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universes; and the postulate from which all this would follow must not state any matter of fact, since such fact would thereby be left unexplained. That perfect cosmology must therefore show that the whole history of the three universes, as it has been and is to be, would follow from a premise which would not suppose them to exist at all. Moreover, such premise must in actual fact be true. But that premise must represent a state of things in which the three universes were completely nil. Consequently, whether in time or not, the three universes must actually be absolutely necessary results of a state of utter nothingness. We cannot ourselves conceive of such a state of nility; but we can easily conceive that there should be a mind that could conceive it, since, after all, no contradiction can be involved in mere nonexistence. A state in which there should be absolutely no super-order whatsoever would be such a state of nility. For all Being involves some kind of super-order. For example, to suppose a thing to have any particular character is to suppose a conditional proposition to be true of it, which proposition would express some kind of super-order, as any formulation of a general fact does. To suppose it to have elasticity of volume is to suppose that if it were subjected to pressure its volume would diminish until at a certain point the full pressure was attained within and without its periphery. This is a super-order, a law expressible by a differential equation. Any such super-order would be a super-habit. Any general state of things whatsoever would be a super-order and a super-habit. In that state of absolute nility which, in or out of time, that is, before or after the evo-