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| Title | Why I left the church |
| Series Title | Pamphlets for the million; no. 1 |
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| Publisher | Watts & Company |
| Date | 1912 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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| Language | English |
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| Original Item Extent | 46 pages; 19 cm |
| Original Item Location | BX4668.3.M33A3 1912 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304505~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | Public Domain |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 19 |
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| File Name | uhlib_5792348_018.jpg |
| Transcript | WHY I LEFT THE CHURCH sophistical manner, just as the principle of causalnsrt itself is often a mere tautology. In its improved form the principle runs, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause," and consequently the non-eternity of the wrorld would have to be proved before the principle could be applied. I was at one time under the impression that the non-eternity of the wrorld could be proved, but I soon came to recognise in the argument an ingenious play upon words, such as are notoriously common in scholastic philosophy. In endeavouring to widen the application of the principle, Leibnitz discovered that it really sprang from a deeper and more universal principle, "There is nothing without a sufficient reason," and this became the basis of the Theistic argument. It is usually formulated in this manner:—The material universe must have a sufficient reason for its existence, and for its possession of its actual pow-ers and properties; either it exists necessarily and essentially, and in that case we find the sufficient reason in its own essence, or it is not self- existent, when we must seek in some productive principle the reason why it actually exists. Now, wThen we reflect on all our knowledge of matter, it seems clear that it is not self-existent; its existence seems a pure contingency which we can easily change in thought; it might have been eternally in rest, yet it is in motion ; its properties might have conceivably have been very different. We must, therefore, postulate an eternal, self-existent being, distinct from the wrorld, who gave it existence, and is responsible for its actual movement and distinctive characteristics. / |