Nevertheless, I think that it is open to a Theist to answer, "My object is not to explain the existence of Mind in the abstract, any more than it is my object to explain Existence itself in the abstract--to either of which absurd attempts Mr. Mill's reasoning would be equally applicable;--but I seek for an explanation of _my own individual finite mind_, which I know to have had a beginning in time, and which, therefore, in accordance with the widest and most complete analogy that experience supplies, I believe to have been _caused_. And if there is no other objection to my believing in Intelligence as the cause of my intelligence, than that I cannot prove my own intelligence caused, then I am satisfied to let the matter rest here; for as every argument must have _some_ basis of assumption to stand upon, I am well pleased to find that the basis in this case is the most solid which experience can supply, viz.,--the law of causation. Fully admitting that it does not account for Mind (in the abstract) to refer one mind to a prior mind for its origin; yet my hypothesis, if admitted, _does_ account for the fact that _my mind_ exists; and this is all that my hypothesis is intended to cover. For to endeavour to _explain_ the existence of an _eternal_ mind, could only be done by those who do not understand the meaning of these words." Now, I think that this reply to Mr. Mill, on the part of a theist, would so far be legitimate; the theistic hypothesis _does_ supply a provisional explanation of the existence of known minds, and it is, therefore, an explanation which, in lieu of a better, a theist may be allowed to retain. But a theist may not be allowed to confuse this provisional explanation of his own mind's existence with that of the existence of Mind in the abstract; he must not be allowed to suppose that, by thus hypothetically explaining the existence of known minds, he is thereby establishing a probability in favour of that hypothetical cause, an Unknown Mind. Only if he has some independent reason to infer that such an Unknown Mind exists, could such a probability be made out, and his hypothetical explanation of known mind become of more value than a guess. In other words, although the theistic hypothesis supplies _a possible_ explanation of known mind, we have no reason to conclude that it is _the true_ explanation, unless other reasons can be shown to justify, on independent grounds, the validity of the theistic hypothesis. Hence it is manifestly absurd to adduce this explanation as evidence of the hypothesis on which it rests--to argue that Theism must therefore be true; because we assume it to be so, in order to explain _known_ mind, as distinguished from _Mind_. If it be answered, We are justified in assuming Theism true, because we are justified in assuming that known mind can _only_ have been caused by an unknown mind, and hence that Mind must somewhere be self-existing, then this is to lead us to the