But again let us realise the position in which we are placed by the principle of Continuity—we are led by it not only to regard the invisible universe as having existed before the present one, but the same principle drives us to acknowledge its existence in some form as a universe from all eternity. Now we can readily conceive a universe containing conditioned intelligent beings to have existed before the present; nay, to have existed for a time greater than any assignable time, which is the only way in which our thoughts can approach the eternal. But is it equally easy to conceive a dead universe to have existed in the same way during immeasurable ages? Is a dead universe a fully conditioned universe? For, regarding the laws of the universe as those laws according to which the intelligences of the universe are conditioned by the Governor thereof, can we conceive a dead universe to exist permanently without some being to be conditioned? Is not this something without meaning, an unreality—a make-believe? And if it be said that under these circumstances the conception in any form of immeasurable ages of time is unreal, we may reply by granting it, and asserting that in such a case we are driven not merely from the fully conditioned to the partially conditioned, but even to the unconditioned; in other words, the hypothesis of a permanently dead universe would hardly appear to satisfy the principle of Continuity, which prefers to proceed from one form of the fully conditioned to another. Nor is the difficulty removed by the hypothesis that the matter of the unseen universe was always in some simple sense alive, and that the motions of its various elements were always accompanied with a very simple species of consciousness, much more simple and rudimentary than any life that we know of here. For to this it may be replied, how is it possible to conceive that life has remained in this rudimentary form through a past eternity, and only developed into intelligence since the production of the visible universe? 219. For the benefit of our readers we shall now endeavour to review as clearly as we can the point at which we have arrived, and the steps which have brought us to it.