Thus, to sum up the foregoing premises: in society, between two or more individuals, there is at work a mysterious energy, not unlike that of force between molecules or life in the organism; this social energy is under intelligent governance, not fortuitous nor causeless, but reducible to fixed law, and capable of being wrought into a science; is, moreover, a vital actuality, not an incident nor an accident, but an entity, as attraction and repulsion are entities; under this agency society, perforce, develops like the plant from a germ. This energy acts on the intellect, and through the intellect on the organism; acts independently of the will, and cannot be created or destroyed by man; is not found in the brute creation, is not transmittable by generation through individuals, is wrought out by man as a free-will agent, though acting unconsciously, and is the product alike of good and evil. * * * * * [Sidenote: CAUSES OF MAN'S DEVELOPMENT.] As to the causes which originate progressional phenomena there are differences of opinion. One sees in the intellect the germ of an eternal unfolding; another recognizes in the soul-element the vital principle of progress, and attributes to religion all the benefits of enlightenment; one builds a theory on the ground-work of a fundamental and innate morality; another discovers in the forces of nature the controlling influence upon man's destiny; while yet others, as we have seen, believe accumulative and inherent nervous force to be the media through which culture is transmitted. Some believe that moral causes create the physical, others that physical causes create the moral. Thus Mr Buckle attempts to prove that man's development is wholly dependent upon his physical surroundings. Huxley points to a system of reflex actions,--mind acting on matter, and matter on mind,--as the possible culture-basis. Darwin advances the doctrine of an evolution from vivified matter as the principle of progressive development. In the transmution of nerve-element from parents to children, Bagehot sees "the continuous force which binds age to age, which enables each to begin with some improvement on the last, if the last did itself improve; which makes each civilization not a set of detached dots, but a line of color, surely enhancing shade by shade." Some see in human progress the ever-ruling hand of a divine providence, others the results of man's skill; with some it is free will, with others necessity; some believe that intellectual development springs from better systems of government, others that wealth lies at the foundation of all culture; every philosopher recognizes some cause, invents some system, or brings human actions under the dominion of some species of law.