First Causes. ii 



under different heads as natural forces. These sub- 

 motions, consequently, if accurately read, should 

 solve also the rotation or motion of the universe as a 

 whole; but confusion instead of comprehension here 

 supervenes. Something anterior to and transcending 

 everything known or conceivable is sought for, even 

 by physicists, as a cosmical first cause ; hence the 

 great ultimate question is still fretfully said to be, 

 What is the first cause of nature's rotation ? As if a 

 beginning could be attached to the motion of inde- 

 structible matter in motion. In other words a 

 beginning is sought to the beginningless. 



This demand for a First Cause doubtless dazed 

 ignorant dunces in the past, and still puzzles im- 

 mature logicians in the present, because the afore- 

 mentioned cart-wheel has been seen both at rest and 

 in motion. But they overlook the fact of the wheel's 

 externals. That the wheel- wright, for instance, who 

 turns the wheel, is external to it ; while nature through 

 the indestructibility of its constituents (matter in 

 motion) has neither externals nor antecedents ; 

 everything is internal. Consequently, when such 

 a supererogatory power as a First Cause to nature's 

 rotation is invented, an external to nature itself is 

 not only implied, but, as with man and the wheel, a 

 Something in that external, more omnipotent, intelli- 

 gent, and eternal than anything internal ; transcending 

 even nature itself. The squirrel is not only inside 

 the cage but outside of it as well. The universe is 

 postulated to have an outside. It is curious how man 



