d that issues were being raised which were more vital
for them than for any other students of the problems of existence.

When we thus speak of men of science and men of religion we do not mean
to imply that there were two distinct classes which could be sharply
divided. By no means. It was not so much that there were two camps as
that there were two positions, with much passing to and fro between
them, and the {28} keenest interest and anxiety felt on both sides as
to what the future might have to bring of widening divergence or
ultimate reconciliation.

There could be no doubt at all that most formidable questions had to be
faced and answered. These were the chief of them:--

Is it any longer necessary, or even possible, to insist upon a First
Cause for all that exists? Can the argument from Design be said to
retain its validity as a proof of the working of a controlling Mind?
If we admit the evidence for the existence of a Creator, can we know
anything about Him? Can we, in particular, still assert with any
confidence that He is good?

Let us take the questions in order and give the replies that were made
to them from the different sides. And, first of all, from the side of
negation.

The number of those who directly denied that there must have been a
First Cause were very few. But there were many who did their utmost to
discredit the idea as due to what they held to be an illegitimate
deduction from our limited human experiences. Others were disposed to
quarrel with the word "Cause" altogether, and to dispute the propriety
of its employment.

They wished to banish it altogether from the scientific vocabulary, and
to substitute for the terms {29} cause and effect, antecedent and
consequent, reducing causation to conjunction. But it was generally
admitted that, where we have to deal with an invariable antecedent
followed by an invariable consequent, nothing was to be gained by a
change in the common phraseology. John Stuart Mill refused to abandon
the word. Speaking of one who had done so, he said, "I consider him to
be entirely wrong." "The beginning of a phenomenon is what implies a
Cause."[1] There were, he allowed, "permanent causes," but, he added,
"we can give no account of the origin of the permanent causes"--which
was virtually to abandon the subject as being beyond the domain of
science.

In regard to the second question, it very soon became evident that the
old views of Design would be