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CHAPTEE XII. 



CAUSES. 



&quot; Truths vouched for by the intellect as positively necessary truths, 

 compel our acceptance of a First Cause with power, knowledge, wisdom 

 and goodness, and therefore prove the existence of final causes also 

 the existence of a personal God being the ultimate lesson taught by 

 Nature, that as to its own cause.&quot; 



AT the end of the tenth chapter it was said that the task of 

 The axiom of considering what, if anything, can be learned from 

 causation. Nature as to its own Causes yet remained. This 

 great question has (unavoidably as it seems) been already 

 incidentally adverted to and briefly noticed, but it is now 

 time to consider it deliberately and expressly. 



In the second chapter it was sought to establish the pro 

 position that what the mind positively declares to be abso 

 lutely, necessarily, and universally true, is true. One such 

 proposition is that respecting causation, as any one can test by 

 an act of introspection. The proposition referred to, is the 

 axiom that &quot; every new existence and every change must have a 

 cause&quot; and another, equally evident, is that everything must 

 either he absolute or caused. 



The natural world displays before our eyes an indefinitely 

 continuous series of phenomenal changes, all of which we 

 know have their appropriate physical causes causes very 

 generally capable of discovery by the physical sciences. 

 science Science reveals to us an apparently endless series 

 banning. o f passed phenomenal changes and indicates an 

 indefinite series to come, but it does not distinctly and 

 unequivocally point to any beginning. It is quite con- 



