Sec. 7. The argument from the general consent of mankind is so clearly fallacious, both as to facts and principles, that I shall pass it over and proceed at once to the last of the untenable arguments--that, namely, from the existence of a First Cause. And here I should like to express myself indebted to Mr. Mill for the following ideas:--"The cause of every change is a prior change; and such it cannot but be; for if there were no new antecedent, there would be no new consequent. If the state of facts which brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed always or for an indefinite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been produced an indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of causation, within the sphere of experience, that the causes as well as the effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem, therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a first cause, is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation, as it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First Cause." The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause argument are tolerably obvious, and had occurred to me before the publication of his essay. I shall, however, adhere to his order of presenting them. "But it is necessary to look more particularly into this matter, and analyse more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation." He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy supplies us with such a datum, and thus the conclusion easily follows--"It would seem, then, that the only sense in which experience supports, in any shape, the doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the primaeval and universal element of all causes, the First Cause can be no other than Force."