here attached to the word cause is not a novel one every
reader knows who has seen an elaborate and ably written article by Mr.
G.H. Lewes, on 'Spinoza's Life and Works,' [68:1] where effect is
defined as cause realised, the _natura naturans_ conceived as _natura
naturata_; and cause or causation is defined as simply change. When,
says Mr. Lewis, the change is completed, we name the result effect. It
is only a matter of naming.

These definitions conceded accurate, the conclusion that neither cause
nor effect _exist_, seems inevitable, for change of being is not being
itself, any more than attraction is the thing attracted. One might as
philosophically erect attraction into reality and fall down and worship
_it_, as change, which is in very truth, a mere "matter of naming." Not
so the things changing or changed: _they_ are real, the prolific parent
of all appearance we behold, of all sensation we experience, of all
ideas we receive; in short, of all causes and of all effects, which
causes and effects, as shown by; Mr. Lewis, are merely notional, for "we
call the antecedent cause, and the sequent effect; but these are merely
relative conceptions; the sequence itself is antecedent to some
subsequent change, and the former antecedent was once only a sequent to
its cause, and so on." Now, to reconcile with this theory of causation,
the notion of an

Eternal, mighty, causeless God,

may be possible, but the Author of this Apology cannot persuade himself
that it is. His poor faculties are unequal to the mighty task of
conceiving the amazing Deity in question, whom Sir Richard Blackmore, in
his Ode to Jehovah, describes as sitting on an 'eternal throne'--

Above the regions of etherial space,
And far extended frontier of the skies;
Beyond the outlines of wide nature's face,
Where void, not yet enclosed, uncultivated lies;
Completely filling every place
And far outstretching all imaginary space.

Still less has he the right to pretend acquaintance with a process of
reasoning by which such

Eternal, mighty, causeless God

can be believed in consistently with the conviction that cause is effect
realised, and means only CHANGE.

Ancient Simonides, when asked by Dionysius to explain the nature of
Deity, demanded a day to 'see about it,' then an additional two days,
and then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that
the m