"Even the Atheists … readily acknowledge it for an indubitable truth, that there must be something … which was never made or produced — and which therefore is the cause of those other things that are made, something … whose existence must needs be necessary.... Wherefore all the question now is, what is this … self-existent thing, which is the cause of all other things that are made. Now there are two grand opinions opposite to one another concerning it; for, first, some contend, that the only self-existent, unmade and incorruptible thing is senseless matter.... But because this is really the lowest and most imperfect of all beings, others on the contrary judge it reasonable, that the first principle and original of all things should be that, which is the most perfect … not senseless matter, but a perfect conscious understanding nature, or mind. And these are they, who are strictly and properly called Theists, who affirm, that a perfectly conscious understanding being, or mind, existing of itself from eternity, was the cause of all other things; and they, on the contrary, who derive all things from senseless matter, as the first original, and deny that there is any conscious understanding being self-existent and unmade, are those that are properly called Atheists."