ll explanations are utterly unintelligible without the idea of
causation. The language of universal rational intuition is, "all
phenomena are the expression of power;" the language of science is,
"every law implies a force."

[Footnote 254: See Grote's "Essay on Correlation of Physical Forces,"
pp. 18-20; and Martineau's "Essays," p. 135.]

[Footnote 255: "Gravity is a real _power_ of whose agency we have daily
experience."--Herschel, "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 236.]

[Footnote 256: Martineau's "Essays," p. 56.]

It is furthermore worthy of being noted that, in the modern doctrine of
the Correlation and Conservation of Forces, science is inevitably
approaching the idea that all kinds of force are but forms or
manifestations of some _one_ central force issuing from some _one_
fountain-head of power. Dr. Carpenter, perhaps the greatest living
physiologist, teaches that "the form of force _which may be taken as the
type of all the rest_" is the consciousness of living effort in
volition.[257] All force, then, is of one type, and that type is mind;
in its last analysis external causation may be resolved into Divine
energy. Sir John Herschel does not hesitate to say that "it is
reasonable to regard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect
result of a consciousness or will exerted somewhere."[258] The humble
Christian may, therefore, feel himself amply justified in still
believing that "power belongs to God;" that it is through the Divine
energy "all things are, and are upheld;" and that "in God we live, and
move, and have our being;" he is the Great First Cause, the
Fountain-head of all power.

[Footnote 257: "Human Physiology," p. 542.]

[Footnote 258: "Outlines of Astronomy," p. 234.]

2. _As to Final Causes_--that is, reasons, purposes, or ends _for_ which
things exist--these, we are told by Comte, are all "disproved" by
Positive Science, which rigidly limits us to "the history of _what is_,"
and forbids all inquiry into reasons _why it is_. The question whether
there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the
universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it
has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over
the facts, and led the inquirer astray.

The discoveries of modern astronomy are specially instanced by Comte as
completely overthrowing the notion of any conscious design or
intelligent purpose in the universe. The order and stability