hat I can conceive of. I cannot conceive of its stopping. They say I
cannot conceive of infinite space! That is just what I can conceive
of; because, let me imagine all I can, my imagination will stand upon
the verge and see infinite space beyond. Infinite space is a necessity
of the mind, because I cannot think of enough matter to fill it.
Eternity is a necessity of the mind, because I cannot dream of the
cessation of time. But they say there is a design in the world,
consequently there must be a designer. Well, I don't know.

Paley says that the more wonderful a thing is, the greater the
necessity for creation; that a watch is a wonderful thing, and that it
must have had a creator; that the watchmaker is more wonderful than the
watch, therefore he must have had a creator. Then we come to God; He is
altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker, therefore He had no
creator. There is a link out somewhere; I don't pretend to understand
it. And so I say, that had the world been any other way, you would
have seen the same evidence of design, precisely. We grow up with our
conditions, and you cannot imagine of a first cause. Why? Every cause
has an effect.

Strike your hands together; they feel warm. The effect becomes a cause
instantly, and that cause produces another effect, and the effect
another cause; and there could not have been a cause until there was an
effect. Because until there was an effect, nothing had been caused;
until something had been caused, I am positive there was no cause. Now
you cannot conceive of a lost effect, because the lost effect of which
you can think, will in turn become a cause and that cause produce
another effect. And as you cannot think of a lost effect, you cannot
think of a first cause; it is not thinkable by the human mind.

They say God governs this world. Why does He not govern Russia as well
as He does Massachusetts? Why does He allow the Czar to send beautiful
girls of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, simply for saying a word in
favor of human liberty, to mines in Siberia, where they draw carts with
knees bruised and bleeding, with hands scarred and swollen? What is
that God worth that allows such things in the world He governs? Did He
govern this country when it had four millions of slaves?--when it
turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post--when the holy bible
was an auction-block on which the mother stood while her babe was sold
from her breast?--when bloo