The Modern Theory of Forces [pp. 389-408]

THE
PRESBYTERIAN QUARThRLY
AND
PRINCETON REvIEw.
NEW~SERIES, No. i5.-JULY, I87~.
Art. 1.-THE MODERN THEORY OF FORCES.
II. - -
By C. B. WELCH, LL.D., Union College.
IN a former article, we examined the modern theory of forces
in the light of its own definitions, its consequences, and its confessions. We found the definitions to be confused and contra.
dictory; we cited, from Spencer and Bastian and others, confessions of inconclusiveness and invalidity, and pursued the theory
to some of its inevitable consequences of matenalism and fatal.
ism. In the present article,~we purpose to consider this theory
in reference to life and mind, and examine it in' the light of
cQnsciousness, reason, and revelation. First, in reference t6
mind. -
In this higher field of observation the subject is psychicaL,
not physical, else it were the same field still, language itself
were false, consciousness itself deceptive, and the term correlation meaningless, and all measurement impracticable (for matter
can not measure itself), and all knowledge impossible, for there
would be nothing that could know, perhaps nothing that could
be known. Who, at least, could say that there would be any.
thing that could be known? This alternative would prove more
disastrous to the supporters of this theory than to admit the
existence of mind. In this higher field, then, the subject is