What, then, is the alternative view? It is the utter rejection with Berkeley and with Swedenborg of the independent existence of matter and the real efficient agency of natural forces. It is the frank return to the old idea of direct divine agency, but in a new, more rational, less anthropomorphic form. It is the bringing together and complete reconciliation of the two apparently antagonistic and mutually excluding views of _direct agency_ and _natural law_. Such reconciliation we have already seen is the true test of a rational philosophy. It is the belief in a God not far away beyond our reach, who once long ago enacted laws and created forces which continue of themselves to run the machine we call Nature, but a God _immanent_, a God resident _in_ Nature, at all times and in all places directing every event and determining every phenomena--a God in whom in the most literal sense not only we but all things have their being, in whom all things consist, through whom all things exist, and without whom there would be and could be nothing. According to this view the phenomena of Nature are naught else than objectified modes of divine thought, the forces of Nature naught else than different forms of one omnipresent divine energy or will, the laws of Nature naught else than the regular modes of operation of that divine will, invariable because He is unchangeable. According to this view the law of gravitation is naught else than the mode of operation of the divine energy in sustaining the cosmos--the divine method of sustentation; the law of evolution naught else than the mode of operation of the same divine energy in originating and developing the cosmos--the divine method of creation; and Science is the systematic knowledge of these divine thoughts and ways--a rational system of natural theology. In a word, according to this view, there is no real efficient force but spirit, and no real _independent_ existence but God. But some will object that this is pure _Idealism_. Yes, but far different from what usually goes under that name. The ideal philosophy as usually understood regards the external world as having no real objective existence outside of _ourselves_--as objectified mental states of the _observer_--as literally such stuff as dreams are made of--as a mere phantasmagoria of trooping shadows having no real existence but in the mind of the dreamer, and each dreamer makes his own world. Not so in the idealism above presented. According to _this_ the external world is the objectified modes, not of the mind of the observer, but of the mind of God. According to this, the external world is not a mere unsubstantial figment or dream, but for _us_ a very substantial objective reality surrounding us and conditioning us on every side.