every man according to
his works."

A more profound and exhaustive analysis may perhaps resolve all these
primitive judgments into one universal principle or law, which Leibnitz
has designated "_The principle or law of sufficient reason_," and which
is thus enounced--there must be an ultimate and sufficient reason why
any thing exists, and why it is, rather than otherwise; that is, if any
thing begins to be, something else must be supposed as the adequate
ground, and reason, and cause of its existence; or again, to state the
law in view of our present discussion, "_if the finite universe, with
its existing order and arrangement, had a beginning, there must be an
ultimate and sufficient reason why it exists, and why it is as it is,
rather than otherwise_." In view of one particular class of phenomena,
or special order of facts, this "principle of sufficient reason" may be
varied in the form of its statement, and denominated "the principle of
substance," "the principle of causality," "the principle of
intentionality," etc.; and, it may be, these are but specific judgments
under the one fundamental and generic law of thought which constitutes
the _major_ premise of every Theistic syllogism.

These fundamental principles, primitive judgments, axioms, or necessary
and determinate forms of thought, exist potentially or germinally in all
human minds; they are spontaneously developed in presence of the
phenomena of the universe, material and mental; they govern the original
movement of the mind, even when not appearing in consciousness in their
pure and abstract form; and they compel us to affirm _a permanent being_
or _reality_ behind all phenomena--a _power_ adequate to the production
of change, back of all events; a _personal Mind_, as the explanation of
all the facts of order, and uniform succession, and regular evolution;
and a _personal Lawgiver_ and _Righteous Judge_ as the ultimate ground
and reason of all the phenomena of the moral world; in short, to affirm
_an Unconditioned Cause of all finite and secondary causes; a First
Principle of all principles; an Ultimate Reason of all reasons; an
immutable Uncreated Justice, the living light of conscience; a King
immortal, eternal, invisible, the only wise God, the ruler of the world
and man_.

Our position, then, is, that the idea of God is revealed to man in the
natural and spontaneous development of his intelligence, and that the
existence of a Supreme Reality correspo