THE PROBLEM OF SELF-EXISTENCE. 3 1 



Hence It does so, not in virtue of being a world as 

 such, but in consequence of being a world of a 

 certain kind, with a certain character which prompts 

 us to ask certain questions. It is because the world 

 does not appear to be self-caused, that we ask for its 

 cause. And conceivably the answer we gave to 

 this question might be the vision of a fact that 

 would not, when reached, arouse in us the same 

 desire to ask the reason why. If, therefore, our 

 conception of the Deity as the cause of the world, 

 substituted a harmonious fact for a discordant one, 

 a truly concordant cosmos for the conflict of unin- 

 telligible chaos, we should have succeeded, not 

 merely in postponing, but in actually solving the 

 problem. But is the theory of the causation ot 

 our world by a self-existent Deity such a solution ? 

 This is at least possible ; for while the self-existence 

 of the world is inferred from its character to be im- 

 possible, and its existence is felt to require an 

 explanation, that of God may eventually be seen 

 not to require explanation. At all events the ex- 

 planation is not an immediate necessity, and in the 

 course of evolution many things no less wonderful 

 may happen. Thus the question of self-existence 

 and the conception of causation may be relative to 

 an imperfect world still in the process of its develop- 

 ment ; and together with the imperfection which 

 drove us to seek a cause of the existent, the 

 category by which we sought to explain it may 

 itself disappear. The conception of causation may 

 become simply inapplicable and unmeaning in a 

 state of perfect adaptation (ch. xii.). For it is bound 

 up with physical Becoming or change ; and as in the 

 case of perfect adaptation, the organism and the 

 environment would be in such complete correspond- 



