"[4]
Mr. Spencer, therefore, in accounting for the origin of the universe and
all its phenomena, physical, vital, and mental, rejects Theism, or the
doctrine of a personal God, who is extramundane as well as antemundane,
the creator and governor of all things; he rejects Pantheism, which
makes the finite the existence-form of the Infinite; he rejects Atheism,
which he understands to be the doctrine of the eternity and
self-existence of matter and force. He contents himself with saying we
must acknowledge the reality of an unknown something which is the cause
of all things,--the noumenon of all phenomena. "If science and religion
are to be reconciled, the basis of the reconciliation must be this
deepest, widest, and most certain of all facts,--that the Power which
the universe manifests is utterly inscrutable." (p. 46). "The ultimate
of ultimates is Force." "Matter and motion, as we know them, are
differently conditioned manifestations of force." "If, to use an
algebraic illustration, we represent Matter, Motion, and Force, by the
symbols _x_, _y_, _z_; then we may ascertain the values of _x_ and _y_
in terms of _z_, but the value of _z_ can never be found; _z_ is the
unknown quantity, which must forever remain unknown, for the obvious
reason that there is nothing in which its value can be expressed." (pp.
169, 170).
We have, then, no God but Force.
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