se of all
life and intelligence and activity in the universe; in short, a mere
abstraction of the human mind. To some such cause, if it can be called a
cause, Mr. Holyoake ascribes all the phenomena of the universe; or he
leaves them utterly unaccounted for, and takes refuge in an eternal
series of derived and dependent beings, without attempting to assign any
reason for their existence. He undertakes to account for nothing. He
leaves the great problem unsolved, and discards it as insoluble. "Mr.
Harrison demanded of me, where the first man came from? I said, I did
not know; I was not in the secrets of Nature." "I cannot accept, says
one, the theory of progressive development, it is so intricate and
unsatisfying." "If something must be self-existent and eternal, says
another, why may not matter and all its properties be that something?"
"The Atheist holds that the universe is an endless series of causes and
effects _ad infinitum_, and therefore the idea of a _first_ cause is an
absurdity and a contradiction."[289] In short, the eternity of the world
is assumed, the origin of new races is left unexplained, and no account
whatever is given of the order which everywhere exists in Nature. In the
last resort, he takes refuge in the plea of _ignorance_. His only answer
is, "I do not know, I am not in the secrets of Nature."

But how does his extension of Paley's argument justify the position
which he now assumes? Or how can it invalidate the admissions which he
had previously made? That extension of the argument, even were it
supposed to be legitimate, amounts simply to this, that a designer must
be an organized being, and, as such, must have had a cause. But what
analogy suggests, or what law of reason requires, an _infinite series_
of such causes? And what is there in this extension of the argument that
should exclude the idea of a First Cause? It is thought, indeed, that by
connecting intelligence with organization, we may succeed at least in
excluding His infinity, His omnipresence, and other attributes which are
ascribed to the Most High: but the main stress of the argument rests not
on the fact of organization, but on the supposed necessity of _an
endless series_ of contrivers to account for the existence of any one
intelligent being, whether organized or not is of little moment. Now,
this is a mere assumption, an assumption entirely destitute of proof, an
assumption which is not necessarily involved even in the proposed