from thought in the effect to thought in the cause becomes invalid, and nothing but blind power, we know not what, remains as the attribute of the eternal being. Nor does he remember, when he meets the objection drawn from the inconceivability of matter being made out of nothing by saying that what is inconceivable is not therefore impossible (_ibid_. sec. 19), that it is simply the inconceivability of a sequence of something upon nothing that has given him his ‘evident demonstration’ of an eternal being. [1] See above, paragraphs 25 and 24. How ‘eternity’ must be understood if this argument is to be valid: 148. The value of the first step in Locke’s argument--the inference, namely, from there being something now to there having been something from eternity--must be differently estimated according to the meaning attached to ‘something’ and ‘from eternity.’ If the existence of something means the occurrence of an event, of this undoubtedly it can always be said that it follows another event, nor to this sequence can any limit be supposed, for a first event would not be an event at all. It would be a contingency contingent upon nothing. Thus understood, the argument from a something now to a something from eternity is merely a statement of the infinity of time according to that notion of infinity, as a ‘progressus ad indefinitum,’ which we have already seen to be Locke’s. [1] It is the exact reverse of an argument to a creation or a first cause. If we try to change its character by a supplementary consideration that infinity in the series of events is inconceivable, the rejoinder will be that a first event is not for that reason any less of a contradiction, and that the infinity which Locke speaks of only professes to be a negative idea, representing the impossibility of conceiving a first event (Book II. chap. xvii. sec. 13, &c.). In truth, however, when Locke speaks of ‘something from eternity’ he does not mean--what would clearly be no God at all--a series of events to which, because _of events_, and therefore in time, no limit can be supposed; but a being which is neither event nor series of events, to which there is no before or after. The inference to such a being is not of a kind with the transition from one event to another habitually associated with it; and if this be the true account of reasoning from effect to cause, no such reasoning can yield the result which Locke requires. As we have seen, however, this is not his account of it, [2] however legitimately it may follow from his general doctrine. [1] See above, paragraph 138. [2] See above, paragraph 68. ... and how ‘cause’.