If by this somewhat abstruse and, perhaps, too lengthy discussion we have succeeded in proving that Time and Space are simply relations between co-existent things and successive events, which, apart from things and events, have no reality, and are "nothing but the bare possibility of body and change," then we have disentangled the Christian doctrine of absolute creation from the embarrassment occasioned by supposing "the coeval and co-eternal existence of Time and Space as the _necessary_ conditions of the Divine activity." If Time and Space are relations between things and events, then God, as the almighty cause of things and relations, is the efficient cause of space and time, and the creative act was not conditioned by them. The affirmation of the necessary existence of Space, Time, and Number as co-eternal with and independent of God,[112] prepared the way for and rendered plausible the further affirmation of "the coeval existence of matter as the condition and medium of the Divine agency and manifestation."[113] For if Space, Time, and Number are eternal, _why may not Matter be eternal_? But why stop with the assertion of the eternity of Space, Time, Number, and Matter? "If we admit that there may be something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause of anything." If we admit the eternity of Matter, how can we deny the eternity of Force? We can not conceive of the existence of substance without some properties or qualities, and of all the properties of matter, gravitation or weight seems to approach nearest to an essential, necessary quality. And if we concede the eternity of matter and gravitating force, why not admit the eternity of law--that is, "uniformity of properties and relations;" uniformity in the results arising from the motions and changes of matter? And when so much is granted, why not grant that a consequent _Order_ of the universe must also be eternal? why not grant that the universe is an infinite succession of orderly phenomena without a beginning and end? After the first concession that matter is uncreated and eternal, how can any one refute the doctrine of Hume that the universe never had a beginning, and that under some one or another possible phase--amid the infinite possibility of phases--it is both eternal and infinite? How, after this admission, can we deny that the universe is "a series of events existing eternally in a state of order without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws of matter?" It would be easy to show that all those writers on "Natural Theology" who have made the least concession in regard to this fundamental question have involved themselves in entanglements and difficulties from which they could not logically extricate themselves.