48 Natural Theology. 



to exist of itself. Everything in the universe must 

 either be self-existent or be an effect. If self-exist- 

 ent, it must have existed from all eternity ; if an 

 effect, it must have been mediately or immediately 

 produced by that which is self-existent and eternal. 

 We are driven by our analysis back from cause to 

 cause till we come to a First Cause, necessarily self- 

 existent and eternal. That cause could not spring 

 from nothing, and therefore could not begin to be. 

 This we are sure of, or nothing can be accepted 

 as truth. As we trace back the chain of cause 

 and effect, we come necessarily to believe in some- 

 thing which is not an effect, but the source of all 

 effects. Not to believe in something eternal is sim- 

 ply absurd. And that something has produced all 

 secondary causes and the results which we see in the 

 universe. What was that something ? Was it simply 

 matter and the forces of matter ? So far as we know, 

 matter may have existed for ever. There seems 

 to be perfect evidence of design in the very consti- 

 tution of matter and in the relation of its forces ; but 

 still, if one chooses to regard simple matter as eter- 

 nal, we see no absurdity in such a belief. But we 

 then ask, if matter is self-existent, is it able to pro- 

 duce all the results which we witness ? We know 

 that it has not existed always in its present form 

 upon our globe. But all the geologic changes, so 

 far as mere matter and the physical changes were 

 concerned, might have been produced by the action 

 of these forces that we acknowledge to be the con- 

 stant accompaniments, if not essential properties of 



