thought; while admitting that "the production of
consciousness by molecular action is quite as inconceivable on
mechanical principles as the production of molecular action by
consciousness."[4]

The bearing of all this upon the question of Design was plain, for, if
thought and intention are the outcome and result of the mechanical
operations of Nature, it might well seem to follow that mind {32} had
been removed from its high place as the dominant and directing power.

But these difficulties with which the theologian was thus confronted in
respect of a First Cause and the recognition of Design, were even less
formidable than those which were arrayed under the other heads that we
have enumerated. It was Huxley who invented the term Agnosticism to
describe the position of such of his contemporaries as were not
inclined to deny that there was a great Power at work behind the
phenomena of the Universe, but were not prepared to admit that this
Power could be any degree comprehensible by us. The most systematic
exponent of this view was Herbert Spencer. He allowed that we are
obliged to refer the phenomenal world and its law and order to a First
Cause. "And the First Cause," he said, "must be in every sense
perfect, complete, total--including within itself all power, and
transcending all law." But he insisted that, "it cannot in any manner
or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing."[5] Elsewhere he
suggested that it may belong to "a mode of being as much transcending
intelligence and will as these transcend mechanical motion." "Our only
conception of what we know as Mind in ourselves is the {33} conception
of a series of states of consciousness." "How," he asked, "is the
'originating Mind' to be thought of as having states produced by things
objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing
them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to
another."[6] It was by a similar line of reasoning that Romanes
reached the like conclusions.[7] "In my opinion," he said, "no
explanation of natural order can either be conceived or named other
than that of intelligence as the supreme directing cause." But "this
cause must be widely different from anything that we know of Mind in
ourselves." "If such a Mind exists, it is not conceivable as existing,
and we are precluded from assigning to it any attributes."

It was obvious that, if no satisfactory reply were forthcoming to such
a c