RESISTING MEDIUM, 207 



have been arranged and put in motion by some 

 cause. If we suppose this cause to operate by 

 means of the configurations and the properties 

 of previously existing matter, these configura- 

 tions must have resulted from some still previous 

 cause, these properties must have produced some 

 previous effects. We are thus led to a condition 

 still earlier than the assumed beginning; to an 

 origin of the original state of the universe ; and 

 in this manner we are carried perpetually further 

 and further back, through a labyrinth of mecha- 

 nical causation, without any possibility of finding 

 anything in which the mind can acquiesce or 

 rest, till we admit " a First Cause which is not 

 mechanical." 



Thus the argument which was before urged 

 against those in particular, who put forwards the 

 Nebular Hypothesis in opposition to the admis- 

 sion of an Intelligent Creator, offers itself again, 

 as cogent in itself, when we adopt the opinion 

 of a resisting medium, for which the physical 

 proofs have been found to be so strong. The 

 argument is indeed forced upon our minds, 

 whatever view we take of the past history of the 

 universe. Some have endeavoured to evade its 

 force by maintaining that the world as it now 

 exists has existed from eternity. They assert 

 that the present order of things, or an order of 

 things in some way resembling the present, pro- 

 duced by the same causes, governed by the 

 same laws, has prevailed through an infinite 



