My esteemed friend, Dr. Mahan, in his zeal to overthrow the ontological proof of the being of God, and to vindicate for the etiological proof the sole claim to validity, has been betrayed into a similar inconsistency. That there is any _à priori_ proof of the being of God is in his estimation a "wild chimera." "_Formation_ from pre-existing materials" constitutes "the exclusive basis" of Natural Theology.[115] Matter, then, _may_ be eternal, and an infinite series of events existing in a state of order is conceivable and possible. At page 85 of his "Natural Theology" he writes: "Mr. Hume has undeniably announced the truth _as it is_ upon this subject, to wit, that the idea of a nature eternally existing in a state of order without a cause other than the eternally inhering laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an eternally existing and infinite mind who originated this order--a mind existing without a cause." After several pages disfigured by a labored effort to prove the possibility and logical consistency of an "infinite series of events existing in an orderly succession," he sums up with the imperious assertion that "the argument against the possibility of an infinite series of events stands revealed as a _logical absurdity_" (p. 88). It is our deliberate conclusion, however, that the "logical absurdity" lies in the position of Dr. Mahan. "The idea of order in the Finite without a cause is no more self-contradictory than the idea of order in the Infinite without a cause." Mark the two points which stand out clearly in this strange assertion. First, the Finite here is nature--that is, matter and its laws. Secondly, the Infinite is the Supreme Mind. Dr. Mahan asserts that this _finite_ may be conceived as _eternally_ existing--that is, as existing through _infinite_ time; in other words, _the finite may be infinite_. For a thing or being, or for a series of things or beings, to be at once "finite" and "infinite" Dr. Mahan says "is not self-contradictory." This is on a par with the logic of Hegel--"Contradictory opposites are identical." Again, we ask, Is there no difference between "finite matter" and "Infinite Mind?" Is not matter composite, extended, divisible, and limited? Is not Infinite Mind unextended, incomposite, indivisible, and illimitable? The mere existence of matter does not necessarily involve the idea of _Order_. There are nebulæ existing in the universe "utterly devoid of all symmetry of form, ... irregular and capricious in their shapes and convolutions to a most extraordinary degree."[116] Wherever order is presented, we instinctively and infallibly ascribe it to mind. Mind for all of us, and forever, is the analogon and exponent of Order in every sphere, irrespective of all knowledge on our part as to when or how it had a beginning.