SUPEB-MATEEIAL CAUSE. 47 



return unanswered, Whence originated the physical substance 

 composing that universe 1 



As the line of progression traced backward necessarily leads 

 to a beginning of the system of developments to which it 

 applies, so the line of causation, inversely traced, necessarily 

 leads to a .Mr^ Cause, which is itself uncaused, though contain- 

 ing in itself the elements of all causes, and hence all exist- 

 ences. And as the whole Animal Kingdom, for example, 

 necessarily rests upon the basis of a prior and immediately 

 corelated and correspondent Kingdom the Kingdom of Veg- 

 etation so the whole Kingdom of universal materiality, so to 

 speak, as necessarily rests upon the basis of a prior and imme- 

 diately corelated and correspondent Kingdom. This King- 

 dom, then, must be ^ra-physical, in the same way as the 

 Vegetable Kingdom is ultra-animal ; and it must differ in na- 

 ture and constitution from the whole Kingdom of physical 

 substance, at least as much as the Vegetable Kingdom differs 

 from the Animal, or as the impelling and moving essence of 

 the human mind differs from the impelled and moved essence 

 of the human body. 



Now, unless we suppose this ultra-physical (and hence un- 

 physical) Kingdom to be a Kingdom of Spirituality, there is 

 no conceptive power corresponding to it in the human mind, 

 and hence it is to the human mind a nothing, and can not even 

 be an object of thought, much less of faith. 



But it may be asked, " Whence originated this Kingdom of 

 Spirituality, which it is here alleged must have served as the 

 basis of physical creation 1" If we should answer that it 

 originated in a higher and ulterior spirituality, and that that 

 originated in a still higher, and that in a still higher ; and if 

 we could thus prolong our thoughts to an absolute eternity 

 and in search of the Origin of origins, we would still have only 



