The argument for the Divine existence which proceeds on the principle of causality is generally called the cosmological argument, but sometimes, and perhaps more accurately, the ætiological argument. The proof from order is not unfrequently termed cosmological. It is impossible to keep the ætiological argument entirely separate either from the ontological or cosmological argument. Ætiological reasoning may be detected as a creative factor in the rudest religious creeds. The search for causes began not with the origin of philosophy but with the origin of religion. Passages like Ps. xc. 1, 2, cii. 26-28; Rom. i. 19, 20; Heb. i. 10-12--have been referred to as anticipations of the argument. Wherever nature is spoken of in Scripture, it is as the work of an uncreated being, of a free and sovereign mind. Aristotle gave a formal expression to the ætiological argument by inferring from the motion of the universe the existence of a first unmoved mover--Phys., vii. 1, 2, viii. 7, 9, 15. Cicero repeated his reasoning, and tells us it had been also employed by Carneades, De Nat. Deor., ii. 9, iii. 12, 13. Well known is St Augustine's "Interrogavi terram, et dixit: non sum. Interrogavi mare et abyssos--et responderunt: non sumus deus tuus, quære super nos. Interrogavi coelum, solem, lunam, stellas: neque nos sumus deus, quem quæris, inquiunt. Et dixi omnibus iis--dicite mihi de illo aliquid. Et exclamaverunt voce magna: ipse fecit nos. Interrogavi mundi molem de Deo meo et respondit mihi: non ego sum, sed ipse me fecit."--Conf., x. 6. Diodorus of Tarsus (Phot. Bib. Cod., 223, p. 209 Bekk.), and John of Damascus (De Fid. Orth., i. 3), inferred the necessity of a creative unity from the mutability and corruptibility of worldly things. Thomas Aquinas argued on the principle of causality in three ways--viz.: 1. From motion to a first moving principle, which is not moved by any other principle; 2. From effects to a first efficient cause; and 3. From the possible and contingent to what is in itself necessary.--Summa. P. i., Qu. 2, 3. Most of the theologians of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries who treat of the proofs of the Divine existence, employ in some form the argument from causation. Thus, in Pearson 'On the Creed' and Charnock's 'Discourses on the Existence and Attributes of God' will be found good examples of how it was presented in this country in the seventeenth century. Hume's speculations on causation attracted attention to it. The philosophers of the Scottish school and their adherents among the theologians laboured to present it in a favourable light. In Germany, Leibnitz (Théodicée, I. c. 7) and Wolff (Rational Thoughts of God, § 928) laid stress on the accidental contingent character of the world and its contents, and, relying on the principle of the sufficient reason, concluded that there must be a universal and permanent cause of all that is changing and transitory, an absolute ground of all that is relative and derivative.