170 
be suspended, with the continuance of universal causation; but 
we cannot even think the suspension of the latter in a single 
instance. Mr. Mill writes, “ The uniformity in the succession 
of events, otherwise called the law of causation must be re- 
ceived, not as a law of the universe, but of that portion of it 
only which is within the range of our means of swe o Wation, 
with a reasonable degree of extension 10 adjacent < cases^ This 
is rio-ht so far as it relates to uniformity, but is wiong in 
calling that the law of causation; because we are compelled to 
affirm this law for the whole universe, it being impossible to 
construe in thought the happening of events anywhere, without 
those events being produced somehow, however irregularly e 
happening^ ma^n ^ requires to be continued for a^enes of 
rears, but the youngest child, or least observant character 
instinctively believes in some cause producing any change they 
may notice. If they do not discover the cause they still 
belfeve in its existence. Mr. Mill is again right when i he 
states “ There must have been a time when the umver-al 
prevalence of that law throughout nature could not have been 
affirmed in the same confident and unquahfiea manner . is a. 
present.” But was there ever a time when the belief th . 
every event was caused somehow, or by some person would no- 
have been affirmed as confidently as it is now? In his set i 
for a cause the most unlettered savage, and the most cultwated 
philosopher, are agreed; for “the scientific mind, writes 
Dr. Tyndall, “ can find no repose in the mere ^ e g ,stratl0 “ i °; 
sequences in nature. The further question intrudes rtself with 
resistless might, Whence comes this sequence? What is n 
that binds the consequent with its antecedent in nature ^ Th 
truly scientific intellect never can attain rest nntl1 * „ 
the forces by which the observed succession was produced. 
The attempt therefore to explain away the self-evidence and 
necessity of the proposition, that every change is cause f’ " 
be accounted a failure, and we are, consequently, freely war 
ranted in asserting that it is axiomatic and intuitive. 
9 Our next axiom is, that the cause of all changes must be a 
conscious agent. A man looking at a machine making^ piece 
of cloth with a beautiful pattern woven in it, would un^ 
tatinely assert that it had been designed and made by &o 
one for 7 the purpose of weaving, and that the cloth was P*“?“ 
there for the purpose of being woven. No reasoning could 
convince him that the whole was a fortuitous concourse of atoms, 
perfectly accidental in its position, arrangements, and results , 
that the water just happened to be in the canty that just hap- 
pened to be of the required boiler form ; that the n J 
