CHAP. XII.] CAUSES. 357 



ceivable that the stellar universe may in seons of time 

 unceasingly pulsate alternately to and fro from a condition of 

 scattered suns, planets, and satellites, such as we are frag- 

 mentarily acquainted with now, to the condition of an uni 

 versally diffused nebular mist. It is also conceivable that a 

 similar change may eternally creep over the Cosmos of suns 

 and worlds, so that each part in its turn, but never the whole 

 simultaneously, may undergo such transformation. Eeason 

 certainly does not affirm that such changes may not have 

 proceeded in cycles from all eternity, owing to an eternal 

 collocation of causal factors. If such collocation But either to 

 and factors be the absolute, then the universe and FtafcSSf 

 its cause are one in a word we have Pantheism. 



The consideration of Pantheism cannot be entered on 

 here ; that Protean form of error, as I believe, requires con 

 sideration in a separate work. It may however be at once 

 remarked that, apart from other a priori considerations of 

 reason, by which I believe that it can be adequately re 

 futed, it can be so by the positive declarations of our reason 

 in the matter of morality. Introspection has shown us that 

 there is an absolute distinction between good and evil ; but 

 Pantheism necessarily denies that, with every other absolute 

 distinction. Therefore unless the positive declarations of our 

 intellect as to necessary truth deceive us (in which case we 

 are driven into scepticism and can argue no longer, nor even 

 conclude that we cannot conclude), Pantheism must be false. 



If we accept the other alternative, if, that is, we say that 

 such collocation and factors are not the absolute, then they, 

 like everything else, must be caused. That they can be really 

 fortuitous, is what no modern philosopher would assert, 

 chance being now everywhere recognised as a mere term 

 denoting our ignorance of causes and conditions. 



But if such collocation and factors (which lie as it were at 

 the base of the phenomenal universe) be caused, oronedis- 

 they cannot be caused by all that series of phe- l^ll^ 

 nomena of which they are the condition, still less by 

 any part of that series. They must therefore be caused 



