372 LESSONS FKOM NATUEE. [CHAP. XII. 



originally intended and decreed should arise), it is obvious 

 that the difficulty disappears. As to original or primary 

 creation, science can say absolutely nothing against it. That 

 it is &quot; conceivable &quot; is proved by the fact that it is widely, not 

 only conceived but believed. That it is &quot;unimaginable&quot; 

 necessarily follows from its being an action which, by the 

 hypothesis, is utterly beyond experience. 



Mr. Lewes, on this subject, remarks : * &quot; When therefore 

 it is argued that the creation of Something from Nothing, or 

 its reduction to Nothing is unthinkable, and is therefore 

 peremptorily to be rejected, the argument seems to me 

 defective. The process is thinkable but not imaginable, 

 conceivable but not provable.&quot; 



But we have to a certain extent an aid to the thought of 

 absolute creation in our own free volition, which, as absolutely 

 originating and determining, may be taken as a type to us of 

 the creative act. It is a perception of this analogy which led 

 Gioberti to affirm that the intellect sees, as a necessary truth, 

 that an absolute Being must be the creator of all secondary 

 existences, which he expressed in his primary affirmation, 

 &quot; Ens creat existentias.&quot; If the doctrine of creation be once 

 received, the fact of our free-will acquires new significance. 

 For Omnipotence to create a being capable of opposing itself 

 is perhaps one of the most awe-inspiring aspects in which the 

 First Cause can be contemplated. 



The fifth and last objection is that made to the notion of a 

 Fifth objec- personal G-od as being necessarily Anthropomorphic, 

 thropomor- anc ^ as contradicted by the phenomena of a world 

 phism. which is evidently not governed by an Anthropo 

 morphic Deity. 



And here, again, I must refer the reader to the last chapter 

 of my Genesis of Species, where this question is considered. 

 It may, however, be here remarked that both the difficulties 

 contained in this fifth objection may be met by the adoption 

 of that mode of regarding the Almighty which is traditional 



Problems of Life and Mind, vol. ii. p. 292. 



