a phenomenon is not its essential cause, but the condition of the operativeness of a certain law which expresses a method of activity of essential cause. The notion of metaphysical cause is therefore the underlying ground of all the ultimate conceptions of science.

That notion, in spite of the formal restriction of the logic of science, has found constant expression in scientific language under the name of force. This, like the assumed atom and molecule of physics, the ethereal medium and the ultimate incompressibility of matter, is a purely metaphysical conception. It is a name which the necessities of thinking have impelled us to adopt for the efficiency transmitted from or through the phenomenon which stands in the place of invariable antecedent. Yet there are questions still deeper which offer themselves as subjects of analytic thought. Is force an entity or an attribute? If an entity, is it self-acting or subordinated? If subordinated, what is the nature of the power which subordinates it? If self-acting, then the discernment and design revealed in the results of its activity are attributes which characterize a demiurge. But, if we say force is an entity which produces results, what is the means by which it produces them? Are not all results produced by force, and is not our reasoning thus reduced to the proposition that the entity force employs force to produce results? This proposition is unintelligible, and shows that the conception of force as an entity is absurd. Force is an attribute.

But, if force must be conceived as an attribute, what is the nature of its subject? What is it which exerts or manifests force? To say that the attribute force exerts itself is to make it both attribute and subject. Something which is not force, but which is capable of exerting force, is therefore necessarily implied in the conception of force. Is matter the subject? Then, first, it is a subject which thinks and purposes; for the results of force are thoughtful and purposive, and matter does thus possess a "power and potency" of psychic results. But, secondly, we are not certain that matter possesses a subjective nature. We only know matter phenomenally, and it may easily be that phenomena constitute all there is of matter in itself. Yet phenomena are manifestations of something possessing the power to produce them. The phenomena which we cognize as matter are manifestations of force. If there be no subject matter, there must be some other subject revealing itself in the phenomena which we group under the designation of matter. We are driven, then, to the recognition of an intelligent subject as the ground of the attribute of force manifesting its activ

ities in the being of what we call matter, as well as in the changes which are impressed upon matter.

The inquiry does not end even here; for it remains to ascertain what is the mode of origin of force from its subject. What is the method by which the subject reveals the attribute of force? Is forceful emanation from the subject an unconscious and continuous necessity of its being; or is it a conscious and voluntary activity? If necessary, then some higher power has imposed the necessity; if unconscious, then some higher intelligence directs according to the laws of conscious thought; for coördination of products implies at least two things consciously apprehended both in their separateness and in their relation; unconscious intelligence is a nugatory expression, for consciousness is the prime moment of intelligence. If forceful manifestations are effected through the method of volition, then the subject which constitutes the ground of all cosmical force is possessed of will as well as intellect and susceptibility to motive, and is consequently a personal entity-an entity thinking, feeling, and willing with reference to that which is not itself.

Finally, all the distinctive doctrinal enunciations of modern science are conclusions which reach beyond the peculiar domain of science. One class of these is constituted of applications of the metaphysical principle of continuity, through which is deduced the evolution of the forms of inorganic matter from a primitive homogeneous state, and also the forms of organic matter from a primitive vitalized plasma. Another class is a body of enunciations respecting the causation of origins. The method and order of origins are the subject of legitimate scientific research, but essential causes, as we have stated, lie quite within the region of the metaphenomenal.

It appears, therefore, as Lewes states, that "the fundamental ideas of modern science are as transcendental as any of the axioms of ancient philosophy," and that "every physical problem involves metempirical elements." All the fundamental conceptions of science-self, substance, cause, force, life, order, law, purpose, relation, unity, identity, continuity, evolution, natural selection, species, genus, order, class-are purely metaphysical concepts or ideas. These are not the objects of sensible perception, like the phenomenal data of science, but are apprehended by the rational insight. Many of them are the logical antecedents and necessary conditions of the possibility of experience. They precede and legitimate all our cognitions and judgments concerning the sensible world, and act as the

constitutive and coördinating principles among our sensations. They render possible the logical contemplation and intelligent penetration of nature. They constitute the bond of consistence and coherence in the fabric of science, and illume the system of the cosmos with the supernal light of thought.

The foregoing suggestions are intended to reveal clearly to the intelligent reader the existence of a realm of legitimate thought deeper than the data of physical science; presupposed, indeed, by all the logic of science, and sole sponsor for all the validity which the principles of science can ever acquire. The effect is not to impair the authority of science, but to rationalize it and purge it of empiricism and dogmatism. The moral is, that science, from its platform, is not competent to utter conclusions on themes which lie over in the realm of metaphysics; but, when it gives utterances, either affirmative or negative, on questions essentially metaphenomenal, it must proceed from the axioms of metaphysics, and not from the inductions based on sensible phenomena.

ALEXANDER WINCHELL.

THE PERMANENCE OF POLITICAL FORCES.

PART II.

DURING the civil war, and immediately at its close, the financial questions determined were of as great importance as or greater than any now before the country; but they were then overshadowed by graver interests. To-day, fiscal affairs make a leading issue in party politics. The main question awaiting decision is a plain one : Shall the circulating medium of the country be of the precious metals, or shall it be of inconvertible paper? This is the real issue. Its decision will decide the numerous intermediary schemes which have been invented to avoid the main question; and we shall greatly delude ourselves if we suppose that any point of rest will be found short of it. Neither of the two chief political parties can be said to be solidly united for or against either proposition. Neither, therefore, could at this time go into a Presidential election with financial questions as the main issues, with the certainty that all its forces would be in line. Something of the strength of both would be drawn to a third party, if such there was, which represented paper money pure and simple. Such a party has come into existence during the past four years. It was almost inevitable that it should as soon as fiscal systems became leading issues, and neither of the two chief parties made inconvertible paper the financial plank of its platform. The Greenback, or National party, then, being an independent organization, its future must be considered by the light of the law of growth of third parties, which is invariable, and may stated thus: Since the two principal parties each represent the whole scheme of political government, though different principles of it, they represent generally that particular element or interest in it which the third party represents specially. This third party must continue to increase, with more or less disturbance of the main bodies, until a decisive point is reached. When this has been attained, it

be

either expires, and its individual parts are reabsorbed in the two principal parties, or it itself absorbs that one of these with which it has most affinity. Whether it does the one thing or the other depends in the main upon the nature of the interest it represents. A party formed upon an issue broad enough to cause a civil war has one sufficiently broad to absorb one of the preëxisting parties; while another, having its cause of being solely in the idea that an accident of nativity should be the qualification for suffrage, passes away with no other than a third-party record.

It is clear that we have to consider, in view of this law, whether the issue upon which the Greenback or National party is formed be such a one as may threaten the existence of either the Republican or Democratic party; whether, in fact, either of them shall cease to be, and thereafter parties be National and something else. The issue presented is certainly not so new to the country as was Knownothingism, since in this year of grace it can claim the respectable age of one hundred and ninety years. It had its birth in Massachusetts in 1690, and during the course of its long and eventful life has plagued this nation more persistently than any other upon which political parties have differed. It has come up in every conceivable variety of form; it fomented violent disputes among the people, and between the people and the royal Government when the country was colonial; it was one of the leading economic causes of the Revolution; it played a prominent and disastrous part in the War of Independence; it made havoc in our domestic affairs. after independence was achieved; it was one of the chief obstacles to the acceptance of the Constitution; it survived its adoption, which was thought to have killed it, and, entering on a new career in different shape, it disturbed the country under President Madison; it convulsed it under President Jackson; it worried and distracted it more or less nearly down to the accession of President Lincoln; it then underwent a transformation or retransformation back to its old and worst form; and here it is to-day, as active, threatening, and troublesome as ever. There is no getting rid of it. It will not down. Its persistency as a disturbing force is beyond that of any other single cause.

And, again, as to the various forms of paper money, and their effects, we have tested the working of every one to the last extreme. We have had paper money in every shape, and issued for every variety of purpose, that the history of finance shows to be known to any country in the world. There has been inconvertible and con