Of all philosophical theories of causality the most repugnant to reason
must be those of Hume, Kant and Mill, which while differing from one
another agree in this--that they attribute the principle of causality to
a creation of our own minds, or in other words deny that there is
anything objective in the relation of cause and effect--i.e. in the very
thing which all physical science is engaged in discovering in particular
cases of it.


The conflict of Science and Religion has always arisen from one common
ground of agreement, or fundamental postulate of both parties--without
which, indeed, it would plainly have been impossible that any conflict
could have arisen, inasmuch as there would then have been no field for
battle. Every thesis must rest on some hypothesis; therefore, in cases
where two or more rival theses rest on a common hypothesis, the disputes
must needs collapse so soon as the common hypothesis is proved
erroneous. And proportionably, in whatever degree the previously common
hypothesis is shown to be dubious, in that degree are the disputations
shown to be possibly unreal. Now, it is one of the main objects of this
treatise to show that the common hypothesis on which all the disputes
between Science and Religion have arisen, is highly dubious. And not
only so, but that quite apart from modern science all the difficulties
on the side of intellect (or reason) which religious belief has ever
encountered in the past, or can ever encounter in the future, whether
in the individual or the race, arise, and arise exclusively, from the
self-same ground of this highly dubious hypothesis.

The hypothesis, or fundamental postulate, in question is, _If there be a
personal God, He is not immediately concerned with natural causation_.
It is assumed that _qua_ 'first cause,' He can in no way be concerned