to affirm, the creational method is here held to be Evolutional, its history narrates a progress and exhibits a process best named developmental. Without this notion a Philosophy of Religion were impossible, for without it there could be no scientific study of man and his religions. We cannot refuse to apply the principle or idea that underlies and vivifies the study of man in history to the interpretation alike of man and Nature, to the vaster problems that relate to their being and becoming, to their birth and growth. But to affirm Evolution as the fittest expression yet given to the idea of the creative process or mode, is only to make it the more necessary that we examine it and the doctrine as to the creative cause in their mutual and, as it were, exegetical relations. In Mr. Spencer's Synthetic System, Force is the fundamental and cardinal doctrine, the ultimate truth of his constructive Philosophy. Without it he could not formulate his doctrine of Evolution, without the two combined he could not deduce his phenomenal or created universe. For it is necessary to note that his universe is a pure deduction, his "Book of Genesis" a simple yet stupendous creation of the à priori method. He has not reasoned upwards from the world to its cause; he has reasoned downwards from the cause to the world. There is not in the whole history of Philosophy a more signal instance of a system spun out of its maker's consciousness, though it may stand as, after Lucretius, the most splendid example of the speculations or abstractions of Metaphysics clothed in the generalizations of Science. In a far more eminent degree than the argument of Descartes or Clarke as to the being of God, Mr. Spencer's argument as to the creation of the world is à priori. His, like theirs, rests on "a necessary datum of consciousness;" but theirs, unlike his, was a rational and reasoning consciousness, most rational when most compelled to articulate its primary and necessary beliefs. In an à priori argument everything depends on the truth or validity of the fundamental assumption, and so our first concern must be with Mr. Spencer's. To Mr. Spencer, Force is "the ultimate of ultimates."* Space and Time, Matter and Motion," though "apparently all necessary data of intelligence," "are either built up or extracted from experiences of Force." "Manifestations of force are of two fundamentally different classes," ," "the force by which matter demonstrates itself to us as existing, and the force by which it demonstrates itself to us as acting."+ The former is named matter, the latter motion. Matter, of course, carries with it the idea of indestructibility, motion the idea of continuity,§ and the two combined allow the doctrine of "the Persistence of Force" to be formulated. The next step requires a slight change, an s is added to the causal term, where Force stood Forces are now made to stand, and so to "persistence" "relations" that likewise persist. But now the "First Principles," 169. § Ibid. 180 185. + Ibid. 186. Ibid. 172-179. related must be active forces, transformable, yet in every change exacting a result equivalent to the energy expended;* must, too, in changing follow the line of least resistance, or greatest traction, or the resultant of the two.† So their movements must be rhythmical, measured, as it were, an orderly and musical progression. Now that the simple "ultimate of ultimates" has been formulated into this complex notion, it becomes easily possible to formulate a law the persistent, related and active Forces shall obey. Hence emerges the Law of Evolution with its necessary counterpart, the Law of Dissolution.§ In Evolution, Matter is integrated, Motion dissipated, and, in the process, Matter "passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity," while "the retained Motion undergoes a parallel transformation." With the interpretation of this law I am not here specifically concerned, and so need not pause over the factors or laws by which it accomplishes its most wonderful works, "the instability of the Homogeneous," "the Multiplication of effects," and "Segregation." Enough, there is here visible, in roughly-dotted outline, "the high priori road" along which our adventurous world-builder has travelled from "the necessary datum of consciousness" to the scene of his operations, and it says much for his strength and sobriety of brain that he has not grown giddy on the daring and lofty way. It were hardy, nay, foolhardy, to follow, even though allowed to cling to his skirts, and so we must be contented with humbly examining his starting-point. The "right of way" can be nowhere so well disputed as at the gap in the fence. We begin, then, with "the ultimate of ultimates," noting at the outset that the doctrine of Force, as here formulated, is in no respect physical-the only physical thing about it is its name-but in the most eminent degree metaphysical. And it must be studied and criticised on all its metaphysical sides before its true significance or insignificance can be seen. These sides may be said to be three, ontological, psychological and cosmical, or the doctrine of Force in its relation (1) to the Absolute, (2) to Experience or Consciousness, (3) to the Universe, where it is the assumed or known cause of all phenomena, the cause of all that, appearing to consciousness, creates alike our outer and inner world. 1. What is the relation of Force to the Absolute? In what way is it related to the Unknown, which is the ultimate and causal Being? "The undecomposable mode of consciousness" termed force, " cannot," we are assured, "be itself the Power manifested to us through phenomena." To assume their identity were to be " betrayed into alternative impossibilities of thought." And so "force, as we know it, can be regarded only as a certain conditioned effect of the unconditioned cause," "a relative reality indicating to us an absolute reality by which "First Principles," 197-222. § Ibid. 278-286. + Ibid. 223-249. Ibid. 250-271. ¶ Ibid. 170. it is immediately produced." So far all seems intelligible; the known Force," the ultimate of ultimates" in the Constructive Philosophy, the starting-point and basis of interpretative thought, is an effect, at once a consequence and correlative of some Force unknown. But how are cause and effect related? Do they in nature and character correspond? A consistent agnosticism would simply answer, "we cannot tell;" but construction may be too necessitous to meet the claims of consistency. "The force we are immediately conscious of ""does not persist;"* but the creative or causal Force must be persistent. So the force we know cannot be the creative Force, and in its search for this creative Force constructive must fall back on "the Unknowable" of critical thought. Hence it is affirmed that the force that persists is the "Absolute Force ;"+ and "by the persistence of Force, we really mean the persistence of some cause which transcends our knowledge and conception. In other words, asserting the persistence of Force, is asserting an Unconditioned Reality, without beginning or end." Mark, then, what the agnosticism has come to the Unknown is transfigured and appears as Force, named now and unknown no more! This transformation of the unknown into Force is indeed a forcible transformation, impossible to physics, possible only to deftly manipulated metaphysics. For here is the erewhile Inscrutable handled, analyzed, described in terms stamped with all the realism of science. It is Force, permanent, imperishable, manifesting its existence in matter, its activity in motion, multipliable into forces, having relations, capable of conversion, acting in obedience to mechanical laws. The Primary Philosophy elaborately concealed an Absolute the Derivative was as cunningly to reveal; yet either process only cancels the other. Substitute in the one case Persistent Force for the Unknown, and the nescience is exploded; substitute in the other the Unknown for the Force that persists, and the synthetic philosophy is arrested at the threshold, stands wistfully looking for the knowledge that will not come, anxiously asking ignorance for a datum on which to build the worlds. Of course, if one means to construct a universe, one must get a basis; only it is awkward, if one has pronounced the basis indiscoverable, to be compelled to discover it after all. 2. But, perhaps, the transformation may be scientifically justifiable, due to necessities of thought. This raises the second or psychological point. What evidence have we for the existence of Force, as "the ultimate of ultimates?" How do we come to know Force? How can it be proved that our "experiences of Force" are primitive and primary, those from which "all other modes of consciousness" are derived? These questions bring us face to face with the distinctive note, the special and characteristic doctrine of Mr. Spencer's psychology, what enables him to be at once empirical and constructive, his so-called "transfigured Realism." In order to its right apprehension we must + Ibid., 192. *"First Principles," 191. mark this-what Hume termed "impressions and ideas," he terms "manifestations of the unknowable." These are distinguished into "vivid and faint," or those " that occur under the conditions called those of perception," and those that "occur under the conditions known as those of reflection, or memory, or imagination, or ideation."* This, the "profoundest of distinctions among the manifestations of the Unknowable," "corresponds to the division between object and subject,” "not self and self." Now observe, how much is gained by this uncouth nomenclature,-nothing less than the idea that Hume most completely dissolved, that our modern Empiricisms have, as a rule, either repudiated or made insignificant, the idea of causation. To resolve subject and object into "manifestations of the Unknowable," is to describe them as effects of a cause, to postulate, therefore, the idea of cause, to assume this idea as the very basis and condition of psychological analysis. The transition from idea to reality, the transition which Idealisms, empirical and transcendental, have found it so hard to make, is here made in the simplest and most efficacious way, in the terms that at once describe and differentiate subject and object, resolving them alike into manifestations of a causal unknown. But now, granting the idea of cause, what evidence have we that this cause is Force? We are told, "it needs but to remember that consciousness consists of changes, to see that the ultimate datum of consciousness must be that of which change is the manifestation." Observe what this means-it means that the changes of consciousness are to consciousness a series of effects that reveal or imply a cause, that they can only be to it-so far as they speak to it-effects of a creative or manifested Power. But why? Mark the answer, "The force by which we ourselves produce changes, and which serves to symbolize the cause of changes in general, is the final disclosure of analysis." This is a happy example of that not altogether unknown art-sawing off the branch on which the sawyer sits. The force within "symbolizes" the force without, the power" by which we ourselves produce changes" is the interpretative symbol of the power which works all the changes in the universe-i.e., man is conscious of causation because he himself is a conscious cause. The energy he exercises enables him to apprehend the cosmos as manifested energy. Were he void of force he could not know force; were he void of will he could neither cognize nor recognize will. Causation must be an element of consciousness before it can exist to consciousness; what is without the ability to act cannot understand an active and acting energy, because without any means of construing or interpreting either action or energy or cause. But, see where this has carried us- -the consciousness which can apprehend "the cause of changes in general" is at once a constituted and constitutive consciousness; behind the idea of force is its own interpretative nature, and more ultimate than "the experience of force" is the thought or its form. * "First Principles,” 143–4. + Ibid. 154. + Ibid. 169. that renders the experience possible. And so analysis brings us down to this the universe can be a manifestation of power only to a conscious power, only as man is a cause can Nature speak to him of causation. Without à priori elements in knowledge, knowledge of force is impossible. So it seems that force is not the rational ultimate of ultimates. "Experiences of Force" are only possible provided man is a conscious force; were he not, he could have no such experiences. But now, though psychological proof of its ultimacy or primacy be not possible, logical proof may. In the Cartesian system what could be clearly and distinctly conceived was true; it may be the same in the Spencerian. Unfortunately, there is the critical Agnosticism: it had demonstrated that "ultimate scientific" were as unthinkable as ultimate religious ideas, and, in particular, that it is equally "impossible to form any idea of Force in itself," or "to comprehend either its mode of exercise or its law of variation."* And so, though man may "resolve appearances into manifestations of Force," he still finds that it "passes all understanding." The force, then, that is, "the ultimate of ultimates," cannot be clearly and distinctly conceived, cannot, therefore, be so known as to be scientifically analyzed, characterized, and described. Yet what in itself we cannot "form any idea of," is made the cause of the universe, manifested in matter and motion, is calmly transmuted into a plural, credited with relations and brought under laws. This is a feat, if not supernatural, yet contrary to Nature, achieved by no logical process, justified by no psychological proof. In reality, what is termed force is a pure metaphysical abstraction. It does not exist in the realm of Nature, is something assumed to explain what is found there. It is no result of experiment or scientific observation, is as purely a speculative creation as any entity, quiddity, or essence of the schoolmen, the only difference being, their names were honestly abstract, but this name is deceitfully concrete. The one element of reality in it is the causal idea, an element it owes to the free and constitutive reason it is invoked to explain. But an idea derived from reason ought to be expressed in its terms; it is not simply degraded, but falsified, by being expressed in the terms of matter. Subtract the causal idea from what is here designated force, and it is annihilated; but add to the causal idea the elements and associations connoted by the material name, and it ceases to be the "ultimate datum of consciousness," becomes a doctrine that must be proved in the methods and stated in 'the terms of physics. But so to state or prove it were to make it useless for Mr. Spencer's purpose; it must be an à priori truth to be the corner-stone of his system. Make it à priori, and it may be expressible by Cause, cannot be expressible by Force; name it Force, and it becomes dependent for its right to be and to be believed on methods of experiment and inference that utterly disqualify it for standing where it does, the "First Principles," 61. It Ibid. 66. |