Ask the unbeliever, the materialist, what this vital principle is, and he answers: "It is the all-pervading force that is modified by the organic structure." That is, in his philosophy, the "vital force is produced by the organism," and the "organism is produced by the vital principle?" So, being at the last limit of the physical analysis of the organic being, he is involved in a contradiction, while the Christian who believes in a spiritual substance refers all to spirit, and claims a continuation of his identity as an intelligent spirit, resting in his ultimate or starting point, viz: God. Do you say I am lost in God? Well, to be thus lost in God is to be saved from corruption and from the dust of the grave; but to be lost in the dust of the grave and in the ceaseless changes of matter is to be lost to God and to spiritual being. Let me be with God rather than lost amid the dark waves of oblivion.
Has science no prerogatives above the physical? Tread lightly here; you might step on holy ground. Do you use the old cry that all outside of matter belongs to the "unknown" and "unknowable?" Exchange the terms for the terms the "uncomprehended" and the "incomprehensible," and we will walk side by side. We know many things which we do not comprehend. Do we comprehend all that belongs to the physical sciences? Do we comprehend matter? I know that I know, but do I comprehend that knowledge? If I should say I know the unknowable, I am guilty of a contradiction in language. Do you say matter is infinite? Can I comprehended the infinite? If science be that certain knowledge which is the equivalent of comprehension, then one of two things is true: First, there is no such thing as physical science; or, secondly, I may have certain knowledge of the infinite—may comprehend the infinite. How is this? Where is the difficulty? It is here: the knowledge which constitutes science is not necessarily that knowledge which is the equivalent of the comprehension of the thing known. Hence the incomprehensible is not to be excluded from the field of scientific investigation. If matter be infinite, and if it belongs to the field of scientific knowledge, then the infinite and incomprehensible belong, also, to the domain of scientific investigation. If the infinite can not be comprehended, matter can not be comprehended, and if all that can not be comprehended should be dismissed from scientific investigation, then matter should be dismissed.
In physical science we know the vital force exists which builds the germ and sperm cells, but we do not comprehend it. If you ask physical science to explain this invisible force or power, she will say, Gentlemen, I have given you an introduction to this wonderful builder; you see it is there at the threshold of organic being, but I can not tell you why it is there, nor what its properties are; if it has any, they are outside of my domain. I deal with matter. You must ask at the gate of the unseen, ask the science of the spiritual, the mental and vital. I am in wonderful contrast with mind, with life also. I am inertia. Some of my votaries have tried to give you the answer which you so much desire. They have said, "It is the all-pervading force which was lying away back in the antechambers of eternity." Have said, "It was burdened with a universe of worlds." Have said, "It was destitute of personality." Have said, "It was not, and is not, an intelligence." Have said, "It was without will, purpose or desire." Have said, "All beauty, harmony and order were its results." Have also said, "It was," away back in the ages past, groaning and heaving, travailing, in great anxiety to be delivered. Speaking of it in the light of "natural selection," they have deified it, giving to it all the mental operations of an intelligent, living God. On this account some of my lovers are Pantheists. They deify nature; deify everything, and call it all God. A few ignorant Christians, on this very account, are ready to give up their warfare with Pantheists. But the battle is not won because the word "God" is pronounced; for sober reason says, If nature is all God, she is a God, who is no God; or a nature without a God, just as you choose to express it. After all, it remains an axiom, that "you can not get more out of a thing than there is in it." So, of necessity, there must be, somewhere in this universe, Eternal life and mind. Reader, "how readest thou?"
BLIND FORCE OR INTELLIGENCE, WHICH?
In the discussion of this question I think it proper to submit a few axiomatic or common-sense truths which are universally admitted by the unbiased mind.
First. "Every effect must have a cause."
Secondly. "Every series must have a unit lying at its base."
Thirdly. "In every beginning there must be that which began."
Fourthly. "Something is eternal."