moves though not to be moved, knows though not to be known, and in
short, does everything, though not to be _done_ by anything. Well might
Godwin say the rage of accounting for what, like immortal Gibbs, is
obviously unaccountable, so common among 'philosophers' of this stamp,
has brought philosophy itself into discredit.

There is an argument against the notion of a Supernatural Causer which
the Author of this Apology does not remember to have met with, but which
he considers an argument of great force--it is this. Cause means change,
and as there manifestly could not be change before there was anything to
change, to conceive the universe caused is impossible.

That the sense 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