THE INORGANIC WORLD 35 



The cumulative evidence of the existence of a Deity 

 seems ample to one mind ; whereas he who will not rise 

 beyond sensual perceptions of physical phenomena, of 

 course, closes his mind to all other evidence which is 

 based on a totally different and more abstract line of 

 reasoning. 



To the one a large part of " proof" is inductive ; or 

 what is called " Faith ". To the other this is purposely 

 excluded as not evidential at all, and the man prefers to 

 be Agnostic in the sense that " he does not know," as the 

 evidence does not appeal to him as sufficient. 



Dr. Charnock thus continues : " We must come to 

 something that is first in every kind, and this first 

 must have a cause not of the same kind, but infinite 

 and independent ; otherwise men run into inconceivable 

 labyrinths and contradictions. ... If the world were 

 uncreated, it were then immutable, but every creature 

 upon the earth is in a continual flux, always changing 

 [this has been corroborated and greatly intensified by 

 evolution]. If things be mutable, they were created ; if 

 created, they were made by some author ; whatsoever 

 hath a beginning must have a maker. If the world hath 

 a beginning, there was then a time when it was not ; it 

 must have some cause to produce it. That which makes 

 is before that which is made, and this is God. No 

 creature can make itself: the world could not make 

 itself. . . . Whatsoever began in time, was not ; and 

 when it was nothing^ it had nothing and could do 

 nothing ; and therefore could never give to itself nor 

 to any other to be, or be able to do ; for then it gave 

 what it had not, and did what it could not." Dr. 

 Charnock here argues on the old hypothesis of the 



1 For " nothing " may be substituted " ether ". 



