itself unaffected by the many changes which take place around us. Among the many theories which infidels have profounded, one of the most common is that which declares that life is the result of organization. This argument, like many others, is only an old one with a modern dress. We find in Plato's "Phaedo," that when Simmias argued against the immortality of the soul, the wise and good Socrates opposed him, proving that the soul existed before the body, as shown by the fact of pre-existent ideas. For example, the idea of goodness must necessarily exist, before we are able to form an opinion {206} concerning goodness. Infidels tell us that the idea of virtue is merely the harmony of the soul; but if the soul itself is only the "harmonious result of organization," then virtue is simply the harmony of a harmony, which is absurd. Socrates further showed that parts of the soul may be opposed to each other, as desire and reason, for example; and this fact overthrows the idea of harmony. Thus even a pagan philosopher could deal fatal blows against the positivism of his age as well as against the pretended wisdom of the nineteenth century. Some tell that "no idea or feeling can arise, save as the result of some physical force expended in producing it." That because light, heat, electricity and motion are closely related, therefore they are the cause of life. As well might we say that the art and skill observed in a beautiful building were the offspring of the house itself, or that the architect was the result of a beautiful suite of rooms. In other words, the relation of cause and effect are completely reversed. Yet we are told that heat, motion, electricity and chemical affinity are the causes of mental and moral action. This principle is even applied to the progress of civilization, and the statistics of crime; and Mr Herbert Spencer has made it the foundation of his new system of philosophy. Stripped of its parade and tinsel, however, this theory is nothing but the old pantheism revived. It is the desperate effort of infidelity to press into its service the researches of modern physiology and anatomy, as has formerly been tried with {207} astronomy and geology; but each of these sciences refuses an alliance with skepticism, and incontrovertibly points to a Creator and a spiritual world. Let the honest skeptic inquire, "How do these theories explain the cause of life? Do they show us a single reason why some parts of matter become organized and others do not? Do they make plain why one cell develops a vegetable and another an animal, no perceptible difference existing between them, and the circumstances of each being the same except originating from different parentage? Can these philosophers tell us what they mean by physical force? Is it matter; or is it a creative power, or energy added to matter?"