5 o6 “ Ultimate Religious Ideas” TSeptember, 
“ In excluding the ideas of an antecedent cause we 
exclude the idea of a beginning.” “The push and the 
pull” (Faraday) are admitted by Science, and surely that 
which Science admits it is at the least supposed to admit on 
proof. The admissions of Science are not only thinkable, 
but usually are reasons drawn from faCts. Suppose we were 
to go on seeking for the antecedent of the push and the pull, 
it would be seeking for an antecedent without an antecedent. 
A pause must come when that point is reached beyond whic i 
the finite mind cannot penetrate. It is sufficient that theie 
is a something behind. It is impossible to suppose that the 
push and the pull are self-imposed, or self-existing, because 
we know they can be simulated by the will of man ; and as 
we know what human willing does, it is quite thinkable, to 
imagine an antecedent of the push and the pull which im- 
pulsed it to form the world, and to go further, the Universe. 
“Respecting the origin of the Universe three verbally in- 
telligible suppositions may be made ” — “ Self -existent, Self- 
created” and “ Created by an external agency .” The deeper 
question into which this finally merges “ is whether any one 
of them is even conceivable in the true sense of the woid . 
“ By self-existence we mean an existence independent of any 
other — not produced by any other.” Although in oui finite 
reasoning we cannot conceive an existence without a begin- 
ning, it is possible to conceive an existence whose beginning 
by no process of reasoning (available to us) we can account 
for, and therefore to our perceptions has no beginning. The 
conception is thinkable, although unfathomable. 
“ The hypothesis of self-creation practically amounts to 
what is called Pantheism,— is similarly incapable of being 
represented in thought.” “ We cannot form any idea of the 
potential existence of the Universe as distinguished horn its 
actual existence,” “ for to conceive self-creation is to con- 
ceive potential existence passing into aCtual existence by 
some inherent necessity.” “ To think such a thought is to 
think of a passing into another form without additional 
impulse,” and “ involves the idea of a change without a 
cause.” “ This does not stand for real thought, but merely 
suggests the vaguest symbols without any inteipietation. 
Self-creation as applied to natural phenomena, if the 
teachings of Science are regarded, cannot be supposed, for 
Science— although it does not attempt to explain it— teaches 
there is an impulse. An impulse implies a motor ; then the 
motor, so far as we know, is the cause of creation. When 
we see the faCts of things we by reasoning arrive at a potence 
which becomes aCtual by development. It follows that 
