The doctrine of "preestablished harmony" was an
especial contrivance of Leibnitz to remove the Creator from unworthy
association with the less divine acts of living beings. Obsolete as this
expression sounds to our ears, the phrase laws of the universe, which we
use so constantly with a wider application, appears to me essentially
identical with it.
Force does not admit of explanation, nor of proper definition, any more
than the hypothetical substratum of matter. If we assume the Infinite as
omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, we cannot suppose Him excluded from
any part of His creation, except from rebellious souls which voluntarily
exclude Him by the exercise of their fatal prerogative of free-will.
Force, then, is the act of immanent Divinity. I find no meaning in
mechanical explanations. Newton's hypothesis of an ether filling the
heavenly spaces does not, I confess, help my conceptions. I will, and
the muscles of my vocal organs shape my speech. God wills, and the
universe articulates His power, wisdom, and goodness. That is all I
know. There is no bridge my mind can throw from the "immaterial" cause
to the "material" effect.
The problem of force meets us everywhere, and I prefer to encounter it in
the world of physical phenomena before reaching that of living actions.
It is only the name for the incomprehensible cause of certain changes
known to our consciousness, and assumed to be outside of it.
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