mi THEISM; EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 175 



stration which has been produced for the necessity 

 of a cause is fallacious and sophistical " (I. p. Ill); 

 it is affirmed, that " there is no absolute nor meta- 

 physical necessity that every beginning of exist- 

 ence should be attended with such an object " [as a 

 cause] (I. p. 227); and it is roundly asserted, that 

 it is " easy for us to conceive any object to be non- 

 existent this moment and existent the next, with- 

 out conjoining to it the distinct idea of a cause or 

 productive principle " (I. p. 111). So far from the 

 axiom, that whatever begins to exist must have a 

 cause of existence, being " self-evident," as Philo 

 calls it, Hume spends the greatest care in showing 

 that it is nothing but the product of custom, or 

 experience. 



And the doubt thus forced upon one, whether 

 Philo ought to be taken as Hume's mouthpiece 

 even so far, is increased when we reflect that we 

 are dealing with an acute reasoner; and that there 

 is no difficulty in drawing the deduction from 

 Hume's own definition of a cause, that the 

 very phrase, a " first cause," involves a contradic- 

 tion in terms. He lays down that, 



" 'Tis an established axiom both in natural and moral 

 philosophy, that an object, which exists for any time in its 

 full perfection without producing another, is not its sole 

 cause ; but is assisted by some other principle which pushes 

 it from its state of inactivity, and makes it exert that 

 energy, of which it was secretly possessed." (I. p. 106.) 



Now the " first cause " is assumed to have ex- 

 isted from all eternity, up to the moment at which 



