ULTIMATE RELIGIOUS IDEAS. 35 



of manufacture. Now in the first place, not only is 



this conception one that cannot by any cumulative process 

 of thought, or the fulfilment of predictions based on it, be 

 shown to answer to anything actual ; and not only is it that 

 in the absence of all evidence respecting the process of crea- 

 tion, we have no proof of correspondence even between this 

 limited conception and some limited portion of the fact; 

 but it is that the conception is not even consistent with itself 

 — cannot be realized in thought, when all its assumptions 

 are granted. Though it is true that the proceedings of a 

 human artificer may vaguely symbolize to us a method 

 after which the Universe might be shaped, yet they do not 

 help us to comprehend the real mystery ; namely, the origin 

 of the material of which the Universe consists. The artizan 

 does not make the iron, wood, or stone, he uses ; but merely 

 fashions and combines them. If we suppose suns, and plan- 

 ets, and satellites, and all they contain to have been simi- 

 larly formed by a " Great Artificer," we suppose merely 

 that certain pre-existing elements were thus put into their 

 present arrangement. But whence the pre-existing ele- 

 ments? The comparison helps us not in the least to under- 

 stand that; and unless it helps us to understand that, it is 

 worthless. The production of matter out of nothing is the 

 real mystery, which neither this simile nor any other enables 

 us to conceive; and a simile which does not enable us to 

 conceive this, may just as well be dispensed with. Still 



more manifest does the insufficiency of this theory of crea- 

 tion become, when we turn from material objects to that 

 which contains them — when instead of matter we contem- 

 plate space. Did there exist nothing but an immeasurable 

 void, explanation would be needed as much as now. There 

 would still arise the question — how came it so? If the the- 

 ory of creation by external agency were an adequate one, it 

 would supply an answer; and its answer would be — space 

 was made in the same manner that matter was made. But 

 the impossibility of conceiving this is so manifest, that no 



