me now to follow 
 out the argument which I have indicated as to the relations 
 between Science and Religion, or it would not be difficult to 
 prove that it would lead to results of great religious value, 
 and illustrate some of the profoundest mysteries of Faith. 
 But, though I have already trespassed too long on your 
 patience, I must in conclusion call attention very briefly 
 to one application of the argument — of overwhelming 
 practical importance in the present day — which, I confess, 
 most weighed with me in choosing for my address to-day this 
 investigation of some very intimate relations between Science 
 and ReHgion. It is impossible to doubt that just now the tide 
 of unbelief is setting with almost unprecedented force against 
 the very foundation of all Religion, the Being of God. In itself 
 there is nothing in this either surprising or discouraging. 
 Atheism is the logical conclusion of all forms of infidelity, and 
 it is well that the infinitely momentous question should be 
 brought to its real issue. Men, indeed, vastly deceive them- 
 selves when they imagine that if they deny the existence of 
 God they are at the bottom of the pit. There are already 
 symptoms more than enough that there is a depth below this, 
 and that those who are taunting rationalists and deists with 
 not having carried their principles to their logical conclusions, 
 will soon find out that of all systems the most illogical is one 
 that demands morality, truth, and justice without God. 
 
 But cannot Science give us some aid in our attempts, by 
 God's help, to stay the plague ? Of late years there has been,
 
 28 
 
 largely owing, I believe^ to the efforts of this Society, a greatly 
 improved understanding on both sides of the relations between 
 Science and Religion. The present outbreak of Atheism 
 assumes a flimsy disguise of Science; but^ in reality, it has 
 no scientific basis. It assumes that scientific conclusions can 
 be proved, and are therefore to be believed ; that the existence 
 of God cannot be proved, and therefore is not to be believed. 
 Such fallacies deceive those who are willing to be deceived ; but 
 they must disappear if once exposed to the light. But mean- 
 while I know that the feelings of many of those who are 
 endeavouring to stem the tide of evil is that a literature, 
 specially directed against the present phase of unbelief, and 
 adapted for the classes who are most in danger from its 
 sophistries, is still much needed. I would venture to suggest 
 that in a matter of such vital importance as the best method of 
 dealing with Atheism, there is nothing that we may with so 
 much advantage study for our guidance as the example of the 
 first inspired preachers of Christianity to the world. The 
 heathen world, with which St. Paul, for example, had to 
 deal, was, at heart, Atheistic, even more than it was idola- 
 trous. Esthetic feelings, national prejudices, and tradi- 
 tional usages were in favour of the old heathen system ; 
 but at the root of much both of the sentiment and of 
 the philosophy of heathenism there was unbelief in any true 
 and living God. We find, however, that in addressing 
 the heathens, the Apostle Sivgues from the existence of God, 
 and he asserts confidently that men know not only that 
 there is a God, but also sufl&cient of God to recognise that 
 idolatry is a contradiction of His being. But when we 
 examine his language closely we find that there was 
 always present to his own mind as the ground of this 
 assumption, one particular evidence of the being of God, 
 to which he expressly refers as absolutely and completely 
 suflScient. Whether he addresses uncultivated Lycaonians or 
 Athenian philosophers_, or is writing to Romans of their heathen 
 fellow-countrymen, he always appeals to the visible universe as 
 afibrding proofs of the eternal power and divine attributes of 
 God, quite sufficient for reasonable man. It is not to be 
 supposed that this great Apostle, who, to use the vulgar 
 phrase, was certainly '^ abreast of the questions of the day,^' 
 knew nothing of the Atheistic speculations of the Epicurean 
 philosophers whom he addressed at Athens^ or of those of 
 the Epicurean Roman poet, which are the very type, if not the 
 origin, of the Atheistic theories of certain modern physicists. 
 But he evidently considered that such speculations did not 
 touch the question at all. Atoms or no atoms, the universe
 
 29 
 
 could only be the result of Divine Power and Divine Reason. 
 We cannot but conclude from St. PauFs language that he con- 
 sidered this witness to God absolutely unassailable. He speaks 
 of God^s Being, not as something that may be discovered, but 
 as a manifest truth, known to all, though they may suppress 
 and keep down their knowledge so that it fails to produce in them 
 its proper effects. He does not say that it requires some special 
 gift of faith in order that God^s eternal power and divinity may 
 be traced in His works ; he asserts that men are without excuse 
 if they do not clearly recognise these. We must not infer 
 from this that there is not also in man an intuitive cognition 
 of God by conscience and by faith ; but that of which he 
 speaks as in itself sufficient is, undoubtedly, a logical 
 process. From the principle that there can be nothing in Nature 
 without an adequate cause, — a principle necessary to all 
 scientific investigation, — Reason concludes that the cause 
 of the phenomena and order of Nature must be the eternal 
 power and infinite wisdom of God. However immediate 
 the inference may appear, it is the result of a process, 
 the several parts of which the logical faculty can discuss. 
 And since, according to the Apostle's teaching, the inference 
 is not only legitimate, but one that man^s reason cannot 
 reject without self-contradiction, the result of such dis- 
 cussion ought to be to make the conclusion more apparently 
 and obviously certain. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Science has a most direct 
 bearing on the several parts of this logical process. We 
 have found in our brief survey that Science pours a flood of 
 light, not only on* the order of natural phenomena and exist- 
 ences, but also on questions of causation. All the principles 
 assumed by Science in Nature require that which is super- 
 natural. And if the conclusion from Nature was recognised 
 by the heathen world then, may it not now be made even 
 more apparent to the minds of men in the far clearer light of 
 modern Science ? It appears to me, I confess, that we shall 
 not faithfully fulfil the trust committed to us in God's gift of 
 Science, unless we so use it as, at all events, to expose the 
 folly of those who say, " There is no God/' and thus, by God's 
 help, save those who are being deceived by the sophistries of 
 such men from sinking into the horrible pit of darkness and 
 despair which Atheism has opened.
 
 ON TEE BEARINGS OF THE STUDY OF NATURAL 
 SGIENGE, AND OF THE CONTEMPLATION OF 
 THE DISCOVERIES TO WHICH THAT STUDY 
 LEADS, ON OUR RELIGIOUS IDEAS. By (i. G. 
 StokeSj Esq., M.A., D.C.L. LL.D. Dub. F.R.S., Lucasian 
 Professor of Matliematics at Cambridge University, <fec. 
 
 IT is the constant aim of the student of science, who not 
 only follows the labours of others, but seeks to extend his 
 own researches into the region of the unknown, to refer ob- 
 served phenomena to natural causes. Thus, the ocean is seen to
 
 exhibit strange periodic movements, which have an evidently 
 beneficial effect as tending to prevent stagnation. A study 
 of the period of these movements shows that they have some 
 mysterious connexion with the moon. Presently, Newton 
 arises and shows that these movements are necessary mathe- 
 matical consequences of the same law by which a stone, held 
 in the hand and let go, falls to the earth. 
 
 As regards this particular phenomenon, it may be that the 
 immediate effect of the discovery is rather to turn aside the 
 mind from the contemplation of the nseful results of the move- 
 ment, and involve it in the intricacies of a very complicated 
 hydro dynamical problem. The particular phenomenon is 
 shown to be part and parcel of a vast system, and it may 
 well be that the beneficial results of this system are not at 
 first apparent ; from its very vastness the mind's eye fails to 
 take it in. 
 
 Yet surely the study of truth of one kind, rightly pursued, 
 cannot conflict with our reception of truth of another kind, 
 though from the imperfection of our knowledge and of our 
 faculties temporary difficulties may arise. Doubtless, in the 
 end our views will be enlarged, and in some respects, it may 
 be, corrected. 
 
 To illustrate my meaning, permit me for a few moments to 
 indulge in fiction. I will suppose then, that in some un- 
 frequented part of the Pacific Ocean there existed an undis- 
 covered island, which, for the sake of a name, I will call Irene. 
 The Irenians were men of cultivated minds, intelligent, and 
 deeply religious, but for centuries they had been cut off from 
 all connexion with the rest of the world, and they were 
 ignorant of the very rudiments of natural science. They 
 delighted in poetry, and in the cultivation of the feelings ; and 
 being devout they contemplated the phenomena of nature in 
 immediate relation to a supreme Being. That most wonderful 
 of our senses, the sense of sight, buried to them in mystery in 
 all that belonged to it, was a special object of admiration, and 
 they loved to dwell on it as evidence of the beneficence of the 
 Creator. 
 
 At last the island was discovered by the captain of a 
 scientific circumnavigating expedition. The Irenians and their 
 visitors were greatly pleased with each other ; and the scientific 
 men of the expedition, finding them apt pupils, took great 
 interest in teaching them so much of the elements of physics 
 as the length of their stay permitted. They taught them 
 among other things something of optics, the existence of rays, 
 the laws of reflection and refraction, the formation of images 
 by lenses, the use of telescopes. They then dissected an eye,
 
 33 
 
 and showed how an eye acts just as an optical instrument in 
 forming images of external objects on the retina. At this the 
 Irenians were taken aback. They had been used to regard the 
 sense of sight as an immediate gift from the Creator, depending 
 on no second causes_, and now they saw part of their organs 
 of vision acting like so much dead matter. They received 
 a shock, at which some of them were staggered, and asked 
 themselves the question, Is it possible that, after all, this 
 beautiful scene around us, these trees and flowers and painted 
 butterflies, are merely a casual result of the blind interaction 
 of a few simple laws ? 
 
 But when the expedition had sailed from their shores, and 
 the Irenians were left to themselves, and the novelty of their 
 new ideas had a little worn off, a more sober judgment was 
 formed of what they had learned. It is true that human 
 reason had broken in on what they had been in the habit of 
 regarding as holy ground ; and they had learned that up to 
 the formation of images on the retina the eye behaves like a 
 mere optical instrument. But how came it to pass that its 
 parts were so strangely well-adapted to .fulfil this end ? the 
 cornea smooth and transparent, and nearly spherical, yet 
 somewhat prolate, which as we know would tend to destroy 
 spherical aberration ; the crystalline lens shaped much like 
 the lens of an optician, yet becoming gradually denser towards 
 the centre, in a manner that the optician cannot imitate ; the 
 iris regulating the quantity of light admitted just as the 
 astronomer regulates the aperture of his telescope, but self- 
 acting in a manner which the optician cannot imitate ? Re- 
 flecting on these things they became overwhelmingly impressed 
 with the evidence of design, and design must have had a 
 designer. But they had learned to think of him differently 
 in some respects from what they did before ; to regard it as 
 no derogation of his character to suppose that he accomplishes 
 his ends' in conformity with, rather than in supersession of, 
 such natural laws as they can themselves investigate, and 
 doubtless of many others which are beyond their ken. 
 
 Now the progress of science is continually placing us more 
 or less in the condition of our imaginary islanders, by reducing 
 to a result of the straightforward operation of natural laws 
 processes, perhaps evidently beneficial in their effect, but which 
 were at one time shrouded in mystery as to their nature. And 
 it behoves us to keep our minds in a condition of sober im- 
 partiality, neither on the one hand being so carried away by 
 the achievements of science as to forget how much there is 
 which science holds out no prospect of ever being able to 
 explain, nor on the other refusing to admit conclusions fairly 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 deducible from scientific evidence^ on tlie ground that we had 
 associated something contrary to those conclusions with truths 
 which we hold it most important to maintain. 
 
 The alarm at one time felt at the conclusions of geologists 
 that the antiquity of the earth itself, and even of plants and 
 animals, was to be reckoned by something considerably ex- 
 ceeding a few thousand years may pretty well be looked upon 
 as a thing of the past. But instances in which scientific dis- 
 coveries, or conclusions based on good evidence, run counter 
 to our preconceived ideas occur from time to time, and are 
 likely to occur in the future. In this connexion I would refer 
 for a minute or two to a scientific doctrine which is now begin- 
 ning to be pretty generally received, and which has, I think, 
 given needless alarm to some who have the cause of religion 
 at heart; I mean the doctrine of the conservation of force. I 
 am not going to enter on any lengthy explanation of what the 
 doctrine means ; sufiice it to say that for every development of 
 worJc there must be a corresponding expenditure of something ; 
 and conversely, when work is apparently lost, its full 
 equivalent must appear in some other shape, in quantity 
 corresponding to the work apparently lost, and very com- 
 monly in the shape of heat. We have reason to believe 
 that this law is no less applicable to living beings than 
 to dead matter, and that, for instance, the work exerted by 
 a labouring man is the equivalent of a part of the energy 
 due to chemical combinations between the constituents of 
 his food and the air he breathes. It is this last applica- 
 tion of the law which seems to give rise, in the minds of 
 religious men, to apprehensions which to me appear wholly 
 groundless. We have long been familiar with the idea that 
 living beings, no less than dead matter, are subject to the three 
 laws of motion; and if we have now reason to believe that 
 they are no less subject to the law of the conservation offeree, I 
 cannot imagine what religion has to fear from that. To aid our 
 ideas let us adopt a rude analogy, and compare a living being 
 to a railway train in motion. If we have now reason to regard 
 the will, considered in relation to the exertion of muscular 
 work, as something more nearly analogous to the intelligence 
 of the engine-driver than to the coals under the boiler, that 
 surely is not in any way derogatory to our idea of a living 
 being, or of the wisdom and power involved in its first creation. 
 Bather, as it seems to me, our ideas of what constitutes a living 
 being tend to be refined and exalted. 
 
 If we allow the existence of, — say even if we adopt for trial 
 the hypothesis of the existence of, — an intelligent Being above 
 ourselves to whose Will the arrangement of Nature is due,
 
 35 
 
 there are two ways in wliicli we may draw a picture in our 
 minds (however imperfect that picture may be) of the mode of 
 exercise of that Will^ namely (1), by a series of independent 
 fiats ; or (2) by adapting means to an end, and working 
 according to established laws. Now, the ordinary course of 
 Nature shows that such is at any rate an ordinary mode of 
 operation of that Will ; as, for example, where we see an 
 apparatus adapted to the laws of reflection and refraction of 
 light in such a manner as to produce images on the retina. 
 What, then, should we expect a priori to find in our examina- 
 tion of Nature ? Surely, as we must picture to our minds a 
 skill of contrivance far beyond our own, we might expect that 
 the greatest human intellect would be able to follow but a 
 small portion of the contrivances actually existing; conse- 
 quently, that at the boundary of what we have been able to 
 make out there should be dim indications of something of the 
 same kind stretching out into the unknown ; but yet, at the 
 same time, that there should be no indication that such a chain 
 of causation would of itself alone sufiice for the explanation of 
 the system of Nature. 
 
 And this, it seems to me, is precisely what we find. To 
 revert to our illustration of the eye : we have seen that as 
 regards the formation of images on the retina it acts as an 
 ordinary optical instrument in a way which we can fully follow; 
 but when the images are formed, what then ? We find the 
 retina to contain an exquisitely delicate network of nerves 
 collected into the optic nerve, and thence running into the 
 brain. These nerve-fibres seem as evidently adapted to fulfil 
 an end as the telegraph wires which run along a road or railway, 
 though how they act in conveying an impression into the 
 brain is as yet unknown; and how the impression so con- 
 veyed into the brain is capable of affecting our minds is 
 shrouded in the deepest mystery. Again, the form and 
 character of the cornea, crystalline lens, &c., are such as 
 admirably fit them for their office of refracting the rays of 
 light ; but how came they to have this form and character ? 
 We perceive that there are vessels evidently subservient to 
 their growth and nutrition, and that is pretty nearly all we 
 can explain about it. 
 
 There is thus, as it seems to me, no inconsistency in accept- 
 ing the theory of evolution as a guide in our researches, and 
 yet rejecting it as sufficient of itself alone to explain the whole 
 order of nature. The rejection of it as a guide, and the 
 acceptance of it as an axiom of universal application, seem to 
 me to be founded alike, though in different ways, upon an 
 exaggerated estimate of the extent of human knowledge. To 
 
 L. 2
 
 36 
 
 say that what we cannot explain by the operation of natural 
 causes must be directly referred to the fiat of the Author of 
 Nature, and that it is presumptuous to attempt to explain it, 
 is to measure His mind by our own, and to assert that where 
 we are no longer able to recognize the adaptation of means to 
 an end there contrivance ceases. To assume that because the 
 doctrine of evolution is a useful guide in our researches 
 therefore nothing more is required, is to perform a gigantic 
 " extra-polation ■'^ (to borrow a term sometimes employed in 
 mathematics) ; to conclude the form of a complete curve from 
 the mere infinitesimal arc which alone is open to our observation. 
 The progress of science is continually bringing phenomena 
 under the category of deductions from established laws, but 
 at the same time it leaves barriers which it gives no indication 
 that science will ever be able to get over ; nay, sometimes it 
 makes the existence of such barriers more apparent. This, 
 I think, is the case with the principle of the dissipation of 
 energy. I will endeavour to give some idea of what this prin- 
 ciple means. Imagine a condensing steam-engine at work. 
 For simplicity's sake, suppose the fire removed when the 
 boiler has been well heated; make abstraction of all the 
 surroundings ; and suppose the work done by the engine to 
 be that of turning round a paddle between fixed paddles, the 
 fixed and the movable paddles being alike immersed in water 
 belonging to the condenser. The engine would go on working 
 for a time by virtue of the heat which it got from the coals 
 before the fire was removed. The heat belonging to the steam 
 which comes from the water in the boiler is in part conveyed 
 into the condenser. I say in part, not entirely, even if we make 
 abstraction of the solid materials of the engine ; for a part 
 is in appearance lost, and in lieu of it we have an exact 
 equivalent in the shape of work done. But in the arrange- 
 ment supposed this work is converted again into heat, through 
 the friction in the water in the condenser. The upshot is, 
 that while in difi'erent parts of the system there is a mutual 
 exchange between energy of one kind and energy of another, 
 the total energy of the system remains unchanged. But 
 though this be so, the system is in a very different condition 
 in its initial state from what it is in its final state, when the 
 temperature has become uniform throughout. At first some 
 parts were hot and some were cold; and it was in consequence 
 of this unequal distribution of temperature that it was possible 
 to convert energy in the shape of heat into energy in the shape 
 of work, work which, though in the arrangement supposed it 
 was expended, wasted we may say, within the system itself, 
 might have been conveyed outside by a shaft, and turned to
 
 37 
 
 useful account. But in tlie final state tlie whole system is 
 in a condition of dead uniformity, lukewarm throughout, and 
 no useful effect can be obtained from it. 
 
 Now this principle blocks out a supposition in which it is 
 possible that a certain class of minds might rest content — the 
 supposition, namely, that the present order of things has 
 existed as it is, saving merely certain periodic fluctuations, 
 from a past eternity. There is something so mysterious in the 
 idea of iKist time, when considered as the seat of past events, 
 and not merely as a mathematical abstraction, that if the 
 unif ormitarian doctrine could be scientifically maintained many 
 minds might be content to take refuge in the mystery and 
 inquire no further. But we are bound to face the problem 
 of the existence of the state of things we see around us as 
 something that had a beginning, or, at any rate, something 
 that was preceded by a state entirely different. 
 
 There are some, indeed, who are content to take things as 
 we find them, without recognising anything beyond the opera- 
 tion of natural causes such as those which we investigate, 
 and who boldly accept the conclusion to which the principle 
 of the dissipation of energy considered by itself leads us, that 
 the present order of things is slowly tending towards a goal 
 of universal death. 
 
 But if this conclusion is true as to the future, the present 
 order of things ought to be capable of being deduced in like 
 manner from what existed at any anterior time, however remote. 
 If our formula were general, the variable expressing the time 
 ought to be capable of being made negative as well as positive, 
 and as large as we please. The question therefore arises. Can 
 we account for the existence of Vvhat we see by mere evolution 
 from a state the most remote that science enables us to con- 
 ceive, understanding by evolution the result of the opera- 
 tion of natural causes, such as those that we can investi- 
 gate, and excluding the operation of will, unless it be with 
 reference merely to men and animals ? 
 
 There are several reasons for thinkiug that our earth was at 
 one time in a molten state. There are not wanting indications 
 of a condition more remote from the present than even this. 
 Associated with the stars, which the telescope reveals to us in 
 such overwhelming numbers, are those remarkable objects, the 
 nebulae, which have long excited the curiosity of astronomers. 
 Laplace regarded them as remaining indications of a primasval 
 condition of matter which he supposed to have existed iu a 
 state of diffusion, and to have given rise to the stars by con- 
 centration under the influence of the attraction of gravitation. 
 These luminous films were supposed to be portions of that
 
 38 
 
 diffused matter tliat had not yet condensed. But as telescopes 
 were improved in power and definition many of these objects 
 wMcli had formerly appeared diffuse were seen to be resolved 
 into clusters of stars^ and a presumption seemed to be raised 
 that if several still resisted all attempts to resolve them it was 
 only because the stars of which they were composed were so 
 numerous within a given angular space, and individually so 
 minute, as to bafile — hitherto at least — all attempts of opticians 
 to construct telescopes powerful enough to resolve them. The 
 magnificent speculations of Sir John Herschel are perhaps 
 known to most of those here present. He regarded a nebula as 
 something like the system composed of our own sun, and all the 
 stars we can see with the naked eye, and even those more minute, 
 placed at such an almost inconceivable distance that the whole 
 subtends only a minute angle ; and that the individual stars, of 
 which the system consists, can no longer be seen individually, 
 even with telescopes, and we merely perceive a faint gleam of 
 light emitted by the system as a whole. But a remarkable 
 discovery made in recent years by Dr. Huggins rather leads us 
 back towards the ideas of Laplace. Huggins found that, quite 
 unlike the spectra of the sun and of the stars, the spectra of 
 most of the irresolvable nebulge consisted of a very few hright 
 lines, a character which laboratory experiments show to belong 
 to the spectra of incandescent gases and vapours. This 
 leaves little doubt that such must be the character of the 
 matter of which these nebulaB are formed. It would seem, 
 a jpriori, that the matter of such masses must in time con- 
 dense, and thus conceivably stars might be formed. And 
 what strengthens this conclusion is, that many of these diffuse 
 nebula exhibit within them stellar points, so related to them 
 that the chances are enormously against their being merely 
 fi.xed stars casually situated in the same direction, and that 
 these stellar points exhibit spectra of the same character as 
 those of stars in general. 
 
 Science, then, seems dimly to point to a fiery nebula as a 
 condition of matter the most remote that we can go back to. 
 Can we then deduce the existence of all that we see around 
 us by the mere operation of self-acting laws from such a con- 
 dition ? Or to take a starting-point not quite so far back, 
 imagine our own earth to have cooled down to a temperature 
 at which it would be possible for plants or animals, as we know 
 them, to have existed ; can we imagine such springing into 
 existence, so to speak, of their own accord ? Or to take a still 
 later stage, supposing such forms of a low order once to exist, 
 have we any scientific grounds for supposing that all that is 
 required for the gradual formation of the higher forms, in- 
 cluding man himself^ is a slow process of natural evolution ?
 
 39 
 
 No attempt wortL. mentioning lias ever been made to adduce 
 evidence of the spontaneous production of living from dead 
 matter,, unless it be witli reference to low organisms whose 
 minuteness almost baffles our means of investigation. Putre- 
 fying organic solutions are found to swarm with microscopic 
 creatures, whose presence at first sight, and even after a great 
 amount of careful investigation, is very difficult to account for 
 on the supposition that they came from germs. But if the 
 germs, if germs there be, of such creatures bear anything like 
 the same proportion in size to the adults that they do in the 
 higher animals, one can foresee that a full examination of the 
 question must be beset with enormous difficulties. I think 
 the immensely preponderating weight of evidence obtained by 
 those who have most carefully investigated the question is, 
 that if germs are excluded no life is found. 
 
 With respect to the answer to the second question the 
 weight of authority at the present day seems more divided. 
 It would ill become me to criticise the labours of those who 
 have worked in fields which I have not explored. Yet, looking 
 at the thing from the point of view of an outsider, I cannot 
 refrain from saying, that it seems to me that speculation as to 
 the transmutation of forms has run utterly rampant. A certain 
 amount of change yielding sub -permanent varieties no doubt 
 presents itself to our observation, as in breeds of cattle and 
 races of men, and it is likely enough that the same causes of 
 7ariation operate beyond what we can actually prove. But, 
 with all due allowance for such changes, is it conceivable that 
 they could bridge over the enormous interval which separates 
 the higher animals and man himself from some low organism ? 
 
 I am no biologist, my own studies in natural science having 
 lain in the domain of physics. But accustomed as I am to the 
 severe demands for demonstration which in the physical 
 sciences are made a condition of the acceptance of a theory, 
 I confess that it is not without astonishment I have come 
 across what seems to me the coolness of assumption with which 
 mere speculations are spoken of as if they were established 
 truths by many who, following in some respects in the wake 
 of the great leaders of biological science, have not had time 
 to acquire that vast store of knowledge which puts the mind 
 in a condition properly to judge of the weight of evidence by 
 which a particular hypothesis may be supported. 
 
 On the whole, while freely acknowledging the operation of 
 natural causes, and thinking it probable that they extend 
 far beyond the boundaries of our knowledge, and that accord- 
 ingly we may seek to include the latest well-established 
 scientific theory in some yet higher generalization, I see no
 
 40 
 
 prospect of accounting for all we see around us by any sucli 
 process as this. I see evidence of tlie operation of will and 
 design^ wliich cannot be eliminated even if we. would wish to 
 eliminate it ; and tbat wbicli we are obliged to admit as 
 having operated in the past may yet operate in the future, may 
 be operating in the present. 
 
 I have said that the principles of the conservation of force 
 and of the dissipation of energy lead to the conclusion that 
 the present order of things is leading towards a goal of 
 universal death. Of course, this is only on condition that 
 everything beyond the operation of the ordinary natural laws 
 such as we can investigate is excluded. It becomes a curious 
 question, is there any process which we can even picture to 
 our minds, by which, without any violation of the principle of 
 the conservation of energy, we can conceive the distribution 
 of energy so altered as to make it again available for useful 
 purposes, instead of having everything in a condition of dead 
 uniformity ? The only satisfactory affirmative answer that I 
 am acquainted with to this question is contained in a sug- 
 gestion made by the late Professor Clerk Maxwell. 
 
 Let us imagine a closed vessel, the sides of which we will 
 for simplicity's sake suppose impervious to heat, filled with a 
 gas in a uniform condition, and consequently at a constant 
 temperature throughout. In the first place, what must we 
 picture to ourselves as the state of things within the vessel ? 
 How must we think of the gas itself ? The laws of chemical 
 combination, embraced as they are in the atomic theory of 
 Dalton, give us strong ground for supposing that a mass of 
 ponderable matter is not a continuous plenum, but consists of 
 ultimate molecules alike to one another in matter of the same 
 kind. The laws of crystallography again seem hard to account 
 for if we refuse to admit the supposition of ultimate minute 
 molecules. If these exist, a gas like a solid of liquid must be 
 thought of as a congeries of molecules. But what conception 
 are we to form of it in relation to heat ? What is the physical 
 picture of a higher or lower temperature as measured by the 
 thermometer ? There is the strongest reason now to believe 
 that heat is in fact a mode of motion ; that radiant heat consists 
 in a vibratory movement of that medium pervading space, at 
 least to the distance of the furthest visible star, which we 
 call the luminiferous ether, and whose existence we are obliged 
 to assume in order to account for, as most marvellously well 
 it does account for, the phenomena of light. When radiant 
 heat is absorbed by ponderable matter, we have reason to 
 believe that it is that the energy of the vibratory movement 
 of the ether is transferred to the ponderable matter, of which
 
 41 
 
 the ultimate molecules are tlirown into a state of agitation, or 
 rather of greater agitation than before, and that it is this state of 
 agitation that constitutes thermometric heat. According to the 
 molecular theory of gases, which is in great measure due to 
 Maxwell himself, and which has now received such remarkable 
 confirmations that it may be considered pretty well established, 
 in a gas the molecules are for the most part free, provided at 
 least the gas be not under a very high pressure, and are 
 moving about with very high velocities, and occasionally coming 
 in contact with one another, or, what comes to much the same, 
 so close as powerfully to affect each other's motion. The 
 velocity is not the same for the different molecules, and if it 
 were it would not remain so, for as they came casually into 
 collision some would be so struck as to be made to move faster, 
 and others so as to be made to move more slowly ; it is only a 
 sort of average state of agitation that remains permanently 
 unchanged so long as the condition of the gas remains the 
 same. 
 
 Suppose now our imaginary vessel divided into two by a 
 thin partition, and suppose this partition pierced with a vast 
 number of very minute holes, each large enough to let through 
 one molecule at a time, but not much larger than that. 
 Imagine each little hole closed by a sliding shutter, and sup- 
 pose each shutter presided over by a minute intelligent creature, 
 that Maxwell called a demon. Suppose it were wished to 
 have one, call it the right hand, compartment of the vessel 
 filled with warmer and the left hand compartment filled 
 with cooler gas. This might be effected by the demons by 
 suitably opening or closing the shutters. When a demon 
 saw a quickly-moving molecule approaching his hole from left 
 to right, or a slowly-moving one approaching it from right 
 to left, he would open the shutter to let it through. When 
 he saw a slowly-moving molecule approaching the hole from 
 left to right, or a quickly-moving one approaching it from 
 right to left, he would shut the shutter to stop it. Thus 
 after a time the right-hand compartment would be filled with 
 molecules which on the whole were moving more rapidly, 
 and the left-hand compartment with molecules which, on the 
 whole, were moving less rapidly than the average. If the 
 hmits of speed which decided whether they should shut or 
 open the shutters for the molecules moving to right or left 
 were properly chosen by the demons, the pressure would 
 be the same on both sides of the partition, and if the 
 partition were then conceived to be away, no alteration would 
 take place until the molecules had had time to diffuse among 
 one another. Meanwhile, without any change in the total
 
 42 
 
 energy^ an unequal distribution of temperature would tave 
 been brought about,, wbicli is an imperative condition in order 
 that the existing energy should be capable of being turned to 
 useful account. 
 
 I have thought it worth while to mention this curious specu- 
 lation because it presents a picture^ however fanciful in its 
 conditions^ of how the natural tendency of a natural law may 
 be averted without any disturbance of the law itself^ provided^ 
 and only provided,, we superadd the idea of will guided by 
 design.
 
 k 
 
 SPECIAL APPENDIX. 
 
 The following extract from the notes to the Preface of vol. xii. of the Victoria 
 Institute's Journal will be read with interest. 
 
 1. Age of the Earth :— Chief Justice Daly, LL.D., President (1878-9) 
 of the American Geographical Society, referring to this subject and a 
 careful collocation thereon of the views of Astronomers, Geologists, and 
 Physical Geographers, said, that there was found to be " a wide diversity of 
 opinion between them upon the question of time— a diversity so irre- 
 concilable as to show that our knowledge is not yet sufficiently advanced 
 to admit of any reliable theory as to the age of the Earth.^' Fref. vol. x. 
 and xiii. 
 
 2. With regard to the bearing of recent Geological discovery upon the 
 statements of Scripture, more than one paper and discussion referring 
 thereto appear in Volume xiii. of the Victoria Institute's Journal. The 
 following recent opinions will not be without their interest to many : — 
 
 ' ' We need not, in accepting the Bible narrative of man's creation, 
 repudiate one fact accurately deduced from modern scientific research."— 
 The late Radcliffe Observer (R. Main, 1878). Relig. Hist, of Man, p. 5. 
 (See also Preface, Trans., vol. xi.) 
 
 " Nothing can exceed in truth and grandeur these words (Gen. i.) of the 
 inspired historian, * * the most keen-eyed hypercriticism could see 
 nothing to object to." — Ihid., in Aids to Faith. {Trans., vol. xi. p. 431.) 
 [Professor A. McCaul's paper on " The Mosaic Piecord of Creation," in the 
 same work, will be found thoroughly satisfactory.] 
 
 "With regard to Physical Science, I think we have seen that its real 
 advances are in favour of Religious Faith." — Ibid., Trans., vol. x., p. 174. 
 
 " The language of Scripture neither is, nor can be, * * contrary to the 
 language of Science."— Professor Challis, M.A., F.R.S., F.R.A.S., Plumian 
 Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge. Trans., vol. ix. p. 140. 
 
 " The Bible abounds in illustrative references to natural objects and 
 phenomena, * * these are remarkable for their precise truth to nature." 
 — Principal Dawson, LL.D., F.Pt.S. Trans., vol. ix. p. 173. 
 
 " The great discoveries as to the physical constitution and probable 
 origin of the universe, the doctrine of the correlation and conservation of 
 forces, * * these, and many other aspects of the later progress of Science, 
 must tend to bring it back into greater harmony with revealed Religion." — 
 Rid., in Origin of the World. (See also Preface, Trans., vol. xi.) 
 
 " There has never been produced in my own mind * * the slightest 
 impression that we (he, and those who studied under him) were considering 
 facts and laws in any M-ay opposed to Christian Faith, to the inferences of 
 Natural Theology, or the deductions from Scripture." — The late Professor 
 Phillips, F.R.S., speaking of his duties as Professor of Geology at Oxford 
 (1874). Aids to Faith. (See also Trans., vol. xi. p. 432.) 
 
 " We all admit that the book of Nature and the book of Revelation come 
 alike from God, and that, consequently, there can be no real discrepancy 
 between the two, if rightly interpreted." — Professor G. G. Stokes, M.A., 
 F.R.S., &c., Secretary of the Royal Society. (See Preface, Trans., vol. v.) 
 
 3. The Descent of Man :— Professor Virchow (1878), alluding to the Dar- 
 winian hypothesis, says : — " There is a complete absence of any fos.sil type 
 of a lower stage in the development of man. *. * Any positive advance 
 in the province of prehistoric anthropology has actually removed us fur- 
 ther from proofs of such connection — namely, with the rest of the Animal 
 kingdom. (See Preface, vol xiii.)
 
 
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