The Collapse of the Faith [pp. 164-184]

THE PRINCE TON RE VIEW.
have learned by processes as simple as they are daring to interpret the constituents of the nearest and the remotest of the
stars. Many of the forces and agents which we had counted
as diverse we have learned to regard as one. We can even
convert the one into the other backwards and forwards, forwards.
and backwards, till they seem to assume the arts and ways of a
mocking and mischief-loving Proteus. And yet we have learned
to predict and trace his arts and ways so far as to have found
the expression and condition of each form of force in some
mode or rate of molecular action. Molecular action, again, we
have connected with the motion of masses and to this have
found affinities in the undulating light and in the supposed
throbbing and heat-bearing ether. We have concluded by legitimate theorizing that the so-called physical forces are correlated
by a common measure or by mensurable motion, and that the
agents or atoms which defy the discernment of the senses,
whether differing in quantity only or also in quality, do yet
perform their several functions after common relations of number and proportion.
We have learned far more than this. The observed interchange of material forces very naturally enforced attention to
the possible interdependence and reciprocal action of the several parts and agents of the physical universe. It has forced
science to recognize the universe itself as an organism of co-acting and conspiring parts, each of which must act with and upon
all the rest, and in turn be acted on by each and all, in order
that any one may perform its humblest or its noblest office.
This relationship, which had always been more or less distinctly
recognized in the sphere of life, and which has given its plausibility and charm to pantheism in its grosser and more spiritual
forms, had struggled almost in vain to find a place within the
domain of the inorganic until the doctrine of the correlation of
force flung the door widely open for its admission. This gave
it authority and prestige with a class of scientists who would
otherwise have rejected it as utterly strange to the traditions
and axioms of the mechanical philosophy. With organic relations a way was also opened for development or evolution. These
were first limited to the familiar processes of growth from
simpler to more complex forms and from humbler to nobler
I72