What shall I say of your next assertion, that, from being accustomed to find a cause for every effect, “we have _falsely_ concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things”? Do you think that the principle of causality has no other ground than experience? or that, when we do not “find” the cause of a certain effect, we are to conclude that the effect has had no cause? I hope you will not deny that the notions of cause and effect are so essentially connected that there is no need of experiment to compel the admission of a cause for every effect. Hence we are certain, not only that all the effects for which we have found a cause proceed from a cause, but also that all the effects for which we cannot find a cause likewise proceed from a cause. This amounts to saying that the principle of causality is analytical, not empirical, as you seem to hold. Now, if all effects must have a cause, on what ground do you assert that “we have _falsely_ concluded that there exists a primary cause of all things”? Our conclusion cannot be false, unless it be false that the world has been created; for if it was created, we must admit a Creator—that is, a primary cause. But the fact of creation is, even philosophically, undeniable, since the contingent nature of the world is manifestly established by its liability to continuous change. And therefore it is manifestly established that our admission of a primary cause is not a false conclusion. I might say more on this point; but what need is there of refuting assertions which have not even a shadow of plausibility? The primary cause, you say, “is perfectly inaccessible to our ideas.” I answer that, if the word “idea” means “concept,” your statement is perfectly wrong. You add that the existence of a primary cause “is contradicted by scientific experience.” I answer by challenging you to bring forward a single fact of experimental science which supports your blasphemous assertion.