Nature as a machine, governed by changeless causal law, is necessary to thought.
It is chiefly known from the causal relation of one of its species of the most serious of vine-diseases.
It is only gradually that there appears any recognition of a spiritual principle exercising a modifying or causal influence over inert matter.
There is thus causal necessity for Eternal Mind, or what we call " God."
The attack made by David Hume on the causal relation led directly to the new rationalism of Kant, who argued that it was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis.