ts axis, then neither ought it to be called the
unconditionally invariable consequent of the unshrouded proximity of the
sun, inasmuch as it would cease to be thereupon consequent if the sun
were to become burnt out. If night be not, and if sunlight be, the cause
of day, the reason is not that sunlight always hitherto has been, and,
on one indispensable condition, always will be followed by day, for so
equally has hitherto been, and on the same condition will hereafter be,
night. The real reason is, that sunlight not only always has been and
will be, but also always _must_ be followed by day; that unless the
constitution of nature very materially change, wherever is sunlight day
_must_ be; whereas not only might day be, although night had never
preceded, but unless night had preceded, day must have been from the
beginning. In short, to constitute cause, invariability, however
unconditional, will not suffice. Another quality must be added, and that
quality I contend to be obligatoriness. A cause, I maintain, would not
be a cause unless its effect not only do or will, but _must_ necessarily
follow it. In common with the great unphilosophic mass of mankind, I
hold that between cause and effect there is a binding power which
constrains the one to follow the other. If asked whence we suppose that
power can have been derived, such of us, as conscious that we are 'no
very great wits,' don't mind confessing that we 'believe in a God,' will
not mind either suggesting that the power, wherever not exerted by an
animated creature, may possibly be directly from God. One thing certain
is, that inanimate matter cannot possibly possess or exercise any force
or power whatever, so that, unless matter, although apparently dead, be
really alive, attraction, cohesion, gravitation, and all its other so
called forces, being incompatible with dead inertness, must needs be
manifestations of some living, and possibly divine, power. Far from
there being any difficulty in conceiving Omnipresent Deity to be
exhibiting its might in every speck of universal space in every instant
of never-ending time, it is, on the contrary, impossible to conceive
otherwise. We cannot conceive one single minutest point in limitless
extension to be for one moment exempt from the immediate control of a
divine nature assumed to be

Diffused throughout infinity's expanse
And co-existent with eternity.

Here, indeed, we hasten to acknowledge with Hume that 'our line