Chapter VI: Causation

This sixth Chapter occupies a totally different sphere of Thought from the one preceding it. Instead of examining the world as it now is, we shall inquire what its present existence necessarily presupposes. Time, in the ordinary meaning of the word, is no factor in our calculation. We have to deal with Time's antecedents.

These words sound like a long farewell to our companion and auxiliary,--Natural Science! Geology, Palæontology, Astronomy, are unanimous in telling us of periods immeasurably remote. But, they are all silent on two more distant and profound subjects--a Beginning and an Eternity. In the world best known to us, vast cycles--each comprehending many ages of life--- point back to preceding cycles made up of ages more numerous still, during which the world was absolutely void of life. Upon that primæval fabric, are graved long records of changes beyond the reach of Thought. A single epoch,--the era when our globe, an incandescent mass of matter, was cooling in its flight,--is alone sufficient to exhaust all our imaginative powers. Did water first surround the glowing orb as a heated vapour? Did clouds first descend upon it like a fiery rain-storm? Suppose some sentient creature floating through ether to look upon the unformed world,--how wild, how weird must have been the spectacle! How different from what earth and ocean may appear to any similar Intelligence now.

Science discoursing upon such topics is more poetical than the most sublime poetry. And the science that does speak of them is the widest of all sciences, After certain cycles of ages, the Biologist hands us over to the Mineralogist and the Chemist. After certain other cycles, we give up those guides in turn; and gauge nature by measuring mass, speed, force, comparing our own orb with kindred orbs, and trying to collect what the comparison can say respecting the earliest conditions of the Universe. But, all this is no answer to our proposed question concerning Time's antecedents. "The territory of physics" says a well-known physicist, "is wide, but it has its limits from which we look with vacant gaze into the region beyond."[211] And these words are evidently true. Time serves, in this respect, as the index of our incapacity. We travel back from the period of Man to the period of a ferny coal field, a trilobite or an Eozoon, and from thence to the period when nebulous light-masses shone out through illimitable space. No doubt, when we have learned to contemplate such vapoury states of attenuated matter, we have learned a great deal. Modern analysis finds in them the elementary constituents of our own planetary system; the same elements which glow with greater apparent brilliancy in our Sun. But this is not all. To the sober eye of science, those fires, which burned before stars were kindled, display in their splendours materials entering into the composition of our transitory frames; materials required continually by our bodies and by our productive arts. We live, if modern science may be trusted, by the assimilation of elements now shining in the celestial sphere; elements which glittered there through long cycles of ages before our Earth was. And we employ the same elements in the common industries of civilisation.[212] This bewildering thought seems to link us with that Sun, which is the glory of our day, with those wandering lamps which make night beautiful; and with all the hosts of heaven, which have always fascinated the upward gaze of man, and have sometimes won his heart to worship them.

The more overwhelming these thoughts appear, the grander is the emphasis of our yet unanswered question. We have seen that we are able to travel backwards--not in fancy, but in reason--from era to era, however incalculable the measurement of each era may be; and, when our travels have reached their utmost goal, we find the marvellous Continuity of Nature still unbroken. And this very fact, is, in itself, a sufficient proof that we have not approached Time's antecedents. What we have really done, is to carry the Present with us into an immeasurably distant Past. We know not yet what is presupposed by both,--we cannot say what went before them.

It is _very_ important for us to be thoroughly clear upon the result. For there is a sort of unreflecting idea afloat, that if vast periods of Time are conceived, the whole Universe is conceived also. All seems explained, since everything may come to pass in Time! So it may, in _one_ sense. Time gives opportunity; but then there must be a moving power[213] to work _in_ the opportunity. Let it therefore be distinctly borne in mind, that Time causes nothing. To dispense with a spring of action, is to imagine that Time will stop the river's flow, or that the river will stop without a cause in time:--

"Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum."

In reality, Time accounts neither for good nor for evil, neither for the end nor yet for the beginning of any single work.

And the same is true respecting any chain, however long, made up of antecedents and consequents, however numerous. We see in them movements propagating movements; but then we are obliged to ask, what moved the first of them? The reader may remember Professor Huxley's picture of a cosmic vapour, from a knowledge of which a sufficient Intelligence might have predicted our present world. Looking further, we find this cosmic vapour to be composed (as he says) of molecules possessing forces or properties; in other words, what he really described was a potential Universe; not a Cause, but an already caused production. What, then, caused it?

It was not the Professor's business,--nor is it the business of any Physiologist or of any Physicist, to explain what lies beyond the territories of his science. Consequently he does _not_ account for the existence of this "primitive nebulosity." The "sufficient Intelligence" is only spoken of a possible interpreter or prophet. And Professor Huxley is right and wise in his reticence.

Professor Tyndall is equally wise and right in telling us that "Science knows much of this intermediate phase of things that we call nature, of which it is the product; but science knows nothing of the origin or destiny of nature."[214]

There is always a rightness and wisdom in stating a limit, and an issue, _distinctly_. No one endowed with clearness of vision, will think the Universe as likely to be adequately accounted for by an eternal nebula, as by an eternity of Mind. No one will exactly state to himself, the meaning of such words as Chance, Time, Law, and others of a like description; and, with those meanings _in remembrance_, pronounce that any or all of them can explain the origin of anything. But by popular lecturers and article-makers, immeasurable series of conditions are sometimes mentioned in a manner which almost implies that, because immeasurable, the speaker or writer supposes that such conditions may possibly be creative.

Any reader of current literature will scarcely need reminding, that most modern _savants_ usually acquiesce in, and feel burdened by, a sense of "the Inscrutable." And therefore, when summing up the results of scientific truth, they honestly and consistently reduce their disciples to an _alternative_,--an alternative of which no disciple of any special science ought reasonably to complain. Choose, they tell him, between confessing, "here is the Incomprehensible--here I rest;" or, if you please, endeavouring to "find other means of knowledge, which we do _not_ pretend to furnish." This is no more than to say, and say fairly, "Be satisfied with such information as we can give,--or, if you please, inquire elsewhere." And this seems reasonable; for who would assert that a Professor of Poetry ought to give competent instruction in the Calculus?

We may assume that every student of Natural Theology has made up his mind to "inquire elsewhere." And it is the part of an earnest man so to do. Were not the Future linked to the Present, we all might feel less earnest, less persevering, less anxious for inquiry. Yet, if there be a Future beyond our Present, we at once perceive a weight of reason beyond all powers of estimate, _why_ such a connecting chain must certainly exist. All our experience, every argument from analogy, and all morality, fall into one and the same scale. But of this, more hereafter. There is no doubt that our wisdom and our duty coincide with our natural instincts, in bringing us to this resolution. We may not be able to learn _all_ we could wish of that Future which follows our present; but what we can truly learn is to us a treasure beyond price. Let us, therefore, proceed as fellow-pilgrims in the search.

It is an undeniable fact--one amongst the hard and actual facts which life teaches--that, in the whole of our experience, we never know of more than one kind of cause,--a cause, that is, in the true sense of _originating_ any event or series of events. Nothing can be more certain as respects our knowledge of the material world. From this point of view, Sir J. Herschel describes Brown's book on "Cause and Effect" as "a work of great acuteness and subtlety of reasoning on some points, but in which the whole train of argument is vitiated by one enormous oversight; the omission, namely, of a _distinct and immediate personal consciousness of causation_ in his enumeration of that _sequence of events_, by which the volition of the mind is made to terminate in the motion of material objects. I mean the consciousness of _effort_, accompanied with _intention thereby_ to accomplish an end, as a thing entirely distinct from mere _desire_ or _volition_ on the one hand, and from mere spasmodic contraction of muscles on the other."[215]

This causation we experience continually. A heavy stone falls from a wall, and kills a man. No one threw it. We say it fell--or, as a physicist might express it, obeyed the law of gravitation. But we may remember that from the tower of Thebez "a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head and all to break his scull." We form quite a different opinion of this event. We say, here is a case in which "the volition of the mind is made to terminate in the motion of a material object." Some might accuse, others excuse, the woman of Thebez; but all would argue that she caused the death of Abimelech.

Your boy wants to beat a chair which has fallen upon him; you tell him why he must not, and all you say is sound philosophy. He also wants to kill his cat for devouring his canary bird; and again you philosophize correctly. But, suppose your young philosopher for his own pleasure wrings his canary bird's neck? The chair fell by mechanical law--the cat obeyed the law of her hungry instinct--but your boy is culpable. He was the true cause of his own cruel act,--in a word he was responsible. And this same truth of Causation, involved in Responsibility, and constituting one of its necessary factors, is like Mind in Mr. Mill,--a truth which we _must_ accept--inexplicable, but unquestionably real. We _know_ that Will is a Cause,--and we do _not_ actually know of any other cause in the wide Universe. The fact comes home to us in a variety of ways. Was Thurtell the cause or the physical antecedent of Weare's death? If not the cause, we ought never to think him, or any murderer, slaver, torturer, or tyrant, at all in the wrong; neither can we hold them in any manner responsible.

Let the reader put this case to himself in as many different shapes as he can. The result will always come to the same issue. We may suppose a Nebula, Law, Force, so arranged as to be the physical antecedent of a world. And nothing can be more marvellous than the idea of such an arrangement! But we cannot imagine any existence really causing an effect, save one,--a Will. Therefore, if we wish to go beyond Nebula, Law, or Force, which are merely physical antecedents,--and ask what caused one or all of them, we are obliged (so far as we are disciples of experience) to say their Cause was a Will. And when we say this, we allege _a sufficient reason_.

A few paragraphs back, we availed ourselves of the authoritative verdict pronounced by scientific thinkers, on the question of what is, and what is not, from their point of view, knowable. And we saw _where_ physics terminated,--that is, in a _Nebula_. This is their _limit_.

Yet, there is nothing to hinder a physicist from becoming also a Natural Theologian. It is not every man who will rest in a negative conclusion. Professor Baden Powell was among the malcontents in this respect; and we desire now to quote from his writings some passages referred to in the argument of a former Chapter.

But before doing so, it would be unfair to conceal that a tribute of gratitude appears due to writers who mark the boundary of their own thought, however little we ourselves desire to stay acquiescently within its limitations. There is honesty in their act;--there is an incitement for other men to try out their lines of thinking also. Finally, all such writers are unexceptionable witnesses to the interest and reality belonging to a separate science of Natural Theology. In all these respects, they occupy a totally different position from the indifferentist or sneering sceptic; and it would be injustice to confound such broad distinctions of moral aspect. With this acknowledgment let us return to Baden Powell.

In his "Connexion of Natural and Divine Truth"[216] he writes thus:--

"The study of _physical causes_ (understood _in the simple meaning_ which we have before endeavoured to fix,) while it supplies the unassailable evidence of design and adjustment, as unavoidably carries us thence onward to the idea of an Intelligence from which that design emanated, and of an agency by which that adjustment was produced. It brings us, in a word, to recognise an influence of another kind, of an order _different from_, and far above that of _physical causes_ or material action:--to acknowledge a sublime _moral cause_, the universally operating source of creative power and providential wisdom.[bd]... We have already noticed, in other cases, the ambiguities arising from the diversity of meaning attached to the same term "cause." Here, then, it becomes more peculiarly necessary if we adopt the popular expression, "the First Cause," to recur carefully to the distinction, if we would preserve any clearness of reasoning.

"We refer to senses of the term absolutely distinct _in kind_. Nor is it a term of mere verbal difference. It is of importance, whether in guarding against fallacies in evidence or in answering the cavils of scepticism.... When we ascend to the contemplation of creative intelligence, the distinction is not between a prior and a subsequent train of material action, but between _physical order_ and _moral volition_. It will thus be apparent that the metaphor so often used of the _chain_ of natural causes _whose last and highest link_ is its immediate connexion with the Deity;--the very phrase of a succession of _secondary_ causes traced up to a _first cause_,--and the like, (so commonly employed,) are founded on a totally mistaken analogy.

"If we retain such metaphorical language at all, it would be a more just mode of speaking to describe the Deity as the Divine artificer of the whole chain,--not to connect Him with its links;--to represent the secondary causes as combined into joint operation by His power and will,--but not to make Him one of them." And again;--"If we require the aid of metaphor in attempting to give utterance to those vast conceptions with which the mind is overpowered, instead of speaking of the first and secondary links in a chain of causation, and the like, let us rather recur to the analogy of the _arch_ (before introduced,) and we shall be adopting at once a more just and expressive figure, and shall here run no risk of speaking as if we confounded the stones with the builder,--their mutually supporting force with the skill of the architect who adjusted them."[217]

What Baden Powell called "physical causation," is now more commonly known as invariable antecedency, or invariable succession. Antecedents and consequents are phenomena of the natural world,--and the connection between them is their _Law_.

Now, suppose we take the Alphabet to represent a series of these antecedents and consequents, the latter invariably following the former; it does not, (as far as argument goes,) in the least signify what the series really is, any more than when we calculate algebraically. But to make things plain, let the Alphabet represent 26 cycles of succession; each cycle containing as many millions of years, or ages, as you choose to grant for the duration of the Natural Universe. We may state the problem thus,--the _law_ of succession being assumed in our series as constant.

If we have Z, there certainly must have been Y, and _conversely_;--

If there were no Y, there cannot possibly be Z. We go on,--

If Y, then certainly X;

If no X, then Y is impossible.

As we know Z in fact, we get back to Y; and, as we find Y, we retrogress to X.

And the retrogression continues, say till we reach B,--

If B, certainly A;

If no A, then B is impossible.

But, what are we to say of A?

If A then certainly--_what_?

If no _what_?--then A is impossible.

It does not signify how far the chain of physical law may extend. From its very essence and definition, you must arrive finally at a first link. Or, in other words, the Continuity of Nature may go back through Time immeasurable,--Time will after all lead you to Time's antecedents. And when you have arrived at your first link, and inquire _what_ must necessarily have preceded Time, it is well to consider the _sort_ of account which alone you can accept, _because_ it alone will _sufficiently_ satisfy your reason.

You want, then, something which properly accounts first for A; _next_ for the link between A and B; and _thirdly_, by consequence, for the whole Alphabet.

If, with this statement in mind, the reader turns back to the extracts made from Powell, he will see the force of several points strongly put by the Professor. He will see, for example, how inevitably _physical_ causation carries us back to _another_, and very _diverse_ Causation,--diverse in _kind_--not simply different in degree. Also, how the idea of Cause in this latter sense, takes us quite _out_ of the physical nexus. And, further, that the only admissible Conception of a First Universal Cause, must be a conception of something which will not only bring about A, but likewise _account_ for the entire series, linked together and consecutive, into one resulting _Whole_. For the Whole itself; in brief for the Many and the One.

We have now to ask further, what Facts can tell us respecting these two kinds of Causation. And let us again employ our letters, but rather in a different way.

Suppose P stands for a fact, which may also be described as a natural phenomenon. To account for P we go back to O, retrogress to N, M, and so on, as shewn already.

Again, suppose another fact which cannot be described as a natural phenomenon. Let us try whether P may, with equal propriety, stand for a human production or performance. That is--whether, instead of being a mere _phenomenal_ fact, it may also be spoken of as an _act_.

We want then to account for P, _thus_ considered. A striking circumstance appears at once evident, that to find the "_why_" of human activity we do not look to any antecedent;--we look to a _consequent_, or a series of consequences. The question we ask is,--with what _view_ P became an act? In other words, we try to account for P, _not_ by _O_, _N_, _M_, etc., but by _Q_, _R_, _S_, etc. For example: let P represent a murder. The crime was done for the sake of money, and for things which money will purchase; that is, the _consequents_,--_Q_, _R_, _S_, and so on, forming a series designed;--gains and purposes, long or short. But, no one would say that _another_ series _foregoing_ (O, N, M) _necessitated the act_;--that they were the _certain antecedents of a necessary consequent_ (P) _the murder_. If it were so, we should have to congratulate the murderer for having been _forced_ into so profitable a performance, and we should also have to leave him in the peaceable enjoyment of his profits.

Acts, therefore,--or _volitional_ facts--move _forwards_ through a series of _consequents_; while phenomena--that is, _physical_ facts--run backwards through a series of _antecedents_.

If pressed to find a Cause for an act, we are never in a position to say,--

If P, then certainly O;

If no O, then P is impossible.

We say, on the contrary, that the _Cause_ of the act was _Volitional_,--that is, it was done by an _agent or person acting_. And further, that the _consequents_ (Q, R, S, etc.) represent the _purpose_ of the actor or agent, and that he is responsible for having adopted them as his prevalent motives or inducements.

But from these necessities of thought which hold alike as abstract truths, and in practical experience, several inferences follow:--

A volitional cause or agent, may stand before a series of consequents;--but cannot be ranged after such a series.

Our series represented by the Alphabet, was taken to be a series of _invariable sequency_. That is, each factor (letter) presupposed antecedents, which _necessitated_ every factor in succession. Therefore we cannot represent any agent or volitional Cause, by an element (or letter) of that series at all. Nor yet his act. It follows on no such chain of antecedents. It is done _in view_ of certain consequents.

If, therefore, we ask what can be conceived respecting the causation of the Universe,--its cause must (as Powell says), be placed absolutely outside and prior to the whole series. In other words,--a volitional or First cause can never belong to the physical chain of antecedent and consequent, bound together by natural law. And the reason is plain: in no true sense can such Cause ever be a necessary consequent at all. Such a Cause calls into existence, not only A, but the whole consecutive alphabet, representing cycles of millions of ages. Not the world's primæval state alone,--- but the whole law-connected Universe. Thus, First Cause, and Secondary cause, apply not to difference of sequency alone,--but to an _intrinsic and essential distinction_. And, this distinction is so vast, that between the World's First Cause, and any given Secondary cause, there is fixed a gulf of separation as wide as the whole potential Universe.

Another way of looking at the subject of Causation may appear simpler to some minds.

Let the reader recal the problems of Idealism and Realism already discussed. He will also remember what Mr. Masson calls "the paramount result" to Mill and Hamilton alike;--the inevitable persuasion all men have of their own distinctness from an external world of things and persons surrounding them.

With this accepted result in remembrance, let the reader ask himself the further question, _how_ he became originally impressed with the grand division of that world of objectivity,--how he first separated _Persons_ from _Things_? He will account for the conception in some such way as this:--As a child, he was injured both by his nurse and his nursery table. He discovered that the table had been placed where it stood; but that his nurse struck him with a passionate intention of compelling him to obey her, against his own will. And, thus, in the succession of little troubles and events perpetually going on, he learned to distinguish them all into two broad classes: events dependent on previous circumstances, such as the position of the table; and events productive of intentional consequences, such as the ill temper of his nurse. The first class of events he could _control_ by a change of outside conditions;--he could either move the table or keep his body out of its way. But, the nurse he had to humour and conciliate; and he soon found, to his cost, that very often his efforts to win her favour were unavailing, because her temper was so very, very bad. And this whole process of Childish reasoning became confirmed in after life by his practical reason, and verified by finding it work well every day. The child who thus ceases to blame the table for hurting him, but blames the temper of the nurse, is the "father of the Man," who praises or blames only when he discovers a true _cause_; and steadily ascribes _Causation_ to a _Will_. And, employ what words we choose, this causative power is the grand tenable distinction between Persons and Things. And no amount of refined theory will ever induce us to act upon any other supposition. We remain fixed in our belief that a true Cause must, without exception, be always a true Personality.

It is worth while observing, likewise, with what emphasis of words, mankind marks its sense of this fact. We all say that we see such and such a _cause_,--or such and such a _will_ at work. And the energy of expression is justified by analysis. For, when we see an orange or a cathedral, what we really perceive through our eye, may be summed as coloured surface, outline, light and shade. And seeing this, we say that we see the _solid_;--that is, seeing effects, we maintain that we see the cause. Moreover, this is true, if we remember that seeing is a compound process; the eye of the mind looking _through_ the eye of the body. And we ventured to use the same language in our last chapter, and also to justify it, when we spoke of seeing the Intelligible. The man, therefore, is not far wrong who says that he sees God everywhere.

Look at the subject in whatever point of view we will,--as an abstract question--as a calculable problem--or an affair of plain common sense,--the result must finally come to one and the same thing. There can be no Cause,--no First to stand before (not in) the series of sequences, except a Being, Will, Personality.

Now as a matter of truth, there must necessarily exist some sufficient account of the Universe. Physical Science is right to speak of it as unknowable[218] by Physical investigation. It cannot lie _in_ the physical series,--it must stand _prior_ to the whole. It admits of no antecedent; but the sum of all existence is its consequent. Therefore, the sufficient account is a first Being, Will, and Personality. We must accept the result and acknowledge its truth, because it is an inevitable fact, if the question is argued upon the ground of other facts practically known, and not of theory, conjecture, or supposed possibilities. But it involves theoretical difficulties which we must acknowledge to be inexplicable. We cannot, however, forget that many other truths and matters of fact are inexplicable also.[219]

A circumstance equally true, and equally incapable of theoretical explanation, may be stated as follows. If we revert, once more, to our representative letters of the alphabet, it will be recollected that the letter P was taken to represent a crime,--a murder for the sake of gain. P had for its consequents _Q_, _R_, _S_, but did not depend on the antecedents _O_, _N_, _M_; it was introduced extraneously into the series. In other words, the crime entailed a number of _effects_, which had in reality been premeditated by the murderer; while, _in itself_, it was to be _accounted_ for only as the act of a Volitional Cause or Agent. And the remarkable point to us now, is the circumstance that such a _designed series of events_ can thus be introduced into the order of nature by _man's spontaneous choice_. These determinations are in fact alterations in the ordinary course of Nature; and contradictions of its absolutely invariable sequency.[be] This fact, again, appears to be theoretically inexplicable, yet is practically true; and we _verify_ its truth by determinations of the deepest interest and importance to our individual selves. Sometimes, men almost stand aghast at the consequences of choosing obstinately; and, through years of sorrow, accuse their own, and their friends' pertinacity.

Possibly, the difficulty in theory may be in some degree softened by the admissions of physical philosophers,--inventors and craftsmen of all sorts,--respecting the considerable _allowance_ to be made for "functioning" their abstract calculations. The necessity of such allowance distinctly proves, that, even in the most exact of applied sciences, pure theory and practical result do not commonly coincide. And, when we look to the concerns of human society, it must be confessed that no amount of sovereign power, insight of statesmen, or experience grounded on precedent or on knowledge of mankind, does away with the absolute necessity of allowing what is called a "_margin_" for the actual working of any law, scheme, contrivance, or political constitution. Speculative people are apt to find this truth verified to their cost and disappointment; and, perhaps, one reason for the general success of English administrators in government and colonization, is their habit of making _very large_ allowances throughout all the practical arrangements. In managing the world, they consider the _non-calculable_ element of Will,--and allow for the way in which it breaks in, with sometimes tremendous effect, upon the otherwise regular current of affairs.

But if this be true of the _human_ Will, what ought to be said

of the _Divine_? If we, with our limited power and understanding, can thus interrupt many series of events in our world, what shall we say concerning the Volitional Cause of the whole Universe? Concerning a Personality, which was before the chain of phenomenal antecedent and consequent began, and Which (as we have shewn must hold true of a First Cause), actually willed the whole _as a whole_, and arranged the end from the beginning? Recurring to our selected figure of the Alphabet, this primary Will, this incomprehensible Person is, in our view, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, and beside Him there is none other.[220]

So far, therefore, as a consideration of the world goes, and of mankind as existing in the world, arguments from analogy would lead to some positive expectation of Miracles. Our belief in the Uniformity of Nature does not exclude them; and our practical experience gives rise to a _probability_ of their occurrence. When, however, we lift up our eyes to the Divine Mind as Supreme Reason, Miracles appear to us inconceivable without an adequate occasion. For we ourselves strive to act on _true_, _fitting_, and _reasonable_ grounds of purpose; and shall we think less of Him, "Who teacheth Man knowledge"? But to pursue this last topic as it deserves, would carry us away from the domain of Natural Theology, and into that of Theology true and proper.

Our business has lain with the Natural world, human nature itself included. And in examining the successional chain, we have perceived that it is not forged of Adamant. Yet there is so much connection and unity running throughout it, that we may with the greatest justice speak of the _order_ and _course_ of nature. And, perhaps the _highest_ kind of evidence to the being and attributes of God conceivable by us, lies in the concurrence of _two_ separate kinds of proof; both resting on the reality of Divine _causation_ viewed _relatively_ to the World we inhabit. The one,--when we trace (as in this Chapter we have shewn that men ought to trace), the chain of natural sequence up to a Personal First Cause. The other,--when we find reason to believe that the First Cause and Creator of the world, has seen fit to interfere with its orderly course in a manner which distinguishes His intervention from our common every-day experience.

For such intervention, _we_ could probably conceive no greater fitness, no nobler occasion, than the purpose of raising Men above themselves, and assuring them that there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in their Philosophies. And what human dream, vision, or philosophy, could ever have foreseen the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him?

FOOTNOTES:

[211] Tyndall's _Earlier Thoughts_; in his _Essays_, p. 72. Dr. Tyndall is never weary of repeating this useful truth, and we may honour him for so doing. The following references are to his last very popular work, and in each place the same thought will be found differently expressed according to the difference of subject-matter. _Fragments of Science_, pp. 93, 105, 121, 163, 442.

[212] George Stephenson used to watch the speed of his locomotive, and pleasantly remark that he was utilizing the solar heat of the great coal-period. The words were his own. The idea was Herschel's.

[213] "Time is no agent, as some people appear to think it, that it should accomplish anything of itself. Looking at a heap of stones for a thousand years, will do no more toward making a house of them, than looking at it for one moment. The cause is obvious. Time, when applied to works of any kind, being only a succession of relevant acts, each furthering the work to be accomplished, it is clear that even an infinite succession of irrelevant, and consequently useless acts, would no more achieve or forward the completion of it, than an infinite number of jumps in the same place would advance one toward a journey's end; for there is a motion without progress, in time as well as space; where that has often remained stationary which appeared to us, in leaving it behind, to have receded."--_Guesses at Truth._ First Ed., pp. 61-2.

[214] _Fragments of Science_, p. 442. The passage has been referred to before--and its _pith_ alone is given here--_i.e._ the central sentence.

[215] _Astronomy_, Chapter viii. init., note p. 264. Ed. 1850.

[216] Page 178, seq.

[bd] Compare our summary of Powell's argument on this point, pp. 173-4 _ante_. "We see the necessity of a Moral cause as distinguished from a physical antecedent, when we survey Nature. But Nature does not contain the idea in an _explicit_ shape. She only necessitates its acceptance."

[217] Having before quoted at some length from this distinguished Professor, it seems needless to add anything here, except that the same sentiments will be found reasserted in his later works.--See _Spirit of Inductive Philosophy_, pp. 152-3, and 175-9; and compare Chapter II. _ante_, Additional notes D and E, pp. 103-107, where these passages are in part quoted and commented on.

[218] Of course, if any man pronounces anything _absolutely_ unknowable, he says virtually, "my knowledge equals the sum total of all knowledge."

[219] Every one who writes this word, must feel tempted to ask why such a condition attaches to any truth. This Essay avoids metaphysical inquiries; we must, therefore, rest content with having plainly shewn that it _does_ attach to the _most certain and necessary_ of _all_ truths.

[be] The reader may be pleased to recal Professor Huxley's two necessary beliefs--necessary, that is, for making the world we live in less miserable and less ignorant. First, that the Order of Nature is practically ascertainable. Secondly, that our Volition counts for something as a condition in the course of Events. (_Lay Sermons_, p. 159,--already quoted pp. 247 and 8 _ante_.)

Evidently, to count for _anything_, Volition must produce _effects_; that is, cause certain _changes_ in the natural order of things. This principle, therefore, is clearly asserted by the Professor,--and its consequences follow by logical necessity, as here deduced.

Mr. Huxley's idea of the Order of Nature is also coincident with the view of it taken in this Chapter.

The present writer is glad to mark these undesigned coincidences of thought. "Lay Sermons" had not reached him when this Essay was sent to the Oxford Registrar. Neither had he seen the Professor's Article in the Fortnightly Review.

_Addition._--The doctrine in most complete antagonism with Mr. Huxley's position is described as follows by Dr. Carpenter:--

"The most thorough-going expression of this doctrine will be found in the 'Letters of the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,' by Henry G. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau. A few extracts will suffice to show the character of this system of Philosophy. 'Instinct, passion, thought, etc., are effects of organized substances.' 'All causes are material causes.' 'In material conditions I find the origin of all religions, all philosophies, all opinions, all virtues, all "spiritual conditions and influences," in the same manner that I find the origin of all diseases and of all insanities in material conditions and causes.' 'I am what I am; a creature of necessity; I claim neither merit nor demerit.' 'I feel that I am as completely the result of my nature, and impelled to do what I do, as the needle to point to the north, or the puppet to move according as the string is pulled.' 'I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment.'" Carpenter. _Mental Physiology_, p. 4.

[220] Horace would have felt himself bewildered by some modern Philosophies. He says:--

"Unde nil majus generatur ipso
_Nec_ viget quidquam _simile_ aut _secundum_."