CHAP. XII.] CAUSES. 359 



is the last and the highest lesson which Nature has to teach 

 us the revelation of its own causation and the indication 

 (through the sentient and rational faculties of creatures) of 

 the being and attributes of its First Cause and Author, 

 which, as absolute Power, Intelligence, Goodness, and Will, 

 is and must be God. 



But does this conception afford us any natural key where 

 with to unlock the mysteries of the mode of God s Thussuppiy- 

 manifestation in nature, the meaning of the un- Evolution. 

 ceasing changes it presents the great process of Evolu 

 tion ? I believe it does. The First Cause must not only 

 have a purpose, but, as intelligent, he cannot be self- 

 contradictory, and hence necessarily follows the continuity 

 of cosmical evolution. By the union of these two laws, 

 (1) continuity and (2) final causality, the whole phenomena 

 of the universe physical, biological, political, moral, and 

 religious may be explained and understood as a continuous 

 evolution towards & preordained end. 



Mr. Herbert Spencer has elaborated a vast and coherent 

 conception of the whole process of evolution, which Mr. spencer s 



1 , i i -,. , evolutionary 



he represents as taking place according to an uni- formula. 

 versal law of progress from a state of unstable uniformity 

 having few and indefinite characters to a state of stable 

 diversity with a multitude of definite characters. He con 

 ceives that everything in the material universe is proceeding, 

 in his own words, &quot;from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity 

 to a definite coherent heterogeneity.&quot; He brings forward, how 

 ever, no explanatory basis of this law. His system enables 

 us to see neither the origin, the ultimate future, nor the sus 

 taining principle of such evolutionary process. The philo 

 sophy here advocated, on the contrary, shows us the origin, 

 basis, and outcome of this great process, by means of those 

 fundamental truths which occupied us in the first two 

 chapters. By means of our knowledge of the self-conscious, 

 persistent Ego, with its power of knowing positive, objective, 

 necessary truth, we have arrived at the conception of a 

 necessary First Cause with intelligence and will, and conse- 



