is doing, and hits upon all these harmonies, no one knows how. But this is not reason; it is volition, and is not amenable to argument. If we hold the atomic theory, the only conception which can offer any reasons for itself is, that the physical mechanism depends upon a free and rational creator. Thus we supplement the design-argument, and escape its polytheistic difficulties by studying, not the adaptations of things, but a much simpler and more unquestioned fact, the interaction of things. Our method has been critical and dialectic. We set off with the formal conception of being, or substance, as the subject of activities and changes, and we found that this simple conception led, by the simplest kind of reasoning, to the conclusion that all finite things must depend upon an infinite being. And the order of nature is utterly opaque without conceiving this being as intelligent.

But our doctrine of the atoms hints at another conception of nature, according to which the atoms appear, not as substantial things, but only as modes of the activity of this all-embracing power. As such they are convenient practical fictions, but without external reality. This, too, is a possible and consistent conception. Our aim hitherto has not been to prove that atoms exist, but only to determine the way in which we must think them, if we assume them to exist. We have marked out the formal conditions which they must fulfill if they are to be adequate to the facts. But there is no proof that atoms exist, and all the facts upon which the theory is based are capable of other explanations. The capital fact upon which the theory is found

ed is, that the agent or agents which produce material phenomena work from points outward, and not continuously throughout the mass. Now shall we locate a

separate subject at each of these points from which activity proceeds? or shall we regard these discrete points as the places where one universal agent acts or manifests itself in producing material phenomena? The first is the atomic view. The second is the view which is daily becoming more common, and which represents nature as the product of a constant and orderly activity on the part of one infinite and omnipresent being. Neither view violates any law of thought, as both provide a subject for all activities. Both views make science possible, as the chief value of science consists in getting the law of phenomena, rather than in any insight into essences. It is doubtful if a decisive solution can be reached upon this point. The practical scientist will generally incline, from custom, to the reality of the atoms, while the theoretical speculator will commonly prefer to make matter a form of the infinite's activity. The atomic system cannot be worked without the omnipresent and ceaseless action of the infinite; and it seems simpler, therefore, and in every way more satisfactory, to resolve the physical system at once into the immediate activity of the infinite. The tendency to some such view is more patent in irreligious than in religious quarters. What has been materialism is rapidly passing into pantheism, and many of the evolutionists build expressly on the conception of one all-embracing force. In scientific speculations, we find the atomic and pantheistic view side by side in the same work;

and the author shifts from one to the other without any suspicion of the change of base. Accordingly, we find matter conceived of as a collection of atoms, and also as a mysterious unity. The pantheistic view, then, is possible; and this possibility brings up a new series of dangers. We have seen that the atomic theory cannot be held atheistically; but have we not, at the same time, dissolved the theory in pantheism? And this, though theoretically the antipodes of atheism, is practically the same thing. We shall see in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VII.

THEISM AND PANTHEISM.

OUR argument hitherto has been on the basis of the

atomic theory, and we have seen that the atoms cannot be regarded as independent. Along with this conclusion has arisen a doubt of their reality, for there is no sufficient proof of their existence. The question is raised, whether a single unitary agent, whose activity follows certain laws, be not a better explanation of nature. The defenders of this view divide into two schools: (1) idealists with regard to nature; and (2) thorough-going pantheists. For the first class there are created spirits and the uncreated spirit; and besides these there is no other. The whole material world is but a divine energizing under the forms of space and time. For the second class there is the one uncreated substance, and nothing else. This substance assumes various modes, but remains all and in all. With the first view we have no debate. We regard the question as incapable of decisive solution, though we think the probabilities all point to this alternative: either the atoms must be endowed with an inner life, after the fashion of Leibnitz's monads, or else they must be resolved into flowing products of the one infinite agent. The thorough-going pantheistic view, which resolves all things, matter and spirit alike, into unsubstantial

modes of the infinite, without proper power and personality, seems to us a most poverty-stricken view. The infinite chokes up the universe, and instead of producing a universe of living spirits to rejoice in its fullness and life, it can do nothing better than repeat itself to itself in a dreary, stupid, meaningless round of unfolding and infolding. Whatever of poetry there may be in pantheism lies entirely in idealism, and not in pantheism proper. The former view removes the hard angularity of mechanism, and brings the created and uncreated spirit in immediate communion. The latter view we cannot but regard as uninspiring and excessively dreary. We believe that examination will show it to be equally obnoxious to philosophical criticism.

It has always been a favorite device of pantheistic reasoners, and especially of the later German pantheists, to boast of the great philosophical superiority of pantheism over all other systems. Atheism is regarded as antiquated, and theism as anthropomorphic and superstitious. Nevertheless, pantheism has always been in unstable equilibrium over against atheism. The problem here is, to determine the relations of the finite and infinite, and pantheism has always tended to reduce the infinite to the sum of the finite, which is simple atheism. Nor does it appear to any greater advantage on the score of anthropomorphism and superstition. On the contrary, we shall find it perpetrating the vilest anthropomorphisms and the most abject superstitions. As to its arguments, we shall find them to be mainly a play on words, so that strict pantheism might not improperly be styled a disease of lan