(c) Matter is vitally organized.

What is vital cause or force? In these trees beneath which we pause, are atoms of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, organized by some cause called LIFE. What is life? Let those who claim to explain the wonders of nature, explain life. How does any organism cure its wounds? How does the seed form, and the bud open, and the flower form and paint itself, and the fruit come to its ripened use?

Again, while we are looking at the work of some one Power masked in the atoms, and in the motion of the water, and in the growth and structure of the trees, we see in our own reflections upon these wonders, a conscious cause or force. How do we think, and how do we think about our thoughts? We are conscious that we are conscious. Do atoms think? If so, atoms of what? What class of atoms are so endowed, and who endowed them? Do they think separately, in composition, or when compounded?

2. Fact implies a factor as much as the deed a doer; the thing made the maker; as much as a first implies a second, or the second the first; and if we deny a factor to a fact, the doer to the deed, a creator to creation, or a cause to an effect, we must remould all present thought and language.

But from facts we must form some notion of the Factor-from the seen we must form a conception of the Unseen--from phenomena we must form some opinion as to the Noumenon. For illustration; when we see a convex bullet we know that it came out of a concave mould.

Fact Implies Factor.

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We have said that every fact must have a Factor, and the Factor must be supernatural to a natural fact. These terms, fact and factor, strongly express creation and a Creator. Mr. Spencer calls the Factor of facts a Power; but right here the question is, is the force of the Factor extrinsic or intrinsic to the fact? Sometimes Mr. Spencer writes as though he thought the Power was extrinsic. He says, "We are obliged to regard every phenomenon as the manifestation of some Power by which we are acted upon." (F. P. $27 Ib. SS 28, 194.)

Nothing but will is automatic. Everything is either pushed or pulled along. Whatever evolution there. may be, it is but the reaction of involution. For instance, the intrinsic energy of foliation returns the extrinsic Power of the chemistry of the Sun. Power ebbs and flows. Unless this Power be idle, all must also admit that this Power unlimited in time and space, manifests facts limited in time and space. Positive philosophy may arbitrarily limit itself to a study of facts-of phenomena-of effects-in a word, of the Object; but the intelligence of mankind will require a system of such pretension, to find a law-giver for its laws causes for its effects noumenon for its phenomena a Subject for its Object. Facts must be traced back to facts, ad infinitum, to a Factor, in order to construct complete science. Science is more than a catalogue of facts. Facts are objective to subjective Power. And here we reach the distinction between philosophy and science; philosophy studies the subjective Power, and science the objective facts as a method of all that is before the mind.

3. Factor implies Power. The Infinite Factor appears in the finite fact. The known fact reveals that unknown Factor, which in both Scripture and science, is called Power. St. Paul says, "the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal Power and Godhead." As the cause is greater than the effect-as the producer is before the produced-as that which is, came from that which was before-as the doer is greater than the deed-so the factor is greater than the fact, the Power is greater than its manifestation.

Prof. Fiske says: "There exists a power, to which no limit in time or space is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as presented in consciousness, are manifestations, but which we can know only through these manifestations. Here is a formula legitimately obtained by the employment of scientific methods, as the results of subjective analysis on the one hand, and of objective analysis on the other hand. Yet this formula, which presents itself as the final outcome of a purely scientific inquiry, expresses also the fundamental truth of theism-the truth by which religious feeling is justified. The existence of God-the Supreme truth asserted alike by Christianity and by inferior historic religion-is asserted with equal emphasis by that cosmic philosophy which seeks its data in science alone. * ** Though science may destroy mythology, it can never destroy religion; and to the astronomer of the future, as well as the psalmist of old, the heavens will declare the glory of God.” (Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, 2 vol., p. 417.)

Factor Implies Power.

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What is this Power, and what can we know of it? Mr. Spencer says, "The consciousness of an Inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena, has been growing ever clearer; and must eventually be freed from imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such a Power exists, while on the other hand its nature transcends intuition and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards which intelligence has from the first been progressing. To this conclusion Science inevitably arrives as it reaches its confines; while to this conclusion Religion is irresistibly driven by criticism. And satisfying, as it does, the demands of the most rigorous logic, at the same time that it gives the religious sentiment the widest possible sphere of action, it is the conclusion we are bound to accept without reserve or qualification. (F. P., § 31.)"

But this Inscrutable Power is so much a power of not-nature, that we have the authority of Mr. Spencer himself for saying that,

What is superna

4. This power is supernatural. ture? This question is answered when we know what nature is. Supernature is that which nature is not, and for which nature cannot account. As the factor is greater than the fact, so if the fact is natural, the factor must be supernatural.

The two conclusions of Mr. Spencer are: first, that nature and supernature are dual and not the same; and, second, that the ultimate genesis of nature is in supernature-in other words, supernature begins all, and manifests itself in a method of natural facts. greater inequality could be admitted, than that admit

No

ted, but not defined, by Mr. Spencer. The difference, as just said, is in kind, not degree. One is what the other appoints, but cannot be what the other is. Supernature implies all possible inequality over nature in duration, essence, power and place. If supernature is eternal, nature must be temporal; if supernature is Being, nature must be manifestation; if supernature is omnipresent, nature must be local; if supernature is omniscient, nature must be nescient; if supernature is conscious, nature must be unconscious; Man is supernatural so far as he is supernaturally conscious, as were the Prophets and the Apostles; if supernature is power, nature must be only method. The plan of nature is supernatural to nature.

Material science, as science, could not possibly admit more to religion, than has been admitted by Mr. Spencer. Having traced, though to a limited extent, the methods of supernatural power, to the uttermost limits of its manifestation called nature, science must leave religion to follow on with its worship, of all that is beyond. Nature is but the method of supernature, and this method only is subject to scientific study. Religion is for the supernatural power behind the method. Science may study what supernature does; religion bows before what supernature is. Here, then, we have the two sides of the universe, nature and supernature; and the two studies, science and religion. Science ought not to question the beliefs of religion in that where it has no knowledge; and religion ought to rejoice for all knowledge of nature furnished by science, enlarging its conceptions of supernature.