We are warranted, then, in looking upon the universe as an event or effect, and we may be certain that it is not the last link of an infinite chain of causes and effects, or of any series of causes and effects, long or short, suspended upon nothing. No chain or series can be, properly speaking, infinite, or without a first link or term. The universe has a First Cause. And its First Cause, I must proceed to remark, reason and observation alike lead us to believe must be one--a single cause. When one First Cause is sufficient to explain all the facts, it is contrary to reason to suppose another or several. We must prove that no one First Cause could account for the universe before we can be entitled to ascribe it to more causes than one. The First Cause, we shall further see afterwards, must have attributes which no two or more beings can be supposed to possess, which one being alone can possess. Then the character of the effect itself refers us back to a single cause. A belief in more gods than one not only finds no support in the universe, but, as the very word universe indicates, is contradicted by it. For, numerous and diverse as are the objects in nature, they are so constituted and connected--so dependent on and related to one another--as to compose a whole which exhibits a marvellous unity in variety. Everything counteracts or balances or assists something else, and thus all things proclaim their common dependence on One Original. Co-ordinate things must all be derivative and secondary, and all things in nature are co-ordinate parts of a stupendous system. Each one of us knows, for example, that a few years ago he was not, and that in a few years hence the place which knows him now will know him no more; and each one of us has been often taught by the failure of his plans, and the disappointment of his hopes, and the vanity of his efforts, that there are stronger forces and more important interests in the world than his own, and that he is in the grasp of a Power which he cannot resist--which besets him behind and before, and hems him in on all sides. When we extend our view, we perceive that this is as true of others as of ourselves, and that it is true even, in a measure, of all finite things. No man lives or dies to himself; no object moves and acts absolutely from and for itself alone. This reveals a single all-originating, all-pervading, all-sustaining principle. These manifold mutually dependent existences imply one independent existence. The limitations assigned to all individual persons and things point to a Being which limits them all. Particular causes and secondary movements lead back to "a cause of causes," "a first mover, itself immovable, yet making all things else to move."