For a defense of "the principle of causality" we must refer the reader to our remarks on the philosophy of Comte. We shall now only remark on one or two peculiarities in the above statement which betray an utter misapprehension of the nature of the argument. We need scarcely direct attention to the unfortunate and, indeed, absurd phrase, "an eternal succession of causes and effects." An "eternal succession" is a _contradictio in adjecto_, and as such inconceivable and unthinkable. No human mind can "rest" in any such thing, because an eternal succession is no rest at all. All "succession" is finite and temporal, capable of numeration, and therefore can not be eternal.[359] Again, in attaining the conception of a First Cause the human mind does not pass up "through a chain of subordinate causes," either definite or indefinite, "to one First Cause." [Footnote 357: Watson's "Institutes of Theology," vol. i. p. 273.] [Footnote 358: Id., ib., vol. i. p. 21.] [Footnote 359: See _ante_, pp. 181, 182, ch. v.] Let us re-state the principle of causality as a universal and necessary law of thought. "_All phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of_ POWER, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue." That "power" is intuitively and spontaneously apprehended by the human mind as Supreme and Ultimate--"the causal ground" is a personal God. All the phenomena of nature present themselves to us as "effects," and we know nothing of "subordinate causes" except as modes of the Divine Efficiency.[360] The principle of causality compels us to think causation behind nature, and under causation to think of Volition. "Other forces we have no sort of ground for believing; or, except by artifices of abstraction, even power of conceiving. The dynamic idea is either this or nothing; and the logical alternative assuredly is that nature is either a mere Time-march of phenomena or an expression of Mind."[361] The true doctrine of philosophy, of science, and of revelation is not simply that God did create "in the beginning," but that he still creates. All the operations of Nature are the operations of the Divine Mind. "Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth."[362] [Footnote 360: The modern doctrine of the Correlation and Homogenity of all Forces clearly proves that they are not many, but _one_--"a dynamic self-identity masked by transmigration."--Martineau's "Essays," pp. 134-144.] [Footnote 361: Martineau's "Essays," pp. 140, 141.] [Footnote 362: Psalm civ.]