1884.] 
“ Ultimate Religious Ideas 
509 
a tmn al - tt • ^ ^ the cover of the cre- 
In snnni • 6 assumes there is no efficient cause. 
certain^nrp 11 ^ • f 6 gl , eat artl ^ cer > we suppose merely that 
sent an-? e * ements were thus put into their pre- 
test doe^ . Spencer continues, “ Still more mani- 
when w? t insufficiency of this theory of creation become 
them wh fl T T at f lal ° bjeas t0 that which sustains 
^hem, when instead of matter we contemplate space.” 
Sp ace was made in the same manner as matter was 
made and ls not to be got rid of.” - If the non-existence 
o space is absolutely inconceivable, then necessarily its 
cieation is absolutely inconceivable.” Consciousness and 
space are one ; there can be no outside, for where space is 
consciousness ! S . Space is an existing conception of the 
nite , there is no possibility of imagining space without 
at tne same time consciousness being present {vide Kant). 
After descanting on the third presented hypothesis he 
concludes it is useless, as it commits us to an infinite 
series of these agencies. By the second we are praaically 
involved in the same predicament.” “ Since self-creation 
implies an infinite series of potential existences we are 
obliged to fall back on the first, which is the one commonly 
accepted and commonly supposed to be satisfactory ” That 
is, self-existence,— thus the potence of Tyndall becomes the 
actual of Spencer. “ Those who cannot conceive a self- 
existing Universe, and who therefore assume a Creator 
as the source of the Universe, take for granted they can 
conceive a self-existent Creator.” “Self-existence is ri- 
goiously inconceivable,” “ the Atheistic hypothesis is unte- 
nable if it contains the same impossible idea.” “ Evidence 
proves that the elements of these hypotheses cannot even 
be put together in consciousness.” Surely this is a violent 
assumption. We speak of causes as producing results, 
the wind scatters the leaf (cause and effedi). Is it because 
we tiace lesults to causes we are therefore to assume a 
cause for the originator of the Universe? We cannot get 
behind the mechanism of the Universe and behold its 
originator. We can therefore conceive no cause beyond 
such a cause. Hence arises the conception of an uncaused 
cause, or, as Aristotle puts it, an unmoving centre. 
1 he three conclusions — Atheistic, Pantheistic, and The- 
istic — “ contain the same ultimate element.” “ It i s 
impossible to avoid making the assumption of self-existence 
somewhere, and whether that assumption be made nakedly 
or under complicated disguises it is equally unthinkable.” 
“ If from the origin of the Universe we turn to Nature 
