180 WHO MADE GOD ? 



earth result from Law : even those actions which are en- 

 tirely dependent on the caprices of the memory, or the 

 impulse of the passions, are shown by statistics to be, 

 when taken in the gross, entirely independent of the 

 human will. As a single atom, man is an enigma : as 

 a whole, he is a mathematical problem. As an indi- 

 vidual, he is a free agent : as a species, the offspring 

 of necessity. 



The unity of the universe is a scientific fact. To 

 assert that it is the operation of a single Mind is a 

 conjecture based upon analogy, and analogy may be a 

 deceptive guide. It is the most reasonable guess that 

 can be made, but still it is no more than a guess ; and 

 it is one by which nothing after all is really gained. 

 It tells us that the earth rests upon the tortoise : it 

 does not tell us on what the tortoise rests. God issued 

 the laws which manufactured the universe, and which 

 rule it in his growth. But who made God ? Theolo- 

 gians declare that he made himself; and materialists 

 declare that Matter made itself; and both utter barren 

 phrases, idle words. The whole subject is beyond the 

 powers of the human intellect in its present state. 

 All that we can ascertain is this : that we are governed 

 by physical laws which it is our duty as scholars of 

 nature to investigate ; and by moral laws which it is 

 our duty as citizens of nature to obey. 



The dogma of a single deity who created the heavens 

 and the earth may therefore be regarded as an imper- 

 fect method of expressing an undoubted truth. Of all 

 religious creeds it is the least objectionable from a 

 scientific point of view. Yet it was not a Greek who 

 first discovered or invented the one god, but the wild 

 Bedoidn of the desert. At first sight this appears a 

 very extraordinary fact. How in a matter which de- 



