We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy and obvious: but our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how antecedently probable it was that God should be: and that so being, He should be invested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know His glorious Nature to be clothed. Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that "originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to prove, _a posteriori_, that Something did exist; because something exists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had a Father; _ex nihilo nihil fit_, is not more a truth, than that creation must have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I only point at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at the great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something should have been, rather than Nothing. The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence, as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a negation, which must presuppose a matter once in being and possible to be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without the previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi termini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, presupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would still and for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its removal; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The chances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity; and the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. It was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable beginning from which reason can start, Something should be found existent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability.