added hypothetically.

"An infinite effect implies an infinite cause--yes, certainly," Jose
answered.

"So, if God made the universe, He is infinite, is He not, Padre?"

"Yes."

"Then He can't be at all like us," was the logical conclusion.

Jose was thinking hard. The universe stands as something created. And
scientists agree that it is infinite in extent. Its creator therefore
must be infinite in extent. And as the universe continues to exist,
that which called it into being, and still maintains it, must likewise
continue to exist. Hence, God _is_.

"Padre, what holds the stars in place?" Rosendo's questions were as
persistent as a child's.

"They are held in place by laws, Rosendo," the priest replied
evasively. But as he made answer he revolved in his own mind that the
laws by which an infinite universe is created and maintained must
themselves be infinite.

"And God made those laws?"

"Yes, Rosendo."

But, the priest mused, a power great enough to frame infinite laws
must be itself all-powerful. And if it has ever been all-powerful, it
could never cease to be so, for there could be nothing to deprive it
of its power. Omnipotence excludes everything else. Or, what is the
same thing, is all-inclusive.

But laws originate, even as among human beings, in mind, for a law is
a mental thing. So the infinite laws which bind the stars together,
and by which the universe was designed and is still maintained, could
have originated only in a mind, and that one infinite.

"Then God surely must know everything," commented Rosendo, by way of
simple and satisfying conclusion.

Certainly the creator of an infinite universe--a universe, moreover,
which reveals intelligence and knowledge on the part of its cause--the
originator of infinite laws, which reveal omnipotence in their
maker--must have all knowledge, all wisdom, at his command. But, on
the other hand, intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, are ever mental
things. What could embrace these things, and by them create an
infinite universe, but an infinite _mind_?

Jose's thought reverted to Cardinal Newman's reference to God as "an
initial principle." Surely the history of the universe reveals the
patent fact that, despite the mutations of time, despite growth,
maturity, and decay, despite "the wreck of matter and the crash of
worlds," _something_ endures. What is it--law? Yes, but more. Ideas?
Still more. Mind? Yes, the mind which is the _anima mundi_, the
princ