Another general view of God's relation to the world goes to the opposite
extreme. Instead of God doing nothing, He does everything. Second causes
have no efficiency. The laws of nature are said to be the uniform modes
of divine operation. Gravitation does not flow from the nature of
matter, but is a mode of God's uniform efficiency. What are called
chemical affinities are not due to anything in different kinds of
matter, but God always acts in one way in connection with an acid, and
in another way in connection with an alkali. If a man places a particle
of salt or sugar on his tongue, the sensation which he experiences is
not to be referred to the salt or sugar, but to God's agency. When this
theory is extended, as it generally is by its advocates, from the
external to the internal world, the universe of matter and mind, with
all their phenomena, is a constant effect of the omnipresent activity of
God. The minds of some men, as remarked above, are so constituted that
they can pass from the theory that God does nothing, to the doctrine
that He does everything, without seeing the difference. Mr. Russel
Wallace, the companion and peer of Mr. Darwin, devotes a large part of
his book on "Natural Selection," to prove that the organs of plants and
animals are formed by blind physical causes. Toward the close of the
volume he teaches that there are no such causes.
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