rd being more or less analogous to themselves, but the
_fact_ stares him in the face.

Our 'sophists in surplices,' who can no otherwise bolster up their
supernatural system than by outraging all such rules of philosophising
as forbid us to choose the greater of two difficulties, or to multiply
causes without necessity, are precisely the men to explain everything.
But unfortunately their explanations do, for the most part, stand more
in need of explanation than the thing explained. Thus, they explain the
origin of matter by reference to an occult, immense, and immensely
mysterious phantasm without body, parts or passions, who sees though not
to be seen, hears though not to be heard, feels though not to be felt,
moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and, in
short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. Well might
Godwin say _the rage of accounting for what is obviously unaccountable,
so common among philosophers of this stamp, has brought philosophy
itself into discredit_.

There is an argument against the notion of a Supernatural Causer which
the author does not remember to have met with, but which he considers an
argument of great force--it is this. Cause means change, and as there
manifestly could not be change before there was anything to change, to
conceive the universe caused is impossible.

That the sense here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every
reader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by Mr.
G.H. Lewes, on 'Spinoza's Life and Works,' where effect is defined as
cause realised; the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura naturata_;
and cause or causation is define as simply change. When, says Mr. Lewes,
the change is completed, we name the result effect. It is only a matter
of naming.

These definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause
nor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being
itself any more than attraction is the thing attracted. One might as
philosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship
_it_ as change which is in very truth a mere "matter of naming." Not so
the things changing or changed; _they_ are real, the prolific parent of
all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all ideas
we receive, in short, of all causes and of all effects, which causes and
effects, as shown by Mr. Lewis, are merely notional, for "we call the
antecedent cause, and t