tter and its supposed inherent forces, or distinct
from and co-existent with it;--and to be able to substitute for this
complicated theory, which leads to endless dilemmas and contradictions,
the far simpler and more consistent belief, that matter, as an entity
distinct from force, does not exist; and that FORCE is a product of
MIND. Philosophy had long demonstrated our incapacity to prove the
existence of matter, as usually conceived; while it admitted the
demonstration to each of us of our own self-conscious, ideal existence.
Science has now worked its way up to the same result, and this agreement
between them should give us some confidence in their combined teaching.

The view we have now arrived at seems to me more grand and sublime, as
well as far simpler, than any other. It exhibits the universe, as a
universe of intelligence and will-power; and by enabling us to rid
ourselves of the impossibility of thinking of mind, but as connected
with our old notions of matter, opens up infinite possibilities of
existence, connected with infinitely varied manifestations of force,
totally distinct from, yet as real as, what we term matter.

The grand law of continuity which we see pervading our universe, would
lead us to infer infinite gradations of existence, and to people all
space with intelligence and will-power; and, if so, we have no
difficulty in believing that for so noble a purpose as the progressive
development of higher and higher intelligences, those primal and general
will-forces, which have sufficed for the production of the lower
animals, should have been guided into new channels and made to converge
in definite directions. And if, as seems to me probable, this has been
done, I cannot admit that it in any degree affects the truth or
generality of Mr. Darwin's great discovery. It merely shows, that the
laws of organic development have been occasionally used for a special
end, just as man uses them for his special ends; and, I do not see that
the law of "natural selection" can be said to be disproved, if it can be
shown that man does not owe his entire physical and mental development
to its unaided action, any more than it is disproved by the existence of
the poodle or the pouter pigeon, the production of which may have been
equally beyond its undirected power.

The objections which in this essay I have taken, to the view,--that the
same law which appears to have sufficed for the development of animals,
has been