32 ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 



realize in thought a series of changes more fully represent- 

 ing the actual series: that is, we know that our symbolic 

 conception of self-development can be expanded into some- 

 thing like a real conception; and that it expresses, however 

 inaccurately, an actual process in nature. But when we 

 speak of self -existence, and, helped by the above analogies, 

 form some vague symbolic conception of it, we delude our- 

 selves in supposing that this symbolic conception is of the 

 same order as the others. On joining the word self 'to the 

 word existence, the force of association makes us believe we 

 have a thought like that suggested by the compound word 

 self-acting. An endeavour to expand this symbolic concep- 

 tion, however, will undeceive us. In the first place, it 

 is clear that by self -existence we especially mean, an exist- 

 ence independent of any other — not produced by any other : 

 the assertion of self -existence is simply an indirect denial of 

 creation. In thus excluding the idea of any antecedent 

 cause, we necessarily exclude the idea of a beginning; for 

 to admit the idea of a beginning — to admit that there was a 

 time when the existence had not commenced — is to admit 

 that its commencement was determined by something, or 

 was caused; which is a contradiction. Self-existence, there- 

 fore, necessarily means existence without a beginning; and 

 to form a conception of self-existence is to form a concep- 

 tion of existence without a beginning. Now by no mental 

 effort can we do this. To conceive existence through infinite 

 past-time, implies the conception of infinite past-time, which 

 is an impossibility. To this let us add, that even 

 were self-existence conceivable, it would not in any sense be 

 an explanation of the Universe. Xo one will say that the 

 existence of an object at the present moment is made easier 

 to understand by the discovery that it existed an hour ago, or 

 a day ago, or a year ago ; and if its existence now is not made 

 in the least degree more comprehensible by its existence 

 during some previous finite period of time, then no accumu- 

 lation of such finite periods, even could we extend them to 



