a further search. "First" has no other intelligible sense or meaning
than this. "First" in relation to a given cluster of phenomenon we may
grant; "First" in the sense of calling for no further explanation is
downright theological lunacy.

An eternal "First cause" could only be such in relation to an eternal
effect. And in that case it could not be _prior_ to the effect since the
effect is only the existing factors combined. Causation cannot carry us
_beyond_ phenomena since it has no meaning apart from phenomena. The
notion that because every phenomenon has a cause therefore there must be
a cause for phenomena as a whole--meaning by this for the sum total of
phenomena--is wholly absurd. It is not sound science, it is not good
philosophy, it is not even commonsense. It is simply nonsense which is
given an air of dignity because it is clothed in philosophic language.
You cannot rise from phenomena to the theist's God; first, because, as I
have said, cause and effect are names for the relation that is seen to
exist between one phenomenon and another, and the theist is seeking
after something that is above all relations. To postulate something that
is not phenomena as the cause of phenomena, is like discussing the
possibility of a bird's flight and dismissing the possibility of an
atmosphere. Secondly, causation can give no clue to a God because the
search for causes is a search for the conditions under which phenomena
occur. And when we have described these conditions we have fulfilled all
the conditions required to establish an act of causation. The theist, in
short, commences with a wrong conception of causation. He proceeds by
applying to one sphere language and principles from another, and to
which they can have no possible application, and where they have no
intelligibility. And having completely confused the issue, he ends with
a conclusion which, even on his own showing, has no logical relation to
the premises laid down.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.

Kant called the argument from design "the oldest, the clearest, and the
most adapted to the ordinary human reason," of all the arguments
advanced on behalf of the belief in God. Kant's dictum, it will be
observed, omits all opinion as to its quality, and his own criticism of
it left it a sorry wreck. John Stuart Mill treated it far more
respectfully, and commenced his examination of it with the flattering
introduction, "We now at last reach an a