This seems to be an unmistakable assertion that, whenever evolution is going on, mind is then and there behind it. At the close of the argument, however, a quite different conception is implied. Mr. Martineau says:
"If the Divine Idea will not retire at the bidding of our speculative science, but retain its place, it is natural to ask, What is its relation to the series of so-called Forces in the world? But the question is too large and deep to be answered here. Let it suffice to say, that there need not be any overruling of these forces by the Will of God, so that the supernatural should disturb the natural; or any supplementing of them, so that He should fill up their deficiencies. Rather is His thought related to them as, in Man, the mental force is related to all below it."
It would take too much space to deal fully with the various questions which this passage raises. There is the question, Whence come these "Forces," spoken of as separate from the "Will of God"—did they preexist? Then what becomes of the divine power? Do they exist by the divine Will? Then what kind of nature is that by which they act on the divine Will? Again, there is the question, how do these deputy-forces cooperate in each particular phenomenon, if the presiding Will is not there present to control them? Either an organ which develops into fitness for its function, develops by the cooperation of these forces only under the direction of Mind there present, or they do it in the absence of Mind? If they do it in the absence of Mind, the hypothesis is given up; and if the "originating mind" is required to be then and there present, it must be regarded as universally present. Once more there is the question, If "His thought" is related to them [these forces] as, in Man, the mental force is related to all below it, how can "His thought" be regarded as the cause of evolution? In man the mental force is related to the forces below it neither as a creator of them, nor as a regulator of them, save in a very limited way: the greater part of the forces present in man, both structural and functional, defy the mental force absolutely. Not dwelling on these questions, however, it will suffice to point out the entire incongruity of this conception with the previous conception which I have quoted. Assuming that, when the choice is pressed on him, Mr. Martineau will choose the first, which alone has any thing like defensibility, let us go on to ask how far Evolution is made comprehensible by postulating Mind, universally immanent, as its cause.
In metaphysical controversy, many of the propositions propounded and accepted as quite believable are absolutely inconceivable. There is a perpetual confusing of actual ideas with what are nothing but pseud-ideas. No distinction is made between propositions that contain real thoughts, and propositions that are only the forms of thoughts. A thinkable proposition is one of which the two terms can be brought together in consciousness under the relation said to exist between
