which it exists. The
existence of a Mind possessing universal knowledge is necessary as the
presupposition both of there being any world to know, and also of there
being any lesser minds to know it. It is, indeed, possible to believe
in the eternal existence of limited minds, while denying the existence
of the one Omniscient Mind. That is a hypothesis on which I will say a
word hereafter.[6] It is enough here to say that it is one which is
not required to explain the world as we know it. The obvious _prima
facie_ view of the matter is that the minds which apparently have a
beginning, which develope slowly and gradually and in close connexion
with certain physical processes, owe their origin to whatever is the
ultimate source or ground of the physical processes themselves. The
order or systematic interconnexion of all the observable phenomena in
the Universe suggests that the ultimate Reality must be one Being of
some kind; the argument which I have suggested leads us to regard that
one Reality as a spiritual Reality. We are not yet entitled to speak
of this physical Universe as _caused_ {19} by God: that is a question
which I hope to discuss in our next lecture. All that I want to
establish now is that we cannot explain the world without the
supposition of one universal Mind in which and for which all so-called
material things exist, and always have existed.

So far I have endeavoured to establish the existence of God by a line
of thought which also leads to the position that matter has no
independent existence apart from conscious mind, that at bottom nothing
exists except minds and their experiences. Now I know that this is a
line of thought which, to those who are unfamiliar with it, seems so
paradoxical and extravagant that, even when a man does not see his way
to reply to it, it will seldom produce immediate or permanent
conviction the first time he becomes acquainted with it. It is for the
most part only by a considerable course of habituation, extending over
some years, that a man succeeds in thinking himself into the idealistic
view of the Universe. And after all, there are many minds--some of
them, I must admit, not wanting in philosophical power--who never
succeed in accomplishing that feat at all. Therefore, while I feel
bound to assert that the clearest and most irrefragable argument for
the existence of God is that which is supplied by the idealistic line
of thought, I should be sorry to have t