Theorem The Intellectual Consciousness of our own Existence proves the Existence of God.

I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time. My intellectual consciousness in time is by a series of mental states-is movable. All movable consciousness determined in time presupposes something permanent for the experience of a succession of things. in time is impossible, except in relation to something permanent.* This permanent something cannot be myself, for the reason that my own consciousness is not permanent and is itself determined by that something. It follows that my consciousness of this permanent something is only possible through existence of a reality external to me; and, therefore, the determination of my intellectual consciousness in time is by that real permanent existence which is external to me—the Infinite; of infinite attributes every one of which expresses eternal and infinite Being.

He who refuses this argument, will have to deny that similar argument, by which alone, from the determined consciousness of our own existence, we are able philosophically to prove the existence of external objects in space.

We shape the Thought otherwise :—

Let a man observe himself; he feels as well as moves,

* A rough and ready way by which those not versed in philosophical thought may apprehend that the experience of a succession in time is not possible except in relation to something permanent; that is, change is not conceivable unless we perceive at the same time something which does not change; will be found by observing that the flight of a bird is perceived because in contrast with the apparent fixity of the earth and sky; and that we are conscious of our own motion, only as we are aware of comparative fixity in the things around.

thinks as well as feels, is morally and intellectually conscious. He cannot wholly separate the moral and emotional from the intellectual, the sentient from the mere living, nor the living from the mechanical, when, gradationally, he descends to the inorganic. There is no vast chasm anywhere: one and the same power, one and the same principle, are externalized throughout, and inextricably interwoven; but differing in the masses and complexity manifested, in the nature and essence of the processes involved. Now as it is certain that no one thing in the world makes itself, that every part is for the whole, and that the whole is not more than the sum total of all the parts, the whole did not make itself, is not a self-creating machine, but previously existed in Intellect, and became Nature when endowed with material existence and shape. The universe is Mind externalized. Mind rules matter. We live, move, have all our being, in God. "As for the suggestion that the perception of the understanding in this respect may be illusory, in other words, that the reality of things is unknowable, it is one which Spinoza was incapable of entertaining: it is wholly foreign to his thought, and I submit that it ought so to be to all sound thinking" (Spinoza, by Frederick Pollock, p. 163).

Take the other side of this truth :

Suppose we gather, first-hand from nature, the molecules of the human body—not so as to replace or renew a pre-existent form, but to make a new being. By structural energies we gather the mass with its forces and put them together in the same positions as those occupied by a human body, there being "the self-same forces and distribution of forces, the self-same motions

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and distribution of motions, would this organized concourse of molecules stand before us as a sentient thinking being? Science answers-"There seems no valid

reason to believe that it would not.” Thus we attain to man. In this man, so gathered, the peculiar structural energies are not an inseparable part of the elements-but a something added by the vital principle, nor are the movements of an organism the sum total of material activities-but an alteration and extension; nor is the thinking inseparable from molecular motion-but a something apart from them acting with them; this something added, this alteration and extension, this something apart yet with, not being the product of any part, or of the whole of the man, but manifestly that which makes him, and endows him with individual speciality, as an externalization of Might, Life, Intelligence. The active and understanding mind is a mode of thought which, in a sense, is part of the infinite Intellect--but is not lost in that Intellect. Man is the complement, the symbol, of the world's intellectual constructive process. Man is able to give his own plan— power-spirit—to that which he forms; is an analogy, very feeble, yet true and actual, "Eikov TOŬ VONTOυ εἰκῶν τοῦ νοητοῦ alo@nrós" (Plato, "Tim.")-or there is no human analogy -of Him who organizes, gives life and intelligence to the world. Spinoza (by Frederick Pollock, p. 286) says, "Clear and distinct understanding of one's own nature . . . is accompanied by the idea of God."

Life and intelligence do not pass away, they are for ever and ever. The world, though it changes continually in every part, is relatively eternal, that is, it began time; there was no time without the world-in the

beginning it was created by the Absolutely Eternal. There is in it, unfailing and universal subordination of parts to grand principles of law. Law is not the product of any part, or of the whole of the parts, but a manifestation of the all-pervading principle. This enables us to see how the notion of Fate arose; and, while it gives consistency to the Scriptural Plan of Redemption, admits and requires that the many separate worlds of infinitude be in unity with some all-embracing scheme. For the maintenance of this unity, exists that continual intervention and interaction which weld all the links into one grand chain of universal cause and effect. Evidence is afforded by astronomy. The systems of suns, planets, satellites, comets, meteors; elliptic, parabolic, and other planes of motion; of sun round sun, and centres dominated by other centres; are examples of union, communion and intervention, passage of energy, light, heat, motion, which show that the universe is as to the whole and every part, the complement of Intellect-science assumes that to exist and be intelligible are both one. The telescope reveals stars in which life, such as we are acquainted with, may have existed, but now has no place. There are other spheres in which life is affirmed not now to exist, but time may bring it. Life is both the result and cause of new interferences, and the volition of animal life is transformed, in the human organism, to reason and conscience. These interferences, whether sudden and startling, or with beginning and operation imperceptible, are means, unfoldings, displays of wonderful, ever-growing variety. In distant realms of space stars die and new worlds brighten. As the old pass away, new life brings in its own power, its own beauty.

What we call

death is but the abandonment of home for another home. What we call eternity is for ever a transition from life to more life. Our spirit when it sinks into apparent darkness and the deep, emerges to new destinies in regions unvisited before. O Art and Science, range through all space, clasp together extremes, shake the rich from idle lethargy, awake our senators to send knowledge where the teacher is dumb and men of untutored reason herd! O Intellect, go forth to all the world, take Goodness for companion, bid high and low to carry the rapt vision of suffering virtue, through the doors of the shadow of death, into His presence who binds the sweet influence of the Pleiades and looses the bands of Orion; who demands eternity for the progress of His creatures and the vindication of His holiness!