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On the first view of this argument we observe at once that it begins its reasoning by asserting the law of causation, and then attains its conclusion by setting that law aside. We refuse to continue inferring one finite cause from another for ever. Surely this step is a little arbitrary and inconsistent. At the best it can rest only on some evidence drawn from the mind itself—some intuition found there, and taken to be of objective truth. Nature gives abundant examples to support the law of causation, the law that every effect must have a cause. physical nature, at all events, we have no exception; no uncaused cause to bring forward as an analogy for our first cause, or, to speak more correctly perhaps, as an instance of his appearance on the face of Nature. At all events, no such case can be brought forward as observable in the judgment of men of science, for miracles I do not contemplate now. Indeed, the only plausible analogy in the whole range of our knowledge is the human will, when taken to be self-determining. That view of the will is of course not universally allowed. It is not a settled truth. And even if it were, we should still have to bear in mind that the will of man can act on the physical world only under prior conditions of physical causation. The great chain of natural causes must have supplied it with means to direct. We have not then even here an analogue to our

first cause-that is, to something acting altogether independently of that chain, being in fact its author. The assertion, too, that there cannot be an infinite series of finite causes, seems at first sight, at all events, discountenanced by the modern doctrines of the indestructibility of matter and energy.1 With these ideas in view it seems more easy to conceive the eternal continuance than the beginning of the order of Nature. But still I do allow that to some minds it may seem more easy and natural to adopt the idea of a first cause. Such a preference would have its weight, upon the assumption, for which we have found grounds elsewhere, that the human mind had a moral and intelligent maker, if indeed it could be shown to be innate and universal. It might then be looked upon as an indication from him. But I, for one, do not think that any such character can be established on its behalf.

Attempts have been made to defend the argument from such criticisms as the above by auxiliary considerations. For instance, it has been said that the whole series of finite causes must have had a cause, or otherwise it might have been different

1 Of the argument from the dissipation of energy I shall speak hereafter. That does not affect the mere continuance of the Universe in some shape or other, perhaps one of universal death. Nor yet again does it prove that the Universe cannot have been in existence for ever, unless we make the assumption that its matter can never have been diffused beyond a certain extent.

from what it is. There is a fallacy here, that of treating a possibly infinite series as a terminated whole. Each of the finite causes, which make up the series, is sufficiently determined in character by the cause which goes immediately before it. If there be no end, there is no need of some cause outside the series to make it what it is.

Dr. Samuel Clark, in the work to which I have referred, brought forward some ingenious considerations, with the end which I have just named, in support of the cosmological argument. They make use, indeed, of a different relation, that of substance and accident, not of cause and effect, but the end is plainly auxiliary to our argument to support the belief in an eternal Being. And I may remark that though his arguments may not be much to the taste of these days, they were adopted by Bishop Butler.1 Briefly they stand thus. We cannot, he remarks, get rid of certain ideas, as of 'immensity and eternity.' We must, he argues, assume the existence of some being, in whom this immensity and eternity inhere as attributes; i. e. of an omnipresent and eternal Being. Now I do not deny that we have ideas of space and time as unbounded, and further as being in some way independent of our minds. That seems to me the natural interpretation of con

1 Bishop Butler's Analogy,' Part I., chap. vi.

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sciousness. If we, with Kant, make them purely subjective, we shall, I think, sooner or later be landed in a complete idealism, as was indeed actually the case with some of his successors. If space and time be wholly subjective, what is motion? If motion be wholly ideal, simply a change in our subjective perception of matter, what, according to modern science, is energy? what are heat, light, electricity? are driven forwards toward complete idealism, and such idealism puts what we feel to be an incongruous and inconsistent interpretation upon consciousness. Nay, further, if time be purely subjective, consciousness itself becomes of difficult understanding. For consciousness in-us at least is essentially connected with the succession of thoughts in time. We become, indeed, perplexed as to the very basis of knowledge. But if we do grant that space and time are to some extent objective, I do not know that Dr. Clark's conclusion will follow. It is not clear that space and time are objective in the same way as material phenomena, i. e. in a way which requires, according to our common thinking, a substance in which they may inhere, as accidents. And this Dr. Clark's argument requires.

Professor Birks, in a recent work on the Scripture doctrine of creation, has also put forward some considerations founded on the nature of time,

1 The Scripture Doctrine of Creation,' by the Rev. T. R. Birks, chap. iv. London, 1872.

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which he seems to regard as a proof of a beginning of the universe, and therefore of a creator. argument belongs to the class which I am discussing, I will briefly state and examine it here. If, says Professor Birks, there never was a beginning of time, the present moment could never have arrived. He has an illustration. In like manner no future point of time could ever be reached unless the interval between that point and the present were finite. Now I think that we have here an example how an acute man may be misled by the ambiguities which beset arguments as to the infinite. The original position is not sound, nor is the illustration trustworthy. To begin with the latter, we have plainly there two limits. There is the present point of time on the one hand, and the future epoch to be reached on the other. Hence the included time must of necessity be finite. But the contention as to the eternity of past time is, that there never was any such limit in the past. There was no beginning. Unless this contention be disproved, Mr. Birks' illustration does not apply. Plainly it does not help to disprove the position which he attacks, for it assumes a state of things which the position denies, and is of no force without this assumption. To turn now to the argument, we are told, indeed, that if this position were true, the present moment could never have arrived. Certainly not till after an infinite progress. But is this impos