No sooner have we reached the conclusion that the only hypothesis whereby the general order of Nature admits of being in any degree accounted for is that it is due to a cause of a mental kind, than we confront the fact that this cause must be widely different from anything that we know of Mind in ourselves. And we soon discover that this difference must be conceived as not merely of degree, however great, but of kind. In other words, although we may conclude that the nearest analogue of the _causa causarum_ given in experience is the human mind, we are bound to acknowledge that in all fundamental points the analogy is so remote that it becomes a question whether we are really very much nearer the truth by entertaining it. Thus, for instance, as Mr. Spencer has pointed out, our only conception of that which we know as Mind in ourselves is the conception of a series of states of consciousness. But, he continues, 'Put a series of states of consciousness as cause and the evolving universe as effect, and then endeavour to see the last as flowing from the first. I find it possible to imagine in some dim way a series of states of consciousness serving as antecedent to any one of the movements I see going on; for my own states of consciousness are often indirectly the antecedents to such movements. But how if I attempt to think of such a series as antecedent to _all_ actions throughout the universe ...? If to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going on, "Mind must be conceived as there," "under the guise of simple-dynamics," then the reply is, that, to be so conceived, Mind must be divested of all attributes by which it is distinguished; and that, when thus divested of its distinguishing attributes the conception disappears--the word Mind stands for a blank.' Moreover, 'How is the "originating Mind" to be thought of as having states produced by things objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to another?'[25]