This reasoning amounts to logical demonstration (if logical demonstration there can be) of a most essential truth, which in all ages has been obstinately set at nought by dabblers in the supernatural. It demonstrates that something never was, never can be, caused by nothing, which can no more be a cause, properly so called, than it can be something, or equal to two right angles; and therefore that everything could not have had a cause, which, the reader has seen, is the very point assumed by Theists—the very point on which as a pivot they so merrily and successfully turn their fine metaphysical theories and immaterial systems.
The universe, quoth they, must have had a cause, and that cause must have been First Cause, or cause number one, because nothing can exist of itself. Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! How, in consistency, can they declare nothing can exist without a cause in the teeth of their oft repeated dogma that God is uncaused. If God never commenced to be, He is an uncaused existence, that is to say, exists without a cause. [29:2] The difference on this point between Theists and Universalists is very palpable. The former say, Spirit can exist without a cause, the latter say Matter can exist without a cause. Whole libraries of theologic dogma would be dearly purchased by Hume's profound remark—if everything must have a cause, it follows that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes.
Saint Augustine, more candid than modern theologians, said 'God is a being whom we speak of but whom we cannot describe and who is superior to all definitions.' Universalists, on the other hand, as candidly deny there is any such being. To them it seems that the name God stands for nothing, is the archetype of nothing, explains nothing, and contributes to nothing but the perpetuation of human imbecility, ignorance and error. To them it represents neither shadow nor substance, neither phenomenon nor thing, neither what is ideal nor what is real; yet is it the name without senseless faith in which there could be no superstition.
If Nature is all, and all is Nature, nothing but itself could ever have existed, and of course nothing but itself can be supposed ever to have been capable of causing. To cause is to act, and though body without notion is conceivable, action without body is not. Neither can two Infinites be supposed to tenant one Universe. Only 'most religious philosophers' can pretend to acknowledge the being of an infinite God co-existent with an infinite Universe.
Universalists are frequently asked—What moves matter? to which question nothing is the true and sufficient answer. Matter moves matter. If asked how we know it does, our answer is, because we see it do so, which is more than mind imaginers can say of their 'prime mover.' They tell us mind moves matter; but none save the third sighted among them ever saw mind, and if they never saw mind, they never could have seen matter pushed about by it. They babble about mind, but nowhere does mind exist save in their mind; that is to say, nowhere but nowhere. Ask these broad-day dreamers where mind is minus body? and very cutely they answer, body is the mind, and mind is the body.
That this is neither joke nor slander, we will show by reference to No. 25 of 'The Shepherd,' a clever and well known periodical, whose editor, [30:1] in reply to a correspondent of the 'chaotic' tribe, said 'As to the question—where is magnetism without the magnet? We answer, magnetism is the magnet, and the magnet is magnetism.' If so, body is the mind and the mind is body; and our Shepherd, if asked, 'Where is mind without the body?' to be consistent, should answer, body is the mind and the mind is the body. Both these answers are true, or both are false; and it must be allowed—
Each lends to each a borrowed charm,
Like pearls upon an Ethiop's arm.
Ask the 'Shepherd' where is mind without the body? and, if not at issue with himself, he must reply, mind is the man and man is the mind.
If this be so,—if the mind is the man and the man is the mind, which none can deny who say magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism—how, in Reason's name, can they be different, or how can the 'Shepherd' consistently pretend to distinguish between them; yet he does so. He writes about the spiritual part of man as though he really believed there is such a part. Not satisfied, it would seem, with body, like Nonentitarians of vulgar mould, he tenants it with Soul or Spirit, or Mind, which Soul, or Spirit, or Mind, according to his own showing, is nothing but body in action; in other terms, organised matter performing vital functions. Idle declamation against 'facts mongers' well becomes such self-stultifying dealers in fiction. Abuse of 'experimentarians' is quite in keeping with the philosophy of those who maintain the reality of mind in face of their own strange statement, that magnetism is the magnet and the magnet magnetism.
But we deny that magnetism is the magnet. These words magnetism and magnet do not, it is true, stand for two things, but one thing: that one and only thing called matter. The magnet is an existence, i.e., that which moves. Magnetism is not an existence, but phenomenon, or, if you please, phenomena. It is the effect of which magnetic body is the immediate and obvious cause.