susceptible of increase can be represented by figures, since it is finite, that is, determinate. It cannot be said that it extends into the past without beginning, for the dilemma always recurs that it is either finite or infinite; if finite, it must be represented by figures, and that destroys the idea of a non-beginning; and if it is infinite, it cannot be increased, which is absurd. And if we ask for a cause for any one event in the reputed unending series, we are referred to the event immediately preceding, which in turn has for its cause another prior event. If, however, we inquire for the cause of the whole series, we are told that there is none such; there is naught but an eternal succession of events. Is not this, as some author says, as if we were to ask what upholds the last link in a chain suspended from an unknown height, and should receive the answer that the link next to the last supports it, and the third supports the two beneath, and so on, each higher link supports a weightier burden? If then we should ask, What is it that supports the whole? we are told that it supports itself. Therefore a finite weight cannot support itself in opposition to the laws of gravitation; much less can another finite weight twice as heavy as the first, and less and less can it do so as the weight increases; but when the weight becomes infinite, nothing is required to uphold it. The reasoning is entirely analogous to Draper’s, who speaks of cloud replacing cloud in the skies without beginning, without end. “Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat.” Bacon has well said that the exclusive consideration of secondary causes leads to the exclusion of God from the economy of the universe, while a deeper insight reveals of necessity a First Cause on which all others depend. This is exactly the trouble with Dr. Draper. He will not lift his purblind gaze from the mere phenomena of nature to their cause, but is satisfied to revolve for ever in the vicious circle of countless effects without a cause. If we are to judge by the additional glow which pervades what he has written concerning the nebular hypothesis, he unquestionably considers that theory a conclusive proof of the non-interference of the Deity in the affairs of the universe.