The first cause must be far more truly and properly a cause than any secondary cause. In fact, as we have already seen, a secondary cause is not strictly a cause; so far as secondary, it merely transmits to its consequent what it has received from its antecedent. There may be a succession of a thousand such causes in a process, yet the first cause is also the last, and there is, in fact, all through, but one cause; the others merely convey and communicate its force. A machine, however numerous its parts and movements, does not create the least amount of force; on the contrary, the most perfect machine wastes and absorbs some of the force which is imparted to it. The universe, so far as subject to mechanical laws, is merely a machine which transmits a given quantity of force, but which no more creates it than it creates itself. The author of that force is the one true cause of all physical phenomena. Life is probably, and mind is certainly, not entirely explicable on mechanical principles; but neither life nor mind can be maintained to do more than to determine the direction or application of the power implanted in them, or rendered accessible to them, through the working of the first cause. All things must, consequently, "live, move, and have their being" therein. It is at their end as well as at their origin; it encompasses them, all round; it penetrates them, all through. The least things are not merely linked on to it through intermediate agencies which go back an enormous distance, but are immediately present to it, and filled to the limit of their faculties with its power. It is in every ray of sunlight, every breath of wind, and blade of grass; it is the source and life of all human minds and hearts. The pantheist errs not so much in what he affirms of it, as in what he denies to it.