rned, why should it be presumptuous to
look from Nature up to Nature's God, if in Nature we behold a mirror in
which His perfections are displayed? If there be presumption on either
side, does it not lie rather with those who virtually deny _the power of
God to make Himself known_,--His power to create a world capable of
exhibiting His perfections, and a mind adapted to that world capable of
discerning the perfections which are therein displayed? There might be
modesty, there might be humility in the ingenuous confession of
ignorance, saying, "I do not know;" but there can be neither in the
confidence which affirms that "no imaginable order would be sufficient"
to prove the existence of God, for what is this but to say that "he
knows all that matter _can_ do, and all that it _cannot_ do," or be made
to do?

2. Secularism admits the existence of a self-existent and eternal
Being, and thereby recognizes the fundamental law of _Causality_ on
which the Theistic proof depends, while it forces upon us the question
whether these attributes should be ascribed to Nature or to God.

"I am driven," says Mr. Holyoake, "to the conclusion that the great
aggregate of matter which we call 'nature' is eternal, because we are
unable to conceive a state of things when nothing was. There must always
have been something, or there could be nothing now. This the dullest
feel. Hence we arrive at the idea of the eternity of matter. And in the
_eternity_ of matter we are assured of the self-existence of matter, and
self-existence is the most _majestic of attributes_, and _includes all
others_."[271] "If Natural Theologians were content to stop where they
prove a _superior something_ to exist, Atheists might be content to stop
there too, and allow Theologians to dream in quiet over their barren
foundling."[272] "If I supposed that the Christian meant no more than
that something exists independently of Nature, that it may be boundless,
that it may be limited, that it may be one, that it may be many beings,
if I supposed nothing more than that was meant, then surely I would not
occupy your time or my own in discussing a question so barren of
practical consequences."--"If we reason about it, unless we take refuge
in the idea of a creation which we cannot understand, we must come to
the conclusion that _Nature is self-existent_, and that attribute is so
majestic,--the power of being independent of any ruler,--the power of
being independent of the la