the practical worth of philosophical thinking. Hence, too, the value of silence, of sufficient repose to enable a man to realise the meaning, the spirit of what he believes.

For this inquiry the reader needs no other equipment than he already possesses. Each of us is feeling, acting, living amidst the great stream of events which we call "experience." Yonder are the fields and the hills. Above is the fair, blue sky. Near at hand are the houses of friends and neighbours—theatres of fascinating interests. Within the mind there are passing thoughts and varying emotions. Implied in all these transient mental states are the habits by which we have developed, and the convictions which underlie our conduct. The essential is to awaken to consciousness of this surging play of circumstance, discover how we are taking it, and consider how we may become more wisely adjusted. This is to enter more fully into the spirit of the age, to become philosophers of evolution in a yet profounder sense. For it shows not only how experience leads to experience, but even how thought follows thought. Thus we may enter into the fulness of life as it passes, and by this profounder mastery win the greater repose. And he who can break away from the age sufficiently to meditate upon it in peace is indeed ready to apprehend its finest values, to live in it yet not of it.

CHAPTER II

THE IMMANENT GOD

T is characteristic of empiricists to make as few assumptions as possible, to plunge into life and begin to philosophise. All that need be said at the outset is that one finds one's self existing in the world, with a deep desire to understand the nature and meaning of life. Where the world came from, one cannot now say. The important consideration is that it somehow came, and with it this strange being called one's "self." If we do not yet see the rationale of it, we at any rate possess the wonderful gift known as "experience." Wherever we begin to rationalise, we shall come out at the same point, and ask the same questions, if we persist until we discover ultimate principles. It is usual to begin an inquiry into the nature of experience by analysing the presentations of consciousness. But as we are in the first place interested to apply the empirical method, it is desirable to begin with a well-known argument and note the changes which practical empiricism brings about in all our thinking. In no respect has the critical empirical method wrought a greater

2

change than in regard to the argument for the existence of God. Hence it is the understanding of the change thus wrought that most readily prepares the way for what is to follow.

It has long been customary, for example, to support the argument for God's existence by an appeal to the sequence of certain causal phenomena. From the fact of causation in general it seems to be an easy step to the proof that God is the "first cause." For example, it is plain that when a message is flashed over the wires from town to town, or when the electric car transports us through the city streets, an efficient cause has produced the effect which serves us so readily. The rapidity with which the effect results does not deceive us. We may know little about the force in question; but we know that it acts in unvarying accordance with certain laws, the understanding of which enables us to control it. We learn further that every cause has its antecedent. The electricity is generated by the aid of energy derived primarily from the sun. The motion of the ship, as it sails before the wind, is likewise traceable from wind to sun, from the sun to the primal source of motion in the universe at large. And we stop here only because we know not the antecedent of this first activity.

The chain of causes and effects is in reality endless. Without a cause nothing can happen,

nothing could ever have happened; and with eternally active causes in the world something must always happen. Every cause, every effect, every event in the history of the universe and in our own physical existence, is inseparably connected with this infinite series, extending far back into the irrevocable past, and potentially related to an ever-dawning future.

Yet, if we ask, What does this endless causal series signify? When did cause and effect begin? it is clear that the mere possession of such a series is of slight consequence. For there is no point at which thought can stop and declare, This cause is fmal; before its appearance there was no activity. A merely temporal beginning of events is unintelligible. The utmost that one can allege is that there must be one all-embracing series of causes and effects which has existed eternally, a series of which our world is a part and of which all future activity will be an outgrowth. Yet, if the temporal chain of causes and effects must have a ground other than itself, if God could not have been a merely temporal creator, we must look beyond causation altogether to find the true reality of things.

In order to test this reasoning, try for a moment to conceive of the universe as an absolute void, then imagine the creation of something or of some being in this mere emptiness. Such an event is

utterly inconceivable, since something could not be a product of nothing, and every result must have an efficient and substantial basis. If, then, something can neither be made from nothing, nor something become non-existent, the sum total of substance would seem to be ultimately the same. It can be modified, evolved, or dissolved, but must itself have an eternal basis.

Try now to imagine a condition of things in which there should be no motion, and conceive the beginning of motion in the illimitable and perfectly inert universe which you have conjured from the fanciful deep. Once more the attempt is futile. Absolute and universal rest, like a perfect void, is inconceivable. Something moving would be needed wherewith to start motion, as something substantial must have existed before a new product could result. If only one particle moved, then something moving must have caused its motion; and, if it moved once only, all existing particles would undoubtedly be set in motion in the course of time. Motion could not cease, since only a moving power could stop it, and there would be no power to stop this inhibiting force.

The cessation of motion, then, like its inception, is unthinkable. If it were not continuous, eternal, it apparently could never have become a fact. Moreover, motion implies not only a continuous, all-embracing series of causes and effects, but the