origin of the universe.

Another general view of God's relation to the world goes to the opposite
extreme. Instead of God doing nothing, He does everything. Second causes
have no efficiency. The laws of nature are said to be the uniform modes
of divine operation. Gravitation does not flow from the nature of
matter, but is a mode of God's uniform efficiency. What are called
chemical affinities are not due to anything in different kinds of
matter, but God always acts in one way in connection with an acid, and
in another way in connection with an alkali. If a man places a particle
of salt or sugar on his tongue, the sensation which he experiences is
not to be referred to the salt or sugar, but to God's agency. When this
theory is extended, as it generally is by its advocates, from the
external to the internal world, the universe of matter and mind, with
all their phenomena, is a constant effect of the omnipresent activity of
God. The minds of some men, as remarked above, are so constituted that
they can pass from the theory that God does nothing, to the doctrine
that He does everything, without seeing the difference. Mr. Russel
Wallace, the companion and peer of Mr. Darwin, devotes a large part of
his book on "Natural Selection," to prove that the organs of plants and
animals are formed by blind physical causes. Toward the close of the
volume he teaches that there are no such causes. He asks the question,
What is Matter? and answers, Nothing. We know, he says, nothing but
force; and as the only force of which we have any immediate knowledge
is mind-force, the inference is "that the whole universe is not merely
dependent on, but actually _is_, the will of higher intelligences, or of
one Supreme Intelligence."[5] This is a transition from virtual
materialism to idealistic pantheism. The effect of this admission on the
part of Mr. Wallace on the theory of natural selection, is what an
explosion of its boiler would be to a steamer in mid-ocean, which should
blow out its deck, sides, and bottom. Nothing would remain above water.

The Duke of Argyll seems at times inclined to lapse into the same
doctrine. "Science," he says, "in the modern doctrine of conservation of
energy and the convertibility of forces, is already getting a firm hold
of the idea, that all kinds of force are but forms of manifestations of
one central force issuing from some one fountain-head of power. Sir John
Herschel has not hesitated to say, 'that it is b