purchased by Hume's profound remark--_if everything must
have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must
accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes._

Saint Augustine, more candid than modern theologians, said 'God is a
being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe and who is superior
to all definitions.' Universalists, on the other hand, as candidly deny
there is any such being. To them it seems that the name God stands for
nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes
to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and
error. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither
phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it
the name without senseless faith in which there could be no
superstition.

If Nature is all, and all is Nature, nothing but itself could ever have
existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have
been capable of causing. To cause is to act, and though body without
notion is conceivable, action without body is not. Neither can two
Infinites be supposed to tenant one Universe. Only 'most religious
philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite God
co-existent with an infinite Universe.

Universalists are frequently asked--What moves matter? to which question
_nothing_ is the true and sufficient answer. Matter moves matter. If
asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which
is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' They tell us
mind moves matter; but none save the _third sighted_ among them ever saw
mind, and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter
pushed about by it. They babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist
save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. Ask these
broad-day dreamers where mind is _minus_ body? and very cutely they
answer, body is the mind, and mind is the body.

That this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to No.
25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor,
[30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'As to
the question--where is magnetism without the magnet? We answer,
magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so, body is
the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked, 'Where is
mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the
mind and