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Cause ; differing in this from Hume and the Phenomenists : 
for the scepticism of Hume is as fatal to Materialism as to 
Theism. But the first cause of the Materialist is mechanic 
force, or matter endued merely with mechanic force, and 
wanting not only mind and consciousness, but sensation, and 
even life. Yet this dead matter, or, if you please, this mind- 
less unconscious power, is the supposed origin of life, sentiency, 
and self-conscious intellect. What we have to consider is, 
whether this be a thing conceivable. 
It is implied in the very notion of an originating cause that 
it shall be adequate to the production of its appropriate effect. 
No words can make this matter clearer. But here you 
will, of course, bear in mind the distinction between cause 
in the proper sense, and in the sense of mere physical ante- 
cedent. In regard to the latter, there is no necessary resem- 
blance between it and the natural occurrence of which experi- 
ence has shown it to be the invariable precursor, although in 
familiar language the two things are, as we have seen, coupled 
together as cause and effect. For example, there is nothing 
in the qualities of oxygen and hydrogen that could a priori 
lead one to suppose that the result of their combination could 
be a' substance like water, which differs in every sensible 
quality from either of its natural predecessors or parents. In 
the physical antecedent we cannot, as Hume rightly teaches, 
by mere dint of thought and reasoning, discern the presence 
of any power or quality adequate to the production of any 
effect at all, far less to the production of any particular effect. 
And when we recur, as we must recur, to the super-sensuous, 
or metaphysical, notion of cause, we are at the same time 
carried back by reason behind all the phenomena of nature to 
some real energy in which they all originate, and by which 
they are maintained. When, therefore, I insist that the cause 
must appear to the mind adequate to the production of its 
appropriate effect, it is of this vera causa, this true originating 
power, that I am speaking. But the proposition is one not 
capable of proof, for it relates to a simple primary idea, of 
which no analysis is possible. I can only throw myself upon 
the general consciousness of mankind, and beg you to ask 
yourselves whether it is not as I say. 
Now, the Materialist assumes, as we have seen, that he has 
at his disposal a force self-capable of the wonderful series of 
transmutations which has been enumerated. The series 
includes as its last two terms the ascending steps, first, to 
vital, and thence to mental, manifestations. Let us fix 
attention on the last step but one, — that, namely, from in- 
organic matter to living organisms. Observation has, it is 
