an organization in which it is
_generated_." By these assumptions, his theory connects itself with the
grossest Materialism; and that subject has been sufficiently discussed
in a separate chapter.

But in truth we regard the whole discussion on organization as a huge
and unnecessary excrescence on his argument, for he would have come to
his point quite as effectually, and much more directly, had he said
nothing at all about an organized being, and insisted merely on one,
whether material or spiritual, possessing powers of intelligence,
contrivance, and design; for it is evidently on the existence of such a
being, and not on the arrangements or adaptations of his organic parts,
that his main argument depends, namely, that such a being implies also a
contriver, and that again another, and so on in an endless series.
Whatever force belongs to his argument lies here: it consists, not in
the evidence of design arising from material organization, but in the
necessity of a cause adequate to account for a being possessing
intelligence, purpose, and will. The existence of an endless series of
such beings is impossible, and the supposition of it is absurd; and Mr.
Holyoake himself admits a self-existent, underived, and eternal
Being,--a being exempt, therefore, from all the conditions of time and
causality to which others are subject,--while he ascribes the origin of
intelligent, self-conscious beings to Nature, which is "neither
intelligent nor self-conscious," rather than to God, the father of
spirits, Himself a Spirit, infinite, omniscient, and almighty. He
ascribes the existence of intelligent, self-conscious, personal moral
agents to a power called _Nature_, which he cannot venture to call "a
person," nor even "an animal being," and of which he "cannot predicate
with the Pantheist the unity of its intelligence and consciousness." His
theory, in so far as it is intelligible, seems to have a stronger
affinity with Pantheism than he appears to suppose. Were he to define
the meaning of the word Nature,--a word so often used in a vague,
indefinite sense,[287]--he would find that his idea bears a close
resemblance to that of the German school,[288] who speak of the first
being as the _Indifference of the different_,--a certain vague,
undetermined, inexplicable entity, possessing no distinctive character
or peculiar attributes, whose existence is necessary, but not as a
living, self-conscious, and active being, while it is the cau