The activity in the muscle, therefore, does not come under the law of mere mechanical action, but precisely reverses it. A fortiori the animal of which the muscle forms a part is not a machine.

But besides all the muscular exertion which will originates, continues, and directs, science demands that the entire working of consciousness under will be taken into account as a definite

and positive effect requiring an adequate cause. In this age of vivisection it is shown that if the brain be kept from interfering with the reflex nervous action the circuit is completed in unconsciousness, precisely as it is completed in consciousness when the brain is active. Hence the conclusion, that automatic action is all there is, and that without any spirit the man "would figure away as a molecular automaton all the same, and not a scene or a word would be altered in the five-act comedy of life." But in all this the fact is overlooked that in the one case we have only movement, while in the other we have movement plus consciousness. The brain with the active subject therefore does more work than the other, by what we call consciousness. What becomes of this? Does it perish? If so, a portion of work has perished, and the idolized conservation of force is logically swept out of existence. If, on the other hand, it be denied that the produced consciousness is "work done," that is to admit that consciousness is not an effect of molecular forces, and to lift it out of the sphere of physical law, and restore again the spiritual world from which the materialist has been seeking to escape.'

The conclusion to which we are shut up is, that it is as far as possible from being known that will-force is the result of chemical action; rather, it is known, both immediately and mediately, as well as any thing can be known, that it is not the result of such action. The simple and sole scientific fact on which this imposing structure of automatism is reared is, that chemical action in the brain may accompany action of will. This concomitance is at once confounded by loose thinkers with equivalence and identity. The only scientific course is to accept the testimony of consciousness, and regard the brain as part of

'Martineau, "Theology and Religion," p. 182.

the instrument of the human spirit-an instrument vitally connected with it, yet an instrument still. We are conscious that the will uses this instrument. The chemical action results from this use, partly in the process of developing power, and partly in the wear and tear necessarily resulting from the use of any mechanical instrument. The chemical action is, therefore, effect rather than cause.

2. Mill's second point.-Will has no monoply even in the transformation of force.

"Whatever volition can do in the way of creating motion out of other forms of force, and generally of evolving force from a latent into a visible state, can be done by many other causes. Chemical action, for instance, electricity, heat, the mere presence of a gravitating body-all these are causes of mechanical motion on a far larger scale than any volitions which experience presents to us; and in most of the effects thus produced the motion given by one body to another is not, as in the ordinary cases of mechanical action, motion that has first been given to that other by some third body. . . Volition, therefore, regarded as an agent in the material universe, has no exclusive privilege of origination; all that it can originate is also originated by other transforming agents."-Three Essays, pp. 148–9.

The position that whatever will can do other forces can do, is absolutely untenable. It has already been shown that consciousness and directive energy are peculiar to mind, and that will-force is the basal originating force. That this self-originating power does not belong to matter, may be shown by any one of the examples adduced by Mill to show that it does belong to it. Take the "presence of a gravitating body." Do the atoms themselves independently exert a power which inheres in them? Mill's argument requires that each atom in the universe pull every other with a steady and eternal pull. If that be so, and the power reside in the atom, then the atom is possessed of creative power, or has an infinite store of power in it to begin with, or must ultimately fail in its work. On either of the first two suppositions the atom, "which no man hath seen nor can see," becomes itself omnipotent and takes the place of the invisible, eternal, Almighty God, with this fatal logical objection resting against it, that it flagrantly violates the principle of sufficient reason by the assumption of an infinite number of omnipotent beings where only one is

needed. On the third hypothesis the grand atomic machine is running down, and Mill's doctrine of the conservation of force is annihilated. Newton and the scientific minds of the grander order have, therefore, always had the good sense to see that gravity as a force does not inhere in matter, but that it is a force exerted upon matter by some power controlled by the most accurate mathematical thought and the most far-reaching and beneficent purpose. In short, in the view of the best scientists, matter is only moved from without, and its essential property is inertia. This scientific truth, as involved in Newton's first Law of Motion, has never been in the slightest degree invalidated. While mind is consciously self-active, selfmoving, matter is demonstrably inert-not self-moving, but moved.

Mill attempts to rid his argument from all hindrance arising from this fact by dexterously ignoring it, and putting his "Must be so, we know," in the place of it. The force "of which volition disposes" is put into it from outside. The will, as the disposer of the force, is thus furtively pushed out, and there is nothing left for consideration but "the force which volition disposes of." After all, then, Mill cannot avoid the covert assumption of a disposing power. Exceedingly comforting doubtless it is, at first blush, to a clown or to the prince of lazy men, to reflect that the chemical action in the cells in Milton's brain drove his pen and created "Paradise Lost," his so-called soul with his will-force being of no account; but the question might possibly be raised, by a little reflection, Why does not my brain, with its six hundred million cells and its equivalent of chemical action, produce its "Paradise Lost"? Seriously, it is no great logical feat for the prince of logicians to leave out the power which distinguishes man from a clod, and then say to his admirers, "See, man is only a clod;" or, "See, will is nothing more than the working of the firm of Carbon & Co."

But this turn of thought brings him face to face with the subject of free-will, the vexed question "whether volition is self-determining or determined by causes." What can he do? Ignore its existence? A distinguished American professor of theology used to say to his students, "Young men, follow the

truth if it carries you over Niagara." Possibly it should have occurred to him that the truth is not quite likely to carry men over a Niagara; so that it is well to pause. in sight of the precipice and inquire whether we are following the truth. Mr. Mill finds himself on the brink of the Niagara of automatism. Will he inquire whether it is truth that has brought him to it? Not he. He is too brave. He clasps his deadly error to his philosophic bosom, and calmly tells us that shooting the cataract is not a thing to be considered just here. His words are: "To the question now in hand it is only the effects of volition that are relevant, not its origin." Now from all this consummate folly we confidently appeal to the common-sense of mankind, and affirm that all the reckless and false assertions and assumptions, and all the plausible but flimsy arguments of all the princely logicians in the world will weigh no more, in the scale of exact thought, against the clear, positive knowledge which every man has of his own freedom, self-activity, and power of originating action, than would a feather cast in the balance against the solar system.

After another effort or two he settles down upon the old assumption that if will is free and volition uncaused, matter and its properties are also uncaused and eternal. That ends the controversy. The sum of the argument is: "Must be so, I

know."

3. Mill's third point.-Mind itself requires only Force and Evolution to originate it.

In replying to the proposition that "It is self-evident that nothing can have produced Mind but Mind," (1.) Mill pronounces it unscientific and absurd, and (2.) Affirms that mind needs only material agencies to produce it.

(1.) If only mind originates mind, the alternative lies between an infinite series of finite minds, and one Infinite and Eternal Mind as First Cause. The first is untenable for the twofold reason that it does not satisfy the principle of causality, and that it has been shown to be at variance with historic facts. Mill objects to the second on the ground that, while matter and force are eternal, we have no knowledge of an Eternal Mind. The value of this conclusion from his infinite "Ignoramus" has already been seen.

(2.) The final effort of Mr. Mill is directed to the task of ridding the universe of an Eternal Mind, by accounting for the existence of mind by matter and force. The argument is again remanded to the region of experience, which term is here covertly used in the third sense, or for experience plus all the logical feats of the "bubble companies." The great logician proceeds to dissect and expose the fallacy of the assumption, that “it is self-evident that only mind can produce mind." He finds at the basis of the assumption the notion "that no causes can give rise to products of a more precious or elevated kind than themselves." Now no man of sound sense, be he scientist or theologian, would for one moment accept Mill's perversion of the principle of causation as a basis for argument. The master of logic, however, proceeds to show that this principle, in this perverted form of statement, is at variance with the known analogies of nature. In showing this, he finally rests the case against a First Cause on three logical supports.

The first is an illustration of a general fact drawn from nature, and contradicting the principle that lower cannot produce higher. We give him the benefit of his own form of state

ment:

"How vastly nobler and more precious, for instance, are the higher vegetables and animals than the soil and manure out of which and by the properties of which they are raised up !''

So plants and animals and man are nothing but "soil and manure"! What of vegetable life, animal life, rational life, and all the rest? The lion's skin lifts and we see-evolution!

The second support is evolution pure and simple. All higher has come from the lower:

"The tendency of all recent speculation is towards the opinion that the development of inferior orders of existence into superior, the substitution of greater elaboration and higher organization for lower, is the general rule of nature."

It has already been shown that the competent physicists unanimously reject materialistic evolution, pronouncing it a "puerile hypothesis," at variance with all true scientific conclusions. Taking only the special propositions of evolution here involved, competent scientists have demonstrated their unsci