Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/189

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For, first, the chain of causation cannot in fact run backwards infinitely, but must at some time or other have absolutely begun; and it must break off its retrograde in logic as well as in time — must cease in respect to “grounds” as well as in reference to “causes.” For real causation belongs only to events and change, not to Being and identity, and hence there must come a point where the questions What caused it and Why are finally silenced, else there would be nothing absolute; whereas the underived necessity of Being, and of its elements mid laws, is the first condition for a rational view of the world.

Secondly, it is quite as clear that real time cannot be infinite ; for real time is nothing but the total duration of causal changes, and to suppose this infinite would, reckoning backwards, make the beginning of causation, just now established, close an infinite duration.

Finally, real space is manifestly just the extent of the sum-total of atoms; and this must be finite, because the number of atoms is necessarily definite; for, if it were not, the Actual of perception, as a series of changes by definite combination, would be impossible.

Real or objective space, time, and causation are thus all finite; the persuasion that they are infinite, with all the consequent array of counter-