34 AGNOSTICISM. 



of the changes In our world. For there could be 

 nothinof either within or without it to cause it to be 

 the cause of the world at one time rather than at 

 another. For if there were anything that could 

 thus compel it to become a catise, that something 

 would itself be the first cause. Whatever, there- 

 fore, the condition of the First Cause happened to 

 be, it would remain for ever, without change, alike 

 whether no world existed at all or whether 

 myriad worlds were mirrored in its dream. 

 Since, then, the world exists, it must always have 

 existed. But if it has always existed, it has not 

 come into being, and hence it has had no cause. 

 And not only does this result contradict our premiss, 

 that a first cause of the world existed, but it does 

 not even appear how an absolute first cause could be 

 a cause at all. For, as the cause of the All would 

 be all, the sum of its existence could neither be 

 increased nor diminished : it would be equally all- 

 embracing, whether the world existed or not. It 

 could gain nothing then by the creation, and lose 

 nothing by the destruction of the world : it would 

 contain nothing that could determine it at one time 

 to create, at another to remain in motionless absorpt- 

 ion in itself The changes, therefore, of our world 

 are not in the least explained by such a cause. {Cf. 

 ch. X, § II.) 



If, therefore, we put the First Cause of our world 

 = a First Cause of all things, the result is confusion, 

 and the collapse of our conception. But no such 

 consequence need follow if we regard the First 

 Cause as the cause merely of our universe, not of 

 the totality of existence. The question as to the 

 cause of the First Cause may then be met by the 

 suggestion that to a non-phenomenal First Cause 



