The renovators of philosophy were (as Mr. Leslie Ellis remarks) strongly inclined to this belief, its typical teacher being Campanella. Leibniz points out with his usual energy its affinity with the Scholastic doctrine of "substantial forms"—(a very different theory from Bacon's) "formas quasdam substantiales ejusmodi sibi imaginatus videtur, quæ per se sint causa motus in corporibus, quemadmodum Scholastici capiunt;" and proceeds to say, "ita reditur ad tot deunculos, quot formas substantiales, et Gentilem prope polytheismum.... Quum tamen revera in natura nulla sit sapientia, nullus appetitus, ordo vero pulcher ex eo oriatur, quia est horologium Dei." Leibnitii Opera Philosophica, Ed. Erdmann, pp. 52-3.
[197] "Easiest" is here and elsewhere used to mean that which accounts in the most natural and perfect manner alike for a single fact and for the complex whole of facts presented to us. Such an "easiest account" is the law of Gravitation—it is at once the simplest and the most complete.
[198] Fragments of Science, p. 88.
[199] Struck it so truly that (to borrow Mr. Huxley's expression) a sufficient Intelligence might have predicted the Universe. But what an infinitude of knowledge would this "sufficiency" seem to presuppose!
[ax] Taking an optical structure of the Eye as a test example, the chances of its Evolution per accidens have been calculated by an eminent mathematician. His results may be seen in the Additional Note appended to this Chapter. They are extracted from the Hulsean Lectures for 1867.
[ay] For example:—No one holds the doctrine of Natural Selection more firmly than Mr. Wallace;—he is, in fact, known to have anticipated the Darwinian theory of Evolution. But he also holds that Natural Selection cannot account for certain of the physical peculiarities of Man; much less for his consciousness, his language, his moral sense, or his Volition.
Mr. Wallace maintains likewise that
(1) Atoms are centres of Force.
(2) Force is known to us as Will.
(3) The Will that governs the world is the Will of higher intelligences or of one supreme Intelligence.
He quotes, as representing his own thought, the following lines from an American poetess:—
"God of the Granite and the Rose!