s the great advantage of resting _immediately_ upon the
foundation from which all argument concerning this or any other matter,
must necessarily arise, viz.,--upon the very existence of our argumentative
faculty itself. For the sake of a critical examination, it is desirable to
throw the argument before us into the syllogistic form. It will then stand
thus:--

All known minds are caused by an unknown mind. Our mind is a known mind;
therefore, our mind is caused by an unknown mind.

Sec. 11. Now the major premiss of this syllogism is inadmissible for two
reasons: in the first place, it is assumed that known mind can only be
caused by unknown mind; and, in the second place, even if this assumption
were granted, it would not explain the existence of Mind as Mind. To take
the last of these objections first, in the words of Mr. Mill, "If the mere
existence of Mind is supposed to require, as a necessary antecedent,
another Mind greater and more powerful, the difficulty is not removed by
going one step back: the creating mind stands as much in need of another
mind to be the source of its existence as the created mind. Be it
remembered that we have no direct knowledge (at least apart from
Revelation) of a mind which is even apparently eternal, as Force and Matter
are: an eternal mind is, as far as the present argument is concerned, a
simple hypothesis to account for the minds which we know to exist. Now it
is essential to an hypothesis that, if admitted, it should at least remove
the difficulty and account for the facts. But it does not account for mind
to refer our mind to a prior mind for its origin. The problem remains
unsolved, nay, rather increased."

Nevertheless, I think that it is open to a Theist to answer, "My object is
not to explain the existence of Mind in the abstract, any more than it is
my object to explain Existence itself in the abstract--to either of which
absurd attempts Mr. Mill's reasoning would be equally applicable;--but I
seek for an explanation of _my own individual finite mind_, which I know to
have had a beginning in time, and which, therefore, in accordance with the
widest and most complete analogy that experience supplies, I believe to
have been _caused_. And if there is no other objection to my believing in
Intelligence as the cause of my intelligence, than that I cannot prove my
own intelligence caused, then I am satisfied to let the matter rest here;
for as every argument must have _some_ basis