iffers from that admitted by science in recognizing as a
possible efficient motor that which is incapable of mathematical
expression, namely, a volition, a will. _Voluntas Dei asylum
ignorantiae_, is no unkind description of such an opinion.

So long as this recognition is essential to the life of a religious
system, just so long it will and must be in conflict with science, with
every prospect of the latter gaining the victory. Is the belief in
volition as an efficient cause indispensable to the religious sentiment
in general? For this vital question we are not yet prepared, but must
first consider the remaining rational postulates it assumes. The second
is

II. This order is one of intelligence.

By this is not meant that the order is one of _an_ Intelligence, but
simply that the order which exists in things is conformable to man's
thinking power,--that if he knows the course of events he can appreciate
their relations,--that facts can be subsumed under thoughts. Whatever
scheme of order there were, would be nothing to him unless it were
conformable to his intellectual functions. It could not form the matter
of his thought.[94-1]

Science, which deals in the first instance exclusively with phenomena,
also assumes this postulate. It recognizes that when the formal laws,
which it is its mission to define, are examined apart from their
material expression, when they are emptied of their phenomenal contents,
they show themselves to be logical constructions, reasoned truths, in
other words, forms of intelligence. The votary who assumes the order one
of volition alone, or volition with physical necessity, still assumes
the volitions are as comprehensible as are his own; that they are
purposive; that the order, even if not clear to him, is both real and
reasonable. Were it not so, did he believe that the gods carried out
their schemes through a series of caprices inconceivable to
intelligence, through absolute chance, insane caprice, or blind fate, he
could neither see in occurrences the signs of divine rule, nor hope for
aid in obtaining his wishes. In fact, order is only conceivable to man
at all as an order conformable to his own intelligence.

This second postulate embraces what has been recently called the
"Principle of continuity," indispensable to sane thought of any kind. A
late work defines it as "the trust that the Supreme Governor of the
Universe will not put us to permanent intellectual confusion."[96-1]
Lo