ued babbling of dry goods, and what was
becoming, till Mr. Remington leaned back laughing to us, and said,--

"What do you think, ladies? or are you of the opinion of somebody who
said of metaphysics, 'Whoever troubles himself to skin a flint should
have the skin for his pains'?"

"But that is a most unfair comparison!" said the minister, eagerly, "and
what I will by no means allow. By so much more as the mind is better
than the body, nay, because the mind is all that is worth anything about
a man, metaphysics is the noblest science, and most worthy"--

"I give in! I am down!" said Remington.

"But what are you disputing about?" said I.

"Oh, only Infinity!" said Remington. "But then you know metaphysics does
not hesitate at anything. I say, it is impossible for the mind to go
back to a first cause, and if the mind of a man cannot conceive an idea,
why of course that idea can never be true to him. I can think of no
cause that may not be an effect."

"Nor of infinite space, nor of infinite time?" said the minister.

"No,--of nothing that cannot be divided, and nothing that cannot be
extended."

"Very good. Perhaps you can't. I suppose we cannot comprehend infinity,
because we are essentially finite ourselves. But it by no means follows
that we cannot apprehend and believe in attributes which we are unable
to comprehend. We can certainly do that."

"No. After you reach your limit of comprehension, you may say, all
beyond that is infinite,--but you only push the object of your thought
out of view. After you have reiterated the years till you are tired, you
say, beyond that is infinite. You only mean that you are tired of
computing and adding."

"Then you cannot believe in an Infinite Creator?" said the minister.

"I can believe in nothing that is not founded on reason. I should be
very glad to believe in an Infinite Creator, only it is entirely
impossible, you see, for the mind to conceive of a being who is not
himself created."

"Yet you can believe in a world that is not created?" said the minister.
"You can believe that a world full of adaptations, full of signs of
intelligence and design, could be uncreated. How do you make that out?"

"There remains no greater difficulty to me," said Remington, "in
believing in an uncreated world than you have in believing in an
uncreated God. Why is it stranger that Chaos should produce harmony than
that Nothing should produce God?"

He looked at us, smiling as he sa