Pass from this illustration of the idea of human creation to the hypothesis of a supreme being, possessing infinite power, and existing before the material universe began. The hypothesis of his existence includes the power to call into being things that had no previous being, whether these things be matter and material properties or moral and intellectual ideas. The whole realms of possible existence, spiritual and material, the whole void which consists in mere nothingness, are, according to the hypothesis, under his absolute sway. He holds the power of absolute creation; and the power this hypothesis imputes to him is no more incapable of representation in thought than is the inferior and limited power of creation, which we know to be performed by the finite human intellect, and which we have no difficulty in conceiving as a true creating faculty. When Watt formed the steam-engine, he did something more than to place certain portions of matter in certain relations, and make them to operate in a certain manner so as to produce a certain effect. He made the intellectual plan of a certain arrangement of matter; and to this act of giving being to something, both intellectual and physical, which did not exist before, we ascribe in its true sense the act of creation, and the idea we express by the term is perfectly capable of mental representation. "Those," says Mr. Spencer, "who entertain the proposition that each kind of organism results from a divine interposition, do so because they refrain from translating words into thoughts"; and he adds, quite truly, that there is no assignable mode or conceivable way in which the making of a new organism can be described. Let this be applied to some new mechanical structure produced by the intellect and hand of man. It is a result or product of human interposition. When we describe this human product as an invention, do we refrain from translating words into thoughts because we can not describe the process of invention? or, in other words, because we can not assign the mode in which the mind of the inventor reached his conception, are we to conclude that he did not attain to the conception which is plainly embodied in the machine that stands before our eyes? If we say that he created something, do we make a statement that can not be consistently imagined because we can not assign the mode in which his mind operated when it thought out the idea and constructed the plan? We can see how he put together certain material substances, and how they operate; but we can not see or describe the mental process by which he obtained his conception. Yet we ascribe to his act, and rightly ascribe to it, the idea of creation; and the term represents a thought of the mind that is as capable of being imagined as the word is of being spoken and understood.