ples, that I shall pass it over and
proceed at once to the last of the untenable arguments--that, namely, from
the existence of a First Cause. And here I should like to express myself
indebted to Mr. Mill for the following ideas:--"The cause of every change
is a prior change; and such it cannot but be; for if there were no new
antecedent, there would be no new consequent. If the state of facts which
brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed always or for an
indefinite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been
produced an indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of
causation, within the sphere of experience, that the causes as well as the
effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem,
therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a
first cause, is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation, as
it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First
Cause."

The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause argument are tolerably
obvious, and had occurred to me before the publication of his essay. I
shall, however, adhere to his order of presenting them.

"But it is necessary to look more particularly into this matter, and
analyse more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have
experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a
beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no
beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first
or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause
anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation."

He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy supplies us
with such a datum, and thus the conclusion easily follows--"It would seem,
then, that the only sense in which experience supports, in any shape, the
doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the primaeval and universal element of
all causes, the First Cause can be no other than Force."

Still, however, it may be maintained that "all force is will-force." But
"if there be any truth in the doctrine of Conservation of Force, ... this
doctrine does not change from true to false when it reaches the field of
voluntary agency. The will does not, any more than other agencies, create
Force: granting that it originates motion, it has no means of doing so but
by converting into that particular manifestation, a port