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+Project Gutenberg's A Candid Examination of Theism, by George John Romanes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Candid Examination of Theism
+
+Author: George John Romanes
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2006 [EBook #19003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANDID EXAMINATION OF THEISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Keith Edkins and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+CANDID EXAMINATION
+
+OF
+
+THEISM.
+
+BY
+
+PHYSICUS.
+
+BOSTON:
+HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, & COMPANY.
+1878.
+[_All rights reserved_]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_CANST THOU BY SEARCHING FIND OUT GOD?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following essay was written several years ago; but I have hitherto
+refrained from publishing it, lest, after having done so, I should find
+that more mature thought had modified the conclusions which the essay sets
+forth. Judging, however, that it is now more than ever improbable that I
+shall myself be able to detect any errors in my reasoning, I feel that it
+is time to present the latter to the contemplation of other minds; and in
+doing so, I make this explanation only because I feel it desirable to state
+at the outset that the present treatise was written before the publication
+of Mr. Mill's treatise on the same subject. It is desirable to make this
+statement, first, because in several instances the trains of reasoning in
+the two essays are parallel, and next, because in other instances I have
+quoted passages from Mr. Mill's essay in connections which would be
+scarcely intelligible were it not understood that these passages are
+insertions made after the present essay had been completed. I have also
+added several supplementary essays which have been written since the main
+essay was finished.
+
+It is desirable further to observe, that the only reason why I publish this
+edition anonymously is because I feel very strongly that, in matters of the
+kind with which the present essay deals, opinions and arguments should be
+allowed to produce the exact degree of influence to which as opinions and
+arguments they are entitled: they should be permitted to stand upon their
+own intrinsic merits alone, and quite beyond the shadow of that unfair
+prejudication which cannot but arise so soon as their author's authority,
+or absence of authority, becomes known. Notwithstanding this avowal,
+however, I fear that many who glance over the following pages will read in
+the "Physicus" of the first one a very different motive. There is at the
+present time a wonderfully wide-spread sentiment pervading all classes of
+society--a sentiment which it would not be easy to define, but the
+practical outcome of which is, that to discuss the question of which this
+essay treats is, in some way or other, morally wrong. Many, therefore, who
+share this sentiment will doubtless attribute my reticence to a puerile
+fear on my part to meet it. I can only say that such is not the case.
+Although I allude to this sentiment with all respect--believing as I do
+that it is an offshoot from the stock which contains all that is best and
+greatest in human nature--nevertheless it seems to me impossible to deny
+that the sentiment in question is as unreasonable as the frame of mind
+which harbours it must be unreasoning. If there is no God, where can be the
+harm in our examining the spurious evidence of his existence? If there is a
+God, surely our first duty towards him must be to exert to our utmost, in
+our attempts to find him, the most noble faculty with which he has endowed
+us--as carefully to investigate the evidence which he has seen fit to
+furnish of his own existence as we investigate the evidence of inferior
+things in his dependent creation. To say that there is one rule or method
+for ascertaining truth in the latter case, which it is not legitimate to
+apply in the former case, is merely a covert way of saying that the Deity,
+if he exists, has not supplied us with rational evidence of his existence.
+For my own part, I feel that such an assertion cannot but embody far more
+unworthy conceptions of a Personal God than are represented by any amount
+of earnest inquiry into whatever evidence of his existence there may be
+present; but, neglecting this reflection, if there is a God, it is certain
+that reason is the faculty by which he has enabled man to discover truth,
+and it is no less certain that the scientific methods have proved
+themselves by far the most trustworthy for reason to adopt. To my mind,
+therefore, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that, looking to this
+undoubted pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to truth, whether
+or not there is a God, the question as to his existence is both more
+morally and more reverently contemplated if we regard it purely as a
+problem for methodical analysis to solve, than if we regard it in any other
+light. Or, stating the case in other words, I believe that in whatever
+degree we intentionally abstain from using in this case what we _know_ to
+be the most trustworthy methods of inquiry in other cases, in that degree
+are we either unworthily closing our eyes to a dreaded truth, or we are
+guilty of the worst among human sins--"Depart from us, for we desire not
+the knowledge of thy ways." If it is said that, supposing man to be in a
+state of probation, faith, and not reason, must be the instrument of his
+trial, I am ready to admit the validity of the remark; but I must also ask
+it to be remembered, that unless faith has _some_ basis of reason whereon
+to rest, it differs in nothing from superstition; and hence that it is
+still our duty to investigate the _rational_ standing of the question
+before us by the _scientific_ methods alone. And I may here observe
+parenthetically, that the same reasoning applies to all investigations
+concerning the reality of a supposed revelation. With such investigations,
+however, the present essay has nothing to do, although, I may remark that
+if there is any evidence of a Divine Mind discernible in the structure of a
+professing revelation, such evidence, in whatever degree present, would be
+of the best possible kind for substantiating the hypothesis of Theism.
+
+Such being, then, what I conceive the only reasonable, as well as the most
+truly moral, way of regarding the question to be discussed in the following
+pages, even if the conclusions yielded by this discussion were more
+negative than they are, I should deem it culpable cowardice in me _for this
+reason_ to publish anonymously. For even if an inquiry of the present kind
+could ever result in a final demonstration of Atheism, there might be much
+for its author to regret, but nothing for him to be ashamed of; and, by
+parity of reasoning, in whatever degree the result of such an inquiry is
+seen to have a tendency to negative the theistic theory, the author should
+not be ashamed candidly to acknowledge his conviction as to the degree of
+such tendency, provided only that his conviction is an _honest_ one, and
+that he is conscious of its having been reached by using his faculties with
+the utmost care of which he is capable.
+
+If it is retorted that the question to be dealt with is of so ultimate a
+character that even the scientific methods are here untrustworthy, I reply
+that they are nevertheless the _best_ methods available, and hence that the
+retort is without pertinence: the question is still to be regarded as a
+scientific one, although we may perceive that neither an affirmative nor a
+negative answer can be given to it with any approach to a full
+demonstration. But if the question is thus conceded to be one falling
+within the legitimate scope of rational inquiry, it follows that the mere
+fact of demonstrative certainty being here antecedently impossible should
+not deter us from instituting the inquiry. It is a well-recognised
+principle of scientific research, that however difficult or impossible it
+may be to _prove_ a given theory true or false, the theory should
+nevertheless be tested, so far as it admits of being tested, by the full
+rigour of the scientific methods. Where demonstration cannot be hoped for,
+it still remains desirable to reduce the question at issue to the last
+analysis of which it is capable.
+
+Adopting these principles, therefore, I have endeavoured in the following
+analysis to fix the precise standing of the evidence in favour of the
+theory of Theism, when the latter is viewed in all the flood of light which
+the progress of modern science--physical and speculative--has shed upon it.
+And forasmuch as it is impossible that demonstrated truth can ever be shown
+untrue, and forasmuch as the demonstrated truths on which the present
+examination rests are the most fundamental which it is possible for the
+human mind to reach, I do not think it presumptuous to assert what appears
+to me a necessary deduction from these facts--namely, that, possible errors
+in reasoning apart, the rational position of Theism as here defined must
+remain without material modification as long as our intelligence remains
+human.
+
+LONDON, 1878.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ANALYSIS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THEISM.
+
+SECT.
+
+1. Introductory.
+
+2. Object of the chapter.
+
+3. The Argument from the Inconceivability of Self-existence.
+
+4. The Argument from the Desirability of there being a God.
+
+5. The Argument from the Presence of Human Aspirations.
+
+6. The Argument from Consciousness.
+
+7. The Argument for a First Cause.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
+
+8. Introductory.
+
+9. Examination of the Argument, and the independent coincidence of my views
+regarding it with those of Mr. Mill.
+
+10. Locke's exposition of the Argument, and a re-enunciation of it in the
+form of a Syllogism.
+
+11. The Syllogism defective in that it cannot explain Mind in the abstract.
+Mill quoted and answered. This defect in the Syllogism clearly defined.
+
+12. The Syllogism further defective, in that it assumes Intelligence to be
+the only possible cause of Intelligence. This assumption amounts to begging
+the whole question as to the being of a God. Inconceivability of Matter
+thinking no proof that it may not think. Locke himself strangely concedes
+this. His fallacies and self-contradictions pointed out in an Appendix.
+
+13. Objector to the Syllogism need not be a Materialist, but assuming that
+he is one, he is as much entitled to the hypothesis that Matter thinks as a
+Theist is to his hypothesis that it does not.
+
+14. The two hypotheses are thus of exactly equivalent value, save that
+while Theism is arbitrary, Materialism has a certain basis of fact to rest
+upon. This basis defined in a footnote, where also Professor Clifford's
+essay on "Body and Mind" is briefly examined. Difficulty of estimating the
+worth of the Argument as to the _most_ conceivable being _most_ likely
+true.
+
+15. Locke's comparison between certainty of the Inconceivability Argument
+as applied to Theism and to mathematics shown to contain a _virtual_ though
+not a _formal_ fallacy.
+
+16. Summary of considerations as to the value of this Argument from
+Inconceivability.
+
+17. Introductory to the other Arguments in favour of the conclusion that
+only Intelligence can have caused Intelligence.
+
+18. Locke's presentation of the view that the cause must contain all that
+is contained in the effects. His statements contradicted. Mill quoted to
+show that the analogy of Nature is against the doctrine of higher
+perfections never growing out of lower ones.
+
+19. Enunciation of the last of the Arguments in favour of the proposition
+that only Intelligence can cause Intelligence. Hamilton quoted to show that
+in his philosophy the entire question as to the being of a God hinges upon
+that as to whether or not human volitions are caused.
+
+20. Absurdity of the old theory of Free-will. Hamilton erroneously
+identified this theory with the fact that we possess a moral sense. His
+resulting dilemma.
+
+21. Although Hamilton was wrong in thus identifying genuine fact with
+spurious theory, yet his Argument from the fact of our having a moral sense
+remains to be considered.
+
+22. The question here is merely as to whether or not the presence of the
+moral sense can be explained by natural causes. _A priori_ probability of
+the moral sense having been evolved. _A posteriori_ confirmation supplied
+by Utilitarianism, &c.
+
+23. Mill's presentation of the Argument a resuscitation of Paley's. His
+criticism on Paley shown to be unfair.
+
+24. The real fallacy of Paley's presentation pointed out.
+
+25. The same fallacy pointed out in another way.
+
+26. Paley's typical case quoted and examined, in order to illustrate the
+root fallacy of his Argument from Design. Mill's observations upon this
+Argument criticised.
+
+27. Result yielded by the present analysis of the Argument from Design. The
+Argument shown to be a _petitio principii_.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.
+
+28. My belief that no competent writer in favour of the Argument from
+Design could have written upon it at all, had it not been for his
+instinctive appreciation of the much more important Argument from General
+Laws. The nature of this Argument stated, and its cogency insisted upon.
+
+29. The rational standing of the Argument from General Laws prior to the
+enunciation of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. The Rev. Baden
+Powell quoted.
+
+30. The nature of General Laws when these are interpreted in terms of the
+doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. The word "Law" defined in terms of
+this doctrine.
+
+31. The rational standing of the Argument from General Laws subsequent to
+the enunciation of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy.
+
+32. The self-evolution of General Laws, or the objective aspect of the
+question as to whether we may infer the presence of Mind in Nature because
+Nature admits of being intelligently interrogated.
+
+33. The subjective aspect of this question, according to the data afforded
+by evolutionary psychology.
+
+34. Correspondence between products due to human intelligence and products
+supposed due to Divine Intelligence, a correspondence which is only
+generic. Illustrations drawn from prodigality in Nature. Further
+illustrations. Illogical manner in which natural theologians deal with such
+difficulties. The generic resemblance contemplated is just what we should
+expect to find, if the doctrine of evolutionary psychology be true.
+
+35. The last three sections parenthetical. Necessary nature of the
+conclusion which follows from the last five sections.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD.
+
+36. Emphatic re-statement of the conclusion reached in the previous
+chapter. This conclusion shown to be of merely scientific, and not of
+logical conclusiveness. Preparation for considering the question in its
+purely logical form.
+
+37. The logic of probability in general explained, and canon of
+interpretation enunciated.
+
+38. Application of this canon to the particular case of Theism.
+
+39. Exposition of the logical state of the question.
+
+40. Exposition continued.
+
+41. Result of the exposition; "Suspended Judgment" the only logical
+attitude of mind with regard to the question of Theism.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.
+
+42. Statement of the position to which the question of Theism has been
+reduced by the foregoing analysis.
+
+43. Distinction between a scientific and a metaphysical teleology.
+Statement of the latter in legitimate terms. Criticism of this statement
+legitimately made on the side of Atheism as being gratuitous. Impartial
+judgment on this criticism.
+
+44. Examination of the question as to whether the metaphysical system of
+teleology is really destitute of all rational support. Pleading of a
+supposed Theist in support of the system. The principle of correlation of
+general laws. The complexity of Nature.
+
+45. Summary of the Theist's pleading, and judgment that it fairly removes
+from the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology the charge of the latter
+being gratuitous.
+
+46. Examination of the degree of probability that is presented by the
+hypothesis of metaphysical teleology, comprising an examination of the
+Theistic objection to the scientific train of reasoning on account of its
+symbolism, and showing that a no less cogent objection lies against the
+metaphysical train of reasoning on account of its embodying the supposition
+of unknowable causes. Distinction between "inconceivability" in a formal or
+symbolical, and in a material or realisable sense. Reply of a supposed
+Atheist to the previous pleading of the supposed Theist. Herbert Spencer
+quoted on inconceivability of cosmic evolution as due to Mind.
+
+47. Final judgment on the rational value of a metaphysical system of
+teleology. Distinction between "inconceivability" in an absolute and in a
+relative sense. Final judgment on the attitude of mind which it is rational
+to adopt towards the question of Theism. The desirability and the
+rationality of tolerance in this particular case.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+48. General summary of the whole essay.
+
+49. Concluding remarks.
+
+APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+A Critical Exposition of a Fallacy in Locke's use of the Argument against
+the possibility of Matter thinking on grounds of its being inconceivable
+that it should.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY I.
+
+Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theistical Argument, and criticism to
+show that it is inadequate to sustain the doctrine of "Cosmic Theism" which
+Mr. Fiske endeavours to rear upon it.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY II.
+
+A Critical Examination of the Rev. Professor Flint's work on "Theism".
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY III.
+
+On the Speculative Standing of Materialism.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY IV.
+
+On the Final Mystery of Things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THEISM.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THEISM.
+
+§ 1. Few subjects have occupied so much attention among speculative
+thinkers as that which relates to the being of God. Notwithstanding,
+however, the great amount that has been written on this subject, I am not
+aware that any one has successfully endeavoured to approach it, on all its
+various sides, from the ground of pure reason alone, and thus to fix, as
+nearly as possible, the exact position which, in pure reason, this subject
+ought to occupy. Perhaps it will be thought that an exception to this
+statement ought to be made in favour of John Stuart Mill's posthumous essay
+on Theism; but from my great respect for this author, I should rather be
+inclined to regard that essay as a criticism on illogical arguments, than
+as a _careful_ or _matured_ attempt to formulate the strictly rational
+_status_ of the question in all its bearings. Nevertheless, as this essay
+is in some respects the most scientific, just, and cogent, which has yet
+appeared on the subject of which it treats, and as anything which came from
+the pen of that great and accurate thinker is deserving of the most serious
+attention, I shall carefully consider his views throughout the course of
+the following pages.
+
+Seeing then that, with this partial exception, no competent writer has
+hitherto endeavoured once for all to settle the long-standing question as
+to the rational probability of Theism, I cannot but feel that any attempt,
+however imperfect, to do this, will be welcome to thinkers of every
+school--the more so in view of the fact that the prodigious rapidity which
+of late years has marked the advance both of physical and of speculative
+science, has afforded highly valuable data for assisting us towards a
+reasonable and, I think, a final decision as to the strictly logical
+standing of this important matter. However, be my attempt welcome or no, I
+feel that it is my obvious duty to publish the results which have been
+yielded by an honest and careful analysis.
+
+§ 2. I may most fitly begin this analysis by briefly disposing of such
+arguments in favour of Theism as are manifestly erroneous. And I do this
+the more willingly because, as these arguments are at the present time most
+in vogue, an exposure of their fallacies may perhaps deter our popular
+apologists of the future from drawing upon themselves the silent contempt
+of every reader whose intellect is not either prejudiced or imbecile.
+
+§ 3. A favourite piece of apologetic juggling is that of first demolishing
+Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &c., by successively calling upon them to
+explain the mystery of self-existence, and then tacitly assuming that the
+need of such an explanation is absent in the case of Theism--as though the
+attribute in question were more conceivable when posited in a Deity than
+when posited elsewhere.
+
+It is, I hope, unnecessary to observe that, so far as the ultimate mystery
+of existence is concerned, any and every theory of things is equally
+entitled to the inexplicable fact that something is; and that any endeavour
+on the part of the votaries of one theory to shift from themselves to the
+votaries of another theory the _onus_ of explaining the necessarily
+inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality which borders on the
+ludicrous.
+
+§ 4. Another argument, or semblance of an argument, is the very prevalent
+one, "Our heart requires a God; therefore it is probable that there is a
+God:" as though such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could ever
+prove an objective existence.[1]
+
+§ 5. If it is said that the theistic aspirations of the human heart, by the
+mere fact of their presence, point to the existence of a God as to their
+explanatory cause, I answer that the argument would only be valid after the
+possibility of any more proximate causes having been in action has been
+excluded--else the theistic explanation violates the fundamental rule of
+science, the Law of Parcimony, or the law which forbids us to assume the
+action of more remote causes where more proximate ones are found sufficient
+to explain the effects. Consequently, the validity of the argument now
+under consideration is inversely proportional to the number of
+possibilities there are of the aspirations in question being due to the
+agency of physical causes; and forasmuch as our ignorance of psychological
+causation is well-nigh total, the Law of Parcimony forbids us to allow any
+determinate degree of logical value to the present argument. In other
+words, we must not use the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its
+presence--must not argue from our ignorance of psychological possibilities,
+as though this ignorance were knowledge of corresponding impossibilities.
+The burden of proof thus lies on the side of Theism, and from the nature of
+the case this burden cannot be discharged until the science of psychology
+shall have been fully perfected. I may add that, for my own part, I cannot
+help feeling that, even in the present embryonic condition of this science,
+we are not without some indications of the manner in which the aspirations
+in question arose; but even were this not so, the above considerations
+prove that the argument before us is invalid. If it is retorted that the
+fact of these aspirations having had _proximate_ causes to account for
+their origin, even if made out, would not negative the inference of these
+being due to a Deity as to their _ultimate_ cause; I answer that this is
+not to use the argument from the presence of these aspirations; it is
+merely to beg the question as to the being of a God.
+
+§ 6. Next, we may consider the argument from consciousness. Many persons
+ground their belief in the existence of a Deity upon a real or supposed
+necessity of their own subjective thought. I say "real or supposed,"
+because, in its bearing upon rational argument, it is of no consequence of
+which character the alleged necessity actually is. Even if the necessity of
+thought be real, all that the fact entitles the thinker to affirm is, that
+it is impossible for _him_, by any effort of thinking, to rid himself of
+the persuasion that God exists; he is not entitled to affirm that this
+persuasion is necessarily bound up with the constitution of the human mind.
+Or, as Mill puts it, "One man cannot by proclaiming with ever so much
+confidence that _he_ perceives an object, convince other people that they
+see it too.... When no claim is set up to any peculiar gift, but we are
+told that all of us are as capable of seeing what he sees, feeling what he
+feels, nay, that we actually do so, and when the utmost effort of which we
+are capable fails to make us aware of what we are told, we perceive this
+supposed universal faculty of intuition is but
+
+  'The Dark Lantern of the Spirit
+  Which none see by but those who bear it.'"
+
+It is thus, I think, abundantly certain that the present argument must,
+from its very nature, be powerless as an argument to anyone save its
+assertor; as a matter of fact, the alleged necessity of thought is not
+universal; it is peculiar to those who employ the argument.
+
+And now, it is but just to go one step further and to question whether the
+alleged necessity of thought is, in any case and properly speaking, a
+_real_ necessity. Unless those who advance the present argument are the
+victims of some mental aberration, it is overwhelmingly improbable that
+their minds should differ in a fundamental and important attribute from the
+minds of the vast majority of their species. Or, to continue the above
+quotation, "They may fairly be asked to consider, whether it is not more
+likely that they are mistaken as to the origin of an impression in their
+minds, than that others are ignorant of the very existence of an impression
+in theirs." No doubt it is true that education and habits of thought may so
+stereotype the intellectual faculties, that at last what is conceivable to
+one man or generation may not be so to another;[2] but to adduce this
+consideration in this place would clearly be but to destroy the argument
+from the _intuitive_ necessity of believing in a God.
+
+Lastly, although superfluous, it may be well to point out that even if the
+impossibility of conceiving the negation of God were an universal law of
+human mind--which it certainly is not--the fact of his existence could not
+be thus proved. Doubtless it would be felt to be much more probable than it
+now is--as probable, for instance, if not more probable, than is the
+existence of an external world;--but still it would not be necessarily
+true.
+
+§ 7. The argument from the general consent of mankind is so clearly
+fallacious, both as to facts and principles, that I shall pass it over and
+proceed at once to the last of the untenable arguments--that, namely, from
+the existence of a First Cause. And here I should like to express myself
+indebted to Mr. Mill for the following ideas:--"The cause of every change
+is a prior change; and such it cannot but be; for if there were no new
+antecedent, there would be no new consequent. If the state of facts which
+brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed always or for an
+indefinite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been
+produced an indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of
+causation, within the sphere of experience, that the causes as well as the
+effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem,
+therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a
+first cause, is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation, as
+it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First
+Cause."
+
+The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause argument are tolerably
+obvious, and had occurred to me before the publication of his essay. I
+shall, however, adhere to his order of presenting them.
+
+"But it is necessary to look more particularly into this matter, and
+analyse more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have
+experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a
+beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no
+beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first
+or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause
+anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation."
+
+He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy supplies us
+with such a datum, and thus the conclusion easily follows--"It would seem,
+then, that the only sense in which experience supports, in any shape, the
+doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the primæval and universal element of
+all causes, the First Cause can be no other than Force."
+
+Still, however, it may be maintained that "all force is will-force." But
+"if there be any truth in the doctrine of Conservation of Force, ... this
+doctrine does not change from true to false when it reaches the field of
+voluntary agency. The will does not, any more than other agencies, create
+Force: granting that it originates motion, it has no means of doing so but
+by converting into that particular manifestation, a portion of Force which
+already existed in other forms. It is known that the source from which this
+portion of Force is derived, is chiefly, or entirely, the force evolved in
+the processes of chemical composition and decomposition which constitute
+the body of nutrition: the force so liberated becomes a fund upon which
+every muscular and every nervous action, as of a train of thought, is a
+draft. It is in this sense only that, according to the best lights of
+science, volition is an originating cause. Volition, therefore, does not
+answer to the idea of a First Cause; since Force must, in every instance,
+be assumed as prior to it; and there is not the slightest colour, derived
+from experience, for supposing Force itself to have been created by a
+volition. As far as anything can be concluded from human experience, Force
+has all the attributes of a thing eternal and uncreated....
+
+"All that can be affirmed (even) by the strongest assertion of the Freedom
+of the Will, is that volitions are themselves uncaused and are, therefore,
+alone fit to be the first or universal cause. But, even assuming volitions
+to be uncaused, the properties of matter, so far as experience discloses,
+are uncaused also, and have the advantage over any particular volition, in
+being, so far as experience can show, eternal. Theism, therefore, in so far
+as it rests on the necessity of a First Cause, has no support from
+experience."
+
+Such may be taken as a sufficient refutation of the argument that, as human
+volition is apparently a cause in nature, and moreover constitutes the
+basis of our conception of all causation, therefore all causation is
+probably volitional in character. But as this is a favourite argument with
+some theists, I shall introduce another quotation from Mr. Mill, which is
+taken from a different work.
+
+"Volitions are not known to produce anything directly except nervous
+action, for the will influences even the muscles only through the nerves.
+Though it were granted, then, that every phenomenon has an efficient and
+not merely a phenomenal cause, and that volition, in the case of the
+particular phenomena which are known to be produced by it, is that cause;
+are we therefore to say with these writers that since we know of no other
+efficient cause, and ought not to assume one without evidence, there _is_
+no other, and volition is the direct cause of all phenomena? A more
+outrageous stretch of inference could hardly be made. Because among the
+infinite variety of the phenomena of nature there is one, namely, a
+particular mode of action of certain nerves which has for its cause and, as
+we are now supposing, for its efficient cause, a state of our mind; and
+because this is the only efficient cause of "which we are conscious, being
+the only one of which, in the nature of the case, we _can_ be conscious,
+since it is the only one which exists within ourselves; does this justify
+us in concluding that all other phenomena must have the same kind of
+efficient cause with that one eminently special, narrow, and peculiarly
+human or animal phenomenon?" It is then shown that a logical parallel to
+this mode of inference is that of generalising from the one known instance
+of the earth being inhabited, to the conclusion that "every heavenly body
+without exception, sun, planet, satellite, comet, fixed star, or nebula, is
+inhabited, and must be so from the inherent constitution of things." After
+which the passage continues, "It is true there are cases in which, with
+acknowledged propriety, we generalise from a single instance to a multitude
+of instances. But they must be instances which resemble the one known
+instance, and not such as have no circumstance in common with it except
+that of being instances.... But the supporters of the volition theory ask
+us to infer that volition causes everything, for no other reason except
+that it causes one particular thing; although that one phenomenon, far from
+being a type of all natural phenomena, is eminently peculiar; its laws
+bearing scarcely any resemblance to those of any other phenomenon, whether
+of inorganic or of organic nature."[3]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
+
+§ 8. Leaving now the obviously untenable arguments, we next come to those
+which, in my opinion, may properly be termed scientific.
+
+It will be convenient to classify those as three in number; and under one
+or other of these heads nearly all the more intelligent advocates of Theism
+will be found to range themselves.
+
+§ 9. We have first the argument drawn from the existence of the human mind.
+This is an argument which, for at least the last three centuries, and
+especially during the present one, has been more relied upon than any other
+by philosophical thinkers. It consists in the reflection that the being of
+our own subjective intelligence is the most certain fact which our
+experience supplies, that this fact demands an adequate cause for its
+explanation, and that the only adequate cause of our intelligence must be
+some other intelligence. Granting the existence of a conditioned
+intelligence (and no one could reasonably suppose his own intelligence to
+be otherwise), and the existence of an unconditioned intelligence becomes a
+logical necessity, unless we deny either the validity of the principle that
+every effect must have an adequate cause, or else that the only adequate
+cause of Mind is Mind.
+
+It has been a great satisfaction to me to find that my examination of this
+argument--an examination which was undertaken and completed several months
+before Mr. Mill's essay appeared--has been minutely corroborated by that of
+our great logician. I mention this circumstance here, as on previous
+occasions, not for the petty motive of vindicating my own originality, but
+because in matters of this kind the accuracy of the reasoning employed, and
+therefore the logical validity of the conclusions attained, are guaranteed
+in the best possible manner, if the trains of thought have been
+independently pursued by different minds.
+
+§ 10. Seeing that, among the advocates of this argument, Locke went so far
+as to maintain that by it alone he could render the existence of a Deity as
+certain as any mathematical demonstration, it is only fair, preparatory to
+our examining this argument, to present it in the words of this great
+thinker.
+
+He says:--"There was a time when there was no knowing (_i.e._, conscious)
+being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has been also a
+knowing being from all eternity. If it be said, there was a time when no
+being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all
+understanding, I reply, that then it was impossible there should ever have
+been any knowledge: it being as impossible that things wholly void of
+knowledge, and operating blindly, and without perception, should produce a
+knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three
+angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugnant to the idea of
+senseless matter, that it should put into itself, sense, perception, and
+knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, that it should put
+into itself greater angles than two right ones."[4]
+
+Now, although this argument has been more fully elaborated by other
+writers, the above presentation contains its whole essence. It will be seen
+that it has the great advantage of resting _immediately_ upon the
+foundation from which all argument concerning this or any other matter,
+must necessarily arise, viz.,--upon the very existence of our argumentative
+faculty itself. For the sake of a critical examination, it is desirable to
+throw the argument before us into the syllogistic form. It will then stand
+thus:--
+
+All known minds are caused by an unknown mind. Our mind is a known mind;
+therefore, our mind is caused by an unknown mind.
+
+§ 11. Now the major premiss of this syllogism is inadmissible for two
+reasons: in the first place, it is assumed that known mind can only be
+caused by unknown mind; and, in the second place, even if this assumption
+were granted, it would not explain the existence of Mind as Mind. To take
+the last of these objections first, in the words of Mr. Mill, "If the mere
+existence of Mind is supposed to require, as a necessary antecedent,
+another Mind greater and more powerful, the difficulty is not removed by
+going one step back: the creating mind stands as much in need of another
+mind to be the source of its existence as the created mind. Be it
+remembered that we have no direct knowledge (at least apart from
+Revelation) of a mind which is even apparently eternal, as Force and Matter
+are: an eternal mind is, as far as the present argument is concerned, a
+simple hypothesis to account for the minds which we know to exist. Now it
+is essential to an hypothesis that, if admitted, it should at least remove
+the difficulty and account for the facts. But it does not account for mind
+to refer our mind to a prior mind for its origin. The problem remains
+unsolved, nay, rather increased."
+
+Nevertheless, I think that it is open to a Theist to answer, "My object is
+not to explain the existence of Mind in the abstract, any more than it is
+my object to explain Existence itself in the abstract--to either of which
+absurd attempts Mr. Mill's reasoning would be equally applicable;--but I
+seek for an explanation of _my own individual finite mind_, which I know to
+have had a beginning in time, and which, therefore, in accordance with the
+widest and most complete analogy that experience supplies, I believe to
+have been _caused_. And if there is no other objection to my believing in
+Intelligence as the cause of my intelligence, than that I cannot prove my
+own intelligence caused, then I am satisfied to let the matter rest here;
+for as every argument must have _some_ basis of assumption to stand upon, I
+am well pleased to find that the basis in this case is the most solid which
+experience can supply, viz.,--the law of causation. Fully admitting that it
+does not account for Mind (in the abstract) to refer one mind to a prior
+mind for its origin; yet my hypothesis, if admitted, _does_ account for the
+fact that _my mind_ exists; and this is all that my hypothesis is intended
+to cover. For to endeavour to _explain_ the existence of an _eternal_ mind,
+could only be done by those who do not understand the meaning of these
+words."
+
+Now, I think that this reply to Mr. Mill, on the part of a theist, would so
+far be legitimate; the theistic hypothesis _does_ supply a provisional
+explanation of the existence of known minds, and it is, therefore, an
+explanation which, in lieu of a better, a theist may be allowed to retain.
+But a theist may not be allowed to confuse this provisional explanation of
+his own mind's existence with that of the existence of Mind in the
+abstract; he must not be allowed to suppose that, by thus hypothetically
+explaining the existence of known minds, he is thereby establishing a
+probability in favour of that hypothetical cause, an Unknown Mind. Only if
+he has some independent reason to infer that such an Unknown Mind exists,
+could such a probability be made out, and his hypothetical explanation of
+known mind become of more value than a guess. In other words, although the
+theistic hypothesis supplies _a possible_ explanation of known mind, we
+have no reason to conclude that it is _the true_ explanation, unless other
+reasons can be shown to justify, on independent grounds, the validity of
+the theistic hypothesis. Hence it is manifestly absurd to adduce this
+explanation as evidence of the hypothesis on which it rests--to argue that
+Theism must therefore be true; because we assume it to be so, in order to
+explain _known_ mind, as distinguished from _Mind_. If it be answered, We
+are justified in assuming Theism true, because we are justified in assuming
+that known mind can _only_ have been caused by an unknown mind, and hence
+that Mind must somewhere be self-existing, then this is to lead us to the
+second objection to the above syllogism.
+
+§ 12. And this second objection is of a most serious nature. "Mind can only
+be caused by Mind," and, therefore, Mind must either be uncaused, or caused
+by a Mind. What is our warrant for ranking this assertion? Where is the
+proof that nothing can have caused a mind except another mind? Answer to
+this question there is none. For aught that we can ever know to the
+contrary, anything within the whole range of the Possible may be competent
+to produce a self-conscious intelligence--and to assume that Mind is so far
+an entity _sui generis_, that it must either be self-existing, or derived
+from another mind which is self-existing, is merely to beg the whole
+question as to the being of a God. In other words, if we can prove that the
+order of existence to which Mind belongs, is so essentially different from
+that order, or those orders, to which all else belongs, as to render it
+_abstractedly impossible_ that the latter can produce the former--if we can
+prove this, we have likewise proved the existence of a Deity. But this is
+just the point in dispute, and to set out with a bare affirmation of it is
+merely to beg the question and to abandon the discussion. Doubtless, by the
+mere act of consulting their own consciousness, the fact now in dispute
+appears to some persons self-evident. But in matters of such high
+abstraction as this, even the evidence of self-evidence must not be relied
+upon too implicitly. To the country boor it appears self-evident that wood
+is annihilated by combustion; and even to the mind of the greatest
+philosophers of antiquity it seemed impossible to doubt that the sun moved
+over a stationary earth. Much more, therefore, may our broad distinction
+between "cogitative and incogitative being"[5] not be a distinction which
+is "legitimated by the conditions of external reality."
+
+Doubtless many will fall back upon the position already indicated, "It is
+as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into
+itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of
+a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two right
+ones." But, granting this, and also that conscious matter is the sole
+alternative, and what follows? Not surely that matter cannot perceive, and
+feel, and know, merely because it is repugnant to our idea of it that it
+should. Granting that there is no other alternative in the whole
+possibility of things, than that matter must be conscious, or that
+self-conscious Mind must somewhere be self-existing; and granting that it
+is quite "impossible for us to conceive" of consciousness as an attribute
+of matter; still surely it would be a prodigious leap to conclude that for
+this reason matter cannot possess this attribute. Indeed, Locke himself
+elsewhere strangely enough insists that thought may be a property of
+matter, if only the Deity chose to unite that attribute with that
+substance. Why it should be deemed abstractedly impossible for matter to
+think if there is no God, and yet abstractedly possible that it should
+think if there is a God, I confess myself quite unable to determine; but I
+conceive that it is very important clearly to point out this peculiarity in
+Locke's views, for he is a favourite authority with theists, and this
+peculiarity amounts to nothing less than a suicide of his entire argument.
+The mere circumstance that he assumed the Deity capable of endowing matter
+with the faculty of thinking, could not have enabled him to _conceive_ of
+matter as thinking, any more than he could _conceive_ of this in the
+absence of his assumption. Yet in the one case he recognises the
+possibility of matter thinking, and in the other case denies such
+possibility, _and this on the sole ground of its being inconceivable_!
+However, I am not here concerned with Locke's eccentricities:[6] I am
+merely engaged with the general principle, that a subjective inability to
+establish certain relations in thought is no sufficient warrant for
+concluding that corresponding objective relations may not obtain.
+
+§ 13. Hence, an objector to the above syllogism need not be a materialist;
+it is not even necessary that he should hold any theory of things at all.
+Nevertheless, for the sake of definition, I shall assume that he is a
+materialist. As a materialist, then, he would appear to be as much entitled
+to his hypothesis as a theist is to his--in respect, I mean, of this
+particular argument. For although I think, as before shown, that in strict
+reasoning a theist might have taken exception to the last-quoted passage
+from Mill in its connection with the law of causation, that passage, if
+considered in the present connection, is certainly unanswerable. What is
+the state of the present argument as between a materialist and a theist?
+The mystery of existence and the inconceivability of matter thinking are
+their common data. Upon these data the materialist, justly arguing that he
+has no right to make his own conceptive faculty the unconditional test of
+objective possibility, is content to merge the mystery of his own mind's
+existence into that of Existence in general; while the theist, compelled to
+accept without explanation the mystery of Existence in general,
+nevertheless has recourse to inventing a wholly gratuitous hypothesis to
+explain one mode of existence in particular. If it is said that the latter
+hypothesis has the merit of causing the mystery of material existence and
+the mystery of mental existence to be united in a thinkable manner--viz.,
+in a self-existing Mind,--I reply, It is not so; for in whatever degree it
+is unthinkable that Matter should be the cause of Mind, in that precise
+degree must it be unthinkable that Mind was ever the cause of Matter, the
+correlatives being in each case the same, and experience affording no
+evidence of causality in either.
+
+§ 14. The two hypotheses, therefore, are of exactly equivalent value, save
+that while the one has a certain basis of fact to rest upon,[7] the other
+is wholly arbitrary. But it may still be retorted, 'Is not that which is
+_most_ conceivable _most likely_ to be true? and if it is more conceivable
+that my intelligence is caused by another Intelligence than that it is
+caused by Non-intelligence, may I not regard the more conceivable
+hypothesis as also the more probable one? It is somewhat difficult to say
+how far this argument is, in this case, valid; only I think it is quite
+evident that its validity is open to grave dispute. For nothing can be more
+evident to a philosophical thinker than that the substance of Mind must--so
+far at least as we can at present see--_necessarily_ be unknowable; so that
+if Matter (and Force) be this substance, we should antecedently expect to
+find that the actual causal connection should, in this particular case, be
+more inconceivable than some imaginary one: it would be more natural for
+the mind to infer that something conceivably more akin to itself should be
+its cause, than that this cause should be the entity which really gives
+rise to the unthinkable connection. But even waiving this reflection, and
+granting that the above argument is _valid_, it is still to an indefinite
+degree _valueless_, seeing that we are unable to tell _how much it is more
+likely_ that the more conceivable should here be true than that the less
+conceivable should be so.
+
+§ 15. Returning then to Locke's comparison between the certainty of this
+argument and that which proves the sum of the angles of a triangle to be
+equal to two right-angles, I should say that there is a _virtual_, though
+not a _formal_, fallacy in his presentation. For mathematical science being
+confessedly but of relative significance, any comparison between the degree
+of certainty attained by reasoning upon so transcendental a subject as the
+present, and that of mathematical demonstrations regarding relative truth,
+must be misleading. In the present instance, the whole strain of the
+argument comes upon the adequacy of the proposed test of truth, viz., our
+being able to conceive it if true. Now, will any one undertake to say that
+this test of truth is of equivalent value when it is applied to a triangle
+and when it is applied to the Deity. In the one case we are dealing with a
+geometrical figure of an exceedingly simple type, with which our experience
+is well acquainted, and presenting a very limited number of relations for
+us to contemplate. In the other case we are endeavouring to deal with the
+_summum genus_ of all mystery, with reference to which experience is quite
+impossible, and which in its mention contains all the relations that are to
+us unknown and unknowable. Here, then, is the oversight. Because men find
+conceivability a valid test of truth in the affairs of everyday life--as it
+is easy to show _à priori_ that it must be, if our experience has been
+formed under a given code of constant and general laws--therefore they
+conclude that it must be equally valid _wherever_ it is applied; forgetting
+that its validity must perforce decrease in proportion to the distance at
+which the test is applied from the sphere of experience.[8]
+
+§ 16. Upon the whole, then, I think it is transparently obvious that the
+mere fact of our being unable to conceive, say, how any disposition of
+matter and motion could possibly give rise to a self-conscious
+intelligence, in no wise warrants us in concluding that for this reason no
+such disposition is possible. The only question would appear to be, whether
+the test which is here proposed as an unconditional criterion of truth
+should be allowed any the smallest degree of credit. Seeing, on the one
+hand, how very fallible the test in question is known to have proved itself
+in many cases of much less speculative difficulty--seeing, too, that even
+now "the philosophy of the condition proves that things there are which
+may, nay must, be true, of which nevertheless the mind is unable to
+construe to itself the possibility;"[9] and seeing, on the other hand, that
+the substance of Mind, whatever it is, must necessarily be
+unknowable;--seeing these things, if any question remains as to whether the
+test of inconceivability should in this case be regarded as having any
+degree of validity at all, there can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that
+such degree should be regarded as of the smallest.
+
+§ 17. Let us then turn to the other considerations which have been supposed
+to justify the assertion that nothing can have caused our mind save another
+Mind. Neglecting the crushing fact that "it does not account for Mind to
+refer it to another Mind for its origin," let as see what positive reasons
+there are for concluding that no other influence than Intelligence can
+possibly have produced our intelligence.
+
+§ 18. First we may notice the argument which is well and tersely presented
+by Locke, thus:--"Whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily
+contain in it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections that can
+ever after exist; nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it
+hath not actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree; it necessarily
+follows that the first eternal being cannot be Matter." Now, as this
+presentation is strictly formal, I shall first meet it with a formal reply,
+and this reply consists in a direct contradiction. It is simply untrue that
+"whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and
+actually have, at least, all the perfections that can after exist;" or that
+it can never "give to another any perfection that it hath not actually in
+itself." In a sense, no doubt, a cause contains all that is contained in
+its effects; the latter content being _potentially_ present in the former.
+But to say that a cause already contains _actually_ all that its effects
+may afterwards so contain, is a statement which logic and common sense
+alike condemn as absurd.
+
+Nevertheless, although the argument now before us thus admits of a
+childishly easy refutation on strictly formal grounds, I suspect that in
+substance the argument in a general way is often relied upon as one of very
+considerable weight. Even though it is clearly illogical to say that causes
+cannot give to their effects any perfection which they themselves do not
+actually present, yet it seems in a general way incredible that gross
+matter could contain, even potentially, the faculty of thinking.
+Nevertheless, this is but to appeal to the argument from Inconceivability;
+to do which, even were it here legitimate, would, as we have seen, be
+unavailing. But to appeal to the argument from Inconceivability in this
+case would _not_ be legitimate; for we are in possession of an abundant
+analogy to render the supposition in question, not only conceivable, but
+credible. In the words of Mr. Mill, "Apart from experience, and arguing on
+what is called reason, that is, on supposed self-evidence, the notion seems
+to be that no causes can give rise to products of a more precious or
+elevated kind than themselves. But this is at variance with the known
+analogies of nature. How vastly nobler and more precious, for instance, are
+the vegetables and animals than the soil and manure out of which, and by
+the properties of which, they are raised up! The tendency of all recent
+speculation is towards the opinion that the development of inferior orders
+of existence into superior, the substitution of greater elaboration, and
+higher organisation for lower, is the general rule of nature. Whether this
+is so or not, there are at least in nature a multitude of facts bearing
+that character, and this is sufficient for the argument."
+
+§ 19. We now come to the last of the arguments which, so far as I know,
+have ever been adduced in support of the assertion that there can be no
+other cause of our intelligence than another and superior Intelligence. The
+argument is chiefly remarkable for the very great prominence which was
+given to it by Sir W. Hamilton.
+
+This learned and able author says:--"The Deity is not an object of
+immediate contemplation; as existing and in himself, he is beyond our
+reach; we can know him only mediately through his works, and are only
+warranted in assuming his existence as a certain kind of cause necessary to
+account for a certain state of things, of whose reality our faculties are
+supposed to inform us. The affirmation of a God being thus a regressive
+inference from the existence of a special class of effects to the existence
+of a special character of cause, it is evident that the whole argument
+hinges on the fact,--Does a state of things really exist such as is only
+possible through the agency of a Divine Cause? For if it can be shown that
+such a state of things does not really exist, then our inference to the
+kind of cause requisite to account for it is necessarily null.
+
+"This being understood, I now proceed to show you that the class of
+phænomena which requires that kind of cause we denominate a Deity is
+exclusively given in the phænomena of mind,--that the phænomena of matter
+taken by themselves, (you will observe the qualification taken by
+themselves) so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a God,
+would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation.
+
+"If, in man, intelligence be a free power,--in so far as its liberty
+extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter; and a
+power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence of an
+immaterial subject,--that is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence
+of intelligence on matter in the human constitution, in other words, if the
+spirituality of mind in man be supposed a datum of observation, in this
+datum is also given both the condition and the proof of a God. For we have
+only to infer, what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the
+same relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the first
+positive condition of a Deity is established in the establishment of the
+absolute priority of a free creative intelligence."[10]
+
+§ 20. Thus, according to Sir W. Hamilton, the whole question as to the
+being of a God depends upon that as to whether our "intelligence be a free
+power,"--or, as he elsewhere states it himself, "Theology is wholly
+dependent upon Psychology, for with the proof of the moral nature of man
+stands or falls the proof of the existence of a Deity." It will be observed
+that I am not at present engaged with the legitimacy of this author's
+decision upon the comparative merits of the different arguments in favour
+of Theism: I am merely showing the high opinion he entertained of the
+particular argument before us. He positively affirms that, unless the
+freedom of the human will be a matter of experience, Atheism is the sole
+alternative. Doubtless most well-informed readers will feel that the
+solitary basis thus provided for Theism is a very insecure one, while many
+such readers will at once conclude that if this is the only basis which
+reason can provide for Theism to stand upon, Theism is without any rational
+basis to stand upon at all. I have no hesitation in saying that the
+last-mentioned opinion is the one to which I myself subscribe, for I am
+quite unable to understand how any one at the present day, and with the
+most moderate powers of abstract thinking, can possibly bring himself to
+embrace the theory of Free-will. I may add that I cannot but believe that
+those who do embrace this theory with an honest conviction, must have
+failed to understand the issue to which modern thought has reduced the
+question. Here, however, is not the place to discuss this question. It will
+be sufficient for my purpose to show that even Sir W. Hamilton himself
+considered it a very difficult one; and although he thought upon the whole
+that the will must be free, he nevertheless allowed--nay, insisted--that he
+was unable to conceive how it could be so. Such inability in itself does
+not of course show the Free-will theory to be untrue; and I merely point
+out the circumstance that Hamilton allowed the supposed fact unthinkable,
+in order to show how very precarious, even in his eyes, the argument which
+we are considering must have appeared. Let us then, for this purpose,
+contemplate his attitude with regard to it a little more closely. He says,
+"It would have been better to show articulately that Liberty and Necessity
+are both incomprehensible, as beyond the limits of legitimate thought; but
+that though the Free-agency of Man cannot be speculatively proved, so
+neither can it be speculatively disproved; while we may claim for it as a
+fact of real actuality, though of inconceivable possibility, the testimony
+of consciousness, that we are morally free, as we are morally accountable
+for our actions. In this manner the whole question of free- and bond-will
+is in theory abolished, leaving, however, practically our Liberty, and all
+the moral instincts of Man entire."[11]
+
+From this passage it is clear that Sir W. Hamilton regarded these two
+counter-theories as of precisely equivalent value in everything save "the
+testimony of consciousness;" or, as he elsewhere states it, "as equally
+unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided, schemes are thus
+theoretically balanced. But, practically, our consciousness of the moral
+law ... gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the
+doctrine of fate."
+
+But the whole question concerning the freedom of the will has now come to
+be as to whether or not consciousness _does_ give its verdict on the side
+of freedom. Supposing we grant that "we are warranted to rely on a
+deliverance of consciousness, when that deliverance is _that_ a thing is,
+although we may be unable to think _how_ it can be,"[12] in this case the
+question still remains, whether our opponents have rightly interpreted the
+deliverance of their consciousness. I, for one, am quite persuaded that I
+never perform any action without some appropriate motive, or set of
+motives, having induced me to perform it. However, I am not discussing this
+question, and I have merely made the above quotations for the purpose of
+showing that Sir W. Hamilton appears to identify the _theory_ of Free-will
+with the _fact_ that we possess a moral sense. He argues throughout as
+though the theory he advocates were the only one that can explain a given
+"fact of real actuality." But no one with whom we have to deal questions
+the fact of our having a moral sense; and to identify this "deliverance of
+consciousness" with belief in the theory that volitions are uncaused, is,
+or would now be, merely to abandon the only questions in dispute.
+
+It is very instructive, from this point of view, to observe the dilemma
+into which Hamilton found himself driven by this identification of genuine
+fact with spurious theory. He believed that the fact of man possessing an
+ethical faculty could only be explained by the theory that man's will was
+not determined by motives; for otherwise man could not be the author of his
+own actions. But when he considered the matter in its other aspect, he
+found that his theory of Free-will was as little compatible with moral
+responsibility as was the opposing theory of "Bond-will;" for not only did
+he candidly confess that he could not conceive of will as acting without
+motives, but he further allowed the unquestionable truth "that, though
+inconceivable, a motiveless volition would, if conceived, be conceived as
+morally worthless."[13] I say this is very instructive, because it shows
+that in Hamilton's view each theory was alike irreconcilable with "the
+deliverance of consciousness," and that he only chose the one in preference
+to the other, because, although not any more conceivable a solution, it
+seemed to him a more possible one.[14]
+
+§ 21. Such, then, is the speculative basis on which, according to Sir W.
+Hamilton, our belief in a Deity can alone be grounded.
+
+Those who at the present day are still confused enough in their notions
+regarding the Free-will question to suppose that any further rational
+question remains, may here be left to ruminate over this _bolus_, and to
+draw from it such nourishment as they can in support of their belief in a
+God; but to those who can see as plainly as daylight that the doctrine of
+Determinism not only harmonises with all the facts of observation, but
+alone affords a possible condition for, and a satisfactory explanation of,
+the existence of our ethical faculty,--to such persons the question will
+naturally arise:--"Although Hamilton was wrong in identifying a known fact
+with a false theory, yet may he not have been right in the deductions which
+he drew from the fact?" In other words, granting that his theory of
+Free-will was wrong, does not his argument from the existence of a moral
+sense in man to the existence of a moral Governor of the Universe remain as
+intact as ever? Now, it is quite true that whatever degree of cogency the
+argument from the presence of the moral sense may at any time have had,
+this degree remains unaffected by the explosion of erroneous theories to
+account for such presence. We have, therefore, still to face the fact that
+the moral sense of man undoubtedly exists.
+
+§ 22. The question we have to determine is, What evidence have we to show
+that the moral part of man was created in the image of God; and if there is
+any such evidence, what counter-existence is there to show that the moral
+existence of man may be due to natural causes? In deciding this question,
+just as in deciding any other question of a purely scientific character, we
+must be guided in our examination by the Law of Parcimony; we must not
+assume the agency of supernatural causes if we can discover the agency of
+natural causes; neither must we merge the supposed mystery directly into
+the highest mystery, until we are quite sure that it does not admit of
+being proximately explained by the action of proximate influences.
+
+Now, whether or not Mr. Darwin's theory as to the origin and development of
+the moral sense be considered satisfactory, there can, I think, be very
+little doubt in any impartial mind which duly considers the subject, that
+in _some way or other_ the moral sense has been evolved. The body of
+scientific evidence which has now been collected in favour of the general
+theory of evolution is simply overwhelming; and in the presence of so large
+an analogy, it would require a vast amount of contradictory evidence to
+remove the presumption that human conscience, like everything else, has
+been evolved. Now, for my own part, I am quite unable to distinguish any
+such evidence, while, on the other hand, in support of the _à priori_
+presumption that conscience has been evolved, I cannot conceal from myself
+that there is a large amount of _à posteriori_ confirmation. I am quite
+unable to distinguish anything in my sense of right and wrong which I
+cannot easily conceive to have been brought about during the evolution of
+my intelligence from lower forms of psychical life. On the contrary,
+everything that I can find in my sense of right and wrong is precisely what
+I should expect to find on the supposition of this sense having been
+moulded by the progressive requirements of social development. Read in the
+light of evolution, Conscience, in its every detail, is deductively
+explained.
+
+And, as though there were not sufficient evidence of this kind to justify
+the conclusion drawn from the theory of evolution, the doctrine of
+utilitarianism--separately conceived and separately worked out on
+altogether independent grounds--the doctrine of utilitarianism comes in
+with irresistible force to confirm that _à priori_ conclusion by the widest
+and most unexceptionable of inductions.[15]
+
+In the supernatural interpretation of the facts, the whole stress of the
+argument comes upon the character of conscience as a _spontaneously
+admonishing influence which acts independently of our own volition_. For it
+is from this character alone that the inference can arise that conscience
+is the delegate of the will of another. Thus, to render the whole argument
+in the singularly beautiful words of Dr. Newman:--"If, as is the case, we
+feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened at transgressing the voice
+of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible,
+before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing
+wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us
+on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity
+of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one
+receiving praise from a father,--we certainly have within us the image of
+some person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find
+our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in
+whose anger we waste away. These feelings in us are such as require for
+their exciting cause an intelligent being; we are not affectionate towards
+a stone, nor do we feel shame before a horse or a dog; we have no remorse
+or compunction in breaking mere human law. Yet so it is; conscience emits
+all these painful emotions, confusion, foreboding, self-condemnation; and,
+on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a
+resignation, and a hope which there is no sensible, no earthly object to
+elicit. 'The wicked flees when no one pursueth;' then why does he flee?
+whence his terror? Who is it that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the
+hidden chambers of his heart? If the cause of these emotions does not
+belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is
+directed must be supernatural and divine; and thus the phenomena of
+conscience as a dictate avail to impress the imagination with the picture
+of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing,
+retributive."[16]
+
+Now I have quoted this passage because it seems to me to convey in a
+concise form the whole of the argument from Conscience. But how tremendous
+are the inferences which are drawn from the facts! As the first step in our
+criticism, it is necessary to point out that two very different orders of
+feelings are here treated by Dr. Newman. There is first the pure or
+uncompounded ethical feelings, which spring directly from the moral sense
+alone, and which all men experience in varying degrees. And next there are
+what we may term the _ethico-theological_ feelings, which can only spring
+from a blending of the moral sense with a belief in a personal God, or
+other supernatural agents. The former class of feelings, or the
+uncompounded ethical class, have exclusive reference to the moral
+obligations that subsist between ourselves and other human beings, or
+sentient organisms. The latter class of feelings, or the ethico-theological
+class, have reference to the moral obligations that are believed to subsist
+between ourselves and the Deity, or other supernatural beings. Now, in
+order not to lose sight of this all-important distinction, I shall
+criticise Dr. Newman's rendering of the ordinary argument from Conscience
+in each of these two points of views separately. To begin, then, with the
+uncompounded ethical feelings.
+
+Such emotions as attend the operation of conscience in those who follow its
+light alone without any theories as to its supernatural origin, are all of
+the character of _reasonable_ or _explicable_ emotions. Granting that
+fellow-feeling has been for the benefit of the race, and therefore that it
+has been developed by natural causes, certainly there is nothing
+_mysterious_ in the emotions that attend the violating or the following of
+the dictates of conscience. For conscience is, by this naturalistic
+supposition, nothing more than an organised body of certain psychological
+elements, which, by long inheritance, have come to inform us, by way of
+intuitive feeling, how we should act for the interests of society; so that,
+if this hypothesis is correct, there cannot be anything more mysterious or
+supernatural in the working of conscience than there is in the working of
+any of our other faculties. That the disagreeable feeling of
+_self-reproach_, as distinguished from _religious_ feeling, should follow
+upon a violation of such an organized body of psychological elements,
+cannot be thought surprising, if it is remembered that one of these
+elements is natural fellow-feeling, and the others the elements which lead
+us to know directly that we have violated the interests of other persons.
+And as regards the mere fact that the working of conscience is independent
+of the will, surely this is not more than we find, in varying degrees, to
+be true of all our emotions; and conscience, according to the evolution
+theory, has its root in the emotions. Hence, it is no more an argument to
+say that the irrepressible character of conscience refers us to a God of
+morality, than it would be to say that the sometimes resistless force of
+the ludicrous refers us to a god of laughter. Love, again, is an emotion
+which cannot be subdued by volition, and in its tendency to persist bears
+just such a striking resemblance to the feelings of morality as we should
+expect to find on the supposition of the former having played an important
+part in the genesis of the latter. The _dictating_ character of conscience,
+therefore, is clearly in itself of no avail as pointing to a superhuman
+Dictator. Thus, for example, to take Dr. Newman's own illustration, why
+should we feel such tearful, broken-hearted sorrow on intentionally or
+carelessly hurting a mother? We see no shadow of a reason for resorting to
+any supernatural hypothesis to explain the fact--love between mother and
+offspring being an essential condition to the existence of higher animals.
+Yet this is a simple case of truly conscientious feeling, where the thought
+of any _personal_ cause of conscience _need_ not be entertained, and is
+certainly not necessary to explain the effects. And similarly with _all_
+cases of conscientious feeling, _except in cases where it refers directly
+to its supposed author_. But these latter cases, or the ethico-theological
+class of feelings, are in no way surprising. If the moral sense has had a
+natural genesis in the actual relations between man and man, as soon as an
+ideal "image" of "a holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive" God is
+firmly believed to have an objective existence, as a matter of course moral
+feelings must become transferred to the relations which are believed to
+obtain between ourselves and this most holy God. Indeed, it is these very
+feelings which, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, must be
+concluded, in accordance with the law of parcimony, to have _generated_
+this idea of God as "holy, just," and good. And the mere fact that, when
+the complex system of religious belief has once been built up, conscience
+is strongly wrought upon by that belief and its accompanying emotions, is
+surely a fact the very reverse of mysterious. Suppose, for the sake of
+argument, that the moral sense has been evolved from the social feelings,
+and should we not certainly expect that, when the belief in a moral and
+all-seeing God is superadded, conscience should be distracted at the
+thought of offending him, and experience a "soothing, satisfactory delight"
+in the belief that we are pleasing him? And as to the argument, "Why does
+the wicked flee when none pursueth? whence his terror?" the question admits
+of only too easy an answer. Indeed, the form into which the question is
+thrown would almost seem--were it not written by Dr. Newman--to imply a
+sarcastic reference to the power of superstition. "Who is it that," not
+only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the mediæval sorcerer, or the
+frightened child, "sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of
+his heart?" Who but the "image" of his own thought? "If the cause of these
+emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his
+perception is directed must be supernatural and divine." Assuredly; but
+what an inference from what an assumption! Whether or not the moral sense
+has been developed by natural causes, "these emotions" of terror at the
+thought of offending beings "supernatural and divine" are not of such
+unique occurrence "in the visible world" as to give Dr. Newman the monopoly
+of his particular "Object." With a deeper meaning, therefore, than he
+intends may we repeat, "The phenomena of conscience as a dictate _avail_ to
+impress the _imagination_ with the _picture_ of a Supreme Governor." But
+criticism here is positively painful. Let it be enough to say that those of
+us who do not already believe in any such particular "Object"--be it ghost,
+shape, demon, or deity--are strangers, utter and complete, to any such
+supernatural pursuers. The fact, therefore, of these various religious
+emotions being associated with conscience in the minds of theists, can in
+itself be no proof of Theism, seeing that it is the theory of Theism which
+itself _engenders_ these emotions; those who do not believe in this theory
+experiencing none of these feelings of personal dread, responsibility to an
+unknown God, and the feelings of doing injury to, or of receiving praise
+from, a parent. To such of us the violation of conscience is its own
+punishment, as the pursuit of virtue is its own reward. For we know that
+not more certainly than fire will burn, any violation of the deeply-rooted
+feelings of our humanity will leave a gaping wound which even time may not
+always heal. And when it is shown us that our natural dread of fire is due
+to a supernatural cause, we may be prepared to entertain the argument that
+our natural dread of sin, as distinguished from our dread of God, is
+likewise due to such a cause. But until this can be done we must, as
+reasonable men, _whose minds have been trained in the school of nature_,
+forbear to allow that the one fact is of any greater cogency than the
+other, so far as the question of a supernatural cause of either is
+concerned. For, as we have already seen, the law of parcimony forbids us to
+ascribe "the phenomena of conscience as a dictate" to a supernatural cause,
+until the science of psychology shall have proved that they cannot have
+been due to natural causes. But, as we have also seen, the science of
+psychology is now beginning, as quick and thoroughly as can be expected, to
+prove the very converse; so that the probability is now overwhelming that
+our moral sense, like all our other faculties, has been evolved. Therefore,
+while the burden of proof really lies on the side of Theism--or with those
+who account for the natural phenomena of conscience by the hypothesis of a
+supernatural origin--this burden is now being rapidly discharged by the
+opposite side. That is to say, while the proofs which are now beginning to
+substantiate the naturalistic hypothesis are all in full accord with the
+ordinary lines of scientific explanations, the vague and feeble reflections
+of those who still maintain that Conscience is evidence of Deity, are all
+such as run counter to the very truisms of scientific method.
+
+In the face of all the facts, therefore, I find it impossible to recognise
+as valid any inference which is drawn from the existence of our moral sense
+to the existence of a God; although, of course, all inferences drawn from
+the existence of our moral sense to the _character_ of a God already
+believed to exist remain unaffected by the foregoing considerations.[17]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
+
+§ 23. The argument from Design, as presented by Mill, is merely a
+resuscitation of it as presented by Paley. True it is that the logical
+penetration of the former enabled him to perceive that the latter had "put
+the case much too strongly;" although, even here, he has failed to see
+wherein Paley's error consisted. He says:--"If I found a watch on an
+apparently desolate island, I should indeed infer that it had been left
+there by a human being; but the inference would not be from the marks of
+design, but because I already know by direct experience that watches are
+made by men." Now I submit that this misses the whole point of Paley's
+meaning; for it is evident that there would be no argument at all unless
+this author be understood to say what he clearly enough expresses, viz.,
+that the evidence of design supposed to be afforded by the watch is
+supposed to be afforded by examination of its mechanism only, and not by
+any previous knowledge as to how that particular mechanism called a watch
+is made. Paley, I take it, only chose a watch for his example because he
+knew that no reader would dispute the fact that watches are constructed by
+design: except for the purpose of pointing out that mechanism is in some
+cases admitted to be due to intelligence, for all the other purposes of his
+argument he might as well have chosen for his illustration any case of
+mechanism occurring in nature. What the real fallacy in Paley's argument
+is, is another question, and this I shall now endeavour to answer; for, as
+Mill's argument is clearly the same in kind as that of Paley and his
+numberless followers, in examining the one I am also examining the other.
+
+§ 24. In nature, then, we see innumerable examples of apparent design: are
+these of equal value in testifying to the presence of a designing
+intelligence as are similar examples of human contrivance, and if not, why
+not? The answer to the first of these questions is patent. If such examples
+were of the same value in the one case as they are in the other, the
+existence of a Deity would be, as Paley appears to have thought it was,
+demonstrated by the fact. A brief and yet satisfactory answer to the second
+question is not so easy, and we may best approach it by assuming the
+existence of a Deity. If, then, there is a God, it by no means follows that
+every apparent contrivance in nature is an actual contrivance, in the same
+sense as is any human contrivance. The eye of a vertebrated animal, for
+instance, exhibits as much apparent design as does a watch; but no one--at
+the present day, at least--will undertake to affirm that the evidence of
+divine thought furnished by one example is as conclusive as is the evidence
+of human thought furnished by the other--and this even assuming a Deity to
+exist. Why is this? The reason, I think, is, that we know by our personal
+experience what are our own relations to the material world, and to the
+laws which preside over the action of physical forces; while we can have no
+corresponding knowledge of the relations subsisting between the Deity and
+these same objects of our own experience. Hence, to suppose that the Deity
+constructed the eye by any such process of thought as we know that men
+construct watches, is to make an assumption not only incapable of proof,
+but destitute of any assignable degree of likelihood. Take an example. The
+relation in which a bee stands to the external world is to a large extent a
+matter of observation, and, therefore, no one imagines that the formation
+of its scientifically-constructed cells is due to any profound study on the
+bee's part. Whatever the origin of the cell-making instinct may have been,
+its nature is certainly not the same as it would have been in man,
+supposing him to have had occasion to construct honeycombs. It may be said
+that the requisite calculations have been made for the bees by the Deity;
+but, even if this assumption were true, it would be nothing to the point,
+which is merely that even within the limits of the animal kingdom the
+relations of intelligence to the external world are so diverse, that the
+same results may be accomplished by totally different intellectual
+processes. And as this example is parallel to the case on which we are
+engaged in everything save the _observability_ of the relations involved,
+it supplies us with the exact measure of the probability we are trying to
+estimate. Hence it is evident that so long as we remain ignorant of the
+element essential to the argument from design in its Paleyerian form--viz.,
+knowledge or presumption of the relations subsisting between an
+hypothetical Deity and his creation--so long must that argument remain, not
+only unassignably weak, but incapable of being strengthened by any number
+of examples similar in kind.
+
+§ 25. To put the case in another way. The root fallacy in Paley's argument
+consisted in reasoning from a particular to an universal. Because he knew
+that design was the cause of adaptation in some cases, and because the
+phenomena of life exhibited more instances of adaptation than any other
+class of phenomena in nature, he pointed to these phenomena as affording an
+exceptional kind of proof of the presence in nature of intelligent agency.
+Yet, if it is admitted--and of this, even in Paley's days, there was a
+strong analogical presumption--that the phenomena of life are throughout
+their history as much subject to law as are any other phenomena
+whatsoever,--that the method of the divine government, supposing such to
+exist, is the same here as elsewhere; then nothing can be clearer than that
+any amount of observable adaptation of means to ends within this class of
+phenomena cannot afford any different kind of evidence of _design_ than is
+afforded by any other class of phenomena whatsoever. Either we know the
+relations of the Deity to his creation, or we do not. If we do, then we
+must know whether or not _every_ physical change which occurs in accordance
+with law--_i.e._, every change occurring within experience, and so, until
+contrary evidence is produced, presumably every change occurring beyond
+experience--was separately planned by the Deity. If we do not, then we have
+no more reason to suppose that any one set of physical changes rather than
+another has been separately planned by him, unless we could point (as Paley
+virtually pointed) to one particular set of changes and assert, These are
+not subject to the same method of divine government which we observe
+elsewhere, or, in other words, to law. If it is retorted that _in some way
+or other_ all these wonderful adaptations must ultimately have been due to
+intelligence, this is merely to shift the argument to a ground which we
+shall presently have to consider: all we are now engaged upon is to show
+that we have no right to found arguments on the assumed _mode_, _manner_,
+or _process_ by which the supposed intelligence is thought to have
+operated. We can here see, then, more clearly where Paley stumbled. He
+virtually assumed that the relations subsisting between the Deity and the
+universe were such, that the exceptional adaptations met with in the
+organised part of the latter cannot have been due to the same intellectual
+_processes_ as was the rest of the universe--or that, if they were, still
+they yielded better evidence of having been due to these processes than
+does the rest of the universe. And it is easy to perceive that his error
+arose from his pre-formed belief in special creation. So long as a man
+regards every living organism which he sees as the lineal descendant of a
+precisely similar organism originally struck out by the immediate fiat of
+Deity, so long is he justified in holding his axiom, "Contrivance must have
+had a contriver." For "adaptation" then becomes to our minds the synonym of
+"contrivance"--it being utterly inconceivable that the numberless
+adaptations found in any living organism could have resulted in any other
+way than by intelligent contrivance, at the time when this organism was in
+the first instance _suddenly_ introduced into its complex conditions of
+life. Still, as an argument, this is of course merely reasoning in a
+circle: we adopt a hypothesis which presupposes the existence of a Deity as
+the first step in the proof of his existence. I do not say that Paley
+committed this error expressly, but merely that if it had not been for his
+pre-formed conviction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he
+would probably not have written his "Natural Theology."
+
+§ 26. Thus let us take a case of his own choosing, and the one which is
+adduced by him as typical of "the application of the argument." "I know of
+no better method of introducing so large a subject than that of comparing a
+single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As
+far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same
+proof that the eye was made for vision as there is that the telescope was
+made for assisting it. They are both made upon the same principles, both
+being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays
+of light are regulated. I speak not of the origin of the laws themselves;
+but these laws being fixed, the construction in both cases is adapted to
+them. For instance: these laws require, in order to produce the same
+effect, that the rays of light, in passing through water into the eye,
+should be refracted by a more convex surface than when it passes out of air
+into the eye. Accordingly we find that the eye of a fish, in that part of
+it called the crystalline lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial
+animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there be than this
+difference?" But what, let us ask, is the proximate cause of this
+difference? 'The immediate volition of the Deity, manifested in special
+creation,' virtually answers Paley; while we of to-day are able to reply,
+'The agency of natural laws, to wit, inheritance, variation, survival of
+the fittest, and probably of other laws as yet not discovered.' Now, of
+course, according to the former of these two premises, there can be no more
+legitimate conclusion than that the difference in question is due to
+intelligent and special design; but, according to the other premise, it is
+equally clear that no conclusion can be more unwarranted; for, under the
+latter view, the greater rotundity of the crystalline lens in a fish's eye
+no more exhibits the presence of any special design than does the
+adaptation of a river to the bed which it has itself been the means of
+excavating. When, therefore, Paley goes on to ask:--"How is it possible,
+under circumstances of such close affinity, and under the operation of
+equal evidence, to exclude contrivance from the case of the eye, yet to
+acknowledge the proof of contrivance having been employed, as the plainest
+and clearest of all propositions, in the case of the telescope?" the answer
+is sufficiently obvious, namely, that the "evidence" in the two cases is
+_not_ "equal;"--any more than is the existence, say, of the Nile of equal
+value in point of evidence that it was designed for traffic, as is the
+existence of the Suez Canal that it was so designed. And the mere fact that
+the problem of achromatism was solved by "the mind of a sagacious optician
+inquiring how this matter was managed in the eye," no more proves that
+"this could not be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the
+optician the only effectual means of attaining that purpose," than would
+the fact, say, of the winnowing of corn having suggested the
+fanning-machine prove that air currents were designed for the purpose of
+eliminating chaff from grain. In short, the real substance of the argument
+from Design must eventually merge into that which Paley, in the
+above-quoted passage, expressly passes over--viz., "the origin of the laws
+themselves;" for so long as there is any reason to suppose that any
+apparent "adaptation" to a certain set of "fixed laws" is itself due to the
+influence of other "fixed laws," so long have we as little right to say
+that the latter set of fixed laws exhibit any better indications of
+intelligent adaptation to the former set, than the former do to that of the
+latter--the eye to light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive that Mill
+is entirely wrong when he says of Paley's argument, "It surpasses analogy
+exactly as induction surpasses it," because "the instances chosen are
+particular instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a
+real connection with an intelligent origin--the fact of conspiring to an
+end." Experience shows as this, but it shows us more besides; it shows us
+that there is no _necessary_ or _uniform_ connection between an
+"intelligent origin" and the fact of apparent "means conspiring to an
+[apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to compare this
+quotation just made from Mill, and the long train of reasoning that
+follows, with an admirable illustration in Mr. Wallace's "Natural
+Selection," he will be well rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr. Mill's
+reasoning so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for the
+respective dates of publication, one might have thought the latter had an
+express reference to the former.[18] True, Mr. Mill closes his argument
+with a brief allusion to the "principle of the survival of the fittest,"
+observing that "creative forethought is not absolutely the only link by
+which the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be connected
+with the fact of sight." I am surprised, however, that a man of Mr. Mill's
+penetration did not see that whatever view we may take as to "the adequacy
+of this principle (_i.e._, Natural Selection) to account for such truly
+admirable combinations as some of those in nature," the argument from
+_Design_ is not materially affected. So far as this argument is concerned,
+the issue is not Design _versus_ Natural Selection, but it is Design
+_versus_ Natural Law. By all means, "leaving this remarkable speculation
+(_i.e._, Mr. Darwin's) to whatever fate the progress of discovery may have
+in store for it," and it by no means follows that "in the present state of
+knowledge the adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability
+in favour of creation by intelligence." For whatever we may think of this
+special theory as to the _mode_, there can be no longer any reasonable
+doubt, "in the present state of our knowledge," as to the truth of the
+general theory of _Evolution_; and the latter, if accepted, is as
+destructive to the argument from _Design_ as would the former be if proved.
+In a word, it is the _fact_ and not the _method_ of Evolution which is
+subversive of Teleology in its Paleyerian form.
+
+§ 27. We have come then to this:--Apparent intellectual adaptations are
+perfectly valid indications of design, so long as their authorship is known
+to be confined to human intelligence; for then we know from experience what
+are our relations to these laws, and so in any given case can argue _à
+posteriori_ that such an adaptation to such a set of laws by such an
+intelligence can only have been due to such a process. But when we overstep
+the limits of experience, we are not entitled to argue anything _à priori_
+of any other intelligence in this respect, even supposing any such
+intelligence to exist. The analogy by which the unknown relations are
+inferred from the known is "infinitely precarious;" seeing that two of the
+analogous terms--to wit, the divine intelligence and the human--may differ
+to an immeasurable extent in their properties--nay, are supposed thus to
+differ, the one being supposed omniscient, omnipotent, &c., and the other
+not. And, as a final step, we may now see that the argument from Design, in
+its last resort, resolves itself into a _petitio principii_. For,
+ultimately, the only point which the analogical argument in question is
+adduced to prove is, that the relations subsisting between an Unknown Cause
+and certain physical forces are so far identical with the relations known
+to subsist between human intelligence and these same forces, that similar
+intellectual processes are required in the two cases to account for the
+production of similar effects--and hence that the Unknown Cause is
+intelligent. But it is evident that the analogy itself can have no
+existence, except upon the presupposition that these two sets of relations
+_are_ thus identical. The point which the analogy is adduced to prove is
+therefore postulated by the fact of its being adduced at all, and the whole
+argument resolves itself into a case of _petitio principii_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.
+
+§ 28. Turning now to an important error of Mr. Mill's in respect of
+omission, I firmly believe that all competent writers who have ever
+undertaken to support the argument from Design, have been moved to do so by
+their instinctive appreciation of the much more important argument, which
+Mill does not mention at all and which we now proceed to consider--the
+argument from General Laws. That is to say, I cannot think that any one
+competent writer ever seriously believed, had he taken time to analyse his
+beliefs, that the cogency of his argument lay in assuming any knowledge
+concerning the _process_ of divine thought; he must have really believed
+that it lay entirely in his observation of the _product_ of divine
+thought--or rather, let us say, of divine intelligence. Now this is the
+whole difference between the argument from Design and the argument from
+General Laws. The argument from Design says, There must be a God, because
+such and such an organic structure must have been due to such and such an
+intellectual _process_. The argument from General Laws says, There must be
+a God, because such and such an organic structure must _in some way or
+other have been ultimately due to_ intelligence. Nor does this argument end
+here. Not only must such and such an organic structure have been ultimately
+due to intelligence, but every such structure--nay, every phenomenon in the
+universe--must have been the same; for all phenomena are alike subject to
+the same method of sequence. The argument is thus a cumulative one; for as
+there is no single known exception to this universal mode of existence, the
+united effect of so vast a body of evidence is all but irresistible, and
+its tendency is clearly to point us to some _one_ explanatory cause. The
+scope of this argument is therefore co-extensive with the universe; it
+draws alike upon all phenomena with which experience is acquainted. For
+instance, it contains all the phenomena covered by the Design argument,
+just as a genus contains any one of its species; it being manifest, from
+what was said in the last section, that if the general doctrine of
+Evolution is accepted, the argument from Design must of necessity merge
+into that from General Laws. And this wide basis, we may be sure, must be
+the most legitimate one whereon to rest an argument in favour of Theism. If
+there is any such thing as such an argument at all, the most unassailable
+field for its display must be the universe as a whole, seeing that if we
+separate any one section of the universe from the rest, and suppose that we
+here discover a different kind of testimony to intelligence from that which
+we can discover elsewhere, we may from analogy be abundantly sure that on
+the confines of our division there must be second causes and general laws
+at work (whether discoverable or not), which are the immediate agents in
+the production of the observed results. Of course I do not deny that some
+classes of phenomena afford us more and better proofs of intellectual
+agency than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being more
+numerous, subtle, and complex; but it will be seen that this is a different
+interpretation of the evidence from that against which I am contending.
+Thus, if there are tokens of divine intention (as distinguished from
+design) to be met with in the eye,--if it is inconceivable that so "nice
+and intricate a structure" should exist without intelligence as its
+_ultimate_ cause; then the discovery of natural selection, or of any other
+law, as the _manner_ in which this intelligence wrought in no wise
+attenuates the proof as to the fact of an intelligent cause. On the
+contrary, it tends rather to confirm it; for, besides the evidence before
+existing, there is added that which arises from the conformity of the
+method to that which is observable in the rest of the universe.
+
+Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and others have said, I
+cannot but feel that the ubiquitous action of general laws is, of all facts
+supplied by experience, the most cogent in its bearing upon teleology. If
+perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does not indicate the
+existence of a presiding intelligence, it becomes a question whether any
+other kind of method--short of the intelligently miraculous--could possibly
+do so; seeing that the further the divine _modus operandi_ (supposing such
+to exist) were removed from absolute uniformity, the greater would be the
+room for our interpreting it as mere fortuity. But forasmuch as the
+progress of science has shown that within experience the method of the
+Supreme Causality is absolutely uniform, the hypothesis of fortuity is
+rendered irrational; and let us think of this Supreme Causality as we may,
+the fact remains that from it there emanates a directive influence of
+uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous magnitude and exact
+precision, worthy of our highest possible conceptions of Deity.
+
+§ 29. Had it been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I doubt not
+that I should have regarded the foregoing considerations as final: I should
+have concluded that there was an overwhelming balance of rational
+probability in favour of Theism; and I think I should also have insisted
+that this balance of rational probability would require to continue as it
+was till the end of time. I should have maintained, in some such words as
+the following, in which the Rev. Baden Powell conveys this argument:--"The
+very essence of the whole argument is the invariable preservation of the
+principle of _order_: not necessarily such as we can directly recognise,
+but the universal conviction of the unfailing subordination of everything
+to _some_ grand principles of _law_, however imperfectly apprehended in our
+partial conceptions, and the successive subordination of such laws to
+others of still higher generality, to an extent transcending our
+conceptions, and constituting the true chain of universal causation which
+culminates in the sublime conception of the COSMOS.
+
+"It is in immediate connection with this enlarged view of universal
+immutable natural order that I have regarded the narrow notions of those
+who obscure the sublime prospect by imagining so unworthy an idea as that
+of occasional interruptions in the physical economy of the world.
+
+"The only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden supernatural
+origination of new species of organised beings in remote geological epochs.
+It is in relation to the broad principle of law, if once rightly
+apprehended, that such inferences are seen to be wholly unwarranted by
+science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and inadmissible in
+philosophy; while, even in those instances properly understood, the real
+scientific conclusions of the invariable and indissoluble chain of
+causation stand vindicated in the sublime contemplations with which they
+are thus associated.
+
+"To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essential
+requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of this
+_one grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting the
+very idea of nature_;--which forms the vital essence of the whole of
+inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher inferences from
+the inductive study of natural causes which are the vindications of a
+supreme intelligence and a moral cause.
+
+"_The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the admission
+of this grand principle_. Those who are not prepared to embrace it in its
+full extent may probably not accept the conclusions; but they must be sent
+back to the school of inductive science, where alone it must be
+independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with the mind of the
+student in the first instance.
+
+"On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and general
+results of inductive science,... we recognise the powers of intellect fitly
+employed in the study of nature,... pre-eminently leading us to perceive
+_in nature_, and in the invariable and universal constancy of its laws, the
+indications of universal, unchangeable, and recondite arrangement,
+dependence, and connection in reason....
+
+"We thus see the importance of taking a more enlarged view of the great
+argument of natural theology; and the necessity for so doing becomes the
+more apparent when we reflect on the injury to which these sublime
+inferences are exposed from the narrow and unworthy form in which the
+reasoning has been too often conducted....
+
+"The satisfactory view of the whole case can only be found in those more
+enlarged conceptions which are furnished by the grand contemplation of
+cosmical order and unity, and which do not refer to inferences from the
+_past_, but to proofs of the _ever-present_ mind and reason in nature.
+
+"If we read a book which it requires much thought and exercise of reason to
+understand, but which we find discloses more and more truth and reason as
+we proceed in the study, and contains clearly more than we can at present
+comprehend, then undeniably we properly say that thought and reason _exist
+in that book_ irrespectively of our minds, and equally so of any question
+as to its author or origin. Such a book confessedly exists, and is ever
+open to us in the natural world. Or, to put the case under a slightly
+different form:--When the astronomer, the physicist, the geologist, or the
+naturalist notes down a series of observed facts or measured dates, he is
+not an _author_ expressing his own ideas,--he is a mere _amanuensis_ taking
+down the dictations of nature: his observation book is the record of the
+thoughts of _another mind_: he has but set down literally what he himself
+does not understand, or only very imperfectly. On further examination, and
+after deep and anxious study, he perhaps begins to decipher the meaning, by
+perceiving some law which gives a signification to the facts; and the
+further he pursues the investigation up to any more comprehensive theory,
+the more fully he perceives that there is a higher reason, of which his own
+is but the humbler interpreter, and into whose depths he may penetrate
+continually further, to discover yet more profound and invariable order and
+system, always indicating still deeper and more hidden abysses yet
+unfathomed, but throughout which he is assured the same recondite and
+immutable arrangement ever prevails.
+
+"That which requires thought and reason to understand must be itself
+thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or express must
+be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained is but partial, then
+the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind and reason of the
+student. If the more it be studied the more vast and complex is the
+necessary connection in reason disclosed, then the more evident is the vast
+extent and compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested, and its
+reality, as _existing in the immutably connected order of objects
+examined_, independently of the mind of the investigator.
+
+"But considerations of this kind, just and transcendently important as they
+are in themselves, give us no aid in any inquiry into the _origin_ of the
+order of things thus investigated, or the _nature_ or other attributes of
+the mind evinced in them.
+
+"The real argument for universal _intelligence_, manifested in the
+universality of order and law in the material world, is very different from
+any attempt to give a form to our conceptions, even by the language of
+analogy, as to the _nature_ or _mode of existence_ or operation of that
+intelligence [_i.e._, as I have stated the case, the argument can only rest
+on a study of the _products_, as distinguished from the _processes_ of such
+intelligence]: and still more different from any extension of our inference
+from what _is_ to what _may have been_, from _present_ order to a supposed
+_origination_, first adjustment, or planning of that order.
+
+"By keeping these distinctions steadily in view, we appreciate properly
+both the limits and the extent and compass of what we may appropriately
+call COSMOTHEOLOGY."[19]
+
+I have quoted these passages at length, because they convey in a more
+forcible, guarded, and accurate manner than any others with which I am
+acquainted, the strictly rational standing of this great subject prior to
+the date at which the above-quoted passage was written. Therefore, as I
+have said, if it had been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I
+should certainly have rested in these "sublime conceptions" as in an
+argument supreme and irrefutable. I should have felt that the progress of
+physical knowledge could never exert any other influence on Theism than
+that of ever tending more and more to confirm that magnificent belief, by
+continuously expanding our human thoughts into progressively advancing
+conceptions, ever grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin of
+Things--the Mind of God. Such would have been my hope--such would have been
+my prayer. But now, how changed! Never in the history of man has so
+terrific a calamity befallen the race as that which all who look may now
+behold advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, resistless in might,
+uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and
+burying our highest life in mindless desolation. Science, whom erstwhile we
+thought a very Angel of God, pointing to that great barrier of Law, and
+proclaiming to the restless sea of changing doubt, "Hitherto shalt thou
+come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,"--even
+Science has now herself thrown down this trusted barrier; the flood-gates
+of infidelity are open, and Atheism overwhelming is upon us.
+
+§ 30. All and every law follows as a necessary consequence from the
+persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter.[20] That this
+must be so is evident if we consider that, were it not so, force could not
+be permanent nor matter constant. For instance, if action and reaction were
+not invariably equal and opposite, force would not be invariably
+persistent, seeing that in no case can the formula fail, unless some one or
+other of the forces concerned, or parts of them, disappear. And as with a
+simple law of this kind, so with every other natural law and
+inter-operation of laws, howsoever complex such inter-operation may be; for
+it is manifest that if in any case similar antecedents did not determine
+similar consequents, on one or other of these occasions some quantum of
+force, or of matter, or of both, must have disappeared--or, which is the
+same thing, the law of causation cannot have been constant. Every natural
+law, therefore, may be defined as the formula of a sequence, which must
+either ensue upon certain forces of a given intensity impinging upon
+certain given quantities, kinds, and forms of matter, or else, by not
+ensuing, prove that the force or the matter concerned were not of a
+permanent nature.
+
+§ 31. The argument, then, which was elaborated in § 29, and which has so
+long and so generally received the popular sanction in the common-sense
+epitome, that in the last record there must be mind in external nature,
+since "that which it requires thought and reason to understand must itself
+be thought and reason,"--this argument, I say, must now for ever be
+abandoned by reasonable men. No doubt it would be easy to point to several
+speculative thinkers who have previously combated this argument,[21] and
+from this fact some readers will perhaps be inclined to judge, from a false
+analogy, that as the argument in question has withstood previous assaults,
+it need not necessarily succumb to the present one. Be it observed,
+however, that the present assault differs from all previous assaults, just
+as demonstration differs from speculation. What has hitherto been but mere
+guess and unwarrantable assertion has now become a matter of the greatest
+certainty. That the argument from General Laws is a futile argument, is no
+longer a matter of unverifiable opinion: it is as sure as is the most
+fundamental axiom of science. That the argument will long remain in
+illogical minds, I doubt not; but that it is from henceforth quite
+inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no question. For the sake,
+however, of impressing this fact still more strongly upon such readers as
+have been accustomed to rely upon this argument, and so find it difficult
+thus abruptly to reverse the whole current of their thoughts,--for the sake
+of such, I shall here add a few remarks with the view of facilitating the
+conception of an universal Order existing independently of Mind.
+
+§ 32. Interpreting the mazy nexus of phenomena only by the facts which
+science has revealed, and what conclusion are we driven to accept? Clearly,
+looking to what has been said in the last two sections, that from the time
+when the process of evolution first began,--from the time before the
+condensation of the nebula had showed any signs of commencing,--every
+subsequent change or event of evolution was _necessarily bound_ to ensue;
+else force and matter have not been persistent. How then, it will be asked,
+did the vast nexus of natural laws which is now observable ever begin or
+continue to be? In this way. When the first womb of things was pregnant
+with all the future, there would probably have been existent at any rate
+not more than one of the formulæ which we now call natural laws. This one
+law, of course, would have been the law of gravitation. Here we may take
+our stand. It does not signify whether there ever was a time when
+gravitation was not,--_i.e._, if ever there was a time when matter, _as we
+now know it_, was not in existence;--for if there ever was such a time,
+there is no reason to doubt, but every reason to conclude, that the
+evolution of matter, as we now know it, was accomplished in accordance with
+law. Similarly, we are not concerned with the question as to how the law of
+gravitation came to be associated with matter; for it is overwhelmingly
+probable, from the extent of the analogy, that if our knowledge concerning
+molecular physics were sufficiently great, the existence of the law in
+question would be found to follow as a necessary deduction from the primary
+qualities of matter and force, just as we can now see that, when present,
+its peculiar quantitative action necessarily follows from the primary
+qualities of space.
+
+Starting, then, with these data,--matter, force, and the law of
+gravitation,--what must happen? We have the strongest scientific reason to
+believe that the matter of the solar system primordially existed in a
+highly diffused or nebulous form. By mutual gravitation, therefore, all the
+substance of the nebula must have begun to concentrate upon itself, or to
+condense. Now, from this point onwards, I wish it to be clearly understood
+that the mere consideration of the supposed facts not admitting of
+scientific proof, or of scientific explanation if true, in no wise affects
+the certainty of the doctrine which these facts are here adduced to
+establish. Fully granting that the alleged facts are not beyond dispute,
+and that, even if true, innumerable other unknown and unknowable facts must
+have been associated with them--fully admitting, in short, that our ideas
+concerning the genesis of the solar system are of the crudest and least
+trustworthy character; still, if it be admitted, what at the present day
+only ignorance or prejudice can deny, viz., that, as a whole, evolution has
+been the method of the universe; then it follows that the doctrine here
+contended for is as certainly true as it would be were we fully acquainted
+with every cause and every change which has acted and ensued throughout the
+whole process of the genesis of things.
+
+Now, bearing this caveat in mind, we have next to observe that when once
+the nebula began to condense, new relations among its constituent parts
+would, _for this reason_, begin to be established. "Given a rare and widely
+diffused mass of nebulous matter,... what are the successive changes that
+will take place? Mutual gravitation will approximate its atoms, but their
+approximation will be opposed by atomic repulsion, the overcoming of which
+implies the evolution of heat." That is to say, the condensation of the
+nebula as a whole of necessity implies at least the origination of these
+new material and dynamical relations among its constituent parts. "As fast
+as this heat partially escapes by radiation, further approximation will
+take place, attended by further evolution of heat, and so on continuously:
+the processes not occurring separately, as here described, but
+simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and with increasing activity." Hence the
+newly established relations continuously acquire new increments of
+intensity. But now observe a more important point. The previous essential
+conditions remaining unaltered--viz., the persistence of matter and force,
+as well as, or rather let us say and consequently, the law of
+gravitation--these conditions, I say, remaining constant, and the newly
+established relations would necessarily _of themselves_ give origin to
+_new_ laws. For whenever two given quantities of force and matter met in
+one of the novel relations, they would of necessity give rise to novel
+effects; and whenever, on any future occasion, similar quantities of force
+and matter again so met, precisely similar effects would of necessity
+require to occur: but the occurrence of similar effects under similar
+conditions is all that we mean by a natural law.
+
+Continuing, then, our quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer's terse and lucid
+exposition of the nebular theory, we find this doctrine virtually embodied
+in the next sentences:--"Eventually this slow movement of the atoms towards
+their common centre of gravity will bring about phenomena of another order.
+
+"Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, it will happen that,
+when the nebulous mass has reached a particular stage of condensation--when
+its internally situated atoms have approached to within certain distances,
+have generated a certain amount of heat, and are subject to a certain
+mutual pressure (the heat and pressure increasing as the aggregation
+progresses), some of them will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether
+the binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, which is
+possible, or whether they be of kinds simpler than any we know, which is
+more probable, matters not to the argument. It suffices that molecular
+combinations of some species will finally take place." We have, then, here
+a new and important change of relations. Matter, primordially uniform, has
+itself become heterogeneous; and in as many places as it has thus changed
+its state, it must, in virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto
+novel relations, and so, in many cases, to new laws.[22]
+
+It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this genesis of natural law
+any further: indeed, it would be quite impossible so to trace it for any
+considerable distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes of
+relations renders all speculation as to the actual processes quite useless.
+This fact, however, as before insisted, in no wise affects the only
+doctrine which I here enunciate--viz., that the self-generation of natural
+law is a necessary corollary from the persistence of matter and force. And
+that this must be so is now, I hope, sufficiently evident. Just as in the
+first dawn of things, when the proto-binary compounds of matter gave rise
+to new relations together with their appropriate laws, so throughout the
+whole process of evolution, as often as matter acquired a hitherto novel
+state, or in one of its old states entered into hitherto novel relations,
+so often would non-existent or even impossible laws become at once possible
+and necessary. And in this way I cannot see that there is any reason to
+stop until we arrive at all the marvellous complexity of things as they
+are. For aught that speculative reason can ever from henceforth show to the
+contrary, the evolution of all the diverse phenomena of inorganic nature,
+of life, and of mind, appears to be as necessary and as self-determined as
+is the being of that mysterious Something which is Everything,--the Entity
+we must all believe in, which without condition and beyond relation holds
+its existence in itself.
+
+§ 33. Does it still seem incredible that, notwithstanding it requires
+mental processes to interpret external nature, external nature may
+nevertheless be destitute of mind? Then let us look at the subject on its
+obverse aspect.
+
+According to the theory of evolution--which, be it always remembered, is no
+mere gratuitous supposition, but a genuine scientific theory--human
+intelligence, like everything else, has been evolved. Now in what does the
+evolution of intelligence consist? Any one acquainted with the writings of
+our great philosopher can have no hesitation in answering: Clearly and only
+in the establishment of more and more numerous and complex internal or
+psychological relations. In other words, the law of intelligence being
+"that the strengths of the inner cohesions between psychical states must be
+proportionate to the persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it
+follows that the development of intelligence is "secured by the one simple
+principle that experience of the outer relations _produces_ inner
+cohesions, and makes the inner cohesions strong in proportion as the outer
+relations are persistent." Now the question before us at present is merely
+this:--Must we not infer that these outer relations are regulated by mind,
+seeing that order is undoubtedly apparent among them, and that it requires
+mental processes on our part to interpret this order? The only legitimate
+answer to this question is, that these outer relations _may_ be regulated
+by mind, but that, in view of the evolution theory, we are certainly not
+entitled to infer that they _are_ so regulated, _merely_ because it
+requires mental processes on our part to interpret their orderly character.
+For if it is true that the human mind was itself evolved by these outer
+relations--ever continuously moulded into conformity with them as the prime
+condition of its existence--then its process of interpreting them is but
+reflecting (as it were) in consciousness these outer relations by which the
+inner ones were originally produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an
+objective macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable that
+this objective macrocosm is _of itself_ sufficient to evolve a subjective
+microcosm, I do not see any the faintest reason for the latter to conclude
+that a self-conscious intelligence is inherent in the former, merely
+because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those orderly
+objective relations by which its own corresponding subjective relations
+were originally produced. If it is said that it is impossible to conceive
+how, apart from mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever
+have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the ground of
+discussion to that which occupied us in the last section: all we are now
+engaged upon is,--Granting that the existence of such orderly relations is
+actual, whether with or without mind to account for them; and granting also
+that these relations are _of themselves_ sufficient to produce
+corresponding subjective relations; then the mere fact of our conscious
+intelligence being able to discover numerous and complex outer relations
+answering to those which they themselves have caused in our intelligence,
+does not warrant the latter in concluding that the causal connection
+between intelligence and non-intelligence has ever been reversed--that
+these outer relations in turn are caused by a similar conscious
+intelligence. How such a thing as a conscious intelligence is possible is
+another and wholly unanswerable question (though not more so than that as
+to the existence of force and matter, and would not be rendered less so by
+merging the fact in a hypothetical Deity); but granting, as we must, that
+such an entity does exist, and supposing it to have been evolved by natural
+causes, then it would appear incontestably to follow, that whether or not
+objective existence is presided over by objective mind, our subjective mind
+would _alike_ and _equally_ require to read in the facts of the external
+world an indication, whether true or false, of some such presiding agency.
+The subjective mind being, by the supposition, but the obverse aspect of
+the sum total of such among objective relations as have had a share in its
+production, when, as in observation and reflection, this obverse aspect is
+again inverted upon its die, it naturally fits more or less exactly into
+all the prints.
+
+§ 34. This last illustration, however, serves to introduce us to another
+point. The supposed evidence from which the existence of mind in nature is
+inferred does not always depend upon such minute correspondences between
+subjective method and objective method as the illustration suggests. Every
+natural theologian has experienced more or less difficulty in explaining
+the fact, that while there is a tolerably general similarity between the
+contrivances due to human thought and the apparent contrivances in nature
+which he regards as due to divine thought, the similarity is nevertheless
+_only_ general. For instance, if a man has occasion to devise any
+artificial appliance, he does so with the least possible cost of labour to
+himself, and with the least possible expenditure of material. Yet it is
+obvious that in nature as a whole no such economic considerations obtain.
+Doubtless by superficial minds this assertion will be met at first with an
+indignant denial: they have been accustomed to accumulate instances of this
+very principle of economy in nature; perhaps written about it in books, and
+illustrated it in lectures,--totally ignoring the fact that the instances
+of economy in nature bear no proportion at all to the instances of
+prodigality. Conceive of the force which is being quite uselessly expended
+by all the wind-currents which are at this moment blowing over the face of
+Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dissipated during the
+secular cooling of this single planet. Feebly try to think of what the sun
+is radiating into space. If it is retorted that we are incompetent to judge
+of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this is but to abandon the
+argument from economy whenever it is found untenable: we presume to be
+competent judges of almighty purposes so long as they appear to imitate our
+own; but so soon as there is any divergence observable, we change front. By
+thus selecting all the instances of economy in nature, and disregarding all
+the vastly greater instances of reckless waste, we are merely laying
+ourselves open to the charge of an unfair eclecticism. And this formal
+refutation of the argument from economy admits of being further justified
+in a strikingly substantial manner; for if all the examples of economy in
+nature that were ever observed, or admit being observed, were collected
+into one view, I undertake to affirm that, without exception, they would be
+found to marshal themselves in one great company--the subjects whose law is
+_survival of the fittest_. One question only will I here ask. Is it
+possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, after due
+consideration, to withstand the fact that the solitary exceptions to the
+universal prodigality so painfully conspicuous in nature are to be found
+where there is also to be found a full and adequate physical explanation of
+their occurrence?
+
+But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars wherein the
+modes and the means of the supposed divine intelligence differ from those
+of its human counterpart. Comparative anatomists can point to organic
+structures which are far from being theoretically perfect: even the mind of
+man in these cases, notwithstanding its confessed deficiencies in respect
+both of cognitive and cogitative powers, is competent to suggest
+improvements to an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all-wise! And
+what shall we say of the numerous cases in which the supposed purposes of
+this intelligence could have been attained by other and less roundabout
+means? In short, not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is admitted, even
+by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties of reconciling,
+even approximately, the supposed processes of divine thought with the known
+processes of human thought are quite insuperable. The fact is expressed by
+such writers in various ways,--_e.g._, that it would be presumptuous in man
+to expect complete conformity in all cases; that the counsels of God are
+past finding out; that his ways are not as our ways, and so on. Observing
+only, as before, that in thus ignoring adverse cases natural theologians
+are guilty of an unfair eclecticism, it is evident that all such
+expressions concede the fact, that even in those provinces of nature where
+the evidence of superhuman intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance
+of its apparent products to those of human intelligence consists in a
+general approximation of method rather than in any precise similarity of
+particulars: the likeness is generic rather than specific.
+
+Now this is exactly what we should expect to be the case, if the similarity
+in question be due to the cause which the present section endeavours to set
+forth. If all natural laws are self-evolved, and if human intelligence is
+but a subjective photograph of certain among their interrelations, it seems
+but natural that when this photograph compares itself with the whole
+external world from parts of which it was taken, its subjective lights and
+shadows should be found to correspond with some of the objective lights and
+shadows much more perfectly than with others. Still there would doubtless
+be sufficient general conformity to lead the thinking photograph to
+conclude that the great world of objective reality, instead of being the
+_cause_ of such conformity as exists, was itself the _effect_ of some
+common cause,--that it too was of the nature of a picture. Dropping the
+figure, if it is true that human intelligence has been evolved by natural
+law, then in view of all that has been said it must now, I think, be
+tolerably apparent, _that as by the hypothesis human intelligence has
+always been required to think and to act in conformity with law, human
+intelligence must at last be in danger of confusing or identifying the fact
+of action in conformity with law with the existence and the action of a
+self-conscious intelligence. Reading then in external nature innumerable
+examples of action in conformity with law, human intelligence falls back
+upon the unwarrantable identification, and out of the bare fact that law
+exists in nature concludes that beyond nature there is an Intelligent
+Lawgiver._
+
+§ 35. From what has been said in the last five sections, it manifestly
+follows that all the varied phenomena of the universe not only may, but
+must, depend upon the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
+matter.[23] Be it remembered that the object of the last three sections was
+merely to "_facilitate conception_" of the fact that it does not at all
+follow, because the phenomena of external nature admit of being
+intelligently inquired into, therefore they are due to an intelligent
+cause. The last three sections are hence in a manner parenthetical, and it
+is of comparatively little importance whether or not they have been
+successful in their object; for, from what went before, it is abundantly
+manifest that, whether or not the subjective side of the question admits of
+satisfactory elucidation, there can be no doubt that the objective side of
+it is as certain as are the fundamental axioms of science. It does not
+admit of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly true that all the
+exquisite beauty and melodious harmony of nature follow as necessarily and
+as inevitably from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
+matter, as it is certainly true that force is persistent, or that matter is
+extended and impenetrable. No doubt this generalisation is too vast to be
+adequately conceived, but there can be equally little doubt that it is
+necessarily true. If matter and force have been eternal, so far as human
+mind can soar it can discover no need of a superior mind to explain the
+varied phenomena of existence. Man has truly become in a new sense the
+measure of the universe, and in this the latest and most appalling of his
+soundings, indications are returned from the infinite voids of space and
+time by which he is surrounded, that his intelligence, with all its noble
+capacities for love and adoration, is yet alone--destitute of kith or kin
+in all this universe of being.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD.
+
+§ 36. But the discussion must not end here. Inexorable logic has forced us
+to conclude that, viewing the question as to the existence of a God only by
+the light which modern science has shed upon it, there no longer appears to
+be any semblance of an argument in its favour. Let us then turn upon
+science herself, and question her right to be our sole guide in this
+matter. Undoubtedly we have no alternative but to conclude that the
+hypothesis of mind in nature is now logically proved to be as certainly
+superfluous is the very basis of all science is certainly true. There can
+no longer be any more doubt that the existence of a God is wholly
+unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of the universe, than there is
+doubt that if I leave go of my pen it will fall upon the table. Nay, the
+doubt is even less than this, because while the knowledge that my pen will
+fall if I allow it to do so is founded chiefly upon empirical knowledge (I
+could not predict with _à priori_ certainty that it would so fall, for the
+pen might be in an electrical state, or subject to some set of unknown
+natural laws antagonistic to gravity), the knowledge that a Deity is
+superfluous as an explanation of anything, being grounded on the doctrine
+of the persistence of force, is grounded on an _à priori_ necessity of
+reason--_i.e._, if this fact were not so, our science, our thought, our
+very existence itself, would be scientifically impossible.
+
+But now, having thus stated the case as strongly as I am able, it remains
+to question how far the authority of science extends. Even our knowledge of
+the persistence of force and of the primary qualities of matter is but of
+relative significance. Deeper than the foundations of our experience,
+"deeper than demonstration--deeper even than definite cognition,--deep as
+the very nature of mind,"[24] are these the most ultimate of known truths;
+but where from this is our warrant for concluding with certainty that these
+known truths are everywhere and eternally true? It will be said that there
+is a strong analogical probability. Perhaps so, but of this next: I am not
+now speaking of probability; I am speaking of certainty; and unless we deny
+the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, we cannot but conclude that
+there is no absolute certainty in this case. As I deem this consideration
+one of great importance, I shall proceed to develop it at some length. It
+will be observed, then, that the consideration really amounts to
+this:--Although it must on all hands be admitted that the fact of the
+theistic hypothesis not being required to explain any of the phenomena of
+nature is a fact which has been demonstrated _scientifically_, nevertheless
+it must likewise on all hands be admitted that this fact has not, and
+cannot be, demonstrated _logically_. Or thus, although it is unquestionably
+true that so far as science can penetrate she cannot discern any
+speculative necessity for a God, it may nevertheless be true that if
+science could penetrate further she might discern some such necessity. Now
+the present discussion would clearly be incomplete if it neglected to
+define as carefully this the logical standing of our subject, as it has
+hitherto endeavoured to define its scientific standing. As a final step in
+our analysis, therefore, we must altogether quit the region of experience,
+and, ignoring even the very foundations of science and so all the most
+certain of relative truths, pass into the transcendental region of purely
+formal considerations. In this region theist and atheist must alike consent
+to forego all their individual predilections, and, after regarding the
+subject as it were in the abstract and by the light of pure logic alone,
+finally come to an agreement as to the transcendental probability of the
+question before them. Disregarding the actual probability which they
+severally feel to exist in relation to their own individual intelligences,
+they must apply themselves to ascertain the probability which exists in
+relation to those fundamental laws of thought which preside over the
+intelligence of our race. In fine, it will now, I hope, be understood that,
+as we have hitherto been endeavouring to determine, by deductions drawn
+from the very foundations of all possible science, the _relative_
+probability as to the existence of a God, so we shall next apply ourselves
+to the task of ascertaining the _absolute_ probability of such
+existence--or, more correctly, what is the strictly _formal_ probability of
+such existence when its possibility is contemplated in an absolute sense.
+
+§ 37. To begin then. In the last resort, the value of every probability is
+fixed by "ratiocination." In endeavouring, therefore, to fix the degree of
+strictly formal probability that is present in any given case, our method
+of procedure should be, first to ascertain the ultimate ratios on which the
+probability depends, and then to estimate the comparative value of these
+ratios. Now I think there can be no doubt that the value of any probability
+in this its last analysis is determined by the number, the importance, and
+the definiteness of the relations known, as compared with those of the
+relations unknown; and, consequently, that in all cases where the sum of
+the unknown relations is larger, or more important, or more indefinite than
+is the sum of the known relations, it is an essential principle that the
+value of the probability decreases in exact proportion to the decrease in
+the similarity between the two sets of relations, whether this decrease
+consists in the number, in the importance, or in the definiteness of the
+relations involved. This rule or canon is self-evident as soon as pointed
+out, and has been formulated by Professor Bain in his "Logic" when treating
+of Analogy, but not with sufficient precision; for, while recognising the
+elements of number and importance, he has overlooked that of definiteness.
+This element, however, is a very essential one--indeed the most essential
+of the three; for there are many analogical inferences in which either the
+character or the extent of the unknown relations is quite indefinite; and
+it is obvious that, whenever this is the case, the value of the analogy is
+proportionably diminished, and diminished in a much more material
+particular than it is when the diminution of value arises from a mere
+excess of the unknown relations over the known ones in respect of their
+number or of their importance. For it is evident that, in the latter case,
+however little value the analogy may possess, the exact degree of such
+value admits of being _determined_; while it is no less evident that, in
+the former case, we are precluded from estimating the value of the analogy
+at all, and this just in proportion to the indefiniteness of the unknown
+relations.
+
+§ 38. Now the particular instance with which we are concerned is somewhat
+peculiar. Notwithstanding we have the entire sphere of human experience
+from which to argue, we are still unable to gauge the strictly logical
+probability of any argument whatsoever; for the unknown relations in this
+case are so wholly indefinite, both as to their character and extent, that
+any attempt to institute a definite comparison between them and the known
+relations is felt at once to be absurd. The question discussed, being the
+most ultimate of all possible questions, must eventually contain in itself
+all that is to man unknown and unknowable; the whole orbit of human
+knowledge is here insufficient to obtain a parallax whereby to institute
+the required measurements.
+
+§ 39. I think it is desirable to insist upon this truth at somewhat greater
+length, and, for the sake of impressing it still more deeply, I shall
+present it in another form. No one can for a single moment deny that,
+beyond and around the sphere of the Knowable, there exists the unfathomable
+abyss of the Unknowable. I do not here use this latter word as embodying
+any theory: I merely wish it to state the undoubted fact, which all must
+admit, viz., that beneath all our possible explanations there lies a great
+Inexplicable. Now let us see what is the effect of making this necessary
+admission. In the first place, it clearly follows that, while our
+conceptions as to what the Unknowable contains may or may not represent the
+truth, it is certain that we can never discover whether or not they do.
+Further, it is impossible for us to determine even a definite _probability_
+as to the existence (much less the nature) of anything which we may suppose
+the Unknowable to contain. We may, of course, perceive that such and such a
+supposition is more _conceivable_ than such and such; but, as already
+indicated, the fact does not show that the one is in itself more definitely
+_probable_ than the other, unless it has been previously shown, either that
+the capacity of our conceptions is a _fully adequate measure_ of the
+Possible, or that the proportion between such capacity and the extent of
+the Possible is a proportion that can be _determined_. In either of these
+cases, the Conceivable would be a fair measure of the Possible: in the
+former case, an exact equivalent (_e.g._, in any instance of contradictory
+propositions, the most conceivable would _certainly_ be true); in the
+latter case, a measure any degree less than an exact equivalent--the degree
+depending upon the _then_ ascertainable disparity between the extent of the
+Possible and the extent of the Conceivable. Now the Unknowable (including
+of course the Inconceivable Existent) is a species of the Possible, and in
+its name carries the declaration that the disparity between its extent and
+the extent of the Conceivable (_i.e._, the other species of the Possible)
+is a disparity that cannot be determined. We are hence driven to the
+conclusion that the most apparently probable of all propositions, if
+predicated of anything within the Unknowable, may not in reality be a whit
+more so than is the most apparently improbable proposition which it is
+possible to make; for if it is admitted (as of course it must be) that we
+are necessarily precluded from comparing the extent of the Conceivable with
+that of the Unknowable, then it necessarily follows that in no case
+whatever are we competent to judge how far an _apparent_ probability
+relating to the latter province is an _actual_ probability. In other words,
+did we know the proportion subsisting between the Conceivable and the
+Unknowable in respect of relative extent and character, and so of inherent
+probabilities, we should then be able to estimate the actual value of any
+apparent probability relating to the latter province; but, as it is, our
+ability to make this estimate varies inversely as our inability to estimate
+our ignorance in this particular. And as our ignorance in this particular
+is total--_i.e._, since we cannot even approximately determine the
+proportion that subsists between the Conceivable and the Unknowable,--the
+result is that our ability to make the required estimate in any given case
+is absolutely _nil_.
+
+§ 40. I have purposely rendered this presentation in terms of the highest
+abstraction, partly to avoid the possibility of any one, whatever his
+theory of things may be, finding anything at which to object, and partly in
+order that my meaning may be understood to include all things which are
+beyond the range of possible knowledge. Most of all, therefore, must this
+presentation (if it contains anything of truth) apply to the question
+regarding the existence of Deity; for the _Ens Realissimum_ must of all
+things be furthest removed from the range of possible knowledge. Hence, if
+this presentation contains anything of truth--and of its rigidly accurate
+truth I think there can be no question--the assertion that the
+Self-existing Substance is a Personal and Intelligent Being, and the
+assertion that this Substance is an Impersonal and Non-Intelligent Being,
+are alike assertions wholly destitute of any assignable degree of logical
+probability, I say _assignable_ degree of logical probability, because that
+_some_ degree of such probability may exist I do not undertake to deny. All
+I assert is, that if we are here able to institute any such probability at
+all, we are unable logically to assign to it any determinate degree of
+value. Or, in other words, although we may establish some probability in a
+sense relative to ourselves, we are unable to know how far this probability
+is a probability in an absolute sense. Or again, the case is not as though
+we were altogether unacquainted with the Possible. Experience undoubtedly
+affords us some information regarding this, although, comparatively
+speaking, we are unable to know how much. Consequently, we must suppose
+that, in any given case, it is more likely that the Conceivable should be
+Possible than that the Inconceivable should be so, and that the Conceivably
+Probable should exist than that the Conceivably Improbable should do so: in
+neither case, however, can we know _what degree_ of such likelihood is
+present.
+
+§ 41. From the foregoing considerations, then, it would appear that the
+only attitude which in strict logic it is admissible to adopt towards the
+question concerning the being of a God is that of "suspended judgment."
+Formally speaking, it is alike illegitimate to affirm or to deny
+Intelligence as an attribute of the Ultimate. And here I would desire it to
+be observed, that this is the attitude which the majority of
+scientifically-trained philosophers actually have adopted with regard to
+this matter. I am not aware, however, that any one has yet endeavoured to
+formulate the justification of this attitude; and as I think there can be
+no doubt that the above presentation contains in a logical shape the whole
+of such justification, I cannot but think that some important ends will
+have been secured by it. For we are here in possession, not merely of a
+vague and general impression that the Ultimate is super-scientific, and so
+beyond the range of legitimate prediction; but we are also in possession of
+a logical formula whereby at once to vindicate the rationality of our
+opinion, and to measure the precise degree of its technical value.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.
+
+§ 42. Let us now proceed to examine the effect of the formal considerations
+which have been adduced in the last chapter on the scientific
+considerations which were dealt with in the previous chapters. In these
+previous chapters the proposition was clearly established that, just as
+certainly as the fundamental data of science are true, so certainly is it
+true that the theory of Theism in any shape is, scientifically considered,
+superfluous; for these chapters have clearly shown that, if there is a God,
+his existence, considered as a cause of things, is as certainly unnecessary
+as it is certainly true that force is persistent and that matter is
+indestructible. But after this proposition had been carefully justified, it
+remained to show that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge compelled
+us to carry our discussion into a region of yet higher abstraction. For
+although we observed that the essential qualities of matter and of force
+are the most ultimate data of human knowledge, and although, by showing how
+far the question of Theism depended on these data, we carried the
+discussion of that question to the utmost possible limits of scientific
+thought, it still devolved on us to contemplate the fact that even these
+the most ultimate data of science are only known to be of relative
+significance. And the bearing of this fact to the question of Theism was
+seen to be most important. For, without waiting to recapitulate the
+substance of a chapter so recently concluded, it will be remembered that
+its effect was to establish this position beyond all controversy--viz.,
+that when ideas which have been formed by our experience within the region
+of phenomenal actuality are projected into the region of ontological
+possibility, they become utterly worthless; seeing that we can never have
+any means whereby to test the actual value of whatever transcendental
+probabilities they may appear to establish. Therefore it is that even the
+most ultimate of relative truths with which, as we have seen, the question
+of Theism is so vitally associated, is almost without meaning when
+contemplated in an absolute sense. What, then, is the effect of these
+metaphysical considerations on the position of Theism as we have seen it to
+be left by the highest generalisations of physical science? Let us
+contemplate this question with the care which it deserves.
+
+In the first place, it is evident that the effect of these purely formal
+considerations is to render all reasonings on the subject of Theism equally
+illegitimate, unless it is constantly borne in mind that such reasonings
+can only be of relative signification. Thus, as a matter of pure logic,
+these considerations are destructive of all assignable validity of any such
+reasoning whatsoever. Still, even a strictly relative probability is, in
+some undefinable degree, of more value than no probability at all, as we
+have seen these same formal considerations to show (see § 40); and,
+moreover, even were this not so, the human mind will never rest until it
+attains to the furthest probability which to its powers is accessible.
+Therefore, if we do not forget the merely relative nature of the
+considerations which are about to be adduced, by adducing them we may at
+the same time satisfy our own minds and abstain from violating the
+conditions of sound logic.
+
+The shape, then, to which the subject has now been reduced is simply
+this:--Seeing that the theory of Evolution in its largest sense has shown
+the theory of Theism to be superfluous in a scientific sense, does it not
+follow that the theory of Theism is thus shown to be superfluous in any
+sense? For it would seem from the discussion, so far as it has hitherto
+gone, that the only rational basis on which the theory of Theism can rest
+is a basis of teleology; and if, as has been clearly shown, the theory of
+evolution, by deducing the genesis of natural law from the primary data of
+science, irrevocably destroys this basis, does it not follow that the
+theory of evolution has likewise destroyed the theory which rested on that
+basis? Now I conclude, as stated at the close of Chapter IV., that the
+question here put must certainly be answered in the affirmative, so far as
+its scientific aspect is concerned. But when we consider the question in
+its purely logical aspect, as we have done in Chapter V., the case is
+otherwise. For although, so far as the utmost reach of scientific vision
+enables us to see, we can discern no evidence of Deity, it does not
+therefore follow that beyond the range of such vision Deity does not exist.
+Science indeed has proved that if there is a Divine Mind in nature, and if
+by the hypothesis such a Mind exerts any causative influence on the
+phenomena of nature, such influence is exerted beyond the sphere of
+experience. And this achievement of science, be it never forgotten, is an
+achievement of prodigious importance, effectually destroying, as it does,
+all vestiges of a scientific teleology. But be it now carefully observed,
+although all vestiges of a _scientific_ teleology are thus completely and
+permanently ruined, the formal considerations adduced in the last chapter
+supply the conditions for constructing what may be termed a _metaphysical_
+teleology. I use these terms advisedly, because I think they will serve to
+bring out with great clearness the condition to which our analysis of the
+teleological argument has now been reduced.
+
+§ 43. In the first place, let it be understood that I employ the terms
+"scientific" and "metaphysical" in the convenient sense in which they are
+employed by Mr. Lewes, viz., as respectively designating a theory that is
+verifiable and a theory that is not. Consequently, by the term "scientific
+teleology" I mean to denote a form of teleology which admits either of
+being proved or disproved, while by the term "metaphysical teleology" I
+mean to denote a form of teleology which does not admit either of being
+proved or of being disproved. Now, with these significations clearly
+understood, it will be seen that the forms of teleology which we have
+hitherto considered belong entirely to the scientific class. That the
+Paleyerian form of the argument did so is manifest, first because this
+argument itself treats the problem of Theism as a problem that is
+susceptible of scientific demonstration, and next because we have seen that
+the advance of science has proved this argument susceptible of scientific
+refutation. In other words, from the supposed axiom, "There cannot be
+apparent design without a designer," adaptations in nature become logically
+available as purely scientific evidence of an intelligent cause; and that
+Paley himself regarded them exclusively in this light is manifest, both
+from his own "statement of the argument," and from the character of the
+evidence by which he seeks to establish the argument when stated--witness
+the typical passage before quoted (§ 26). On the other hand, we have
+clearly seen that this Paleyerian system of natural theology has been
+effectually demolished by the scientific theory of natural selection--the
+fundamental axiom of the former having been shown by the latter to be
+scientifically untrue. Hence the term "scientific teleology" is without
+question applicable to the Paleyerian system.
+
+Nor is the case essentially different with the more refined form of the
+teleological argument which we have had to consider--the argument, namely,
+from General Laws. For here, likewise, we have clearly seen that the
+inference from the ubiquitous operation of General Laws to the existence of
+an omniscient Law-maker is quite as illegitimate as is the inference from
+apparent Design to the existence of a Supreme Designer. In other words,
+science, by establishing the doctrine of the persistence of force and the
+indestructibility of matter, has effectually disproved the hypothesis that
+the presence of Law in nature is of itself sufficient to prove the
+existence of an intelligent Law-giver.
+
+Thus it is that scientific teleology in any form is now and for ever
+obsolete. But not so with what I have termed metaphysical teleology. For as
+we have seen that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge precludes us
+from asserting, or even from inferring, that beyond the region of the
+Knowable Mind does not exist, it remains logically possible to institute a
+metaphysical hypothesis that beyond this region of the Knowable Mind does
+exist. There being a necessary absence of any positive information whereby
+to refute this metaphysical hypothesis, any one who chooses to adopt it is
+fully justified in doing so, provided only he remembers that the purely
+metaphysical quality whereby the hypothesis is ensured against disproof,
+likewise, and in the same degree, precludes it from the possibility of
+proof. He must remember that it is no longer open to him to point to any
+particular set of general laws and to assert, these proclaim Intelligence
+as their cause; for we have repeatedly seen that the known states of matter
+and force themselves afford sufficient explanation of the facts to which he
+points. And he must remember that the only reason why his hypothesis does
+not conflict with any of the truths known to science, is because he has
+been careful to rest that hypothesis upon a basis of purely formal
+considerations, which lie beyond even the most fundamental truths of which
+science is cognisant.
+
+Thus, for example, he may present his metaphysical theory of Theism in some
+such terms as these:--'Fully conceding what reason shows must be conceded,
+and there still remains this possible supposition--viz., that there is a
+presiding Mind in nature, which exerts its causative influence beyond the
+sphere of experience, thus rendering it impossible for us to obtain
+scientific evidence of its action. For such a Mind, exerting such an
+influence beyond experience, may direct affairs within experience by
+methods conceivable or inconceivable to us--producing, possibly,
+innumerable and highly varied results, which in turn may produce their
+effects within experience, their introduction being then, of course, in the
+ordinary way of natural law. For instance, there can be no question that by
+the intelligent creation or dissipation of energy, all the phenomena of
+cosmic evolution might have been directed, and, for aught that science can
+show to the contrary, thus only rendered possible. Hence there is at least
+one nameable way in which, even in accordance with observed facts, a
+Supreme Mind could be competent to direct the phenomena of observable
+nature. But we are not necessarily restricted to the limits of the nameable
+in this matter, so that it is of no argumentative importance whether or not
+this suggested method is the method which the supposed Mind actually
+adopts, seeing that there may still be other possible methods, which,
+nevertheless, we are unable to suggest.'
+
+Doubtless the hypothesis of Theism, as thus presented, will be deemed by
+many persons but of very slender probability. I am not, however, concerned
+with whatever character of probability it may be supposed to exhibit. I am
+merely engaged in carefully presenting the only hypothesis which can be
+presented, if the theory as to an Intelligent Author of nature is any
+longer to be maintained on grounds of a rational teleology. No doubt,
+scientifically considered, the hypothesis in question is purely gratuitous;
+for, so far as the light of science can penetrate, there is no need of any
+such hypothesis at all. Thus it may well seem, at first sight, that no
+hypothesis could well have less to recommend it; and, so far as the
+presentation has yet gone, it is therefore fully legitimate for an atheist
+to reply:--'All that this so-called metaphysical theory amounts to is a
+wholly gratuitous assumption. No doubt it is always difficult, and usually
+impossible, logically or unequivocally to prove a negative. If my adversary
+chose to imagine that nature is presided over by a demon with horns and
+hoofs, or by a dragon with claws and tail, I should be as unable to
+disprove this his supposed theory as I am now unable to disprove his actual
+theory. But in all cases reasonable men ought to be guided in their beliefs
+by such positive evidence as is available; and if, as in the present case,
+the alternative belief is wholly gratuitous--adopted not only without any
+evidence, but against all that great body of evidence which the sum-total
+of science supplies--surely we ought not to hesitate for one moment in the
+choice of our creed?'
+
+Now all this is quite sound in principle, provided only that the
+metaphysical theory of Theism _is_ wholly gratuitous, in the sense of being
+utterly destitute of evidential support. That it is destitute of all
+_scientific_ support, we have already and repeatedly seen; but the question
+remains as to whether it is similarly destitute of _metaphysical_ support.
+
+§ 44. To this question, then, let us next address ourselves. From the
+theistic pleading which we have just heard, it is abundantly manifest that
+the formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are present: the question
+now before us is as to whether or not any actual evidence exists in favour
+of such a theory. In order to discuss this question, let us begin by
+allowing the theist to continue his pleading. 'You have shown me,' he may
+say, 'that a scientific or demonstrable system of teleology is no longer
+possible, and, therefore, as I have already conceded, I must take my stand
+on a metaphysical or non-demonstrable system. But I reflect that the latter
+term is a loose one, seeing that it embraces all possible degrees of
+evidence short of actual proof. The question, therefore, I conceive to be,
+What amount of evidence is there in favour of this metaphysical system of
+teleology? And this question I answer by the following considerations:--As
+general laws separately have all been shown to be the necessary outcome of
+the primary data of science, it certainly follows that general laws
+collectively must be the same--_i.e._, that the whole system of general
+laws must be, so far as the lights of our science can penetrate, the
+necessary outcome of the persistence of force and the indestructibility of
+matter. But you have also dearly shown me that these lights are of the
+feeblest conceivable character when they are brought to illuminate the
+final mystery of things. I therefore feel at liberty to assert, that if
+there is any one principle to be observed in the collective operation of
+general laws which cannot conceivably be explained by any cause other than
+that of intelligent guidance, I am still free to fall back on such a
+principle and to maintain--Although the collective operation of general
+laws follows as a necessary consequence from the primary data of science,
+this one principle which pervades their united action, and which cannot be
+conceivably explained by any hypothesis other than that of intelligent
+guidance, is a principle which still remains to be accounted for; and as it
+cannot conceivably be accounted for on grounds of physical science, I may
+legitimately account for it on grounds of metaphysical teleology. Now I
+cannot open my eyes without perceiving such a principle everywhere
+characterising the collective operation of general laws. Universally I
+behold in nature, order, beauty, harmony,--that is, a perfect _correlation_
+among general laws. But this ubiquitous correlation among general laws,
+considered as the cause of cosmic harmony, itself requires some explanatory
+cause such as the persistence of force and the indestructibility of matter
+cannot conceivably be made to supply. For unless we postulate some one
+integrating cause, the greater the number of general laws in nature, the
+less likelihood is there of such laws being so correlated as to produce
+harmony by their combined action. And forasmuch as the only cause that I am
+able to imagine as competent to produce such effects is that of intelligent
+guidance, I accept the metaphysical hypothesis that beyond the sphere of
+the Knowable there exists an Unknown God.[25]
+
+'If it is retorted that the above argument involves an absurd
+contradiction, in that while it sets out with an explicit avowal of the
+fact that the collective operation of general laws follows as a necessary
+consequence from the primary data of physical science, it nevertheless
+afterwards proceeds to explain an effect of such collective operation by a
+metaphysical hypothesis; I answer that it was expressly for the purpose of
+eliciting this retort that I threw my argument into the above form. For the
+position which I wish to establish is this, that fully accepting the
+logical cogency of the reasoning whereby the action of every law is deduced
+from the primary data of science, I wish to show that when this train of
+reasoning is followed to its ultimate term, it leads us into the presence
+of a fact for which it is inadequate to account. If, then, my contention be
+granted--viz., that to human faculties it is not conceivable how, in the
+absence of a directing intelligence, general laws could be so correlated as
+to produce universal harmony--then I have brought the matter to this
+issue:--Notwithstanding the scientific train of argument being complete in
+itself, it still leaves us in the presence of a fact which it cannot
+conceivably explain; and it is this unexplained residuum--this total
+product of the operation of general laws--that I appeal to as the logical
+justification for a system of metaphysical teleology--a system which offers
+the only conceivable explanation of this stupendous fact.
+
+'And here I may further observe, that the scientific train of reasoning is
+of the kind which embodies what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls "symbolic
+conceptions of the illegitimate order."[26] That is to say, we can see how
+such simple laws as that action and reaction are equal and opposite may
+have been self-evolved, and from this fact we go on generalising and
+generalising, until we land ourselves in wholly symbolic and--a paradox is
+here legitimate--inconceivable conceptions. Now the farther we travel into
+this region of unrealisable ideas, the less trustworthy is the report that
+we are able to bring back. The method is in a sense scientific; but when
+even scientific method is projected into a region of really
+super-scientific possibility, it ceases to have that character of undoubted
+certainty which it enjoys when dealing with verifiable subjects of inquiry.
+The demonstrations are formal, but they are not real.
+
+'Therefore, looking to this necessarily suspicious character of the
+scientific train of reasoning, and then observing that, even if accepted,
+it leaves the fact of cosmic harmony unexplained, I maintain, that whatever
+probability the phenomena of nature may in former times have been thought
+to establish in favour of the theory as to an intelligent Author of nature,
+that probability has been in no wise annihilated--nor apparently can it
+ever be annihilated--by the advance of science. And not only so, but I
+question whether this probability has been even seriously impaired by such
+advance, seeing that although this advance has revealed a speculative
+_raison d'être_ of the mechanical precision of nature, it has at the same
+time shown the baffling complexity of nature; and therefore, in view of
+what has just been said, leaves the balance of probability concerning the
+existence of a God very much where it always was. For stay awhile to
+contemplate this astounding complexity of harmonious nature! Think of how
+much we already know of its innumerable laws and processes, and then think
+that this knowledge only serves to reveal, in a glimmering way, the huge
+immensity of the unknown. Try to picture the meshwork of contending rhythms
+which must have been before organic nature was built up, and then let us
+ask, Is it conceivable, is it credible, that all this can have been the
+work of blind fate? Must we not feel that had there not been intelligent
+agency at work somewhere, other and less terrifically intricate results
+would have ensued? And if we further try to symbolise in thought the
+unimaginable complexity of the material and dynamical changes in virtue of
+which that thought itself exists,--if we then extend our symbols to
+represent all the history of all the orderly changes which must have taken
+place to evolve human intelligence into what it is,--and if we still
+further extend our symbols to try if it be possible, even in the language
+of symbols, to express the number and the subtlety of those natural laws
+which now preside over the human will;--in the face of so vast an
+assumption as that all this has been self-evolved, I am content still to
+rest in the faith of my forefathers.'
+
+§ 45. Now I think it must be admitted that we have here a valid argument.
+That is to say, the considerations which we have just adduced must, I
+think, in fairness be allowed to have established this position:--That the
+system of metaphysical teleology for which we have supposed a candid theist
+to plead, is something more than a purely gratuitous system--that it does
+not belong to the same category of baseless imaginings as that to which the
+atheist at first sight, and in view of the scientific deductions alone,
+might be inclined to assign it. For we have seen that our supposed theist,
+while fully admitting the formal cogency of the scientific train of
+reasoning, is nevertheless able to point to a fact which, in his opinion,
+lies without that train of reasoning. For he declares that it is beyond his
+powers of conception to regard the complex harmony of nature otherwise than
+as a product of some one integrating cause; and that the only cause of
+which he is able to conceive as adequate to produce such an effect is that
+of a conscious Intelligence. Pointing, therefore, to this complex harmony
+of nature as to a fact which cannot to his mind be conceivably explained by
+any deductions from physical science, he feels that he is justified in
+explaining this fact by the aid of a metaphysical hypothesis. And in so
+doing he is in my opinion perfectly justified, at any rate to this
+extent--that his antagonist cannot fairly dispose of this metaphysical
+hypothesis as a purely gratuitous hypothesis. How far it is a probable
+hypothesis is another question, and to this question we shall now address
+ourselves.
+
+§ 46. If it is true that the deductions from physical science cannot be
+conceived to explain some among the observed facts of nature, and if it is
+true that these particular facts admit of being conceivably explained by
+the metaphysical hypothesis in question, then, beyond all controversy, this
+metaphysical hypothesis must be provisionally accepted. Let us then
+carefully examine the premises which are thus adduced to justify acceptance
+of this hypothesis as their conclusion.
+
+In the first place, it is not--cannot--be denied, even by a theist, that
+the deductions from physical science _do_ embrace the fact of cosmic
+harmony in their explanation, seeing that, as they explain the operation of
+general laws collectively, they must be regarded as also explaining every
+effect of such operation. And this, as we have seen, is a consideration to
+which our imaginary theist was not blind. How then did he meet it? He met
+it by the considerations--1st. That the scientific train of reasoning
+evolved this conclusion only by employing, in a wholly unrestricted manner,
+"symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate order;" and, 2d. That when the
+conclusion thus illegitimately evolved was directly confronted with the
+fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, he found it to be
+beyond the powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due to
+such a cause. Now, as already observed, I consider these strictures on the
+scientific train of reasoning to be thoroughly valid. There can be no
+question that the highly symbolic character of the conceptions which that
+train of reasoning is compelled to adopt, is a source of serious weakness
+to the conclusions which it ultimately evolves; while there can, I think,
+be equally little doubt that there does not live a human being who would
+venture honestly to affirm, that he can really conceive the fact of cosmic
+harmony as exclusively due to the causes which the scientific train of
+reasoning assigns. But freely conceding this much, and an atheist may
+reply, that although the objections of his antagonist against this symbolic
+method of reasoning are undoubtedly valid, yet, from the nature of the
+case, this is the only method of scientific reasoning which is available.
+If, therefore, he expresses his obligations to his antagonist for pointing
+out a source of weakness in this method of reasoning--a source of weakness,
+be it observed, which renders it impossible for him to estimate the actual,
+as distinguished from the apparent, probability of the conclusion
+attained--this is all that he can be expected to do: he cannot be expected
+to abandon the only scientific method of reasoning available, in favour of
+a metaphysical method which only escapes the charge of symbolism by leaping
+with a single bound from a known cause (human intelligence) to the
+inference of an unknowable cause (Divine Intelligence). For the atheist may
+well point out that, however objectionable his scientific method of
+reasoning may be on account of the symbolism which it involves, it must at
+any rate be preferable to the metaphysical method, in that its symbols
+throughout refer to known causes.[27] With regard, then, to this stricture
+on the scientific method of reasoning, I conclude that although the caveat
+which it contains should never be lost sight of by atheists, it is not of
+sufficient cogency to justify theists in abandoning a scientific in favour
+of a metaphysical mode of reasoning.
+
+How then does it fare with the other stricture, or the consideration that,
+"when the conclusion thus illegitimately[28] evolved is confronted with the
+fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, we find it to be
+beyond the powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due to
+such a cause"? The atheist may answer, in the first place, that a great
+deal here turns on the precise meaning which we assign to the word
+"conceive." For we have just seen that, by employing "symbolic
+conceptions," we _are_ able to frame what we may term a _formal_ conception
+of universal harmony as due to the persistence of force and the primary
+qualities of matter. That is to say, we have seen that such universal
+harmony as nature presents must be regarded as an effect of the collective
+operation of general laws; and we have previously arrived at a formal
+conception of general laws as singly and collectively the product of
+self-evolution. Consequently, the word "conceive," as used in the theistic
+argument, must be taken to mean our ability to frame what we may term a
+_material_ conception, or a representation in thought of the whole history
+of cosmic evolution, which representation shall be in some satisfactory
+degree intellectually realisable. Observing, then, this important
+difference between an inconceivability which arises from an impossibility
+of establishing relations in thought between certain _abstract_ or
+_symbolic_ conceptions, and an inconceivability which arises from a mere
+failure to realise in imagination the results which must follow among
+external relations if the symbolically conceivable combinations among them
+ever took place, an atheist may here argue as follows; and it does not
+appear that there is any legitimate escape from his reasonings.
+
+'I first consider the undoubted fact that the existence of a Supreme Mind
+in nature is, scientifically considered, unnecessary; and, therefore, that
+the only reason we require to entertain the supposition of any such
+existence at all is, that the complexity of nature being so great, we are
+unable adequately to conceive of its self-evolution--notwithstanding our
+reason tells us plainly that, given a self-existing universe of force and
+matter, and such self-evolution becomes abstractedly possible. I then
+reflect that this is a negative and not a positive ground of belief. If the
+hypothesis of self-evolution is true, we should _à priori_ expect that by
+the time evolution had advanced sufficiently far to admit of the production
+of a reasoning intelligence, the complexity of nature must be so great that
+the nascent reasoning powers would be completely baffled in their attempts
+to comprehend the various processes going on around them. This seems to be
+about the state of things which we now experience. Still, as reason
+advances more and more, we may expect, both from general _à priori_
+principles and from particular historical analogies, that more and more of
+the processes of nature will admit of being interpreted by reason, and that
+in proportion as our ability to _understand_ the frame and the constitution
+of things progresses, so our ability to _conceive_ of them as all naturally
+and necessarily evolved will likewise and concurrently progress. Thus, for
+example, how vast a number of the most intricate and delicate correlations
+in nature have been rendered at once intelligible and conceivably due to
+non-intelligent causes, by the discovery of a single principle in
+nature--the principle of natural selection.
+
+'In the adverse argument, conceivability is again made the unconditional
+test of truth, just as it was in the argument against the possibility of
+matter thinking. We reject the hypothesis of self-evolution, not because it
+is the more remote one, but simply because we experience a subjective
+incapacity adequately to frame the requisite generalisations in thought, or
+to frame them with as much clearness as we could wish. Yet our reason tells
+us as plainly as it tells us any general truth which is too large to be
+presented in detail, that there is nothing in the nature of things
+themselves, as far as we can see, antagonistic to the supposition of their
+having been self-evolved. Only on the ground, therefore, of our own
+intellectual deficiencies; only because as yet, by the self-evolutionary
+hypothesis, the inner order does not completely answer to the outer order;
+only because the number and complexity of subjective relations have not yet
+been able to rival those of the objective relations producing them; only on
+this ground do we refuse to assent to the obvious deductions of our
+reason.[29]
+
+'And here I may observe, further, that the presumption in favour of atheism
+which these deductions establish is considerably fortified by certain _à
+posteriori_ considerations which we cannot afford to overlook. In
+particular, I reflect that, as a matter of fact, the theistic theory is
+born of highly suspicious parentage,--that Fetichism, or the crudest form
+of the theory of personal agency in external nature, admits of being easily
+traced to the laws of a primitive psychology; that the step from this to
+Polytheism is easy; and that the step from this to Monotheism is necessary.
+If it is objected to this view that it does not follow that because some
+theories of personal agency have proved themselves false, therefore all
+such theories must be so--I answer, Unquestionably not; but the above
+considerations are not adduced in order to _negative_ the theistic theory:
+they are merely adduced to show that the human mind has hitherto
+undoubtedly exhibited an undue and a vicious tendency to interpret the
+objective processes of nature in terms of its own subjective processes; and
+as we can see quite well that the current theory of personal agency in
+nature, whether or not true, is a necessary outcome of intellectual
+evolution, I think that the fact of so abundant an historical analogy ought
+to be allowed to lend a certain degree of antecedent suspicion to this
+theory--although, of course, the suspicion is of a kind which would admit
+of immediate destruction before any satisfactory positive evidence in
+favour of the theory.[30]
+
+'But what is 'the satisfactory positive evidence' that is offered me?
+Nothing, save an alleged subjective incapacity on the part of my opponent
+adequately to conceive of the fact of cosmic harmony as due to physical
+causation alone. Now I have already commented on the weakness of his
+position; but as my opponent will doubtless resort to the consideration
+that inconceivability of an opposite is, after all, the best criterion of
+truth which at any given stage of intellectual evolution is available, I
+will now conclude my overthrow by pointing out that, even if we take the
+argument from teleology in its widest possible sense--the argument, I mean,
+from the general order and beauty of nature, as well as the gross
+constituent part of it from design--even taking this argument in its widest
+sense and upon its own ground (which ground, I presume, it is now
+sufficiently obvious _can_ only be that of the inconceivability of its
+negation), I will conclude my examination of this argument by showing that
+it is quite as inconceivable to predicate cosmic harmony an effect of
+Intelligence, as it is to predicate it an effect of Non-intelligence; and
+therefore that the argument from inconceivability admits of being turned
+with quite as terrible a force upon Theism as it can be made to exert upon
+Atheism.
+
+'"In metaphysical controversy, many of the propositions propounded and
+accepted as quite believable are absolutely inconceivable. There is a
+perpetual confusing of actual ideas with what are nothing but pseud-ideas.
+No distinction is made between propositions that contain real thoughts and
+propositions that are only the forms of thoughts. A thinkable proposition
+is one of which the _two terms can be brought together in consciousness
+under the relation said to exist between them_. But very often, when the
+subject of a proposition has been thought of as something known, and when
+the predicate of a proposition has been thought of as something known, and
+when the relation alleged between them has been thought of as a known
+relation, it is supposed that the proposition itself has been thought. The
+thinking separately of the elements of a proposition is mistaken for the
+thinking of them in the combination which the proposition affirms. And
+hence it continually happens that propositions which cannot be rendered
+into thought at all are supposed to be not only thought but believed. The
+proposition that Evolution is caused by Mind is one of this nature. The two
+terms are separately intelligible; but they can be regarded in the relation
+of effect and cause only so long as no attempt is made to put them together
+in this relation.
+
+'"The only thing which any one knows as Mind is the series of his own
+states of consciousness; and if he thinks of any mind other than his own,
+he can think of it only in terms derived from his own. If I am asked to
+frame a notion of Mind divested of all those structural traits under which
+alone I am conscious of mind in myself, I cannot do it. I know nothing of
+thought save as carried on in ideas originally traceable to the effects
+wrought by objects on me. A mental act is an unintelligible phrase if I am
+not to regard it as an act in which states of consciousness are severally
+known as like other states in the series that has gone by, and in which the
+relations between them are severally known as like past relations in the
+series. If, then, I have to conceive evolution as caused by an 'originating
+Mind,' I must conceive this Mind as having attributes akin to those of the
+only mind I know, and without which I cannot conceive mind at all.
+
+'"I will not dwell on the many incongruities hence resulting, by asking how
+the 'originating Mind' is to be thought of as having states produced by
+things objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing
+them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to another.
+I will simply ask, What happens if we ascribe to the 'originating Mind' the
+character absolutely essential to the conception of mind, that it consists
+of a series of states of consciousness? Put a series of states of
+consciousness as cause and the evolving universe as effect, and then
+endeavour to see the last as flowing from the first. I find it possible to
+imagine in some dim way a series of states of consciousness serving as
+antecedent to any one of the movements I see going on; for my own states of
+consciousness are often indirectly the antecedents to such movements. But
+how if I attempt to think of such a series as antecedent to _all_ actions
+throughout the universe--to the motions of the multitudinous stars
+throughout space, to the revolutions of all their planets round them, to
+the gyrations of all these planets on their axes, to the infinitely
+multiplied physical processes going on in each of these suns and planets? I
+cannot think of a single series of states of consciousness as causing even
+the relatively small groups of actions going on over the earth's surface. I
+cannot think of it even as antecedent to all the various winds and the
+dissolving clouds they bear, to the currents of all the rivers, and the
+grinding actions of all the glaciers; still less can I think of it as
+antecedent to the infinity of processes simultaneously going on in all the
+plants that cover the globe, from scattered polar lichens to crowded
+tropical palms, and in all the millions of quadrupeds that roam among them,
+and the millions of millions of insects that buzz about them. Even a single
+small set of these multitudinous terrestrial changes I cannot conceive as
+antecedent a single series of states of consciousness--cannot, for
+instance, think of it as causing the hundred thousand breakers that are at
+this instant curling over on the shores of England. How, then, is it
+possible for me to conceive an 'originating Mind,' which I must represent
+to myself as a _single_ series of states of consciousness, working the
+infinitely multiplied sets of changes _simultaneously_ going on in worlds
+too numerous to count, dispersed throughout a space that baffles
+imagination?
+
+'"If, to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going
+on, 'Mind must be conceived as there' 'under the guise of simple Dynamics,'
+then the reply is, that, to be so conceived, Mind must be divested of all
+attributes by which it is distinguished; and that, when thus divested of
+its distinguishing attributes, the conception disappears--the word Mind
+stands for a blank....
+
+'"Clearly, therefore, the proposition that an 'originating Mind' is the
+cause of evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long only as
+no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the alleged
+relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of _faith_ may be a
+defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should be so
+accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of _understanding_--as
+a statement making the order of the universe comprehensible--is a quite
+indefensible position."'[31]
+
+§ 47. We have now heard the pleading on both sides of the ultimate issue to
+which it is possible that the argument from teleology can ever be reduced.
+It therefore devolves on us very briefly to adjudicate upon the contending
+opinions. And this it is not difficult to do; for throughout the pleading
+on both sides I have been careful to exclude all arguments and
+considerations which are not logically valid. It is therefore impossible
+for me now to pass any criticisms on the pleading of either side which have
+not already been passed by the pleading of the other. But nevertheless, in
+my capacity of an impartial judge, I feel it desirable to conclude this
+chapter with a few general considerations.
+
+In the first place, I think that the theist's antecedent objection to a
+scientific mode of reasoning on the score of its symbolism, may be regarded
+as fairly balanced by the atheist's antecedent objection to a metaphysical
+mode of reasoning on the score of its postulating an unknowable cause. And
+it must be allowed that the force of this antecedent objection is
+considerably increased by the reflection that the _kind_ of unknowable
+cause which is thus postulated is that which the human mind has always
+shown an overweening tendency to postulate as a cause of natural phenomena.
+
+I think, therefore, that neither disputant has the right to regard the _à
+priori_ standing of his opponent's theory as much more suspicious than that
+of his own; for it is obvious that neither disputant has the means whereby
+to estimate the actual value of these antecedent objections.
+
+With regard, then, to the _à posteriori_ evidence in favour of the rival
+theories, I think that the final test of their validity--_i.e._, the
+inconceivability of their respective negations--fails equally in the case
+of both theories; for in the case of each theory any proposition which
+embodies it must itself contain an infinite, _i.e._, an
+inconceivable--term. Thus, whether we speak of an Infinite Mind as the
+cause of evolution, or of evolution as due to an infinite duration of
+physical processes, we are alike open to the charge of employing
+unthinkable propositions.
+
+Hence, two unthinkables are presented to our choice; one of which is an
+eternity of matter and of force,[32] and the other an Infinite Mind, so
+that in this respect again the two theories are tolerably parallel; and
+therefore, all that can be concluded with rigorous certainty upon the
+subject is, that neither theory has anything to gain us against the other
+from an appeal to the test of inconceivability.
+
+Yet we have seen that this is a test than which none can be more ultimate.
+What then shall we say is the final outcome of this discussion concerning
+the rational standing of the teleological argument? The answer, I think, to
+this question is, that in strict reasoning the teleological argument, in
+its every shape, is inadequate to form a basis of Theism; or, in other
+words, that the logical cogency of this argument is insufficient to justify
+a wholly impartial mind in accepting the theory of Theism on so insecure a
+foundation. Nevertheless, if the further question were directly put to me,
+'After having heard the pleading both for and against the most refined
+expression of the argument from teleology, with what degree of strictly
+rational probability do you accredit it?'--I should reply as follows:--'The
+question which you put I take to be a question which it is wholly
+impossible to answer, and this for the simple reason that the degree of
+even rational probability may here legitimately vary with the character of
+the mind which contemplates it.' This statement, no doubt, sounds
+paradoxical; but I think it is justified by the following considerations.
+When we say that one proposition is more conceivable than another, we may
+mean either of two very different things, and this quite apart from the
+distinction previously drawn between symbolic conceptions and realisable
+conceptions. For we may mean that one of the two propositions presents
+terms which cannot possibly be rendered into thought at all in the relation
+which the proposition alleges to subsist between them; or we may mean that
+one of the two propositions presents terms in a relation which is more
+congruous with the habitual tenor of our thoughts than does the other
+proposition. Thus, as an example of the former usage, we may say, It is
+more conceivable that two and two should make four than that two and two
+should make five; and, as an example of the latter usage, we may say, It is
+more conceivable that a man should be able to walk than that he should be
+able to fly. Now, for the sake of distinction, I shall call the first of
+these usages the test of _absolute_ inconceivability, and the second the
+test of _relative_ inconceivability. Doubtless, when the word
+"inconceivability" is used in the sense of relative inconceivability, it is
+incorrectly used, unless it is qualified in some way; because, if used
+without qualification, there is danger of its being confused with
+inconceivability in its absolute sense. Nevertheless, if used with some
+qualifying epithet, it becomes quite unexceptionable. For the process of
+conception being in all cases the process of establishing relations in
+thought, we may properly say, It is relatively more conceivable that a man
+should walk than that a man should fly, since it is _more easy_ to
+establish, the necessary relations in thought in the case of the former
+than in the case of the latter proposition. The only difference, then,
+between what I have called absolute inconceivability and what I have called
+relative inconceivability consists in this--that while the latter admits of
+_degrees_, the former does not.[33]
+
+With this distinction clearly understood, I may now proceed to observe that
+in everyday life we constantly apply the test of relative inconceivability
+as a test of truth. And in the vast majority of cases this test of relative
+inconceivability is, for all practical purposes, as valid a test of truth
+as is the test of absolute conceivability. For as every man is more or less
+in harmony with his environment, his habits of thought with regard to his
+environment are for the most part stereotyped correctly; so that the most
+ready and the most trustworthy gauge of probability that he has is an
+immediate appeal to consciousness as to whether he _feels_ the probability.
+Thus every man learns for himself to endow his own sense of probability
+with a certain undefined but massive weight of authority. Now it is this
+test of relative conceivability which all men apply in varying degrees to
+the question of Theism. For if, from education and organised habits of
+thought, the probability in this matter appears to a man to incline in a
+certain direction, when this probability is called in question, the whole
+body of this organised system of thought rises in opposition to the
+questioning, and being individually conscious of this strong feeling of
+subjective opposition, the man declares the sceptical propositions to be
+more inconceivable to him than are the counter-propositions. And in so
+saying he is, of course, perfectly right. Hence I conceive that the
+acceptance or the rejection of metaphysical teleology as probable will
+depend entirely upon individual habits of thought. The test of absolute
+inconceivability making equally for and against the doctrine of Theism,
+disputants are compelled to fall back on the test of relative
+inconceivability; and as the direction in which the more inconceivable
+proposition will here seem to lie will be determined by previous habits of
+thought, it follows that while to a theist metaphysical teleology will
+appear a probable argument, to an atheist it will appear an improbable one.
+Thus to a theist it will no doubt appear more conceivable that the Supreme
+Mind should be such that in some of its attributes it resembles the human
+mind, while in other of its attributes--among which he will place
+omnipresence, omnipotence, and directive agency--it transcends the human
+mind as greatly as the latter "transcends mechanical motion;" and therefore
+that although it is true, as a matter of logical terminology, that we ought
+to designate such an entity "Not mind" or "Blank," still, as a matter of
+psychology, we may come nearer to the truth by assimilating in thought this
+entity with the nearest analogies which experience supplies, than by
+assimilating it in thought with any other entity--such as force or
+matter--which are felt to be in all likelihood still more remote from it in
+nature. On the other hand, to an atheist it will no doubt appear more
+conceivable, because more simple, to accept the dogma of an eternal
+self-existence of something which we call force and matter, and with this
+dogma to accept the implication of a necessary self-evolution of cosmic
+harmony, than to resort to the additional and no less inconceivable
+supposition of a self-existing Agent which must be regarded both as Mind
+and as Not-mind at the same time. But in both cases, in whatever degree
+this test of relative inconceivability of a negative is held by the
+disputants to be valid in solving the problem of Theism, in that degree is
+each man entitled to his respective estimate of the probability in
+question. And thus we arrive at the judgment that the rational probability
+of Theism legitimately varies with the character of the mind which
+contemplates it. For, as the test of absolute inconceivability is equally
+annihilative in whichever direction it is applied, the test of relative
+inconceivability is the only one that remains; and as the formal conditions
+of a metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and
+the formal conditions of a physical explanation of cosmic harmony are no
+less undoubtedly present on the other hand, it follows that a theist and an
+atheist have an equal right to employ this test of relative
+inconceivability. And as there is no more ultimate court of appeal whereby
+to decide the question than the universe as a whole, each man has here an
+equal argumentative right to abide by the decision which that court awards
+_to him individually_--to accept whatever probability the sum-total of
+phenomena appears to present to his particular understanding. And it is
+needless to say that experience shows, even among well-informed and
+accurate reasoners, how large an allowance must thus be made for personal
+equations. To some men the facts of external nature seem to proclaim a God
+with clarion voice, while to other men the same facts bring no whisper of
+such a message. All, therefore, that a logician can here do is to remark,
+that the individuals in each class--provided they bear in mind the strictly
+_relative_ character of their belief--have a similar right to be regarded
+as holding a rational creed: the grounds of belief in this case logically
+vary with the natural disposition and the subsequent training of different
+minds.[34]
+
+It only remains to show that disputants on either side are apt to endow
+this test of relative inconceivability with far more than its real logical
+worth. Being accustomed to apply this test of truth in daily life, and
+there finding it a trustworthy test, most men are apt to forget that its
+value as a test must clearly diminish in proportion to the distance from
+experience at which it is applied. This, indeed, we saw to be the case even
+with the test of absolute inconceivability (see Chapter V.), but much more
+must it be the case with this test of relative inconceivability. For,
+without comment, it is manifest that our acquired sense of probability, as
+distinguished from our innate sense of possibility, with regard to any
+particular question of a transcendental nature, cannot be at all comparable
+with its value in the case of ordinary questions, with respect to which our
+sense of probability is being always rectified by external facts. Although,
+therefore, it is true that both those who reject and those who retain a
+belief in Theism on grounds of relative conceivability are equally entitled
+to be regarded as displaying a rational attitude of mind, in whatever
+degree either party considers their belief as of a higher validity than the
+grounds of psychology from which it takes its rise, in that degree must the
+members of that party be deemed irrational. In other words, not only must a
+man be careful not to confuse the test of relative inconceivability with
+that of absolute conceivability--not to suppose that his sense of
+probability in this matter is determined by an innate psychological
+inability to conceive a proposition, when in reality it is only determined
+by the difficulty of dissociating ideas which have long been habitually
+associated;--but he must also be careful to remember that the test of
+relative inconceivability in this matter is only valid as justifying a
+belief of the most diffident possible kind.
+
+And from this the practical deduction is--tolerance. Let no man think that
+he has any argumentative right to expect that the mere subjective habit or
+tone of his own mind should exert any influence on that of his fellow; but
+rather let him always remember that the only legitimate weapons of his
+intellectual warfare are those the _material_ of which is derived from the
+external world, and only the _form_ of which is due to the forging process
+of his own mind. And if in battle such weapons seem to be unduly blunted on
+the hardened armoury of traditional beliefs, or on the no less hardened
+armoury of confirmed scepticism, let him remember further that he must not
+too confidently infer that the fault does not lie in the character of his
+own weapons. To drop the figure, let none of us forget in how much need we
+all stand of this caution:--Knowing how greatly the value of arguments is
+affected, even to the most impartial among us, by the frame of mind in
+which we regard them, let all of us be jealously careful not to
+over-estimate the certainty that our frame or habit of mind is actually
+superior to that of our neighbour. And, in conclusion, it is surely
+needless to insist on the yet greater need there is for most of us to bear
+in mind this further caution:--Knowing with what great subjective
+opposition arguments are met when they conflict with our established modes
+of thought, let us all be jealously careful to guard the sanctuary of our
+judgment from the polluting tyranny of habit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+§ 48. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very few words will here suffice
+to convey an epitomised recollection of the numerous facts and conclusions
+which we have found it necessary to contemplate. We first disposed of the
+conspicuously absurd supposition that the origin of things, or the mystery
+of existence, admits of being explained by the theory of Theism in any
+further degree than by the theory of Atheism. Next it was shown that the
+argument "Our heart requires a God" is invalid, seeing that such a
+subjective necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient to
+prove--or even to render probable--an objective existence. And with regard
+to the further argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations point to
+God as to their explanatory cause, it became necessary to observe that the
+argument could only be admissible after the possibility of the operation of
+natural causes had been excluded. Similarly the argument from the supposed
+intuitive necessity of individual thought was found to be untenable, first,
+because, even if the supposed necessity were a real one, it would only
+possess an individual applicability; and second, that, as a matter of fact,
+it is extremely improbable that the supposed necessity is a real necessity
+even for the individual who asserts it, while it is absolutely certain that
+it is not such to the vast majority of the race. The argument from the
+general consent of mankind, being so obviously fallacious both as to facts
+and principles, was passed over without comment; while the argument from a
+first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the argument
+that, as human volition is a cause in nature, therefore all causation is
+probably volitional in character, was shown to consist in a stretch of
+inference so outrageous that the argument had to be pronounced worthless.
+
+Proceeding next to examine the less superficial arguments in favour of
+Theism, it was first shown that the syllogism, All known minds are caused
+by an unknown mind; our mind is a known mind; therefore our mind is caused
+by an unknown mind,--is a syllogism that is inadmissible for two reasons.
+In the first place, "it does not account for mind (in the abstract) to
+refer it to a prior mind for its origin;" and therefore, although the
+hypothesis, if admitted, would be _an_ explanation of _known_ mind, it is
+useless as an argument for the existence of the unknown mind, the
+assumption of which forms the basis of that explanation. Again, in the next
+place, if it be said that mind is so far an entity _sui generis_ that it
+must be either self-existing or caused by another mind, there is no
+assignable warrant for the assertion. And this is the second objection to
+the above syllogism; for anything within the whole range of the possible
+may, for aught that we can tell, be competent to produce a self-conscious
+intelligence. Thus an objector to the above syllogism need not hold any
+theory of things at all; but even as opposed to the definite theory of
+materialism, the above syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to
+stand upon. We know that what we call matter and force are to all
+appearance eternal, while we have no corresponding evidence of a "mind that
+is even apparently eternal." Further, within experience mind is invariably
+associated with highly differentiated collocations of matter and
+distributions of force, and many facts go to prove, and none to negative,
+the conclusion that the grade of intelligence invariably depends upon, or
+at least is associated with, a corresponding grade of cerebral development.
+There is thus both a qualitative and a quantitative relation between
+intelligence and cerebral organisation. And if it is said that matter and
+motion cannot produce consciousness because it is inconceivable that they
+should, we have seen at some length that this is no conclusive
+consideration as applied to a subject of a confessedly transcendental
+nature, and that in the present case it is particularly inconclusive,
+because, as it is speculatively certain that the substance of mind must be
+unknowable, it seems _à priori_ probable that, whatever is the cause of the
+unknowable reality, this cause should be more difficult to render into
+thought in that relation than would some other hypothetical substance which
+is imagined as more akin to mind. And if it is said that the _more_
+conceivable cause is the _more_ probable cause, we have seen that it is in
+this case impossible to estimate the validity of the remark. Lastly, the
+statement that the cause must contain actually all that its effects can
+contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and contradicted by everyday
+experience; while the argument from the supposed freedom of the will and
+the existence of the moral sense was negatived both deductively by the
+theory of evolution, and inductively by the doctrine of utilitarianism. On
+the whole, then, with regard to the argument from the existence of the
+human mind, we were compelled to decide that it is destitute of any
+assignable weight, there being nothing more to lead to the conclusion that
+our mind has been caused by another mind, than to the conclusion that it
+has been caused by anything else whatsoever.
+
+With regard to the argument from Design, it was observed that Mill's
+presentation of it is merely a resuscitation of the argument as presented
+by Paley, Bell, and Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first-named writer
+treated this whole subject with a feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising
+in him; for while he has failed to assign anything like due weight to the
+inductive evidence of organic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a
+supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. Moreover, he has failed
+signally in his _analysis_ of the Design argument, seeing that, in common
+with all previous writers, he failed to observe that it is utterly
+impossible for us to know the relations in which the supposed Designer
+stands to the Designed,--much less to argue from the fact that the Supreme
+Mind, even supposing it to exist, caused the observable products by any
+particular intellectual _process_. In other words, all advocates of the
+Design argument have failed to perceive that, even if we grant nature to be
+due to a creating Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to conclude that
+this Mind can only have exerted its creative power by means of such and
+such cogitative operations. How absurd, therefore, must it be to raise the
+supposed evidence of such cogitative operations into evidences of the
+existence of a creating Mind! If a theist retorts that it is, after all, of
+very little importance whether or not we are able to divine the _methods_
+of creation, so long as the _facts_ are there to attest that, _in some way
+or other_, the observable phenomena of nature must be due to Intelligence
+of some kind as their ultimate cause, then I am the first to endorse this
+remark. It has always appeared to me one of the most unaccountable things
+in the history of speculation that so many competent writers can have
+insisted upon _Design_ as an argument for Theism, when they must all have
+known perfectly well that they have no means of ascertaining the subjective
+psychology of that Supreme Mind whose existence the argument is adduced to
+demonstrate. The truth is, that the argument from teleology must, and can
+only, rest upon the observable _facts_ of nature, without reference to the
+intellectual _processes_ by which these facts may be supposed to have been
+accomplished. But, looking to the "present state of our knowledge," this is
+merely to change the teleological argument from its gross Paleyerian form,
+into the argument from the ubiquitous operation of general laws. And we saw
+that this transformation is now a rational necessity. How far the great
+principle of natural selection may have been instrumental in the evolution
+of organic forms, is not here, as Mill erroneously imagined, the question;
+the question is simply as to whether we are to accept the theory of special
+creation or the theory of organic evolution. And forasmuch as no competent
+judge at the present time can hesitate for one moment in answering this
+question, the argument from a proximate teleology must be regarded as no
+longer having any rational existence.
+
+How then does it fare with the last of the arguments--the argument from an
+ultimate teleology? Doubtless at first sight this argument seems a very
+powerful one, inasmuch as it is a generic argument, which embraces not only
+biological phenomena, but all the phenomena of the universe. But
+nevertheless we are constrained to acknowledge that its apparent power
+dwindles to nothing in view of the indisputable fact that, if force and
+matter have been eternal, all and every natural law must have resulted by
+way of necessary consequence. It will be remembered that I dwelt at
+considerable length and with much earnestness upon this truth, not only
+because of its enormous importance in its bearing upon our subject, but
+also because no one has hitherto considered it in that relation.
+
+The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of the conclusion that
+was liable to be formed upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all the
+possible arguments in favour of Theism. Having fully demonstrated that
+there is no shadow of a positive argument in support of the theistic
+theory, there arose the danger that some persons might erroneously conclude
+that for this reason the theistic theory must be untrue. It therefore
+became necessary to point out, that although, as far as we can see, nature
+does not require an Intelligent Cause to account for any of her phenomena,
+yet it is possible that, if we could see farther, we should see that nature
+could not be what she is unless she had owed her existence to an
+Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the probability there is that an
+Intelligent Cause is unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of nature,
+is only equal to the probability there is that the doctrine of the
+persistence of force is everywhere and eternally true.
+
+As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we altogether quitted the
+region of experience, and ignoring even the very foundations of science,
+and so all the most certain of relative truths, we carried the discussion
+into the transcendental region of purely formal considerations. And here we
+laid down the canon, "that the value of any probability, in its last
+analysis, is determined by the number, the importance, and the definiteness
+of the relations known, as compared with those of the relations unknown;"
+and, consequently, that in cases where the unknown relations are more
+numerous, more important, or more indefinite than are the known relations,
+the value of our inference varies inversely as the difference in these
+respects between the relations compared. From which canon it followed, that
+as the problem of Theism is the most ultimate of all problems, and so
+contains in its unknown relations all that is to man unknown and
+unknowable, these relations must be pronounced the most indefinite of all
+relations that it is possible for man to contemplate; and, consequently,
+that although we have here the entire range of experience from which to
+argue, we are unable to estimate the real value of any argument whatsoever.
+The unknown relations in our attempted induction being wholly indefinite,
+both in respect of their number and importance, as compared with the known
+relations, it is impossible for us to determine any definite probability
+either for or against the being of a God. Therefore, although it is true
+that, so far as human science can penetrate or human thought infer, we can
+perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no right on this account to
+conclude that there is no God. The probability, therefore, that nature is
+devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest kind if regarded
+scientifically--amounting, in fact, to a scientific demonstration,--is
+nevertheless wholly worthless if regarded logically. Notwithstanding it is
+as true as is the fundamental basis of all science and of all experience
+that, if there is a God, his existence, considered as a cause of the
+universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if there had
+never been a God, the universe could never have existed.
+
+Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively that, no matter how
+great the probability of Atheism might appear to be in a relative sense, we
+have no means of estimating such probability in an absolute sense. From
+which position there emerged the possibility of another argument in favour
+of Theism--or rather let us say, of a reappearance of the teleological
+argument in another form. For it may be said, seeing that these formal
+considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either for or against Deity in
+an absolute sense, while they do not exclude such reasoning in a relative
+sense, if there yet remain any theistic deductions which may properly be
+drawn from experience, these may now be adduced to balance the atheistic
+deductions from the persistence of force. For although the latter
+deductions have clearly shown the existence of Deity to be superfluous in a
+scientific sense, the formal considerations in question have no less
+clearly opened up beyond the sphere of science a possible _locus_ for the
+existence of Deity; so that if there are any facts supplied by experience
+for which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient to account, we are
+still free to account for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of
+Theism. And, it may be urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in
+the correlation of general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It
+signifies nothing, the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the
+methods whereby the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony; nor
+does it signify that its operation must now be relegated to a
+super-scientific province. What does signify is that, taking a general view
+of nature, we find it impossible to conceive of the extent and variety of
+her harmonious processes as other than products of intelligent causation.
+Now this sublimated form of the teleological argument, it will be
+remembered, I denoted a metaphysical teleology, in order sharply to
+distinguish it from all previous forms of that argument, which, in
+contradistinction I denoted scientific teleologies. And the distinction, it
+will be remembered, consisted in this--that while all previous forms of
+teleology, by resting on a basis which was not beyond the possible reach of
+science, laid themselves open to the possibility of scientific refutation,
+the metaphysical system of teleology, by resting on a basis which is
+clearly beyond the possible reach of science, can never be susceptible of
+scientific refutation. And that this metaphysical system of teleology does
+rest on such a basis is indisputable; for while it accepts the most
+ultimate truths of which science can ever be cognisant--viz., the
+persistence of force and the consequently necessary genesis of natural
+law,--it nevertheless maintains that the necessity of regarding Mind as the
+ultimate cause of things is not on this account removed; and, therefore,
+that if science now requires the operation of a Supreme Mind to be posited
+in a super-scientific sphere, then in a super-scientific sphere it ought to
+be posited. No doubt this hypothesis at first sight seems gratuitous,
+seeing that, so far as science can penetrate, there is no need of any such
+hypothesis at all--cosmic harmony resulting as a physically necessary
+consequence from the combined action of natural laws, which in turn result
+as a physically necessary consequence of the persistence of force and the
+primary qualities of matter. But although it is thus indisputably true that
+metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered scientifically,
+it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if considered
+psychologically. In other words, if it is more conceivable that Mind should
+be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the persistence of force
+should be so, then it is not irrational to accept the more conceivable
+hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable one, provided that the
+choice is made with the diffidence which is required by the considerations
+adduced in Chapter V.
+
+I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology,
+although in a physical sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense
+legitimate. But as against the fundamental position on which alone this
+argument can rest--viz., the position that the fundamental postulate of
+Atheism is more _inconceivable_ than is the fundamental postulate of
+Theism--we have seen two important objections to lie.
+
+For, in the first place, the sense in which the word "inconceivable" is
+here used is that of the impossibility of framing _realisable_ relations in
+the thought; not that of the impossibility of framing _abstract_ relations
+in thought. In the same sense, though in a lower degree, it is true that
+the complexity of the human organisation and its functions is
+inconceivable; but in this sense the word "inconceivable" has much less
+weight in an argument than it has in its true sense. And, without waiting
+again to dispute (as we did in the case of the speculative standing of
+Materialism) how far even the genuine test of inconceivability ought to be
+allowed to make against an inference which there is a body of scientific
+evidence to substantiate, we went on to the second objection against this
+fundamental position of metaphysical teleology. This objection, it will be
+remembered, was, that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as
+an effect of Mind, as it is to conceive of it as an effect of mindless
+evolution. The argument from inconceivability, therefore, admits of being
+turned with quite as terrible an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be
+made to exert on Atheism.
+
+Hence this more refined form of teleology which we are considering, and
+which we saw to be the last of the possible arguments in favour of Theism,
+is met on its own ground by a very crushing opposition: by its metaphysical
+character it has escaped the opposition of physical science, only to
+encounter a new opposition in the region of pure psychology to which it
+fled. As a conclusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved on us to
+determine the relative magnitudes of these opposing forces. And in doing
+this we first observed that, if the supporters of metaphysical teleology
+objected _à priori_ to the method whereby the genesis of natural law was
+deduced from the datum of the persistence of force, in that this method
+involved an unrestricted use of illegitimate symbolic conceptions; then it
+is no less open to an atheist to object _à priori_ to the method whereby a
+directing Mind was inferred from the datum of cosmic harmony, in that this
+method involved the population of an unknowable cause,--and this of a
+character which the whole history of human thought has proved the human
+mind to exhibit an overweening tendency to postulate as the cause of
+natural phenomena. On these grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as
+their respective standing _à priori_ is concerned, both theories may be
+regarded as about equally suspicious. And similar with regard to their
+standing _à posteriori_; for as both theories require to embody at least
+one infinite term, they must each alike be pronounced absolutely
+inconceivable. But, finally, if the question were put to me which of the
+two theories I regarded as the more rational, I observed that this is a
+question which no one man can answer for another. For as the test of
+absolute inconceivability is equally destructive of both theories, if a man
+wishes to choose between them, his choice can only be determined by what I
+have designated relative inconceivability--_i.e._, in accordance with the
+verdict given by his individual sense of probability as determined by his
+previous habits of thought. And forasmuch as the test of relative
+inconceivability may be held in this matter legitimately to vary with the
+character of the mind which applies it, the strictly rational probability
+of the question to which it is applied varies in like manner. Or, otherwise
+presented, the only alternative for any man in this matter is either to
+discipline himself into an attitude of pure scepticism, and thus to refuse
+in thought to entertain either a probability or an improbability concerning
+the existence of a God; or else to incline in thought towards an
+affirmation or a negation of God, according as his previous habits of
+thought have rendered such an inclination more facile in the one direction
+than in the other. And although, under such circumstances, I should
+consider that man the more rational who carefully suspended his judgment, I
+conclude that if this course is departed from, neither the metaphysical
+teleologist nor the scientific atheist has any perceptible advantage over
+the other in respect of rationality. For as the formal conditions of a
+metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the
+formal conditions of a speculative atheism are as undoubtedly present on
+the other, there is thus in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein
+the pendulum of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may be
+made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas.
+
+Such is the outcome of our investigation, and considering the abstract
+nature of the subject, the immense divergence of opinion which at the
+present time is manifested with regard to it, as well as the confusing
+amount of good, bad, and indifferent literature on both sides of the
+controversy which is extant;--considering these things, I do not think that
+the result of our inquiry can be justly complained of on the score of its
+lacking precision. At a time like the present, when traditional beliefs
+respecting Theism are so generally accepted and so commonly concluded, as a
+matter of course, to have a large and valid basis of induction whereon to
+rest, I cannot but feel that a perusal of this short essay, by showing how
+very concise the scientific _status_ of the subject really is, will do more
+to settle the minds of most readers as to the exact standing at the present
+time of all the probabilities of the question, than could a perusal of all
+the rest of the literature upon this subject. And, looking to the present
+condition of speculative philosophy, I regard it as of the utmost
+importance to have clearly shown that the advance of science has now
+entitled us to assert, without the least hesitation, that the hypothesis of
+Mind in nature is as certainly superfluous to account for any of the
+phenomena of nature, as the scientific doctrine of the persistence of force
+and the indestructibility of matter is certainly true.
+
+On the other hand, if any one is inclined to complain that the logical
+aspect of the question has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as
+has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, in any matter which
+does not admit of actual demonstration, some margin must of necessity be
+left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he bears this
+consideration in mind, I feel sure that he cannot properly complain of my
+not having done my utmost in this case to define as sharply as possible the
+character and the limits of this margin.
+
+§ 49. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is desirable to state that any
+antecedent bias with regard to Theism which I individually possess is
+unquestionably on the side of traditional beliefs. It is therefore with the
+utmost sorrow that I find myself compelled to accept the conclusions here
+worked out; and nothing would have induced me to publish them, save the
+strength of my conviction that it is the duty of every member of society to
+give his fellows the benefit of his labours for whatever they may he worth.
+Just as I am confident that truth must in the end be the most profitable
+for the race, so I am persuaded that every individual endeavour to attain
+it, provided only that such endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, ought
+without hesitation to be made the common property of all men, no matter in
+what direction the results of its promulgation may appear to tend. And so
+far as the ruination of individual happiness is concerned, no one can have
+a more lively perception than myself of the possibly disastrous tendency of
+my work. So far as I am individually concerned, the result of this analysis
+has been to show that, whether I regard the problem of Theism on the lower
+plane of strictly relative probability, or on the higher plane of purely
+formal considerations, it equally becomes my obvious duty to stifle all
+belief of the kind which I conceive to be the noblest, and to discipline my
+intellect with regard to this matter into an attitude of the purest
+scepticism. And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those
+who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the "new faith" is a desirable
+substitute for the waning splendour of "the old," I am not ashamed to
+confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost
+its soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the precept to "work
+while it is day" will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the
+terribly intensified meaning of the words that "the night cometh when no
+man can work," yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the
+appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was
+mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it,--at such times
+I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my
+nature is susceptible. For whether it be due to my intelligence not being
+sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or whether it be
+due to the memory of those sacred associations which to me at least were
+the sweetest that life has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for
+others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those words of
+Hamilton,--Philosophy having become a meditation, not merely of death, but
+of annihilation, the precept _know thyself_ has become transformed into the
+terrific oracle to Oedipus--
+
+  "Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+AND
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF A FALLACY IN LOCKE'S USE OF THE ARGUMENT AGAINST
+THE POSSIBILITY OF MATTER THINKING ON GROUNDS OF ITS BEING INCONCEIVABLE
+THAT IT SHOULD.
+
+Lest it should be thought that I am doing injustice to the views of this
+illustrious theist, I here quote his own words:--"We have the ideas of
+matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any
+mere material being thinks or no, it being impossible for us, by the
+contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether
+omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter fitly disposed a power
+to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a
+thinking immaterial substance; it being, in respect of our notions, not
+much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that God can, if He
+pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that He should
+superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know
+not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substance the Almighty
+has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being,
+but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I see no
+contradiction in it that the first eternal thinking being should, if he
+pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together
+as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though,
+as I think, I have proved, lib. iv., ch. 10 and 14, &c., it is no less than
+a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature
+void of sense and thought) should be that eternal first-thinking being.
+What certainty of knowledge can any one have that some perceptions, such
+as, _e.g._, pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves,
+after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as that they should be
+in an immaterial substance upon the motion of the parts of body? Body, as
+far as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affect body; and
+motion, according to the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce
+nothing but motion: so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain,
+or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond
+our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker. For
+since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which we can no way
+conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude that He
+could not order them as well to be produced in a subject we cannot conceive
+capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of
+matter can any way operate upon? I say not this, that I would any way
+lessen the belief of the soul's immateriality, &c.... It is a point which
+seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge; and he who will
+give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark and intricate
+part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able to determine him
+fixedly for or against the soul's materiality. Since on which side soever
+he views it, either as an unextended substance or as a thinking extended
+matter, the difficulty to conceive either will, whilst either alone is in
+his thoughts, still drive him to the contrary side. An unfair way which
+some men take with themselves, who, because of the inconceivableness of
+something they find in one, throw themselves violently into the contrary
+hypothesis, though altogether as unintelligible to an unbiassed
+understanding."
+
+This passage, I do not hesitate to say, is one of the most remarkable in
+the whole range of philosophical literature, in respect of showing how even
+the strongest and most candid intellect may have its reasoning faculty
+impaired by the force of a preformed conviction. Here we have a mind of
+unsurpassed penetration and candour, which has left us side by side two
+parallel trains of reasoning. In the one, the object is to show that the
+author's preformed conviction as to the being of a God is justifiable on
+grounds of reason; in the other, the object is to show that, granting the
+existence of a God, and it is not impossible that he may have endowed
+matter with the faculty of thinking. Now, in the former train of reasoning,
+the whole proof rests entirely upon the fact that "it is impossible to
+conceive that ever bare incogitative matter should produce a thinking
+intelligent being." Clearly, if this proposition is true, it must destroy
+one or other of the trains of reasoning; for it is common to them both, and
+in one of them it is made the sole ground for concluding that matter cannot
+think, while in the other it is made compatible with the supposition that
+matter may think. This extraordinary inconsistency no doubt arose from the
+fact that the author was antecedently persuaded of the existence of an
+_Omnipotent_ Mind, and having been long accustomed in his intellectual
+symbols to regard it presumptuous in him to impose any limitations on this
+almighty power, when he asked himself whether it would be possible for this
+almighty power, if it so willed, to endow matter with the faculty of
+thinking, he argued that it might be possible, notwithstanding his being
+unable to conceive the possibility. But when he banished from his mind the
+idea of this personal and almighty power, and with that idea banished all
+its associations, he then felt that he had a right to argue more freely,
+and forthwith made his conceptive faculty a test of abstract possibility.
+Yet _the sum total of abstract possibility, in relation to him, must have
+been the same in the two cases_; so that in whichever of the two trains of
+reasoning his argument was sound, in the other it must certainly have been
+null.
+
+We may well feel amazed that so able a thinker can have fallen into so
+obvious an error, and afterwards have persisted in it through pages and
+pages of his work. It will be instructive, however, to those who rely upon
+Locke's exposition of the argument from Inconceivability to see how
+effectually he has himself destroyed it. For this purpose, therefore, I
+shall make some further quotations from the same train of reasoning. The
+statement of Locke's opinion that the Almighty could endow matter with the
+faculty of thinking if He so willed, called down some remonstrances and
+rebukes from the then Bishop of Worcester. Locke's reply was a very lengthy
+one, and from it the following extracts are taken. I merely request the
+reader throughout to substitute for the words God, Creator, Almighty,
+Omipotency, &c., the words _Summum genus_ of Possibility.
+
+"But it is further urged that we cannot conceive how matter can think. I
+grant it, but to argue from thence that God therefore cannot give to matter
+a faculty of thinking is to say God's omnipotency is limited to a narrow
+compass because man's understanding is so, and brings down God's infinite
+power to the size of our capacities....
+
+"If God can give no power to any parts of matter but what men can account
+for from the essence of matter in general; if all such qualities and
+properties must destroy the essence, or change the essential properties of
+matter, which are to our conceptions above it, and we cannot conceive to be
+the natural consequence of that essence; it is plain that the essence of
+matter is destroyed, and its essential properties changed, in most of the
+sensible parts of this our system. For it is visible that all the planets
+have revolutions about certain remote centres, which I would have any one
+explain or make conceivable by the bare essence, or natural powers
+depending on the essence of matter in general, without something added to
+that essence which we cannot conceive; for the moving of matter in a
+crooked line, or the attraction of matter by matter, is all that can be
+said in the case; either of which it is above our reach to derive from the
+essence of matter or body in general, though one of these two must
+unavoidably be allowed to be superadded, in this instance, to the essence
+of matter in general. The omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the
+making of the world, and His ways are not the less excellent because they
+are past finding out....
+
+"In all such cases, the superinducement of greater perfections and nobler
+qualities destroys nothing of the essence or perfections that were there
+before, unless there can be showed a manifest repugnancy between them; but
+all the proof offered for that is only that we cannot conceive how matter,
+without such superadded perfections, can produce such effects; which is, in
+truth, no more than to say matter in general, or every part of matter, as
+matter, has them not, but is no reason to prove that God, if He pleases,
+cannot superadd them to some parts of matter, unless it can be proved to be
+a contradiction that God should give to some parts of matter qualities and
+perfections which matter in general has not, though we cannot conceive how
+matter is invested with them, or how it operates by virtue of those new
+endowments; nor is it to be wondered that we cannot, whilst we limit all
+its operations to those qualities it had before, and would explain them by
+the known properties of matter in general, without any such induced
+perfections. For if this be a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to
+be because we cannot conceive the manner how it comes to be, I shall desire
+them who use it to stick to this rule, and see what work it will make both
+in divinity as well as philosophy, and whether they can advance anything
+more in favour of scepticism.
+
+"For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and
+self-motion bestowed by omnipotent power in some parts of matter: the
+objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is
+the consequence? Ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. Let this stand
+for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same.
+
+"You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter at any distance, much
+less at the distance of 1,000,000 miles; ergo, God cannot give it such a
+power: you cannot conceive how matter should feel or move itself, or affect
+any material being, or be moved by it; ergo, God cannot give it such
+powers: which is in effect to deny gravity, and the revolution of the
+planets about the sun; to make brutes mere machines, without sense or
+spontaneous motion; and to allow man neither sense nor voluntary motion.
+
+"Let us apply this rule one degree farther. You cannot conceive how an
+extended solid substance should think, therefore God cannot make it think:
+can you conceive how your own soul or any substance thinks? You find,
+indeed, that you do think, and so do I; but I want to be told how the
+action of thinking is performed: this, I confess, is beyond my conception;
+and I would be glad any one who conceives it would explain it to me.
+
+"God, I find, has given me this faculty; and since I cannot but be
+convinced of His power in this instance, which, though I every moment
+experience in myself, yet I cannot conceive the manner of, what would it be
+less than an insolent absurdity to deny His power in other like cases, only
+for this reason, because I cannot conceive the manner how?...
+
+"That Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be solid and not solid at the
+same time, I think with due reverence [diffidence?[35]] we may say; but
+that a solid substance may not have qualities, perfections, and powers,
+which have no natural or visibly necessary connection with solidity and
+extension, is too much for us (who are but of yesterday, and know nothing)
+to be positive in.
+
+"If God cannot join things together by connections inconceivable to us, we
+must deny even the consistency and being of matter itself; since every
+particle of it having some bulk, has its parts connected by ways
+inconceivable to us. So that all the difficulties that are raised against
+the thinking of matter, from our ignorance or narrow conceptions, stand not
+at all in the way of the power of God, if He pleases to ordain it so; nor
+prove anything against His having actually endowed some parcels of matter,
+so disposed as He thinks fit, with a faculty of thinking, till it can he
+shown that it contains a contradiction to suppose it.
+
+"Though to me sensation be comprehended under thinking in general, in the
+foregoing discourse I have spoke of sense in brutes as distinct from
+thinking; because your lordship, as I remember, speaks of sense in brutes.
+But here I take liberty to observe, that if your lordship allows brutes to
+have sensation, it will follow, either that God can and doth give to some
+parcels of matter a power of perception and thinking, or that all animals
+have immaterial, and consequently, according to your lordship, immortal
+souls, as well as men; and to say that fleas and mites, &c., have immortal
+souls as well as men, will possibly be looked on as going a great way to
+serve an hypothesis....
+
+"It is true, I say, 'That bodies operate by impulse, and nothing else,' and
+so I thought when I writ it, and can yet conceive no other way of their
+operation. But I am since convinced, by the judicious Mr. Newton's
+incomparable book, that it is too bold a presumption to limit God's power
+in this point by my narrow conceptions. The gravitation of matter towards
+matter, by way unconceivable to me, is not only a demonstration that God
+can, if He pleases, put into bodies powers and ways of operation above what
+can be derived from our idea of body, or can be explained by what we know
+of matter, but also an unquestionable and everywhere visible instance that
+He has done so. And therefore, in the next edition of my book, I will take
+care to have that passage rectified....
+
+"As to self-consciousness, your lordship asks, 'What is there like
+self-consciousness in matter?' Nothing at all in matter as matter. But that
+God cannot bestow on some parcels of matter a power of thinking, and with
+it self-consciousness, will never be proved by asking how is it possible to
+apprehend that mere body should perceive that it doth perceive? The
+weakness of our apprehension I grant in the case: I confess as much as you
+please, that we cannot conceive how an unsolid created substance thinks;
+but this weakness of our apprehension reaches not the power of God, whose
+weakness is stronger than anything in man."
+
+Lastly, Locke turns upon his opponent the power of the _odium theologicum_.
+
+"Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is that
+should keep the parts of a material soul together after it is separated
+from the body, yet it will be always as easy to give an account of it as to
+give an account what it is that shall keep together a material and
+immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an
+account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken the
+credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity; and I
+persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in
+this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point much weakened
+by that difficulty.... But you will say, you speak only of the soul; and
+your words are, that it is no easy matter to give an account how the soul
+should be capable of immortality unless it be a material substance. I grant
+it, but crave leave to say, that there is not any one of these difficulties
+that are or can be raised about the manner how a material soul can be
+immortal, which do not as well reach the immortality of the body....
+
+"But your lordship, as I guess from your following words, would argue that
+a material substance cannot be a free agent; whereby I suppose you only
+mean that you cannot see or conceive how a solid substance should begin,
+stop, or change its own motion. To which give me leave to answer, that when
+you can make it conceivable how any created, finite, dependent substance
+can move itself, I suppose you will find it no harder for God to bestow
+this power on a solid than an unsolid created substance.... But though you
+cannot see how any created substance, solid or not solid, can be a free
+agent (pardon me, my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship please to
+explain it of either, and show the manner how either of them can of itself
+move itself or anything else), yet I do not think you will so far deny men
+to be free agents, from the difficulty there is to see how they are free
+agents, as to doubt whether there be foundation enough for the day of
+judgment."
+
+Let us now, for the sake of contrast, turn to some passages which occur in
+the other train of reasoning.
+
+"If we suppose only matter and motion first or eternal, thought can never
+begin to be. For it is impossible to conceive that matter, either with or
+without motion, could have originally in and from itself sense, perception,
+and knowledge; as is evident from hence, that then sense, perception, and
+knowledge must be a property eternally inseparable from matter and every
+particle of it." There is a double fallacy here. In the first place,
+conceivability is made the unconditional test of possibility; and, in the
+next place, it is asserted that unless every particle of matter can think,
+no collocation of such particles can possibly do so. This latter fallacy is
+further insisted upon thus:--"If they will not allow matter as matter, that
+is, every particle of matter, to be as well cogitative as extended, they
+will have as hard a task to make out to their own reasons a cogitative
+being out of incogitative particles, as an extended being out of unextended
+parts, if I may so speak.... Every particle of matter, as matter, is
+capable of all the same figures and motions of any other, and I challenge
+any one in his thoughts to add anything else to one above another." Now, as
+we have seen, Locke himself has shown in his other trains of argument that
+this challenge is thoroughly futile as a refutation of possibilities; but
+the point to which I now wish to draw attention is this--It does not follow
+because certain and highly complex collocations of material particles may
+be supposed capable of thinking, that therefore every particle of matter
+must be regarded as having this attribute. We have innumerable analogies in
+nature of a certain collocation of matter and force producing certain
+results which another somewhat similar collocation could not produce: in
+such cases we do not assume that all the resulting attributes of the one
+collocation must be presented also by the other--still less that these
+resulting attributes must belong to the primary qualities of matter and
+force. Hence, it is not fair to assume that thought must either be inherent
+in every particle of matter, or else not producible by any possible
+collocation of such particles, unless it has previously been shown that so
+to produce it by any possible collocation is in the nature of things
+impossible. But no one could refute this fallacy better than Locke himself
+has done in some of the passages already quoted from his other train of
+reasoning.
+
+But to continue the quotation:--"If, therefore, it be evident that
+something necessarily must exist from eternity, it is also as evident that
+that something must necessarily be a cogitative being; for it is as
+impossible [_inconceivable_] that incogitative matter should produce a
+cogitative being, as that nothing, or the negation of all being, should
+produce a positive being or matter." Again,--"For unthinking particles of
+matter, however put together, can have [_can be taught to have_] nothing
+thereby added to them, but a new relation of position, which it is
+impossible [_inconceivable_] should give thought and knowledge to them."
+
+It is unnecessary to multiply these quotations, for, in effect, they would
+all be merely repetitions of one another. It is enough to have seen that
+this able author undertakes to demonstrate the existence of a God, and that
+his whole demonstration resolves itself into the unwarrantable inference,
+that as we are unable to conceive how thought can be a property of matter,
+therefore a property of matter thought cannot be. That such an erroneous
+inference should occur in any writings of so old a date as those of Locke
+is not in itself surprising. What is surprising is the fact, that in the
+same writings, and in the course of the same discussion, the fallacy of
+this very inference is repeatedly pointed out and insisted upon in a great
+variety of ways; and it has been chiefly for the sake of showing the
+pernicious influence which preformed opinion may exert--viz., even to
+blinding the eyes of one of the most clear-sighted and thoughtful men that
+ever lived to a glaring contradiction repeated over and over again in the
+course of a few pages,--it has been chiefly for this reason that I have
+extended this Appendix to so great a length. I shall now conclude it by
+quoting some sentences which occur on the very next page after that from
+which the last quoted sentences were taken. Our author here again returns
+to his defence of the omnipotency of God; and as he now again thus
+personifies the sum total of possibility, his mind abruptly reverts to all
+its other class of associations. In this case the transition is
+particularly interesting, not only on account of its suddenness, but also
+because the correlations contemplated happen to be exactly the same in the
+two cases--viz., matter as the cause of mind, and mind as the cause of
+matter. Remember that on the last page this great philosopher supposed he
+had demonstrated the abstract impossibility of matter being the cause of
+mind on the ground of a causal connection being inconceivable, let us now
+observe what he says upon this page regarding the abstract possibility of
+mind being the cause of matter. "Nay, possibly, if we would emancipate
+ourselves from vulgar notions, and raise our thoughts as far as they would
+reach to a closer contemplation of things, we might be able to aim at some
+dim and seeming conception how matter might at first be made and begin to
+exist by the power of that eternal first being.... But you will say, Is it
+not impossible to admit of the making anything out of nothing, since we
+cannot possibly conceive it? I answer--No; because it is not reasonable to
+deny the power of an infinite being [this phrase, in the absence of
+hypothesis, _i.e._, in Locke's other train of reasoning, is of course
+equivalent to the sum-total of possibility] because we cannot comprehend
+its operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground, because we
+cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production. We cannot conceive
+how anything but impulse of body can move body; and yet that is not a
+reason sufficient to make us deny it possible, against the constant
+experience we have of it in ourselves, in all our voluntary motions, which
+are produced in us only by the free action or thought of our minds, and are
+not, nor can be, the effects of the impulse or determination of the blind
+matter in or upon our own bodies; for then it could not be in our power or
+choice to alter it. For example, my right hand writes, whilst my left hand
+is still: what causes rest in one and motion in the other? Nothing but my
+will, a thought in my mind; my thought only changing, the right hand rests,
+and the left hands moves. This is matter of fact, which cannot be denied:
+explain this and make it intelligible, and then the next step will be to
+understand creation."[36]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I.
+
+COSMIC THEISM.[37]
+
+Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a doctrine of so much
+speculative importance, that it behoves all students of philosophy to have
+clear views respecting its character and implications. Mr. Spencer has
+himself so fully explained the character of this doctrine, that no
+attentive reader can fail to understand it; but concerning those of its
+implications which may be termed theological--as distinguished from
+religious--Mr. Spencer is silent. Within the last two or three years,
+however, there has appeared a valuable work by an able exponent of the new
+philosophy; and in this work the writer, adopting his master's teaching of
+the Unknowable, proceeds to develop it into a definite system of what may
+be termed scientific theology. And not only so, but he assures the world
+that this system of scientific theology is the highest, the purest, and the
+most ennobling form of religion that mankind has ever been privileged to
+know in the past, or, from the nature of the case, can ever be destined to
+know in the future. It is a system, we are told, wherein the most
+fundamental truths of Theism are taught as necessary deductions from the
+highest truths of Science; it is a system wherein no single doctrine
+appeals for its acceptance to any principle of blind or credulous faith,
+but wherein every doctrine can be fully justified by the searching light of
+reason; it is a system wherein the noblest of our aspirations and the most
+sublime of our emotions are able to find an object far more worthy and much
+more glorious than has ever been supplied to them by any of the older forms
+of Theism; and it is a system, therefore, in which, with a greatly enlarged
+and intensified meaning, we may worship God, and all that is within us
+bless His holy name. Assuredly a proclamation such as this, emanating from
+the most authoritative expounders of modern thought, as the highest and the
+greatest result to which a rigorous philosophic synthesis has led, is a
+proclamation which cannot fail to arrest our most serious attention. Nay,
+may it not do more than this? May it not appeal to hearts which long have
+ceased to worship? May it not once more revive a hope--long banished,
+perhaps, but still the dearest which our poor natures have
+experienced--that somewhere, sometime, or in some way, it may yet be
+possible to feel that God is not far from any one of us? For to those who
+have known the anguish of a shattered faith, it will not seem so childish
+that our hearts should beat the quicker when we once more hear a voice
+announcing to a world of superstitious idolaters--"Whom ye ignorantly
+worship, Him declare I unto you." But if, when we have listened to the glad
+tidings of the new gospel, we find that the preacher, though apparently in
+earnest, is not worthy to be heard again on this matter; and if, as we turn
+away, our eyes grow dim with the memory of a vanished dream, surely we may
+feel that the preacher is deserving of our blame for obtruding thus upon
+the most sacred of our sorrows.
+
+Mr. John Fiske is, as is well known, an author who unites in himself the
+qualities of a well-read student of philosophy, a clear and accurate
+thinker, a thorough master of the principles which in his recent work he
+undertakes to explain and to extend, and a writer gifted in a remarkable
+degree with the power of lucid exposition. Such being the intellectual
+calibre of the man who elaborates this new system of scientific theology, I
+confess that, on first seeing his work, I experienced a faint hope that, in
+the higher departments of the Philosophy of Evolution as conceived by Mr.
+Spencer and elaborated by his disciple, there might be found some rational
+justification for an attenuated form of Theism. But on examination I find
+that the bread which these fathers have offered us turns out to be a stone;
+and thinking that it is desirable to warn other of the children--whether of
+the family Philosophical or Theological--against swallowing on trust a
+morsel so injurious, I shall endeavour to point out what I conceive to be
+the true nature of "Cosmic Theism."
+
+Starting from the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, Mr. Fiske,
+following Mr. Spencer, proceeds to show how the doctrine implies that there
+must be a mode of Being to which human knowledge is non-relative. Or, in
+other words, he shows that the postulation of phenomena necessitates the
+further postulation of noumena of which phenomena are the manifestations.
+Now what may we affirm of noumena without departing from a scientific or
+objective mode of philosophising? We may affirm at least this much of
+noumena, that they constitute a mode of existence which need not
+necessarily vanish were our consciousness to perish; and, therefore, that
+they now stand out of necessary relation to our consciousness. Or, in other
+words, so far as human consciousness is concerned, noumena must be regarded
+as absolute. "But now, what do we mean by this affirmation of absolute
+reality independent of the conditions of the process of knowing? Do we mean
+to ... affirm, in language savouring strongly of scholasticism, that
+beneath the phenomena which we call subjective there is an occult
+substratum Mind, and beneath the phenomena which we call objective there is
+an occult substratum Matter? Our conclusion cannot be stated in any such
+form.... Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena,
+external or internal, can be framed without postulating an Absolute
+Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations. And now let us
+carefully note what follows. We cannot identify this Absolute Existence
+with Mind, since what we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal
+manifestations.... Nor can we identify this Absolute Existence with Matter,
+since what we know as Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations....
+Absolute Existence, therefore,--the Reality which persists independently of
+us, and of which Mind and Matter are the phenomenal manifestations,--cannot
+be identified either with Mind or with Matter. Thus is Materialism included
+in the same condemnation with Idealism.... See then how far we have
+travelled from the scholastic theory of occult substrata underlying each
+group of phenomena. These substrata were but the ghosts of the phenomena
+themselves; behind the tree or the mountain a sort of phantom tree or
+mountain, which persists after the body of perception has gone away with
+the departure of the percipient mind. Clearly this is no scientific
+interpretation of the facts, but is rather a specimen of naïve barbaric
+thought surviving in metaphysics. The tree or mountain being groups of
+phenomena, what we assert as persisting independently of the percipient
+mind is a something which we are unable to condition either as tree or as
+mountain.
+
+"And now we come down to the very bottom of the problem. Since we do
+postulate Absolute Existence, and do not postulate a particular occult
+substance underlying each group of phenomena, are we to be understood as
+implying that there is a single Being of which all phenomena, internal and
+external to consciousness, are manifestations? Such must seem to be the
+inevitable conclusion, since we are able to carry on thinking at all only
+under the relations of Difference and No-difference.... It may seem that,
+since we cannot attribute to the Absolute Reality any relations of
+Difference, we must positively ascribe to it No-difference. Or, what is the
+same thing, in refusing to predicate multiplicity of it, do we not
+virtually predicate of it unity? We do, simply because we cannot think
+without so doing."[38]
+
+A single Absolute Reality being thus posited, our author proceeds, towards
+the close of his work, to argue that as this Reality cannot be conceived as
+limited either in space or time, it constitutes a Being which corresponds
+with our essential conception of Deity. True it is devoid of certain
+accessory attributes, such as personality, intelligence, and volition; but
+for this very reason, it is insisted, the theistic ideal as thus presented
+is a purer, and therefore a better, ideal than has ever been presented
+before. Nay, it is the highest possible form of this ideal, as the
+following considerations will show. In what has consisted that continuous
+purification of Theism which the history of thought shows to have been
+effected, from the grossest form of belief in supernatural agency as
+exhibited in Fetichism, through its more refined form as exhibited in
+Polytheism, to its still more refined form as exhibited in Monotheism? In
+nothing but in a continuous process of what Mr. Fiske calls
+"deanthropomorphisation." Consequently, must we not conclude that when we
+carry this process yet one step further, and divest our conception of Deity
+of all the yet lingering remnants of anthropomorphism which occur in the
+current conceptions of Deity, we are but still further purifying that
+conception? Assuredly, the attributes of personality, intelligence, and so
+forth, are only known as attributes of Humanity, and therefore to ascribe
+them to Deity is but to foster, in a more refined form, the anthropomorphic
+teachings of previous religions. But if we carefully refuse to limit Deity
+by the ascription of any human attributes whatever, and if the only
+attributes which we do ascribe are such as on grounds of pure reason alone
+we are compelled to ascribe, must we not conclude that the form of Theism
+which results is the purest and the most refined form in which it is
+possible for Theism to exist? "From the anthropomorphic point of view it
+will quite naturally be urged in objection, that this apparently desirable
+result is reached through the degradation of Deity from an 'intelligent
+personality' to a 'blind force,' and is therefore in reality an undesirable
+and perhaps quasi-atheistic result."[39] But the question which really
+presents itself is, "theologically phrased, whether the creature is to be
+taken as a measure of the Creator. Scientifically phrased, the question is
+whether the highest form of Being as yet suggested to one petty race of
+creatures by its ephemeral experience of what is going on in one tiny
+corner of the universe, is necessarily to be taken as the equivalent of
+that absolutely highest form of Being in which all the possibilities of
+existence are alike comprehended."[40] Therefore, in conclusion, "whether
+or not it is true that, within the bounds of the phenomenal universe the
+highest type of existence is that which we know as humanity, the conclusion
+is in every way forced upon us that, quite independently of limiting
+conditions in space or time, there is a form of Being which can neither be
+assimilated to humanity nor to any lower type of existence. We have no
+alternative, therefore, but to regard it as higher than humanity, even 'as
+the heavens are higher than the earth,' and except for the intellectual
+arrogance which the arguments of theologians show lurking beneath their
+expressions of humility, there is no reason why this admission should not
+be made unreservedly, without the anthropomorphic qualifications by which
+its effect is commonly nullified. The time is surely coming when the
+slowness of men in accepting such a conclusion will be marvelled at, and
+when the very inadequacy of human language to express Divinity will be
+regarded as a reason for a deeper faith and more solemn adoration."[41]
+
+I have now sufficiently detailed the leading principles of Cosmic Theism to
+render a clear and just conception of those fundamental parts of the system
+which I am about to criticise; but it is needless to say that, for all
+minor details of this system, I must refer those who may not already have
+perused them to Mr. Fiske's somewhat elaborate essays. In now beginning my
+criticisms, it may be well to state at the outset, that they are to be
+restricted to the philosophical aspect of the subject. With matters of
+sentiment I do not intend to deal,--partly because to do so would be unduly
+to extend this essay, and partly also because I believe that, so far as the
+acceptance or the rejection of Cosmic Theism is to be determined by
+sentiment, much, if not all, will depend on individual habits of thought.
+For whether or not Cosmic Theism is to be regarded as a religion adapted to
+the needs of any individual man, will depend on what these needs are felt
+to be by that man himself: we cannot assert magisterially that this
+religion must be adapted to his needs because we have found it to be
+adapted to our own. And if it is retorted that, human nature being
+everywhere the same, a form of religion that is adapted to one man must on
+this account be adapted to another, I reply that it is not so. For if a man
+who is what Mr. Fiske calls an "Anthropomorphic Theist" finds from
+experience that his system of religion--say Christianity--creates and
+sustains a class of emotions and general habits of thought which he feels
+to be the highest and the best of which he is capable, it is useless for a
+"Cosmic Theist" to offer such a man another system of religion, in which
+the conditions essential to the existence of these particular emotions and
+habits of thought are manifestly absent. For such a man cannot but feel
+that the proffered substitution would be tantamount, if accepted, to an
+utter destruction of all that he regards as essentially religious. He will
+tell us that he finds it perfectly easy to understand and to appreciate
+those feelings of vague awe and "worship of the silent kind" which the
+Cosmic Theist declares to be fostered by Cosmic Theism; but he will also
+tell us that those feelings, which he has experienced with equal vividness
+under his own system of Anthropomorphic Theism, are to him but as
+non-religious dross compared with the unspeakable felicity of holding
+definite commune with the Almighty and Most Merciful, or of rendering
+worship that is a glad hosanna--a fearless shout of joy. On the other hand,
+I believe that it is possible for philosophic habits of thought so to
+discipline the mind that the feelings of vague awe and silent worship in
+the presence of an appalling Mystery become more deep and steady than a
+theist proper can well believe. It is therefore impossible that either
+party can fully appreciate those sentiments of the other which they have
+never fully experienced themselves; for even in those cases where an
+anthropomorphic theist has been compelled to abandon his creed, as the
+change must take place in mature life, his tone of mind has been determined
+before it does take place; and therefore in sentiment, though not in faith,
+he is more or less of a theist for the rest of his life: the only effect of
+the change is to create a troubled interference between his desires and his
+beliefs.
+
+However, I do not intend to develop this branch of the subject further than
+thus to point out, in a general way, that religion-mongers as a class are
+apt to show too little regard for the sentiments, as distinguished from the
+beliefs, of those to whom they offer their wares. But although I do not
+intend to constitute myself a champion of theology by pointing out the
+defects of Cosmic Theism in the aspect which it presents to current modes
+of thought, there is one such defect which I must here dwell upon, because
+we shall afterwards have occasion to refer to it. A theologian may very
+naturally make this objection to Cosmic Theism as presented by Mr.
+Fiske--viz., that the argument on which this philosopher throughout relies
+as a self-evident demonstration that the new system of Theism is a further
+and a final improvement on all the previous systems of Theism, is a
+fallacious argument. As we have already seen, this argument is, that as the
+progress in the purification of Theism has throughout consisted in a
+process of "deanthropomorphisation," therefore the terminal phase in this
+process, which Cosmic Theism introduces, must be still in the direction of
+that progress. But to this argument a theologian may not unreasonably
+object, that this terminal phase differs from all the previous phases in
+one all-important feature--viz., in effecting a _total abolition_ of the
+anthropomorphic element. Before, therefore, it can be shown that this
+terminal phase is a further development of _Theism_, it must he shown that
+Theism still remains Theism after this hitherto characteristic element has
+been removed. If it is true, as Mr. Fiske very properly insists, that all
+the various forms of belief in God have thus far had this as a common
+factor, that they ascribed to God the attributes of Man; it becomes a
+question whether we may properly abstract this hitherto invariable factor
+of a belief, and still call that belief by the same name. Or, to put the
+matter in another light, as cosmists maintain that Theism, in all the
+phases of its development, has been the product of a probably erroneous
+theory of personal agency in nature, when this theory is expressly
+discarded--as it is by the doctrine of the Unknowable--is it
+philosophically legitimate for cosmists to render their theory of things in
+terms which belong to the totally different theory which they discard? No
+doubt it is true that the progressive refinement of Theism has throughout
+consisted in a progressive discarding of anthropomorphic qualities; but
+this fact does not touch the consideration that, when we proceed to strip
+off the last remnants of these qualities, we are committing an act which
+differs _toto coelo_ from all the previous acts which are cited as
+precedents; for by this terminal act we are not, as heretofore, _refining_
+the theory of Theism--we are completely _transforming_ it by removing an
+element which, both genetically and historically, would seem to constitute
+the very essence of Theism.
+
+Or the case may be presented in yet another light. The only use of terms,
+whether in daily talk or in philosophical disquisition, is that of
+designating certain things or attributes to which by general custom we
+agree to affix them; so that if anyone applies a term to some thing or
+attribute which general custom does not warrant him in so applying, he is
+merely laying himself open to the charge of abusing that term. Now apply
+these elementary principles to the case before us. We have but to think of
+the disgust with which the vast majority of living persons would regard the
+sense in which Mr. Fiske uses the term "Theism," to perceive how intimate
+is the association of that term with the idea of a Personal God. Such
+persons will feel strongly that, by this final act of purification, Mr.
+Fiske has simply purified the Deity altogether out of existence. And I
+scarcely think it is here competent to reply that all previous acts of
+purification were at first similarly regarded as destructive, because it is
+evident that none of these previous acts affected, as this one does, the
+central core of Theism. And, lastly, if it should be still further
+objected, that by declaring the theory of Personal Agency the central core
+of Theism, I am begging the question as to the appropriateness of Mr.
+Fiske's use of the word "Theism,"--seeing he appears to regard the
+essential meaning of this word to be that of a postulation of merely Causal
+Agency,--I answer, More of this anon; but meanwhile let it be observed that
+any charge of question-begging lies rather at the door of Mr. Fiske, in
+that he assumes, without any expressed justification, that the essence of
+Theism _does_ consist in such a postulation and in nothing more. And as he
+unquestionably has against him the present world of theists no less than
+the history of Theism in the past, I do not see how he is to meet this
+charge except by confessing to an abuse of the term in question.
+
+I will now proceed to examine the structure of Cosmic Theism. We are all, I
+suppose, at one in allowing that there are only three "verbally
+intelligible" theories of the universe,--viz., that it is self-existent, or
+that it is self-created, or that it has been created by some other and
+external Being. It is usual to call the first of these theories Atheism,
+the second Pantheism, and the third Theism. Now as there are here three
+distinct nameable theories, it is necessary, if the term "Cosmic Theism" is
+to be justified as an appropriate term, that the particular theory which it
+designates should be shown to be in its essence theistic--_i.e._, that the
+theory should present those distinguishing features in virtue of which
+Theism differs from Atheism on the one hand, and from Pantheism on the
+other. Now what are these features? The postulate of an Eternal
+Self-existing Something is common to Theism and to Atheism. Here Atheism
+ends. Theism, however, is generally said to assume Personality,
+Intelligence, and Creative Power as attributes of the single self-existing
+substance. Lastly, Pantheism assumes the Something now existing to have
+been self-created. To which, then, of these distinct theories is Cosmic
+Theism most nearly allied? For the purpose of answering this question, I
+shall render that theory in terms of a formula which Mr. Fiske presents as
+a full and complete statement of the theory:--"_There exists a_ POWER, _to
+which no limit in space or time is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as
+presented in consciousness, are manifestations, but which we can only know
+through these manifestations._" But although the word "Power" is here so
+strongly emphasised, we are elsewhere told that it is not to be regarded as
+having more than a strictly relative or symbolic meaning; so that, in point
+of fact, some more neutral word, such as "Something," "Being," or
+"Substance," ought in strictness to be here substituted for the word
+"Power." Well, if this is done, we have the postulation of a Being which is
+self-existing, infinite, and eternal--relatively, at all events, to our
+powers of conception. Thus far, therefore, it would seem that we are still
+on the common standing-ground of Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism; for as it
+is not, so far as I can see, incumbent on Pantheism to affirm that "thought
+is a measure of things," the _apparent_ or _relative_ eternity which the
+Primal Something must be supposed to present may not be _actual_ or
+_absolute_ eternity. Nevertheless, as Mr. Fiske, by predicating Divinity of
+the Primal Something, implicitly attributes to it the quality of an
+_eternal_ self-existence, I infer that Cosmic Theism may be concluded at
+this point to part company with Pantheism. There remain, then, Theism and
+Atheism.
+
+Now undoubtedly, at first sight, Cosmic Theism appears to differ from
+Atheism in one all-important particular. For we have seen that, by means of
+a subtle though perfectly logical argument, Cosmic Philosophy has evolved
+this conclusion--that all phenomena as presented in consciousness are
+manifestations of a not improbable Single Self-existing Power, of whose
+existence these manifestations alone can make us cognisant. From which it
+apparently follows, that this hypothetical Power must be regarded as
+existing out of necessary relation to the phenomenal universe; that it is,
+therefore, beyond question "Absolute Being;" and that, as such, we are
+entitled to call it Deity. But in the train of reasoning of which this is a
+very condensed epitome, it is evident that the legitimacy of denominating
+this Absolute Being Deity, must depend on the exact meaning which we attach
+to the word "Absolute"--and this, be it observed, quite apart from the
+question, before touched upon, as to whether Personality and Intelligence
+are not to be considered as attributes essential to Deity. In what sense,
+then, is the word "Absolute" used? It is used in this sense. As from the
+relativity of knowledge we cannot know things in themselves, but only
+symbolical representations of such things, therefore things in themselves
+are absolute to consciousness: but analysis shows that we cannot
+conceivably predicate Difference among things in themselves, so that we are
+at liberty, with due diffidence, to predicate of them No-difference: hence
+the noumena of the schoolmen admit of being collected into a _summum genus_
+of noumenal existence; and since, before their colligation noumena were
+severally absolute, after their colligation they become collectively
+absolute: therefore it is legitimate to designate this sum-total of
+noumenal existence, "Absolute Being." Now there is clearly no exception to
+be taken to the formal accuracy of this reasoning; the only question is as
+to whether the "Absolute Being" which it evolves is absolute in the sense
+required by Theism. I confess that to me this Being appears to be absolute
+in a widely different sense from that in which Deity must be regarded as
+absolute. For this Being is thus seen to be absolute in no other sense than
+as holding--to quote from Mr. Fiske--"existence independent of the
+conditions of the process of knowing." In other words, it is absolute only
+as standing out of necessary relation to _human consciousness_. But Theism
+requires, as an essential feature, that Deity should be absolute as
+standing out of necessary relation to _all else_. Before, therefore, the
+Absolute Being of Cosmism can be shown, by the reasoning adopted, to
+deserve, even in part, the appellation of Deity, it must be shown that
+there is no other mode of Being in existence save our own subjective
+consciousness and the Absolute Reality which becomes objective to it
+through the world of phenomena. But any attempt to establish this position
+would involve a disregard of the doctrine that knowledge is relative; and
+to do this, it is needless to say, would be to destroy the basis of the
+argument whereby the Absolute Being of Cosmism was posited.
+
+Or, to state this part of the criticism in other words, as the first step
+in justifying the predication of Deity, it must be shown that the Being of
+which the predication is made is absolute, and this not merely as
+independent of human consciousness, but as independent of the whole
+noumenal universe--Deity itself alone excepted. That is, the Being of which
+Deity is predicated must be Unconditioned. Hence it is incumbent on Cosmic
+Theism to prove, either that the Causal Agent which it denominates Deity is
+itself the whole noumenal universe, or that it created the rest of a
+noumenal universe; else there is nothing to show that this Causal Agent was
+not itself created--seeing that, even if we assume the existence of a God,
+there is nothing to indicate that the Causal Agent of Cosmism is that God.
+
+It would appear therefore from this, that whatever else the Cosmist's
+theory of things may be, it certainly is not Theism; and I think that
+closer inspection will tend to confirm this judgment. To this then let us
+proceed.
+
+Mr. Fiske is very hard on the atheists, and so will probably repudiate with
+scorn any insinuations to the effect that his theory of things is
+"quasi-atheistic." Nevertheless, it seems to me that he is very unjust to
+the atheists, in that while he spares no pains to "purify" and "refine" the
+theory of the theists, so as at last to leave nothing but what he regards
+as the distilled essence of Theism behind; he habitually leaves the theory
+of the atheists as he finds it, without making any attempt either to
+"purify" it by removing its weak and unnecessary ingredients, or to
+"refine" it by adding such sublimated ingredients as modern speculation has
+supplied. Thus, while he despises the atheists of the eighteenth century
+for their irrationality in believing in the self-existence of a
+_phenomenal_ universe, and reviles them for their irreligion in denying
+that "the religious sentiment needed satisfaction;" he does not wait to
+inquire whether, in its essential substance, the theory of these men is not
+the one that has proved itself best able to withstand the grinding action
+of more recent thought. But let us in fairness ask, What was the essential
+substance of that theory? Apparently it was the bare statement of the
+unthinkable fact that Something Is. It therefore seems to me useless in Mr.
+Fiske to lay so much stress on the fact that this Something was originally
+identified by atheists with the phenomenal universe. It seems useless to do
+this, because such identification is clearly no part of the _essence_ of
+Atheism, which, as just stated, I take to consist in the single dogma of
+self-existence as itself sufficient to constitute a theory of things. And,
+if so, it is a matter of scarcely any moment, as regards that theory,
+whether we are _immediately_ cognisant of that which is self-existent, or
+only become so through the world of phenomena--the vital point of the
+theory being, that Self-existence, _wherever posited_, is itself the only
+admissible explanation of phenomena. Or, in other words, it does not seem
+that there is anything in the atheistic theory, as such, which is
+incompatible with the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge; so that
+whatever cogency there may be in the train of reasoning whereby a single
+Causal Agent is deduced from that doctrine, it would seem that an atheist
+has as much right to the benefit of this reasoning as a theist; and there
+is thus no more apparent reason why this single Causal Agent should be
+appropriated as the God of Theism, than that it should be appropriated as
+the Self-existing X of Atheism. Indeed, there seems to be less reason. For
+an atheist of to-day may very properly argue:--'So far from beholding
+anything divine in this Single Being absolute to human consciousness, it is
+just precisely the form of Being which my theory postulates as the
+Self-existing All. In order to constitute such a Being God, it must be
+shown, as we have already seen, to be something more than a merely Causal
+Agent which is absolute in the grotesquely restricted sense of being
+independent of 'one petty race of creatures with an ephemeral experience of
+what is going on in one tiny corner of the universe;' it must be shown to
+be something more than absolute even in the wholly unrestricted sense of
+being Unconditioned; it must be shown to possess such other attributes as
+are distinctive of Deity. For I maintain that even Unconditioned Being,
+_merely as such_, would only then have a right to the name of God when it
+has been shown that the theory of Theism has a right to monopolise the
+doctrine of Relativity.'
+
+In thus endeavouring to "purify" the theory of Atheism, by divesting it of
+all superfluous accessories, and laying bare what I conceive to be its
+essential substance; it may be well to state that, even apart from their
+irreligious character, I have no sympathy with the atheists of the past
+century. I mean, that these men do not seem to me to deserve any credit for
+advanced powers of speculation merely because they adopted a theory of
+things which in its essential features now promises to be the most
+enduring. For it is evident that the strength of this theory now lies in
+its _simplicity_,--in its undertaking to explain, so far as explanation is
+possible, the sum-total of phenomena by the single postulate of
+self-existence. But it seems to me that in the last century there were no
+sufficient data for rendering such a theory of things a rational theory;
+for so long as the quality of self-existence was supposed to reside in
+phenomena themselves, the very simplicity of the theory, as expressed in
+words, must have seemed to render it inapplicable as a reasonable theory of
+things. The astounding variety, complexity, and harmony which are
+everywhere so conspicuous in the world of phenomena must have seemed to
+necessitate as an explanation some one integrating cause; and it is
+impossible that in the eighteenth century any such integrating cause can
+have been conceivable other than Intelligence. Therefore I think, with Mr.
+Fiske, that the atheists of the eighteenth century were irrational in
+applying their single postulate of self-existence as alone a sufficient
+explanation of things. But of course the aspect of the case is now
+completely changed, when we regard it in all the flood of light which has
+been shed on it by recent science, physical and speculative. For the
+demonstration of the fact that energy is indestructible, coupled with the
+corollary that every so-called natural law is a physically necessary
+consequence of that fact, clearly supply us with a completely novel datum
+as the ultimate source of experience--and a datum, moreover, which is as
+different as can well be imagined from the ever-changing, ever-fleeting,
+world of phenomena. We have, therefore, but to apply the postulate of
+self-existence to this single ultimate datum, and we have a theory of
+things as rational as the Atheism of the last century was irrational.
+Nevertheless, that this theory is more akin to the Atheism of the last
+century than to any other theory of that time, is, I think, unquestionable;
+for while we retain the central doctrine of self-existence as alone a
+scientifically admissible, or non-gratuitous, explanation of things, we
+only change the original theory by transferring the application of this
+doctrine from the world of manifestations to that which causes the
+manifestations: we do not resort to any of the _additional_ doctrines
+whereby the other theories of the universe were distinguished from the
+theory of Atheism in its original form. However, as by our recognition of
+the relativity of knowledge we are precluded from dogmatically denying any
+theory of the universe that may be proposed, it would clearly be erroneous
+to identify the doctrine of the Unknowable with the theory of Atheism: all
+we can say is, that, so far as speculative thought can soar, the permanent
+self-existence of an inconceivable Something, which manifests itself to
+consciousness as force and matter, constitutes the only datum that can be
+shown to be required for the purposes of a rational ontology.
+
+To sum up. In the theory which Mr. Fiske calls Cosmic Theism, while I am
+able to discern the elements which I think may properly be regarded as
+common to Theism and to Atheism, I am not able to discern any single
+element that is specifically distinctive of Theism. Still I am far from
+concluding that the theory in question is the theory of Atheism. All I wish
+to insist upon is this--that as the Absolute Being of Cosmism presents no
+other qualities than such as are required by the renovated theory of
+Atheism, its postulation supplies a basis, not for Theism, but for
+Non-theism: a man with such a postulate ought in strictness to abstain from
+either affirming or denying the existence of God. And this, I may observe,
+appears to be the position which Mr. Spencer himself has adopted as the
+only logical outcome of his doctrine of the Unknowable--a position which,
+in my opinion, it is most undesirable to obscure by endeavouring to give it
+a quasi-theistic interpretation. I may further observe, that we here seem
+to have a philosophical justification of the theological sentiment
+previously alluded to--the sentiment, namely, that by his attempt at a
+final purification of Theism, Mr. Fiske has destroyed those essential
+features of the theory in virtue of which alone it exists as Theism. For
+seeing it is impossible, from the relativity of knowledge, that the
+Absolute Being of Cosmism can ever be shown absolute in the sense required
+by Theism, and, even if it could, that it would still be but the
+Unconditioned Being of Atheism; it follows that if this Absolute Being is
+to be shown even in part to deserve the appellation of Deity, it must be
+shown to possess the only remaining attributes which are distinctive of
+Deity--to wit, personality and intelligence. But forasmuch as the final act
+of purifying the conception of Deity consists, according to Mr. Fiske, in
+expressly removing these particular attributes from the object of that
+conception, does it not follow that the conception which remains is, as I
+have said, not theistic, but non-theistic?
+
+Here my criticism might properly have ended, were it not that Mr. Fiske,
+after having divested the Deity of all his psychical attributes, forthwith
+proceeds to show how it may be dimly possible to reinvest him with
+attributes that are "quasi-psychical." Mr. Fiske is, of course, far too
+subtle a thinker not to see that his previous argument from relativity
+precludes him from assigning much weight to the ontological speculations in
+which he here indulges, seeing that in whatever degree the relativity of
+knowledge renders legitimate the non-ascription to Deity of known psychical
+attributes, in some such degree at least must it render illegitimate the
+ascription to Deity of unknown psychical attributes. But in the part of his
+work in which he treats of the quasi-psychical attributes, Mr. Fiske is
+merely engaged in showing that the speculative standing of the
+"materialists" is inferior to that of the "spiritualists;" so that, as this
+is a subject distinct from Theism, he is not open to the charge of
+inconsistency. Well, feeble as these speculations undoubtedly are in the
+support which they render to Theism, it nevertheless seems desirable to
+consider them before closing this review. The speculations in question are
+quoted from Mr. Spencer, and are as follows:--
+
+"Mind, as known to the possessor of it, is a circumscribed aggregate of
+activities; and the cohesion of these activities, one with another,
+throughout the aggregate, compels the postulation of a something of which
+they are the activities. But the same experiences which make him aware of
+this coherent aggregate of mental activities, simultaneously make him aware
+of activities that are not included in it--outlying activities which become
+known by their effects on this aggregate, but which are experimentally
+proved to be not coherent with it, and to be coherent with one another
+(_First Principles_, §§ 43, 44). As, by the definition of them, these
+external activities cannot be brought within the aggregate of activities
+distinguished as those of Mind, they must for ever remain to him nothing
+more than the unknown correlatives of their effects on this aggregate; and
+can be thought of only in terms furnished by this aggregate. Hence, if he
+regards his conceptions of these activities lying beyond Mind as
+constituting knowledge of them, he is deluding himself: he is but
+representing these activities in terms of Mind, and can never do otherwise.
+Eventually he is obliged to admit that his ideas of Matter and Motion,
+merely symbolic of unknowable realities, are complex states of
+consciousness built out of units of feeling. But if, after admitting this,
+he persists in asking whether units of feeling are of the same nature as
+the units of force distinguished as external, or whether the units of force
+distinguished as external are of the same nature as units of feeling; then
+the reply, still substantially the same, is that we may go further towards
+conceiving units of external force to be identical with units of feeling,
+than we can towards conceiving units of feeling to be identical with units
+of external force. Clearly, if units of external force are regarded as
+absolutely unknown and unknowable, then to translate units of feeling into
+them is to translate the known into the unknown, which is absurd. And if
+they are what they are supposed to be by those who identify them with their
+symbols, then the difficulty of translating units of feeling into them is
+insurmountable: if Force as it objectively exists is absolutely alien in
+nature from that which exists subjectively as Feeling, then the
+transformation of Force into Feeling is unthinkable. Either way, therefore,
+it is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of outer existence.
+But if, on the other hand, units of Force as they exist objectively are
+essentially the same in nature with those manifested subjectively as units
+of Feeling, then a conceivable hypothesis remains open. Every element of
+that aggregate of activities constituting a consciousness is known as
+belonging to consciousness only by its cohesion with the rest. Beyond the
+limits of this coherent aggregate of activities exist activities quite
+independent of it, and which cannot be brought into it. We may imagine,
+then, that by their exclusion from the circumscribed activities
+constituting consciousness, these outer activities, though of the same
+intrinsic nature, become antithetically opposed in aspect. Being
+disconnected from consciousness, or cut off by its limits, they are thereby
+rendered foreign to it. Not being incorporated with its activities, or
+linked with these as they are with one another, consciousness cannot, as it
+were, run through them; and so they come to be figured as unconscious--are
+symbolised as having the nature called material, as opposed to that called
+spiritual. While, however, it thus seems an imaginable possibility that
+units of external Force may be identical in nature with units of the force
+known as Feeling, yet we cannot by so representing them get any nearer to a
+comprehension of external Force. For, as already shown, supposing all forms
+of Mind to be composed of homogeneous units of feeling variously
+aggregated, the resolution of them into such units leaves us as unable as
+before to think of the substance of Mind as it exists in such units; and
+thus, even could we really figure to ourselves all units of external Force
+as being essentially like units of the force known as Feeling, and as so
+constituting a universal sentiency, we should be as far as ever from
+forming a conception of that which is universally sentient."[42]
+
+Now while I agree with Mr. Fiske that we have here "the most subtle
+conclusion now within the ken of the scientific speculator, reached without
+any disregard of the canons prescribed by the doctrine of relativity," I
+would like to point out to minds less clear-sighted than his, that this
+same "doctrine of relativity" effectually debars us from using this
+"conclusion" as an argument of any assignable value in favour of Theism.
+For the value of conceivability as a test of truth, on which this
+conclusion is founded, is here vitiated by the consideration that,
+_whatever_ the nature of Force-units may be, we can clearly perceive it to
+be a subjective necessity of the case that they should admit of being more
+easily conceived by us to be of the nature of Feeling-units than to be of
+any other nature. For as units of Feeling are the only entities of which we
+are, or can be, conscious, they are the entities into which units of Force
+must be, so to speak, subjectively translated before we can cognise their
+existence at all. Therefore, _whatever_ the real nature of Force-units may
+be, ultimate analysis must show that it is more conceivable to identify
+them in thought with the only units of which we are cognisant, than it is
+to think of them as units of which we are not cognisant, and concerning
+which, therefore, conception is necessarily impossible. Or thus, the only
+alternative with respect to the classifying of Force-units lies between
+refusing to classify them at all, or classifying them with the only
+ultimate units with which we are acquainted. But this restriction, for
+aught that can ever be shown to the contrary, arises only from the
+subjective conditions of our own consciousness; there is nothing to
+indicate that, in objective reality, units of Force are in any wise akin to
+units of Feeling. Conceivability, therefore, as a test of truth, is in this
+particular case of no assignable degree of value; for as the entities to
+which it is applied are respectively the highest known abstractions of
+subjective and objective existence, the test of conceivability is
+neutralised by directly encountering the inconceivable relation that
+subsists between subject and object. I think, therefore, it is evident that
+these ontological speculations present no sufficient warrant for an
+inference, even of the slenderest kind, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism
+possesses attributes of a nature quasi-psychical; and, if so, it follows
+that these speculations are incompetent to form the basis of a theory
+which, even by the greatest stretch of courtesy, can in any legitimate
+sense be termed quasi-theistic.[43]
+
+On the whole, then, I conclude that the term "Cosmic Theism" is not an
+appropriate term whereby to denote the theory of things set forth in
+"Cosmic Philosophy;" and that it would therefore be more judicious to leave
+the doctrine of the Unknowable as Mr. Spencer has left it--that is, without
+theological implications of any kind. But in now taking leave of this
+subject, I should like it to be understood that the only reason why I have
+ventured thus to take exception to a part of Mr. Fiske's work is because I
+regret that a treatise which displays so much of literary excellence and
+philosophic power should lend itself to promoting what I regard as mistaken
+views concerning the ontological tendencies of recent thought, and this
+with no other apparent motive than that of unworthily retaining in the new
+philosophy a religious term the distinctive connotations of which are
+considered by that philosophy to have become obsolete.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+II.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY IN REPLY TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM.[44]
+
+On perusing my main essay several years after its completion, it occurred
+to me that another very effectual way of demonstrating the immense
+difference between the nature of all previous attacks upon the teleological
+argument and the nature of the present attack, would be briefly to review
+the reasonable objections to which all the previous attacks were open. Very
+opportunely a work on Theism has just been published which states these
+objections with great lucidity, and answers them with much ability. The
+work to which I allude is by the Rev. Professor Flint, and as it is
+characterised by temperate candour in tone and logical care in exposition,
+I felt on reading it that the work was particularly well suited for
+displaying the enormous change in the speculative standing of Theism which
+the foregoing considerations must be rationally deemed to have effected. I
+therefore determined on throwing my supplementary essay, which I had
+previously intended to write, into the form of a criticism on Professor
+Flint's treatise, and I adopted this course the more willingly because
+there are several other points dwelt upon in that treatise which it seems
+desirable for me to consider in the present one, although, for the sake of
+conciseness, I abstained from discussing them in my previous essay. With
+these two objects in view, therefore, I undertook the following
+criticism.[45]
+
+In the first place, it is needful to protest against an argument which our
+author adopts on the authority of Professor Clark Maxwell. The argument is
+now a well-known one, and is thus stated by Professor Maxwell in his
+presidential address before the British Association for the Advancement of
+Science, 1870:--"None of the processes of nature, since the time when
+nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of
+any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of
+the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any
+of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact quality
+of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John
+Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article,
+and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Thus we have
+been led along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which
+science must stop. Not that science is debarred from studying the external
+mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from
+investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing
+back the history of matter, science is arrested when she assures herself,
+on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and, on the other, that
+it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural."
+
+Now it is obvious that we have here no real argument, since it is obvious
+that science can never be in a position to assert that atoms, the very
+existence of which is hypothetical, were never "made by any of the
+processes we call natural." The mere fact that in the universe, as we now
+know it, the evolution of material atoms is not observed to be taking place
+"by any of the processes we call natural," cannot possibly be taken as
+proof, or even as presumption, that there ever was a time when the material
+atoms now in existence were created by a supernatural cause. The fact
+cannot be taken to justify any such inference for the following reasons. In
+the first place, assuming the atomic theory to be true, and there is
+nothing in the argument to show that the now-existing atoms are not
+self-existing atoms, endowed with their peculiar and severally distinctive
+properties from all eternity. Doubtless the argument is, that as there
+appear to be some sixty or more elementary atoms constituting the raw
+material of the observable universe, it is incredible that they can all
+have owed their correlated properties to any cause other than that of a
+designing and manufacturing intelligence. But, in the next place--and here
+comes the demolishing force of the criticism--science is not in a position
+to assert that these sixty or more elementary atoms are in any real sense
+of the term elementary. The mere fact that chemistry is as yet in too
+undeveloped a condition to pronounce whether or not all the forms of matter
+known to her are modifications of some smaller number of elements, or even
+of a single element, cannot possibly be taken as a warrant for so huge an
+inference as that there are really more than sixty elements all endowed
+with absolutely distinctive properties by a supernatural cause. Now this
+consideration, which arises immediately from the doctrine of the relativity
+of knowledge, is alone amply sufficient to destroy the present argument.
+But we must not on this account lose sight of the fact that, even to our
+strictly relative science in its present embryonic condition, we are not
+without decided indications, not only that the so-called elements are
+probably for the most part compounds, but even that matter as a whole is
+one substance, which is itself probably but some modification of energy.
+Indeed, the whole tendency of recent scientific speculation is towards the
+view that the universe consists of some one substance, which, whether
+self-existing or created, is diverse only in its relation to ignorance. And
+if this view is correct, how obvious is the inference which I have
+elaborated in § 32, that all the diverse forms of matter, as we know them,
+were probably evolved by natural causes. So obvious, indeed, is this
+inference, that to resort to any supernatural hypothesis to explain the
+diverse properties of the various chemical elements appears to me a most
+glaring violation of the law of parcimony--as much more glaring, for
+instance, than the violation of this law by Paley, as the number and
+variety of organic species are greater than the number and variety of
+chemical species. And if it was illegitimate in Paley to use a mere absence
+of knowledge as to how the transmutation of apparently fixed species of
+animals was effected as equivalent to the possession of knowledge that such
+transmutation had not been effected, how much more illegitimate must it be
+to commit a similar sin against logic in the case of the chemical elements,
+where our classification is confessedly beset with numberless difficulties,
+and when we begin to discern that in all probability it is a classification
+essentially artificial. Lastly, the mere fact that the transmutation of
+chemical species and the evolution of chemical "atoms" are processes which
+we do not now observe as occurring in nature, is surely a consideration of
+a far more feeble kind than it is even in the case of biological species
+and biological evolution; seeing that nature's laboratory must be now so
+inconceivably different from what it was during the condensation of the
+nebula. What an atrocious piece of arrogance, therefore, it is to assert
+that "none of the processes of nature, _since the time when nature began_,
+have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule!"
+No one can entertain a higher respect for Professor Clark Maxwell than I
+do; but a single sentence of such a kind as this cannot leave two opinions
+in any impartial mind concerning his competency to deal with such subjects.
+
+I am therefore sorry to see this absurd argument approvingly incorporated
+in Professor Flint's work. He says, "I believe that no reply to these words
+of Professor Clark Maxwell is possible from any one who holds the ordinary
+view of scientific men as to the ultimate constitution of matter. They must
+suppose every atom, every molecule, to be of such a nature, to be so
+related to others and to the universe generally, that things may be such as
+we see them to be; but this their fitness to be built up into the structure
+of the universe is a proof that they have been made fit, and since natural
+forces could not have acted on them while not yet existent, a supernatural
+power must have created them, and created them with a view to their
+manifold uses." Here the inference so confidently drawn would have been a
+weak one even were we not able to see that the doctrine of natural
+evolution probably applies to inorganic nature no less than to organic. For
+the inference is drawn from considerations of a character so transcendental
+and so remote from science, that unless we wish to be deceived by a merely
+verbal argument, we must feel that the possibilities of error in the
+inference are so numerous and indefinite, that the inference itself is
+well-nigh worthless as a basis of belief. But when we add that in Chapter
+IV. of the foregoing essay it has been shown to be within the legitimate
+scope of scientific reasoning to conclude that material atoms have been
+progressively evolved _pari passu_ with the natural laws of chemical
+combination, it is evident that any force which the present argument could
+ever have had must now be pronounced as neutralised. Natural causes have
+been shown, so far as scientific inference can extend, as not improbably
+sufficient to produce the observed effects; and therefore we are no longer
+free to invoke the hypothetical action of any supernatural cause.
+
+The same observations apply to Professor Flint's theistic argument drawn
+from recent scientific speculations as to the vortex-ring construction of
+matter. If these speculations are sound, their only influence on Theism
+would be that of supplying a scientific demonstration of the substantial
+identity of Force and Matter, and so of supplying a still more valid basis
+for the theory as to the natural genesis of matter from a single primordial
+substance, in the manner sketched out in Chapter IV. For the argument
+adduced by Professor Flint, that as the manner in which the vorticial
+motion of a ring is originated has not as yet been suggested, therefore its
+origination must have been due to a "Divine impulse," is an argument which
+again uses the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its possession. We are
+in the presence of a very novel and highly abstruse theory, or rather
+hypothesis, in physics, which was originally suggested by, and has hitherto
+been mainly indebted to, empirical experiments as distinguished from
+mathematical calculations; and from the mere fact that, in the case of such
+a hypothesis, mathematicians have not as yet been able to determine the
+physical conditions required to originate vorticial motion, we are expected
+to infer that no such conditions can ever have existed, and therefore that
+every such vortex system, if it exists, is a miracle!
+
+And substantially the same criticism applies to the argument which
+Professor Flint adduces--the argument also on which Professors Balfour and
+Tait lay so much stress in their work on the _Unseen Universe_--the
+argument, namely, as to the non-eternal character of heat. The calculations
+on which this argument depends would only be valid as sustaining this
+argument if they were based upon a knowledge of the universe _as a whole_;
+and therefore, as before, the absence of requisite knowledge must not be
+used as equivalent to its possession.
+
+These, however, are the weakest parts of Professor Flint's work. I
+therefore gladly turn to those parts which are exceedingly cogent as
+written from his standpoint, but which, in view of the strictures on the
+teleological argument that I have adduced in Chapters IV. and VI., I submit
+to be now wholly valueless.
+
+"How could matter of itself produce order, even if it were self-existent
+and eternal? It is far more unreasonable to believe that the atoms or
+constituents of matter produced of themselves, without the action of a
+Supreme Mind, this wonderful universe, than that the letters of the English
+alphabet produced the plays of Shakespeare, without the slightest
+assistance from the human mind known by that famous name. These atoms
+might, perhaps, now and then, here and there, at great distances and long
+intervals, produce by a chance contact some curious collocation or
+compound; but never could they produce order or organisation on an
+extensive scale, or of a durable character, unless ordered, arranged, and
+adjusted in ways of which intelligence alone can be the ultimate
+explanation. To believe that these fortuitous and indirected movements
+could originate the universe, and all the harmonies and utilities and
+beauties which abound in it, evinces a credulity far more extravagant than
+has ever been displayed by the most superstitious of religionists. Yet no
+consistent materialist can refuse to accept this colossal chance
+hypothesis. All the explanations of the order of the universe which
+materialists, from Democritus and Epicurus to Diderot and Lange, have
+devised, rest on the assumption that the elements of matter, being eternal,
+must pass through infinite combinations, and that one of these must be our
+present world--a special collocation among the countless millions of
+collocations, past and future. Throw the letters of the Greek alphabet, it
+has been said, an infinite number of times, and you must produce the
+'Iliad' and all the Greek books. The theory of probabilities, I need hardly
+say, requires us to believe nothing so absurd.... But what is the 'Iliad'
+to the hymn of creation and the drama of providence?" &c.
+
+Now this I conceive to have been a fully valid argument at the time it was
+published, and indeed the most convincing of all the arguments in favour of
+Theism. But, as already so frequently pointed out, the considerations
+adduced in Chapter IV. of the present work are utterly destructive of this
+argument. For this argument assumes, rightly enough, that the only
+alternative we have in choosing our hypothesis concerning the final
+explanation of things is either to regard that explanation as Intelligence
+or as Fortuity. This, I say, was a legitimate argument a few months ago,
+because up to that time no one had shown that strictly natural causes, as
+distinguished from chances, could conceivably be able to produce a cosmos;
+and although the several previous writers to whom Professor Flint
+alludes--and he might have alluded to others in this
+connection--entertained a dim anticipation of the fact that natural causes
+might alone be sufficient to produce the observed universe, still these dim
+anticipations were worthless as _arguments_ so long as it remained
+impossible to suggest any natural _principle_ whereby such a result could
+have been conceivably effected by such causes. But it is evident that
+Professor Flint's time-honoured argument is now completely overthrown,
+unless it can be proved that there is some radical error in the reasoning
+whereby I have endeavoured to show that natural causes not only _may_, but
+_must_, have produced existing order. The overthrow is complete, because
+the very groundwork of the argument in question is knocked away; a third
+possibility, of the nature of a necessity, is introduced, and therefore the
+alternative is no longer between Intelligence and Fortuity, but between
+Intelligence and Natural Causation. Whereas the overwhelming strength of
+the argument from Order has hitherto consisted in the supposition of
+Intelligence as the one and only conceivable cause of the integration of
+things, my exposition in Chapter IV. has shown that such integration must
+have been due, at all events in a relative or proximate sense, to a
+strictly physical cause--the persistence of force and the consequent
+self-evolution of natural law. And the question as to whether or not
+Intelligence may not have been the absolute or ultimate cause is manifestly
+a question altogether alien to the argument from Order; for if existing
+order admits of being accounted for, in a relative or proximate sense, by
+merely physical causes, the argument from a relative or proximate order is
+not at liberty to infer or to assume the existence of any higher or more
+ultimate cause. Although, therefore, in Chapter V., I have been careful to
+point out that the fact of existing order having been due to proximate or
+natural causes does not actually _disprove_ the possible existence of an
+ultimate and supernatural cause, still it must be carefully observed that
+this _negative_ fact cannot possibly justify any _positive_ inference to
+the existence of such a cause.
+
+Thus, upon the whole, it may be said, without danger of reasonable dispute,
+that as the argument from Order has hitherto derived its immense weight
+entirely from the fact that Intelligence appeared to be the one and only
+cause sufficient to produce the observed integration of the cosmos, this
+immense weight has now been completely counterpoised by the demonstration
+that other causes of a strictly physical kind must have been instrumental,
+if not themselves alone sufficient, to produce this integration, So that,
+just as in the case of Astronomy the demonstration of the one natural
+principle of gravity was sufficient to classify under one physical
+explanation several observed facts which many persons had previously
+attributed to supernatural causes; and just as in the more complex science
+of Geology the demonstration of the one principle of uniformitarianism was
+sufficient to explain, without the aid of supernaturalism, a still greater
+number of facts; and, lastly, just as in the case of the still more complex
+science of Biology the demonstration of the one principle of natural
+selection was sufficient to marshal under one scientific, or natural,
+hypothesis an almost incalculable number of facts which were previously
+explained by the metaphysical hypothesis of supernatural design; so in the
+science which includes all other sciences, and which we may term the
+science of Cosmology, I assert with confidence that in the one principle of
+the persistence of force we have a demonstrably harmonising principle,
+whereby all the facts within our experience admit of being collocated under
+one natural explanation, without there being the smallest reason to
+attribute these facts to any supernatural cause.
+
+But perhaps the immense change which these considerations must logically be
+regarded as having produced in the speculative standing of the argument
+from teleology will be better appreciated if I continue to quote from
+Professor Flint's very forcible and thoroughly logical exposition of the
+previous standing of this argument. He says:--
+
+"To ascribe the origination of order to _law_ is a manifest evasion of the
+real problem. Law is order. Law is the very thing to be explained. The
+question is--Has law a reason, or is it without a reason? The unperverted
+human mind cannot believe it to be without a reason."
+
+I do not know where a more terse and accurate statement of the case could
+be found; and to my mind the question so lucidly put admits of the direct
+answer--Law clearly has a reason of a purely physical kind. And therefore I
+submit that the following quotation which Professor Flint makes from
+Professor Jevons, logical as it was when written, must now be regarded as
+embodying an argument which is obsolete.
+
+"As an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in unlimited space in an
+unlimited number of modes of distribution, there must, even granting matter
+to have had all its laws from eternity, have been at some moment in time,
+out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible, that one choice
+and distribution which yielded the fair and orderly universe that now
+exists. Only out of rational choice can order have come."
+
+But clearly the alternative is now no longer one between chance and choice.
+If natural laws arise by way of necessary consequence from the persistence
+of a single self-existing substance, it becomes a matter of scientific
+(though not of logical) demonstration that "the fair and orderly universe
+that now exists" is the one and only universe that, in the nature of
+things, _can_ exist. But to continue this interesting passage from Dr.
+Flint's work--interesting not only because it sets forth the previous
+standing of this subject with so much clearness, but also because the work
+is of such very recent publication.
+
+"The most common mode, perhaps, of evading the problem which order presents
+to reason is the indication of the process by which the order has been
+realised. From Democritus to the latest Darwinian there have been men who
+supposed they had completely explained away the evidences of design in
+nature when they had described the physical antecedents of the arrangements
+appealed to as evidences. Aristotle showed the absurdity of this
+supposition more than 2200 years ago."
+
+Now this is a perfectly valid criticism on all such previous non-theistical
+arguments as were drawn from an "indication of the process by which the
+order has been realised;" for in all these previous arguments there was an
+absence of any physical explanation of the _ultimate_ cause of the process
+contemplated, and so long as this ultimate cause remained obscure, although
+the evidence of design might by these arguments have been excluded from
+particular processes, the evidence of design could not be similarly
+excluded from the ultimate cause of these processes. Thus, for instance, it
+is doubtless illogical, as Professor Flint points out, in any Darwinian to
+argue that because his theory of natural selection supplies him with a
+natural explanation of the process whereby organisms have been adapted to
+their surroundings, therefore this process need not itself have been
+designed. That is to say, in general terms, as insisted upon in the
+foregoing essay, the discovery of a natural law or orderly process cannot
+of itself justify the inference that this law or method of orderly
+procedure is not itself a product of supernatural Intelligence; but, on the
+contrary, the very existence of such orderly processes, considered only in
+relation to their products, must properly be regarded as evidence of the
+best possible kind in favour of supernatural Intelligence, _provided that
+no natural cause can be suggested as adequate to explain the origin of
+these processes_. But this is precisely what the persistence of force,
+considered as a natural cause, must be pronounced as necessarily competent
+to achieve; for we can clearly see that all these processes obviously must
+and actually do derive their origin from this one causative principle. And
+whether or not behind this one causative principle of natural law there
+exists a still more ultimate cause in the form of a supernatural
+Intelligence, this is a question altogether foreign to any argument from
+teleology, seeing that teleology, in so far as it is _teleology_, can only
+rest upon the observed facts of the cosmos; and if these facts admit of
+being explained by the action of a single causative principle inherent in
+the cosmos itself, teleology is not free to assume the action of any
+causative principle of a more ultimate character. Still, as I have
+repeatedly insisted, these considerations do not entitle us dogmatically to
+deny the existence of some such more ultimate principle; all that these
+considerations do is to remove any rational argument from teleological
+sources that any such more ultimate principle exists. Therefore I am, of
+course, quite at one with Professor Flint when he says Professor Huxley
+"admits that the most thoroughgoing evolutionist must at least assume 'a
+primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe
+are the consequences,' and 'is thereby at the mercy of the theologist, who
+can defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not
+intended to involve the phenomena of the universe.' Granting this much, he
+is logically bound to grant more. If the entire evolution of the universe
+may have been intended, the several stages of its evolution may have been
+intended, and they may have been intended for their own sakes as well as
+for the sake of the collective evolution or its final result." Now that
+such _may have been_ the case, I have been careful to insist in Chapter V.;
+all I am now concerned with is to show that, in view of the considerations
+adduced in Chapter IV., there is no longer any evidence to prove, or even
+to indicate, that such _has been_ the case. And with reference to this
+opportune quotation from Professor Huxley I may remark, that the
+"thoroughgoing evolutionist" is now no longer "at the mercy of the
+theologian" to any further extent than that of not being able to disprove a
+purely metaphysical hypothesis, which is as certainly superfluous, in any
+scientific sense, as the fundamental data of science are certainly true.
+
+It may seem almost unnecessary to extend this postscript by pursuing
+further the criticism on Professor Flint's exposition in the light of "a
+single new reason ... for the denial of design" which he challenges; but
+there are nevertheless one or two other points which it seems desirable to
+consider. Professor Flint writes:--
+
+"M. Comte imagines that he has shown the inference from design, from the
+order and stability of the solar system, to be unwarranted, when he has
+pointed out the physical conditions through which that order and stability
+are secured, and the process by which they have been obtained.... Now the
+assertion that the peculiarities which make the solar system stable and the
+earth habitable have flowed naturally and necessarily from the simple
+mutual gravity of the several parts of nebulous matter is one which greatly
+requires proof, but which has never received it. In saying this, we do not
+challenge the proof of the nebular theory itself. That theory may or may
+not be true. We are quite willing to suppose it true--to grant that it has
+been scientifically established. What we maintain is, that even if we admit
+unreservedly that the earth and the whole system to which it belongs once
+existed in a nebulous state, from which they were gradually evolved into
+their present condition conformably to physical laws, we are in no degree
+entitled to infer from the admission the conclusion which Comte and others
+have drawn. The man who fancies that the nebular theory implies that the
+law of gravitation, or any other physical law, has of itself determined the
+course of cosmical evolution, so that there is no need for believing in the
+existence and operation of a divine mind, proves merely that he is not
+exempt from reasoning very illogically. The solar system could only have
+been evolved out of its nebulous state into that which it now presents if
+the nebula possessed a certain size, mass, form, and constitution, if it
+was neither too fluid nor too tenacious--if its atoms were all numbered,
+its elements all weighed, its constituents all disposed in due relation to
+one another; that is to say, only if the nebula was in reality as much a
+system of order, which Intelligence alone could account for, as the worlds
+which have been developed from it. The origin of the nebula thus presents
+itself to reason as a problem which demands solution no less than the
+origin of the planets. All the properties and laws of the nebula require to
+be accounted for. What origin are we to give them? It must be either reason
+or unreason. We may go back as far as we please, but, at every step and
+stage of the regress we must find ourselves confronted with the same
+question, the same alternative--intelligent purpose or colossal chance."
+
+Now, so far as Comte is here guilty of the fallacy I have already dwelt
+upon of building a destructive argument upon a demonstration of mere
+orderly processes in nature, as distinguished from a demonstration of the
+natural cause of these processes, it is not for me to defend him. All we
+can say with regard to him in this connection is, that, having a sort of
+scientific presentiment that if the knowledge of his day were sufficiently
+advanced it would prove destructive of supernaturalism in the higher and
+more abstruse provinces of physical speculation, as it had previously
+proved in the lower and less abstruse of these provinces, Comte allowed his
+inferences to outrun their legitimate basis. Being necessarily ignorant of
+the one generating cause of orderly processes in nature, he improperly
+allowed himself to found conclusions on the basis of these processes alone,
+which could only be properly founded on the basis of their cause. But
+freely granting this much to Professor Flint, and the rest of his remarks
+in this connection will be found, in view of the altered standing of this
+subject, to be open to amendment. For, in the first place, no one need now
+resort to the illogical supposition that "the law of gravitation or any
+other physical law has of itself determined the course of cosmical
+evolution." What we may argue, and what must be conceded to us, is, that
+the common substratum of all physical laws was at one time sufficient to
+produce the simplest physical laws, and that throughout the whole course of
+evolution this common substratum has always been sufficient to produce the
+more complex laws in the ascending series of their ever-increasing number
+and variety. And hence it becomes obvious that the "origin of the nebula"
+presents a difficulty neither greater nor less than "the origin of the
+planets," since, "if we may go back as far as we please," we can entertain
+no _scientific_ doubt that we should come to a time, prior even to the
+nebula, when the substance of the solar system existed merely as
+such--_i.e._, in an almost or in a wholly undifferentiated form, the
+product, no doubt, of endless cycles of previous evolutions and
+dissolutions of formal differentiations. Therefore, although it is
+undoubtedly true that "the solar system could only have been evolved out of
+its nebulous state into that which it now presents if the nebula possessed"
+those particular attributes which were necessity to the evolution of such a
+product, this consideration is clearly deprived of all its force from our
+present point of view. For unless it can be shown that there is some
+independent reason for believing these particular attributes--which must
+have been of a more and more simple a character the further we recede in
+time--to have been miraculously imposed, the analogy is overwhelming that
+they all progressively arose _by way of natural law_. And if so, the
+universe which has been thus produced is the only universe in this
+particular point of space and time which could have been thus produced.
+That it is an _orderly_ universe we have seen _ad nauseam_ to be no
+argument in favour of its having been a _designed_ universe, so long as the
+cause of its order--general laws--can be seen to admit of a natural
+explanation.
+
+Thus there is clearly nothing to be gained on the side of teleology by
+going back to the dim and dismal birth of the nebula; for no "thoroughgoing
+evolutionist" would for one moment entertain the supposition that natural
+law in the simplest phases of its development partook any more of a
+miraculous character than it does in its more recent and vastly more
+complex phases. The absence of knowledge must not be used as equivalent to
+its presence; and if analogy can be held to justify any inference
+whatsoever, surely we may conclude with confidence that if existing general
+laws admit of being conceivably attributed to a natural genesis, the
+primordial laws of a condensing nebula must have been the same.
+
+There is another passage in Professor Flint's work to which it seems
+desirable to refer. It begins thus: "There is the law of heredity: like
+produces like. But why is there such a law? Why does like produce like?...
+Physical science cannot answer these questions; but that is no reason why
+they should not both be asked and answered. I can conceive of no other
+intelligent answer being given to them than that there is a God of wisdom,
+who designed that the world should be for all ages the abode of life," &c.
+
+Now here we have in another form that same vicious tendency to take refuge
+in the more obscure cases of physical causation as proofs of supernatural
+design--the obscurity in this case arising from the _complexity_ of the
+causes and work, as in the former case it arose from their _remoteness_ in
+time. But in both cases the same answer is patent, viz., that although
+"physical science cannot answer these questions" by pointing out the
+precise sequence of causes and effects, physical science is nevertheless
+quite as certain that this precise sequence arises in its last resort from
+the persistence of force, as she would be were she able to trace the whole
+process. And therefore, in view of the considerations set forth in Chapter
+IV. of this work, it is no longer open to Professor Flint or to any other
+writer logically to assert--"I can conceive of no other intelligent answer
+being given to" such questions "than that there is a God of wisdom."
+
+The same answer awaits this author's further disquisition on other
+biological laws, so it is needless to make any further quotations in this
+connection. But there is one other principle embodied in some of these
+passages which it seems undesirable to overlook. It is said, for instance,
+"Natural selection might have had no materials, or altogether insufficient
+materials, to work with, or the circumstances might have been such that the
+lowest organisms were the best endowed for the struggle for life. If the
+earth were covered with water, fish would survive and higher creatures
+would perish."
+
+Now the principle here embodied--viz., that had the conditions of evolution
+been other than they were, the results would have been different--is, of
+course, true; but clearly, on the view that _all_ natural laws spring from
+the persistence of force, no other conditions than those which actually
+occurred, or are now occurring, could ever have occurred,--the whole course
+of evolution must have been, in all its phases and in all its processes, an
+unconditional necessity. But if it is said, How fortunate that the outcome,
+being unconditionally necessary, has happened to be so good as it is; I
+answer that the remark is legitimate enough if it is not intended to convey
+an implication that the general quality of the outcome points to beneficent
+design as to its cause. Such an implication would not be legitimate,
+because, in the first place, we have no means of knowing in how many cases,
+whether in planets, stars, or systems, the course of evolution has failed
+to produce life and mind--the one known case of this earth, whether or not
+it is the one success out of millions of abortions, being of necessity the
+only known case. In how vastly greater a number of cases the course of
+evolution may have been, so to speak, deflected by some even slight, though
+strictly necessary, cause from producing self-conscious intelligence, it is
+impossible to conjecture. But this consideration, be it observed, is not
+here adduced in order to _disprove_ the assertion that telluric evolution
+has been effected by Intelligence; it is merely adduced to prove that such
+an assertion cannot rest on the single known result of telluric evolution,
+so long as an infinite number of the results of evolution elsewhere remain
+unknown.
+
+And now, lastly, it must be observed that even in the one case with which
+we are acquainted, the net product of evolution is not such as can of
+itself point us to _beneficent_ design. Professor Flint, indeed, in common
+with theologians generally, argues that it does. I will therefore briefly
+criticise his remarks on this subject, believing, as I do, that they form a
+very admirable illustration of what I conceive to be a general
+principle--viz., that minds which already believe in the existence of a
+Deity are, as a rule, not in a position to view this question of
+beneficence in nature in a perfectly impartial manner. For if the existence
+of a Deity is presupposed, a mind with any particle of that most noble
+quality--reverence--will naturally hesitate to draw conclusions that
+partake of the nature of blasphemy; and therefore, unconsciously perhaps to
+themselves, they endeavour in various ways to evade the evidence which, if
+honestly and impartially considered, can scarcely fail to negative the
+argument from beneficence in the universe.
+
+Professor Flint argues that the "law of over-production," and the
+consequent struggle for existence, being "the reason why the world is so
+wonderfully rich in the most varied forms of life," is "a means to an end
+worthy of Divine Wisdom." "Although involving privation, pain, and
+conflict, its final result is order and beauty. All the perfections of
+sentient creatures are represented as due to it. Through it the lion has
+gained its strength, the deer its speed, and the dog its sagacity. The
+inference seems natural that these perfections were designed to be attained
+by it; that this state of struggle was ordained for the sake of the
+advantages which it is actually seen to produce. The suffering which the
+conflict involves may indicate that God has made even animals for some
+higher end than happiness--that he cares for animal perfection as well as
+for animal enjoyment; but it affords no reason for denying that the ends
+which the conflict actually serves it was intended to serve."
+
+Now, whatever may be thought of such an argument as an attempted
+justification of beneficent design already on independent ground believed
+to exist, it is manifestly no argument at all as establishing any
+presumption in favour of such design, unless it could be shown that the
+Deity is so far limited in his power of adapting means to ends that the
+particular method adopted in this case was the best, all things considered,
+that he was able to adopt. For supposing the Deity to be, what Professor
+Flint maintains that he is--viz., omnipotent--and there can be no inference
+more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends
+designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of beneficence in the
+divine character than that which we know in any, the very worst, of human
+characters. For let us pause for one moment to think of what suffering in
+nature means. Some hundreds of millions of years ago some millions of
+millions of animals must be supposed to have been sentient. Since that time
+till the present, there must have been millions and millions of generations
+of millions of millions of individuals. And throughout all this period of
+incalculable duration, this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have
+been in a state of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the
+outcome, we find that more than half of the species which have survived the
+ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient
+forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find teeth and
+talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for
+torment--everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, and sickness, with oozing
+blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that
+dimly close in deaths of brutal torture! Is it said that there are
+compensating enjoyments? I care not to strike the balance; the enjoyments I
+plainly perceive to be as physically necessary as the pains, and this
+whether or not evolution is due to design. Therefore all I am concerned
+with is to show, that if such a state of things is due to "omnipotent
+design," the omnipotent designer must be concluded, so far as reason can
+infer, to be non-beneficent. And this it is not difficult to show. When I
+see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring-trap, I abhor the
+devilish nature of the being who, with full powers of realising what pain
+means, can deliberately employ his noble faculties of invention in
+contriving a thing so hideously cruel. But if I could believe that there is
+a being who, with yet higher faculties of thought and knowledge, and with
+an unlimited choice of means to secure his ends, has contrived untold
+thousands of mechanisms no less diabolical than a spring-trap; I should
+call that being a fiend, were all the world besides to call him God. Am I
+told that this is arrogance? It is nothing of the kind; it is plain
+morality, and to say otherwise would be to hide our eyes from murder
+because we dread the Murderer. Am I told that I am not competent to judge
+the purposes of the Almighty? I answer that if these are _purposes_, I _am_
+able to judge of them so far as I can see; and if I am expected to judge of
+his purposes when they appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency obliged
+also to judge of them when they appear to be malevolent. And it can be no
+possible extenuation of the latter to point to the "final result" as "order
+and beauty," so long as the means adopted by the "_Omnipotent_ Designer"
+are known to have been so revolting. All that we could legitimately assert
+in this case would be, that so far as observation can extend, "he cares for
+animal perfection" _to the exclusion of_ "animal enjoyment," and even to
+the _total disregard_ of animal suffering. But to assert this would merely
+be to deny beneficence as an attribute of God.
+
+The dilemma, therefore, which Epicurus has stated with great lucidity, and
+which Professor Flint quotes, appears to me so obvious as scarcely to
+require statement. The dilemma is, that, looking to the facts of organic
+nature, theists must abandon their belief, either in the divine
+omnipotence, or in the divine beneficence. And yet, such is the warping
+effect of preformed beliefs on the mind, that even so candid a writer as
+Professor Flint can thus write of this most obvious truth:--
+
+"The late Mr. John Stuart Mill, for no better reason than that nature
+sometimes drowns men and burns them, and that childbirth is a painful
+process, maintained that God could not possibly be infinite. I shall not
+say what I think of the shallowness and self-conceit displayed by such an
+argument. What it proves is not the finiteness of God, but the littleness
+of man. The mind of man never shows itself so small as when it tries to
+measure the attributes and limit the greatness of its Creator."
+
+But the argument--or rather the truism--in question is an attempt to do
+neither the one nor the other; it simply asserts the patent fact that, if
+God is omnipotent, and so had an unlimited choice of means whereby to
+accomplish the ends of "animal perfection," "animal enjoyment," and the
+rest; then the fact of his having chosen to adopt the means which he has
+adopted is a fact which is wholly incompatible with his beneficence. And on
+the other hand, if he is beneficent, the fact of his having adopted these
+means in order that the sum of ultimate enjoyment might exceed the sum of
+concomitant pain, is a fact which is wholly incompatible with his
+omnipotence. To a man who already believes, on independent grounds, in an
+omnipotent and beneficent Deity, it is no doubt possible to avoid facing
+this dilemma, and to rest content with the assumption that, in a sense
+beyond the reach of human reason, or even of human conception, the two
+horns of this dilemma must be united in some transcendental reconciliation;
+but if a man undertakes to reason on the subject at all, as he must and
+ought when the question is as to the _existence_ of such a Deity, then
+clearly he has no alternative but to allow that the dilemma is a hopeless
+one. With inverted meaning, therefore, may we quote Professor Flint's words
+against himself:--"The mind of man never shows itself so small as when it
+tries to measure the attributes ... of its Creator;" for certainly, if
+Professor Flint's usually candid mind has had a Creator, it nowhere
+displays the "littleness" of prejudice in so marked a degree as it does
+when "measuring his attributes."
+
+Thus in a subsequent chapter he deals at greater length with this
+difficulty of the apparent failure of beneficence in nature, arguing, in
+effect, that as pain and suffering "serve many good ends" in the way of
+warning animals of danger to life, &c., therefore we ought to conclude
+that, if we could see farther, we should see pain and suffering to be
+unmitigated good, or nearly so. Now this argument, as I have previously
+said, may possibly be admissible as between Christians or others who
+_already_ believe in the existence and in the beneficence of God; but it is
+only the blindest prejudice which can fail to perceive that the argument is
+quite without relevancy when the question is as to the _evidences_ of such
+existence and the _evidences_ of such character. For where the _fact_ of
+such an existence and character is the question in dispute, it clearly can
+be no argument to state its bare assumption by saying that if we knew more
+of nature we should find the relative preponderance of good over evil to be
+immeasurably greater than that which we now perceive. The platform of
+argument on which the question of "Theism" must be discussed is that of the
+observable Cosmos; and if, as Dr. Flint is constrained to admit, there is a
+fearful spectacle of misery presented by this Cosmos, it becomes mere
+question-begging to gloss over this aspect of the subject by any vague
+assumption that the misery must have some unobservable ends of so
+transcendentally beneficent a nature, that were they known they would
+justify the means. Indeed, this kind of discussion seems to me worse than
+useless for the purposes which the Professor has in view; for it only
+serves by contrast to throw out into stronger relief the natural and the
+unstrained character of the adverse interpretation of the facts. According
+to this adverse interpretation, sentiency has been evolved by natural
+selection to secure the benefits which are pointed out by Professor Flint;
+and therefore the fact of this, its cause, having been a _mindless_ cause,
+clearly implies that the _restriction_ of pain and suffering cannot be an
+active principle, or a _vera causa_, as between species and species, though
+it must be such within the limits of the same organism, and to a lesser
+extent within the limits of the same species. And this is just what we find
+to be the case. Therefore, without the need of resorting to wholly
+arbitrary assumptions concerning transcendental reconciliations between
+apparently needless suffering and a supposed almighty beneficence, the
+non-theistic hypothesis is saved by merely opening our eyes to the
+observable facts around us, and there seeing that pain and misery, alike in
+the benefits which they bring and in the frightful excesses which they
+manifest, play just that part in nature which this hypothesis would lead us
+to expect.
+
+Therefore, to sum up these considerations on physical suffering, the case
+between a theist and a sceptic as to the question of divine beneficence is
+seen to be a case of extreme simplicity. The theist believes in such
+beneficence by purposely concealing from his mind all adverse
+evidence--feeling, on the one side, that to entertain the doubt to which
+this evidence points would be to hold dalliance with blasphemy, and, on the
+other side, that the subject is of so transcendental a nature that, in view
+of so great a risk, it is better to avoid impartial reasoning upon it. A
+sceptic, on the other hand, is under no such obligation to preconceived
+ideas, and is therefore free to draw unbiassed inferences as to the
+character of God, if he exists, to the extent which such character is
+indicated by the sphere of observable nature. And, as I have said, when the
+subject is so viewed, the inference is unavoidable that, so far as human
+reason can penetrate, God, if he exists, must either be non-infinite in his
+resources, or non-beneficent in his designs. Therefore it is evident that
+when the _being_ of God, as distinguished from his _character_, is the
+subject in dispute, Theism can gain nothing by an appeal to evidences of
+_beneficent_ designs. If such evidences were unequivocal, then indeed the
+argument which they would establish to an intelligent cause of nature would
+be almost irresistible; for the fact of the external world being in harmony
+with the moral nature of man would be unaccountable except on the
+supposition of both having derived their origin from a common _moral_
+source; and morality implies intelligence. But as it is, all the so-called
+evidence of divine beneficence in nature is, without any exception of a
+kind that is worthless as proving _design_; for all the facts admit of
+being explained equally well on the supposition of their having been due to
+purely physical processes, acting through the various biological laws which
+we are now only beginning to understand. And further than this, so far are
+these facts from proving the existence of a moral cause, that, in view of
+the alternative just stated, they even ground a positive argument to its
+negation. For, as we have seen, all these facts are just of such a kind as
+we should expect to be the facts, on the supposition of their having been
+due to natural causes--_i.e._, causes which could have had no moral
+solicitude for animal happiness as such. Let us now, in conclusion, dwell
+on this antithesis at somewhat greater length.
+
+If natural selection has played any large share in the process of organic
+evolution, it is evident that animal enjoyment, being an important factor
+in this natural cause, must always have been furthered _to the extent in
+which it was necessary for the adaptation of organisms to their
+environment_ that it should. And such we invariably find to be the limits
+within which animal enjoyments _are_ confined. On the other hand, so long
+as the adaptations in question are not complete, so long must more or less
+of suffering be entailed--the capacity for suffering, as for enjoyment,
+being no doubt itself a product of natural selection. But as all specific
+types are perpetually struggling together, it is manifest that the
+competition must prevent any considerable number of types from becoming so
+far adapted to their environment of other types as to become exempt from
+suffering as a result of this competition. There being no one integrating
+cause of an intelligent or moral nature to supply the conditions of
+happiness to each organic type without the misery of this competition, such
+happiness as animals have is derived from the heavy expenditure of pain
+suffered by themselves and by their ancestry.
+
+Thus, whether we look to animal pleasures or to animal pains, the result is
+alike just what we should expect to find on the supposition of these
+pleasures and pains having been due to necessary and physical, as
+distinguished from intelligent and moral, antecedents; for how different is
+that which is from that which might have been! Not only might beneficent
+selection have eliminated the countless species of parasites which now
+destroy the health and happiness of all the higher organisms; not only
+might survival of the fittest, in a moral sense, have determined that
+rapacious and carnivorous animals should yield their places in the world to
+harmless and gentle ones; not only might life have been without sickness
+and death without pain;--but how might the exigences and the welfare of
+species have been consulted by the structures and the habits of one
+another! But no! Amid all the millions of mechanisms and habits in organic
+nature, all of which are so beautifully adapted to the needs of the species
+presenting them, there is _no single instance_ of any mechanism or habit
+occurring in one species for the exclusive benefit of another
+species--although, as we should expect on the non-theistic theory, there
+are some comparatively few cases of a mechanism or a habit which is of
+benefit to its possessor being also utilised by other species. Yet, on the
+beneficent-design theory, it is impossible to understand why, when all
+mechanisms and habits in the same species are invariably correlated for the
+benefit of that species, there should never be any such correlation between
+mechanisms and habits of different species. For how magnificent, how
+sublime a display of supreme beneficence would nature have afforded if all
+her sentient animals had been so inter-related as to minister to each
+other's happiness! Organic species might then have been likened to a
+countless multitude of voices, all singing to their Creator in one
+harmonious psalm of praise. But, as it is, we see no vestige of such
+correlation; every species is for itself, and for itself alone--an outcome
+of the always and everywhere fiercely raging struggle for life.
+
+So much, then, for the case of _physical_ evil; but Dr. Flint also treats
+of the case of _moral_ evil. Let us see what this well-equipped writer can
+make of this old problem in the present year of grace. He says--"But it
+will be objected, could not God have made moral creatures who would be
+certain always to choose what is right, always to acquiesce in His holy
+will?... Well, far be it from me to deny that God could have originated a
+sinless moral system.... But if questioned as to why He has not done
+better, I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance. It seems to me that
+when you have resolved the problem of the origin of moral evil into the
+question, Why has God not originated a moral universe in which the lowest
+moral being would be as excellent as the archangels are? you have at once
+shown it to be _speculatively incapable of solution_ [italics mine], and
+practically without importance[!]. The question is one which would
+obviously give rise to another, Why has God not created only moral beings
+as much superior to the archangels as they are superior to the lowest
+Australian aborigines? But no complete answer can be given to a question
+which may be followed by a series of similar questions to which there is no
+end. We have, besides, neither the facts nor the faculties to answer such
+questions."[46]
+
+Now I confess that this argument presents to my mind more of subtlety than
+sense. I had previously imagined that the archangels were supposed to enjoy
+a condition of moral existence which might fairly be thought to remove them
+from any association with that of the Australian aborigines. But as this
+question is one that belongs to Divinity, I am here quite prepared to bow
+to Professor Flint's authority--hoping, however, that he is prepared to
+take the responsibility should the archangels ever care to accuse me of
+calumny. But, as a logician, I must be permitted to observe, that if I ask,
+Why am I not better than I am? it is no answer to tell me, Because the
+archangels are not better than they are. For aught that I know to the
+contrary, the archangels may be morally _perfect_--as an authority in such
+matters has told us that even "just men" may become,--and therefore, for
+aught that I know to the contrary, Professor Flint's regress of moral
+degrees _ad infinitum_, may be an ontological absurdity. But granting, for
+the sake of argument, that archangels fall infinitely short of moral
+perfection, and I should only be able to see in the fact a hopeless
+aggravation of my previous difficulty. If it is hard to reconcile the
+supreme goodness of God with the moral turpitude of man, much more would it
+be hard to do so if his very angels are depraved. Therefore, if the
+reasonable question which I originally put "may be followed by a series of
+similar questions to which there is no end," the goodness of God must
+simply be pronounced a delusion. For the question which I originally put
+was no mere flimsy question of a stupidly unreal description. My own moral
+depravity is a matter of painful certainty to me, and I want to know why,
+if there is a God of infinite power and goodness, he should have made me
+thus. And in answer I am told that my question is "practically without
+importance," because there may be an endless series of beings who, in their
+several degrees, are in a similar predicament to myself. Perhaps they are;
+but if so, the moral evil with which I am directly acquainted is made all
+the blacker by the fact that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of
+moral imperfection. When, therefore, Professor Flint goes on to say, "We
+ought to be content if we can show that what God has done is wise and
+right, and not perplex ourselves as to why He has not done an infinity of
+other things," I answer, Most certainly; but _can_ we show that what God
+has done is wise and right? Unquestionably not. That what he has done _may_
+be wise and right, could we see his whole scheme of things, no careful
+thinker will deny; but to suppose it can be _shown_ that he has done this,
+is an instance of purblind fanaticism which is most startling in a work on
+_Theism_. "The best world, _we may be assured_, that our fancies can feign,
+would in reality be far inferior to the world God has made, whatever
+imperfections we may think we see in it." Are we leading a sermon on the
+datum "God is love"? No; but a work on the questions, Is there a God? and,
+if so, Is he a God of love? And yet the work is written by a man who
+evidently tries to argue fairly. What shall we say of the despotism of
+preformed beliefs? May we not say at least this much--that those who
+endeavour to reconcile their theories of divine goodness with the facts of
+human evil might well appropriate to themselves the words above quoted, "We
+have neither the facts nor the faculties to answer such questions"? For the
+"facts" indeed are absent, and the "faculties" of impartial thought must be
+absent also, if this obvious truth cannot be seen--that "these questions"
+only derive their "speculatively unanswerable" character from the rational
+falsity of the manner by which it is sought to answer them. The "facts" of
+our moral nature, so far as honest reason can perceive, belie the
+hypothesis of Theism; and although the "faculties" of man may be forced by
+prejudice into an acceptance of contradictory propositions, the truth is
+obvious that only by the hypothesis of Evolution can that old-tied knot be
+cut--the Origin of Evil. The form of Theism for which Dr. Flint is arguing
+is the current form, viz., that there is a God who combines in himself the
+attributes of _infinite_ power and _perfect_ goodness--a God at once
+_omnipotent_ and _wholly_ moral. But, in view of the fact that moral evil
+exists in man, the proposition that God is omnipotent and the proposition
+that he is wholly moral become contradictory; and therefore the fact of
+moral evil can only be met, either by abandoning one or other of these
+propositions, or by altogether rejecting the hypothesis of Theism.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+III.
+
+THE SPECULATIVE STANDING OF MATERIALISM.
+
+As a continuation of my criticism on Mr. Fiske's views, I think it is
+desirable to add a few words concerning the speculative annihilation with
+which he supposes Mr. Spencer's doctrines to have visited Materialism. Of
+course it is a self-evident truism that the doctrine of Relativity is
+destructive of Materialism, if by Materialism we mean a theory which
+ignores that doctrine. In other words, the doctrine of Relativity, if
+accepted, clearly excludes the doctrine that Matter, _as known
+phenomenally_, is at all likely to be a true representative of whatever
+_thing-in-itself_ it may be that constitutes Mind. But this position is
+fully established by the doctrine of Relativity alone, and is therefore not
+in the least affected, either by way of confirmation or otherwise, by Mr.
+Spencer's extended doctrine of the Unknowable--it being only because the
+latter doctrine presupposes the doctrine of Relativity that it is exclusive
+of Materialism in the sense which has just been stated. So far, therefore,
+Mr. Spencer's writings cannot be held to have any special bearing on the
+doctrine of Materialism. Such a special bearing is only exerted by these
+writings when they proceed to show that "it seems an imaginable possibility
+that units of external force may be identical in nature with the units of
+the force known as feeling." Let us then ascertain how far it is true that
+the argument already quoted, and which leads to this conclusion, is utterly
+destructive of Materialism.
+
+In the first place, I may observe that this argument differs in several
+instructive particulars from the anti-materialistic argument of Locke,
+which we have already had occasion to consider. For while Locke erroneously
+imagined that the test of inconceivability is of equivalent value
+_wherever_ it is applied, save only where it conflicts with preconceived
+ideas on the subject of Theism (see Appendix A.), Spencer, of course, is
+much too careful a thinker to fall into so obvious a fallacy. But again, it
+is curious to observe that in the anti-materialistic argument of Spencer
+the test of inconceivability is used in a manner the precise opposite of
+that in which it is used in the anti-materialistic argument of Locke. For
+while the ground of Locke's argument is that Materialism must be untrue
+because it is inconceivable that Matter (and Force) should be of a
+psychical nature; the ground of Spencer's argument is that what we know as
+Force (and Matter) may _not_ inconceivably be of a psychical nature. For my
+own part, I think that Spencer's argument is, psychologically speaking, the
+more valid of the two; but nevertheless I think that, logically speaking,
+it is likewise invalid to a perceptibly great, and to a further indefinite,
+degree. For the argument sets out with the reflection that we can only know
+Matter and Force as symbols of consciousness, while we know consciousness
+directly, and therefore that we can go further in conceivably translating
+Matter and Force into terms of Mind than _vice versa_. And this is true,
+but it does not therefore follow that the truth is more likely to lie in
+the direction that thought can most easily travel. For although I am at one
+with Mr. Spencer, whom Mr. Fiske follows, in regarding his test of
+truth--viz., inconceivability of a negation--as the most _ultimate_ test
+within our reach, I cannot agree with him that in this particular case it
+is the most _trustworthy_ test within our reach. I cannot do so because the
+reflection is forced upon me that, "as the terms which are contemplated in
+this particular case are respectively the highest abstractions of objective
+and of subjective existence, the test of truth in question is neutralised
+by directly encountering the inconceivable relation that exists between
+subject and object." Or, in other words, as before stated, "_whatever_ the
+cause of Mind may be, we can clearly perceive it to be a subjective
+necessity of the case that, in ultimate analysis, we should find it more
+easy to conceive of this cause as resembling Mind--the only entity of which
+we are directly conscious--than to conceive of it as any other entity of
+which we are only indirectly conscious." When, therefore, Mr. Spencer
+argues that "it is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of
+outer existence," while it is not so impossible to interpret outer
+existence in terms of inner existence, the fact is merely what we should in
+any case expect _à priori_ to be the fact, and therefore as a fact it is
+not a very surprising discovery _à posteriori_. So that when Mr. Fiske
+proceeds to make this fact the basis of his argument, that because we can
+more conceivably regard objective existence as like in kind to subjective
+existence than conversely, therefore we should conclude that there is a
+corresponding probability in favour of the more conceivable proposition, I
+demur to his argument. For, fully accepting the fact on which the argument
+rests, and it seems to me, in view of what I have said, that the latter
+assigns an altogether disproportionate value to the test of
+inconceivability in this case. Far from endowing this test with so great an
+authority in this case, I should regard it not only as perceptibly of very
+small validity, but, as I have said, invalid to a degree which we have no
+means of ascertaining. If it be asked, What other gauge of probability can
+we have in this matter other than such a direct appeal to consciousness? I
+answer, that this appeal being here _à priori_ invalid, we are left to fall
+back upon the formal probability which is established by an application of
+scientific canons to objective phenomena. (See footnote in § 14.) For, be
+it carefully observed, Mr. Spencer, and his disciple Mr. Fiske, are not
+idealists. Were this the case, of course the test of an immediate appeal to
+consciousness would be to them the only test available. But, on the
+contrary, as all the world knows, Mr. Spencer asserts the existence of an
+unknown Reality, of which all phenomena are the manifestations.
+Consequently, what we call Force and Matter are, according to this
+doctrine, phenomenal manifestations of this objective Reality. That is to
+say, for aught that we can know, Force and Matter may be anything within
+the whole range of the possible; and the only limitation that can be
+assigned to them is, that they are modes of existence which are independent
+of, or objective to, our individual consciousness, but which are uniformly
+translated into consciousness as Force and Matter. Now it does not signify
+one iota for the purposes of Materialism whether these our symbolical
+representations of Force and Matter are accurate or inaccurate
+representations of their corresponding realities,--unless, of course, some
+_independent_ reason could be shown for supposing that in their reality
+they resemble Mind. Call Force _x_ and Matter _y_, and so long as we are
+agreed that _x_ and _y_ are _objective realities which are uniformly
+translated into consciousness as Force and Matter_, the materialistic
+deductions remain unaffected by this mere change in our terminology; these
+essential facts are allowed to remain substantially as before, namely, that
+there is an external something or external somethings--Matter and Force, or
+_x_ and _y_--which themselves display no observable tokens of
+consciousness, but which are invariably associated with consciousness in a
+highly distinctive manner.
+
+I dwell at length upon this subject, because although Mr. Spencer himself
+does not appear to attach much weight to his argument, Mr. Fiske, as we
+have seen, elevates it into a basis for "Cosmic Theism." Yet so far is this
+argument from "ruling out," as Mr. Fiske asserts, the essential doctrine of
+Materialism--_i.e._, the doctrine that what we know as Mind is an effect of
+certain collocations and distributions of _what we know_ as Matter and
+Force--that the argument might be employed with almost the same degree of
+effect, or absence of effect, to disprove any instance of recognised
+causation. Thus, for example, the doctrine of Materialism is no more "ruled
+out" by the reflection that what we cognise as cerebral matter is only
+cognised relatively, than would the doctrine of chemical equivalents be
+"ruled out" by the parallel reflection that what we cognise as chemical
+elements are only cognised relatively. I say advisedly, "with _almost_ the
+same degree of effect," because, to be strictly accurate, we ought not
+altogether to ignore the indefinitely slender presumption which Mr.
+Spencer's subjective test of inconceivability establishes on the side of
+Spiritualism, as against the objective evidence of causation on the side of
+Materialism. As this is an important subject, I will be a little more
+explicit. We are agreed that Force and Matter are entities external to
+consciousness, of which we can possess only symbolical knowledge.
+Therefore, as we have said, Force and Matter may be anything within the
+whole range of the possible. But we know that Mind is a possible entity,
+while we have no certain knowledge of any other possible entity. Hence we
+are justified in saying, It is possible that Force and Matter may be
+identical with the only entity which we know as certainly possible; but
+forasmuch as we do not know the sum of possible entities, we have no means
+of calculating the chances there are that what we know as Force and Matter
+are identical in nature with Mind. Still, that there is _a_ chance we
+cannot dispute; all we can assert is, that we are unable to determine its
+value, and that it would be a mistake to suppose we can do so, even in the
+lowest degree, by Mr. Spencer's test of inconceivability. Nevertheless, the
+fact that there is such a chance renders it in some indeterminate degree
+more probable that what we know as Force and Matter are identical with what
+we know as Mind, than that what we know as oxygen and hydrogen are
+identical with what we know as water. So that to this extent the essential
+doctrine of Materialism is "ruled out" in a further degree by the
+philosophy of the Unknowable than is the chemical doctrine of equivalents.
+But, of course, this indefinite possibility of what we know as Force and
+Matter being identical with what we know as Mind does not neutralise, in
+any determinable degree, the considerations whereby Materialism in its
+present shape infers that what we know as Force and Matter are probably
+distinct from what we know as Mind.
+
+But I see no reason why Materialism should be restricted to this "its
+present shape." Even if we admit to the fullest extent the validity of Mr.
+Spencer's argument, and conclude with Professor Clifford as a matter of
+probability that "the universe consists entirely of Mind-stuff," I do not
+see that the admission would affect Materialism in any essential respect.
+For here again the admission would amount to little else, so far as
+Materialism is directly concerned, than a change of terminology: instead of
+calling objective existence "Matter," we call it "Mind-stuff." I say "to
+_little_ else," because no doubt in one particular there is here some
+change introduced in the speculative standing of the subject. So long as
+Matter and Mind, _x_ and _y_, are held to be antithetically opposed in
+substance, so long must Materialism suppose that a connection of
+_causality_ subsists between the two, such that the former substance is
+_produced_ in some unaccountable way by the latter. But when Matter and
+Mind, _x_ and _y_, are supposed to be identical in substance, the need for
+any additional supposition as to a causal connection is excluded. But
+unless we hold, what seems to me an uncalled-for opinion, that the
+essential feature of Materialism consists in a postulation of a causal
+connection between _x_ and _y_, it would appear that the only effect of
+supposing _x_ and _y_ to be really but one substance _z_, must be that of
+_strengthening_ the essential doctrine of Materialism--the doctrine,
+namely, that conscious intellectual existence is _necessarily_ associated
+with that form of existence which we know phenomenally as Matter and
+Motion. If it is true that a "a moving molecule of inorganic matter does
+not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a small piece of
+Mind-stuff," then assuredly the central position of Materialism is shown to
+be impregnable. For while it remains as true as ever that mind and
+consciousness can only emerge when what we know phenomenally as "Matter
+takes the complex form of a living brain," we have abolished the necessity
+for assuming even a causal connection between the substance of what we know
+phenomenally as Matter and the substance of what we know phenomenally as
+Mind: we have found that, in the last resort, the phenomenal connection
+between what we know as Matter and what we know as Mind is actually even
+more intimate than a connection of causality; we have found that it is a
+substantial identity.
+
+To sum up this discussion. We have considered the bearing of modern
+speculation on the doctrine of Materialism in three successive stages of
+argument. First, we had to consider the bearing on Materialism of the
+simple doctrine of Relativity. Here we saw that Materialism was only
+affected to the extent of being compelled to allow that what we know as
+Matter and Motion are not known as they are in themselves. But we also saw
+that, as the inscrutable realities are uniformly translated into
+consciousness as Matter and Motion, it still remains as true as ever that
+_what we know_ as Matter and Motion may be the causes of what we know as
+Mind. Even, therefore, if the supposition of causality is taken to be an
+essential feature of Materialism, Materialism would be in no wise affected
+by substituting for the words Matter and Motion the symbols _x_ and _y_.
+
+The second of the three stages consisted in showing that Mr. Spencer's
+argument as to the possible identity of Force and Feeling is not in itself
+sufficient to overthrow the doctrine that what we know as Matter and Motion
+may be the cause of what we know as Mind. For the mere fact of its being
+more _conceivable_ that units of Force should resemble units of Feeling
+than conversely, is no warrant for concluding that in reality any
+corresponding probability obtains. The test of conceivability, although the
+most ultimate test that is available, is here rendered vague and valueless
+by the _à priori_ consideration that _whatever_ the cause of Mind may be
+(if it has a cause), we must find it more easy to conceive of this cause as
+resembling Mind than to conceive of it as resembling any other entity of
+which we are only conscious indirectly.
+
+Lastly, in the third place, we saw that even if Mr. Spencer's argument were
+fully subscribed to, and Mind in its substantial essence were conceded to
+be causeless, the central position of Materialism would still remain
+unaffected. For Mr. Spencer does not suppose that his "units of Force" are
+themselves endowed with consciousness, any more than Professor Clifford
+supposes his "moving molecules of inorganic matter" to be thus endowed. So
+that the only change which these possibilities, even if conceded to be
+actualities, produce in the speculative standing of Materialism, is to show
+that the raw material of consciousness, instead of requiring to be _caused_
+by other substances--Matter and Force, _x_ and _y_,--occurs ready made as
+those substances. But the essential feature of Materialism remains
+untouched--namely, that what we know as Mind is dependent (whether by way
+of causality or not is immaterial) on highly complex forms of _what we
+know_ as Matter, in association with highly peculiar distributions of _what
+we know_ as Force.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+IV.
+
+THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS.
+
+Some physicists are inclined to dispute the fundamental proposition in
+which the whole of Mr. Spencer's system of philosophy may be said to
+rest--the proposition, namely, that the fact of the "persistence of force"
+constitutes the ultimate basis of science. For my own part, I cannot but
+believe that any disagreement on this matter only arises from some want of
+mutual understanding; and, therefore, in order to anticipate any criticisms
+to which the present work may be open on this score, I append this
+explanatory note.
+
+I readily grant that the term "persistence of force" is not a happy one,
+seeing that the word "force," as used by physicists, does not at the
+present time convey the full meaning which Mr. Spencer desires it to
+convey. But I think that any impartial physicist will be prepared to admit
+that, in the present state of his science, we are entitled to conclude that
+energy of position is merely the result of energy of motion; or, in other
+words, that potential energy is merely an expression of the fact that the
+universe, as a whole, is replete with actual energy, whose essential
+characteristic is that it is indestructible. And this may be concluded
+without committing ourselves to any particular theory as to the physical
+explanation of gravity; all we need assert is, that in some way or other
+gravity is the result of ubiquitous energy. And this, it seems to me, we
+must assert, or else conclude that gravity can never admit of a physical
+explanation. For all that we mean by a physical explanation is the proved
+establishment of an equation between two quantities of energy; so that if
+energy of position does not admit of being interpreted in terms of energy
+of motion, we must conclude that it does not admit of being interpreted at
+all--at least not in any physical sense.
+
+Throughout the foregoing essays, therefore, I have assumed that all forms
+of energy are but relatively varying expressions of the same fact--the
+fact, namely, which Mr. Spencer means to express when he says that force is
+persistent. And it seems to me almost needless to show that this fact is
+really the basis of all science. For unless this fact is assumed as a
+postulate, not only would scientific inquiry become impossible, but all
+experience would become chaotic. The physicist could not prosecute his
+researches unless he presupposed that the forces which he measures are of a
+permanent nature, any more than could the chemist prosecute his researches
+unless he presupposed that the materials which he estimates by energy-units
+are likewise of a permanent nature. And similarly with all the other
+sciences, as well as with every judgment in our daily experience. If,
+therefore, any one should be hypercritical enough to dispute the position
+that the doctrine of the conservation of energy constitutes the "ultimate
+datum" of science, I think it will be enough to observe that if this is
+_not_ the "ultimate datum" of science, science can have no "ultimate datum"
+at all. For any datum more ultimate than permanent existence is manifestly
+impossible, while any such datum as non-permanent existence would clearly
+render science impossible. Even, therefore, if such hypercriticism had a
+valid basis of apparently adverse fact whereon to stand, I should feel
+myself justified in neglecting it on _à priori_ grounds; but the only basis
+on which such hypercriticism can rest is, not the knowledge of any adverse
+facts, but the ignorance of certain facts which we must either conclude to
+be facts or else conclude that science can have no ultimate datum whereon
+to rest. In the foregoing essays, therefore, I have not scrupled to
+maintain that the ultimate datum of science is destructive of teleology as
+a scientific argument for Theism; because, unless we deny the possibility
+of any such ultimate datum, and so land ourselves in hopeless scepticism,
+we must conclude that there can be no datum more ultimate than
+this--Permanent Existence; and this is just the datum which we have seen to
+be destructive of teleology as a scientific argument for Theism.
+
+It may be well to point out that from this ultimate datum of science--or
+rather, let us say, of experience--there follows a deductive explanation of
+the law of causation. For this law, when stripped of all the metaphysical
+corruptions with which it has been so cumbersomely clothed, simply means
+that a given collocation of antecedents unconditionally produces a certain
+consequent. But this fact, otherwise stated, amounts to nothing more than a
+re-statement of the ultimate datum of experience--the fact that energy is
+indestructible. For if this latter fact be granted, it is obvious that the
+so-called law of causation follows as a deductive necessity--or rather, as
+I have said, that this law becomes but another way of expressing the same
+fact. This is obvious if we reflect that the only means we have of
+ascertaining that energy is _not_ destructible, is by observing that
+similar antecedents _do_ invariably determine similar consequents. It is as
+a vast induction from all those particular cases of sequence-changes which
+collectively we call causation that we conclude energy to be
+indestructible. And, obversely, having concluded energy to be
+indestructible, we can plainly see that in any particular cases of its
+manifestation in sequence-phenomena, the unconditional resemblance between
+effects due to similar causes which is formulated by the law of causation
+is merely the direct expression of the fact which we had previously
+concluded. It seems to me, therefore, that the old-standing question
+concerning the nature of causation ought now properly to be considered as
+obsolete. Doubtless there will long remain a sort of hereditary tendency in
+metaphysical minds to look upon cause-connection as "a mysterious tie"
+between antecedent and consequent; but henceforth there is no need for
+scientific minds to regard this "tie" as "mysterious" in any other sense
+than the existence of energy is "mysterious." To state the law of causation
+is merely to state the fact that energy is indestructible.
+
+And from this there also arises at once the explanation and the
+justification of our belief in the uniformity of nature. If energy is, in
+its relation to us, ubiquitous and persistent, it clearly follows that in
+all its manifestations which collectively we call nature, similar preceding
+manifestations must always determine similar succeeding manifestations; for
+otherwise the energy concerned would require on one or on both of the
+occasions, either to have become augmented by creation, or dissipated by
+annihilation. Thus our belief in the uniformity of nature, as in the
+validity of the law of causation, is merely an expression of our belief in
+the ubiquitous and indestructible character of energy.
+
+Such being the case, we may fairly conclude that all these old-standing
+"mysteries" are now merged in the one mystery of existence. And deeper than
+this it is manifestly impossible that they can be merged; for it is
+manifestly impossible that Existence in the abstract can ever admit of what
+we call explanation. Hence we can clearly see that, in a scientific sense,
+there must always remain a final mystery of things. But although we can
+thus see that, from the very meaning of what we call explanation, it
+follows that at the base of all our explanations there must lie a great
+Inexplicable, I think that the mystery of Existence in the abstract may be
+rendered less appalling if we reflect that, as opposed to Existence, there
+is only one logical alternative--Non-existence. Supposing, then, our
+physical explanations to have reached their highest limits by resolving all
+modes of Existence into one mode--force, matter, life, and mind, being
+shown but different manifestations of the same Infinite Existence--the
+final mystery of things would then become resolved into the simple
+question, Why is there Existence?--Why is there not Nothing?
+
+Let us then first ask, What is "Nothing"? Is it a mere word, which presents
+no meaning as corresponding to any objective reality, or has the word a
+meaning notwithstanding its being an inconceivable one? Or, otherwise
+phrased, is Nothing possible or impossible? Now, although in ordinary
+conversation it is generally taken for granted that Nothing is possible,
+there is certainly no more ground for this supposition than there is for
+its converse--viz., that Nothing is merely a word which signifies the
+negation of possibility. For analysis will show that the choice between
+these two counter-suppositions can only be made in the presence of
+knowledge which is necessarily absent--the knowledge whether the universe
+of Existence is finite or infinite. If the universe as a whole is finite,
+the word Nothing would stand as a symbol to denote an unthinkable blank of
+which a finite universe is the content. And forasmuch as Something and
+Nothing would then become actual, as distinguished from nominal
+correlatives, we could have no guarantee that, in an absolute or
+transcendental sense, it may not be possible, although it is inconceivable,
+for Something to become Nothing or Nothing Something. Hence, if Existence
+is finite, No-existence becomes possible; and the doctrine of the
+indestructibility of Existence becomes, for aught that we can tell, of a
+merely relative signification. But, on the other hand, if Existence is
+infinite, No-existence becomes impossible; and the doctrine of the
+indestructibility of Existence becomes, in a logical sense, of an absolute
+signification. For it is manifest that if the universe of Existence is
+without end in space and time, the possibility of No-existence is of
+necessity excluded, and the word "Nothing" thus becomes a mere negation of
+possibility.[47]
+
+Thus, if it be conceded that the universe as a whole is infinite both in
+space and time, the concession amounts to an abolition of the final mystery
+of things. For all that we mean by a mystery is something that requires an
+explanation, and the whole of the final mystery of things is therefore
+embodied in the question, "Why is there Existence?--Why is there not
+Nothing?" But if the universe of Existence be conceded infinite, this
+question is sufficiently met by the answer, "Because Existence is, and
+Nothing is not." If it is retorted, But this is no real answer; I reply, It
+is as real as the question. For to ask, Why is there Existence? is, upon
+the supposition which has been conceded, equivalent to asking, Why is the
+possible possible? And if such questions cannot be answered, it is scarcely
+right to say that on this account they embody a mystery; because the
+questions are really not rational questions, and therefore the fact of
+their not admitting of any rational answer cannot be held to show that the
+questions embody any rational mystery. That there _is_ a rational mystery,
+in the sense of there being something which can never be _explained_, I do
+not dispute; all I assert is, that this mystery is inexplicable, only
+_because there is nothing to explain_; the mystery being ultimate, to ask
+for an explanation of that which, being ultimate, requires no explanation,
+is irrational. Or, to state the case in another way, if it is asked, Why is
+there not Nothing? it is a sufficient answer, on supposition of the
+universe being infinite, to say, Because Nothing is nothing; it is merely a
+word which presents no meaning, and which, so far as anything can be
+conceived to the contrary, never can present any meaning.
+
+The above discussion has proceeded on the supposition of Existence being
+infinite; but practically the same result would follow on the
+counter-supposition of Existence being finite. For although in this case,
+as we have seen, Non-entity would still be included within the range of
+possibility, it would still be no more conceivable as such than is Entity;
+and hence the question, Why is there not Nothing? would still be
+irrational, seeing that, even if the possibility which the question
+supposes were realised, it would in no wise tend to explain the mystery of
+Something. And even if it could, the final mystery would not be thus
+excluded; it would merely be transferred from the mystery of Existence to
+the mystery of Non-existence. Thus under every conceivable supposition we
+arrive at the same termination--viz., that in the last resort there must be
+a final mystery, which, as forming the basis of all possible explanations,
+cannot itself receive any explanation, and which therefore is really not,
+in any proper sense of the term, a mystery at all. It is merely a fact
+which itself requires no explanation, because it is a fact than which none
+can be more ultimate. So that even if we suppose this ultimate fact to be
+an Intelligent Being, it is clearly impossible that he should be able to
+_explain_ his own existence, since the possibility of any such explanation
+would imply that his existence could not be ultimate. In the sense,
+therefore, of not admitting of any explanation, his existence would require
+to be a mystery to himself, rendering it impossible for him to state
+anything further with regard to it than this--"I am that I am."
+
+I do not doubt that this way of looking at the subject will be deemed
+unsatisfactory at first sight, because it seems to be, as it were, a merely
+logical way of cheating our intelligence out of an intuitively felt
+justification for its own curiosity in this matter. But the fault really
+lies in this intuitive feeling of justification not being itself
+justifiable. For this particular question, it will be observed, differs
+from all other possible questions with which the mind has to deal. All
+other questions being questions concerning manifestations of existence
+presupposed as existing, it is perfectly legitimate to seek for an
+explanation of one series of manifestations in another--_i.e._, to refer a
+less known group to a group better known. But the case is manifestly quite
+otherwise when, having merged one group of manifestations into another
+group, and this into another for an indefinite number of stages, we
+suddenly make a leap to the last possible stage and ask, "Into what group
+are we to merge the basis of all our previous groups, and of all groups
+which can possibly be formed in the future? How are we to classify that
+which contains all possible classes? Where are we to look for an
+explanation of Existence?" When thus clearly stated, the question, is, as I
+have said, manifestly irrational; but the point with which I am now
+concerned is this--When in plain reason the question is _seen_ to be
+irrational, why in intuitive sentiment should it not be _felt_ to be so?
+The answer, I think, is, that the interrogative faculty being usually
+occupied with questions which admit of rational answers, we acquire a sort
+of intellectual habit of presupposing every wherefore to have a therefore,
+and thus, when eventually we arrive at the last of all possible wherefores,
+which itself supplies the basis of all possible therefores, we fail at
+first to recognise the exceptional character of our position. We fail at
+first to perceive that, from the very nature of this particular case, our
+wherefore is deprived of the rational meaning which it had in all the
+previous cases, where the possibility of a corresponding therefore was
+presupposed. And failing fully to perceive this truth, our organised habit
+of expecting an answer to our question asserts itself, and we experience
+the same sense of intellectual unrest in the presence of this wholly
+meaningless and absurd question, as we experience in the presence of
+questions significant and rational.
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Notes
+
+[1] The above was written before Mr. Mill's essay on Theism was published.
+Lest, therefore, my refutation may be deemed too curt, I supplement it with
+Mr. Mill's remarks upon the same subject. "It may still be maintained that
+the feelings of morality make the existence of God eminently desirable. No
+doubt they do, and that is the great reason why we find that good men and
+women cling to the belief, and are pained by its being questioned. But,
+surely, it is not legitimate to assume that, in the order of the universe,
+whatever is desirable is true. Optimism, even when a God is already
+believed in, is a thorny doctrine to maintain, and had to be taken by
+Leibnitz in the limited sense, that the universe being made by a good
+being, is the best universe possible, not the best absolutely: that the
+Divine power, in short, was not equal to making it more free from
+imperfections than it is. But optimism, prior to belief in a God, and as
+the ground of that belief, seems one of the oddest of all speculative
+delusions. Nothing, however, I believe, contributes more to keep up the
+belief in the general mind of humanity than the feeling of its
+desirableness, which, when clothed, as it very often is, in the form of an
+argument, is a _naive_ expression of the tendency of the human mind to
+believe whatever is agreeable to it. Positive value the argument of course
+has none." For Mill's remarks on the version of the argument dealt with in
+§ 5, see his "Three Essays," p. 204.
+
+[2] The words "or not conceivable," are here used in the sense of "not
+relatively conceivable," as explained in Chap. vi.
+
+[3] For the full discussion from which the above is an extract, see _System
+of Logic_, vol. i. pp. 409-426 (8th ed.). But, substituting "psychical" for
+"volitional," see also, for some mitigation of the severity of the above
+statement, the closing paragraphs of my supplementary essay on "Cosmic
+Theism."
+
+[4] Essay on Understanding--Existence of God.
+
+[5] Locke, _loc. cit._
+
+[6] See Appendix A.
+
+[7] Viz., the constant association within experience of mind with certain
+highly peculiar material forms; the constant proportion which is found to
+subsist between the quantity of cerebral matter and the degree of
+intellectual capacity--a proportion which may be clearly traced throughout
+the ascending series of vertebrated animals, and which is very generally
+manifested in individuals of the human species; the effects of cerebral
+anæmia, anæsthetics, stimulants, narcotic poisons, and lesions of cerebral
+substance. There can, in short, be no question that the whole series of
+observable facts bearing upon the subject are precisely such as they ought
+to be upon supposition of the materialistic theory being true; while,
+contrariwise, there is a total absence of any known facts tending to
+negative that theory. At the same time it must be carefully noted, that the
+observed facts (and any additional number of the like kind) do not
+logically warrant us in concluding that mental states are necessarily
+_dependent_ upon material changes. Nevertheless, it must also be noted,
+that, in the absence of positive proof of causation, it is certainly in
+accordance with scientific procedure, to yield our provisional assent to an
+hypothesis which undoubtedly connects a large order of constant
+_accompaniments_, rather than to an hypothesis which is confessedly framed
+to meet but a single one of the facts.
+
+Professor Clifford, in a lecture on "Body and Mind" which he delivered at
+St. George's Hall, and afterwards published in the _Fortnightly Review_,
+argues against the existence of God on the ground that, as Mind is always
+associated with Matter within experience, there arises a presumption
+against Mind existing anywhere without being thus associated, so that
+unless we can trace in the disposition of the heavenly bodies some
+resemblance to the conformation of cerebral structure, we are to conclude
+that there is a considerable balance of probability in favour of Atheism.
+Now, as this argument--if we rid it of the grotesque allusion to the
+heavenly bodies--is one that is frequently met with, it seems desirable in
+this place briefly to analyse it. First of all, then, the validity of the
+argument depends upon the probability there is that the constant associated
+of Mind with Matter within experience is due to a _causal_ connection; for
+if the association in question is merely an _association_ and nothing more,
+the origin of known mind is as far from being explained as it would be were
+Mind never known as associated with Matter. But, in the next place,
+supposing the constant association in question to be due to a causal
+connection, it by no means follows that because Mind is due to Matter
+within experience, therefore Mind cannot exist in any other mode beyond
+experience.
+
+Doubtless, from analogy, there is a presumption against the hypothesis that
+the same entity should exist in more than one mode at the same time; but
+clearly in this case we are quite unable to estimate the value of this
+presumption. Consequently, even assuming a causal connection between Matter
+and Human Mind, if there is any, the slightest, indications supplied by any
+other facts of experience pointing to the existence of a Divine Mind, such
+indications should be allowed as much argumentative weight as they would
+have had in the absence of the presumption we are considering. Hence
+Professor Clifford's conclusion cannot be regarded as valid until all the
+other arguments in favour of Theism have been separately refuted. Doubtless
+Professor Clifford will be the first to recognise the cogency of this
+criticism--if indeed it has not already occurred to him; for as I know that
+he is much too clear a thinker not to perceive the validity of these
+considerations, I am willing to believe that the substance of them was
+omitted from his essay merely for the sake of brevity; but, for the sake of
+less thoughtful persons, I have deemed it desirable to state thus clearly
+that the problem of Theism cannot be solved on grounds of Materialism
+alone. [This note was written before I had the advantage of Professor
+Clifford's acquaintance, but now I leave it, as I leave all other parts of
+this essay--viz., as it was originally written.--1878.]
+
+[8] To avoid burdening the text, I have omitted another criticism which may
+be made on Locke's argument. "Triangle" is a word by which we designate a
+certain figure, one of the properties of which is that the sum of its
+angles is equal to two right angles. In other words, any figure which does
+not exhibit this property is not that figure which we designate a triangle.
+Hence, when Locke says he cannot conceive of a triangle which does not
+present this property, it may be answered that his inability arises merely
+from the fact that any figure which fails to present this property is not a
+figure to which the term "triangle" can apply. Thus viewed, however, the
+illustration would obviously be absurd, for the same reason that the
+question of the clown is absurd, "Can you think of a horse that is just
+like a cow?" What Locke evidently means is, that we cannot conceive of any
+geometrical figure which presents all the other properties of a triangle
+without also presenting the property in question. Now, even admitting, with
+Locke, that it is as inconceivable that the entity known to us as Matter
+should possess the property of causing thought as it is that the figure
+which we term a triangle should posses the property of containing more than
+two right angles, still it remains, for the purposes of Locke's supposed
+theistic demonstration, to prove that it is an inconceivable for the entity
+which we call Mind _not_ to be due to another Mind, as it is for a triangle
+_not_ to contain, other than two right angles. But, further, even if it
+were possible to prove this, the demonstration would make as much against
+Theism as in favour of it; for if, as the illustration of the triangle
+implies, we restrict the meaning of the word "Mind" to an entity one of
+whose essential qualities is that it should be caused by another Mind, the
+words "Supreme and Uncaused Mind" involve a contradiction in terms, just as
+much as would the words "A square triangle having four right angles." It
+would, therefore, seem that if we adhere to Locke's argument, and pursue it
+to its conclusion, the only logical outcome would be this:--Seeing that by
+the word "Mind," I expressly connote the quality of derivation from a prior
+Mind, as a quality belonging no less essentially to Mind than the quality
+of presenting two right angles belongs to a triangle; therefore, whatever
+other attributes I ascribe to the First Cause, I must clearly exclude the
+attribute Mind; and hence, whatever else such a Cause may be, it follows
+from my argument that it certainly is--Not Mind.
+
+[9] Hamilton.
+
+[10] Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 25-31.
+
+[11] Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 542.
+
+[12] _Loc. cit._, p. 543.
+
+[13] Appendix to Discussions, pp. 614, 165.
+
+[14] Mill, in the lengthy chapter which he devotes to the freedom of the
+will in his Examination, does not notice this point.
+
+[15] If more evidence can be wanted, it is supplied in some suggestive
+facts of Psychology. For example, "From our earliest childhood, the idea of
+doing wrong (that is, of doing what is forbidden, or what is injurious to
+others) and the idea of punishment are presented to the mind together, and
+the intense character of the impressions causes the association between
+them to attain the highest degree of closeness and intimacy. Is it strange,
+or unlike the usual processes of the human mind, that in these
+circumstances we should retain the feeling and forget the reason on which
+it is grounded? But why do I speak of forgetting? In most cases the reason
+has never, in our early education, been presented to the mind. The only
+ideas presented have been those of wrong and punishment, and an inseparable
+association has been created between these directly, without the help of
+any intervening idea. This is quite enough to make the spontaneous feelings
+of mankind regard punishment and a wrong-doer as naturally fitted to each
+other--as a conjunction appropriate in itself, independently of any
+consequences," &c.--Mill, Examination of Hamilton, p. 599.
+
+[16] Grammar of Assent, pp. 106, 107.
+
+[17] Throughout these considerations I have confined myself to the
+_positive_ side of the subject. My argument being of the nature of a
+criticism on the erroneous inferences which are drawn from the _good_
+qualities of our moral nature, I thought it desirable, for the sake of
+clearness, not to burden that argument by the additional one as to the
+source of the _evil_ qualities of that nature. This additional argument,
+however, will be found briefly stated at the close of my supplementary
+essay on Professor Flint's "Theism." On reading that additional argument, I
+think that any candid and unbiassed mind must conclude that, alike in what
+it is _not_ as well as in what it _is_, our moral nature points to a
+natural genesis, as distinguished from a supernatural cause.
+
+[18] The illustration to which I refer is that of the watershed of a
+country being precisely adapted to draining purposes. The rivers just fit
+their own particular beds: the latter occupy the lowest grounds, and get
+broader and deeper as they advance; pebbles, gravel, and sand all occupy
+the best teleological situations, &c., &c.
+
+[19] "Order of Nature," by the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., &c., 1859,
+pp. 228-241.
+
+[20] I think it desirable to state that I perceived this great truth before
+I was aware that it had been perceived also by Mr. Spencer. His statement
+of it now occurs in the short chapter of _First Principles_ entitled
+"Relations between Forces." So far as I an able to ascertain, no one has
+hitherto considered this important doctrine in its immediate relation to
+the question of Theism.
+
+In using the term "persistence of force," I am aware that I am using a term
+which is not unopen to criticism. But as Mr. Spencer's writings have
+brought this term into such general use among speculative thinkers, it
+seemed to me undesirable to modify it. Questions of mere terminology are
+without any importance in a discussion of this kind, provided that the
+terms are universally understood to mean what they are intended to mean;
+and I think that the signification which Mr. Spencer attaches to his term,
+"persistence of force," is sufficiently precise. Therefore, adopting his
+usage, whenever throughout the following pages I speak of force as
+persisting, what I intend to be understood is, that there is a
+something--call it force, or energy, or _x_--which, so far as experience or
+imagination can extend, is, in its relation to us, ubiquitous and
+illimitable; or, in other words, that it universally presents the property
+of permanence. (See, for a more detailed explanation, supplementary essay,
+"On the Final Mystery of Things.")
+
+[21] Hamilton may here be especially noticed, because he went so far as to
+maintain that the phenomena of the external world, taken by themselves,
+would ground a valid argument to the negation of God. Although I cannot but
+think that this position was a conspicuously irrational one for any
+competent thinker to occupy before the scientific doctrine of the
+correlation of the forces had been enunciated, nevertheless I cannot lose
+the opportunity of alluding to this remarkable feature in Sir William
+Hamilton's philosophy, showing as it does that same prophetic forestalling
+of the results which have since followed from the discovery of the
+conservation of energy, as was shown by his no less remarkable theory of
+causation. (See supplementary essay "On the Final Mystery of Things.")
+
+[22] Mr. N. Lockyer's work is now supplying important evidence on these
+points.--1878.
+
+[23] It will of course be observed that if matter and force are identical,
+the unification is complete.
+
+[24] Herbert Spencer.
+
+[25] It may here be observed that the above discussion would not be
+affected by the view of Professor Clifford and others, that natural law is
+to be regarded as having a subjective rather than an objective
+signification--that what we call a natural law is merely an arbitrary
+selection made by ourselves of certain among natural processes. The
+discussion would not be affected by this view, because the argument is
+really based upon the existence of a cosmos as distinguished from a chaos;
+and therefore it would be rather an intensification of the argument than
+otherwise to point out that, for the maintenance of a cosmos, natural laws,
+as conceived by us, would be inadequate. And this seems a fitting place to
+make the almost superfluous remark, that throughout this present essay I
+have used the words "Natural Law," "Supreme Law-giver," &c., in an
+apparently unguarded sense, merely in order to avoid needless obscurity.
+Fully sensible as I am of the misleading nature of the analogy which these
+words embody, I have yet adopted them for the sake of perspicuity--being
+careful, however, never to allow the false analogy which they express to
+enter into an argument on either side of the question. Thus, even where it
+is said that the existence of Natural Law points to the existence of a
+Supreme Law-maker, the argument might equally well be phrased: The
+existence of an orderly cosmos points to the existence of a disposing mind.
+
+[26] First Principles, pp. 27-29.
+
+[27] It may be here observed that this quality of indefiniteness on the
+part of such reasoning is merely a practical outcome of the theoretical
+considerations adduced in Chapter V. For as we there saw that the ratio
+between the known and the unknown is in this case wholly indefinite, it
+follows that any symbols derived from the region of the known--even though
+such symbols be the highest generalities which the latter region
+affords--must be wholly indefinite when projected into the region of the
+unknown. Or rather let us say, that as the region of the unknown is but a
+progressive continuation of the region of the known, the determinate value
+of symbols of thought varies inversely as the distance--or, not improbably,
+as the square of the distance--from the sphere of the known at which they
+are applied.
+
+[28] _i.e._, illegitimate in a _relative_ sense. The conclusion is
+legitimate enough in a _formal_ sense, and as establishing a probability of
+some _unassignable_ degree of value. But it would be illegitimate if this
+quality of indefiniteness were disregarded, and the conclusion supposed to
+possess the same character of actual probability as it has of formal
+definition.
+
+[29] In order not to burden the text with details, I have presented these
+reflections in their most general terms. Thus, if it be granted that cosmic
+harmony results from the combined action of general laws, and that these
+laws are the necessary result of the primary qualities of force and matter,
+this the most general statement of the atheistic position includes all more
+special considerations as a genus includes its species; and therefore it
+would not signify, for the purposes of the atheistic argument, whether or
+not any such more special considerations are possible. Nevertheless, for
+the sake of completeness, I may here observe that we are not wholly without
+indications in nature of the physical causation whereby the effect of
+cosmic harmony is produced. The universal tendency of motion to become
+rhythmical--itself, as Mr. Spencer was the first to show, a necessary
+consequence of the persistence of force--is, so to speak, a conservative
+tendency: it sets a premium against natural cataclysms. But a more
+important consideration is this,--that during the evolution of natural law
+in the way suggested in Chapter IV., as every newly evolved law came into
+existence it must have been, as it were, grafted on the stock of all
+pre-existing natural laws, and so would not enter the cosmic system as an
+element of confusion, but rather as an element of further progress. For
+instance, when, with the origin of organic nature, the law of natural
+selection entered upon the cosmos, it was grafted upon the pre-existing
+stock of other natural laws, and so combined within them in unity. And a
+little thought will show that it was impossible that it should do
+otherwise; for it was impossible that natural selection could ever produce
+organisms which would ever be able by their existence to conflict with the
+pre-existing system of astronomic or geologic laws; seeing that organisms,
+being a product of later evolution than these laws, would either have to be
+adapted to them or perish. And hence the new law of natural selection,
+which consists in so adapting organisms to the pre-existing laws that they
+must either conform to them or die. Now, I have chosen the case of natural
+selection because, as alluded to in the text, it is the law of all others
+which is the most conspicuously effective in producing the harmonious
+complexity of nature. But the same kind of considerations may be seen to
+apply to most of the other general laws with which we are acquainted,
+particularly if we bear in mind that the general outcome of their united
+action as we observe it--the cosmic harmony on which so much stress is
+laid--is not _perfectly_ harmonious. Cataclysms--whether it be the capture
+of an insect, or the ruin of a star--although events of comparatively rare
+occurrence if at any given time we take into account the total number of
+insects or the total number of stars, are events which nevertheless do
+occasionally happen. And the fact that even cataclysms take place in
+accordance with so-called natural law, serves but to emphasise the
+consideration on which we are engaged--viz., that the total result of the
+combined action of general laws is not such as to produce perfect order.
+Lastly, if the answer is made that human ideas of perfect order may not
+correspond with the highest ideal of such order, I observe that to make
+such a answer is merely to abandon the subject of discussion; for if a
+theist rests his argument on the basis of our human conception of order, he
+is not free to maintain his argument and at the same time to abandon its
+basis at whatever point the latter may be shown untenable.
+
+[30] Since the above was written, the first volume of Mr. Spencer's
+"Sociology" has been published; and those who may not as yet have read the
+first half of that work are here strongly recommended to do so; for Mr.
+Spencer has there shown, in a more connected and conclusive manner than has
+ever been shown before, how strictly natural is the growth of all
+superstitions and religions--_i.e._, of all the theories of personal agency
+in nature.--1878.
+
+[31] Herbert Spencer's Essays, vol. iii. pp. 246-249 (1874).
+
+[32] This is the truly inconceivable element in the physical theory. As I
+have shown in the pleading on the side of Atheism, the supposed
+inconceivability of cosmic harmony being due to mindless forces, is not of
+such a kind as wholly refuses to be surmounted by symbolic conceptions of a
+sufficiently abstract character. But it is impossible, by the aid of any
+symbols, to gain a conception of an eternal existence. And I may here point
+out, that if Mind is said to be the cause of evolution, not only does the
+statement involve the inconceivable proposition that such a Mind must be
+infinite in respect to its powers of supervision, direction, &c.; but the
+statement also involves a necessary alternative between two additional
+inconceivable propositions--viz., either that such a Mind must have been
+eternal, or that it must have come into existence without a cause. In this
+respect, therefore, it would seem that the theory of Atheism has the
+advantage over that of Theism; for while the former theory is under the
+necessity of embodying only a single inconceivable term, the latter theory
+is under the necessity of embodying two such terms.
+
+[33] Mr. Herbert Spencer has treated of this subject in his memorable
+controversy with Mill on the "Universal Postulate" (see _Psychology_, §
+427), and refuses to entertain the term "Inconceivable" as applicable to
+any propositions other than those wherein "the terms cannot, by any effort,
+be brought before consciousness in that relation which the proposition
+asserts between them." That is to say, he limits the term "Inconceivable"
+to that which is _absolutely_ inconceivable; and he then proceeds to affirm
+that all propositions "which admit of being framed in thought, but which
+are so much at variance with experience, in which its terms have habitually
+been otherwise united, that its terms cannot be put in the alleged relation
+without effort," ought properly to be termed "_incredible_" propositions.
+Now I cannot see that the class "Incredible propositions" is, as this
+definition asserts, identical with the class which I have termed
+"Relatively inconceivable" propositions. For example, it is a familiar
+observation that, on looking at the setting sun, we experience an almost,
+if not quite, insuperable difficulty in _conceiving_ the sun's apparent
+motion as due to our own actual motion, and yet we experience no difficulty
+in _believing_ it. Conversely, I entertain but little difficulty in
+_conceiving_--_i.e._, imagining--a shark with a mammalian heart, and yet it
+would require extremely strong evidence to make me _believe_ that such an
+animal exists. The truth appears to be that our language is deficient in
+terms whereby to distinguish between that which is wholly inconceivable
+from that which is with difficulty conceivable. This, it seems to me, was
+the principle reason of the dispute between Spencer and Mill above alluded
+to,--the former writer having always used the word "Inconceivable" in the
+sense of "Absolutely inconceivable," and the latter having apparently used
+it--in his _Logic_ and elsewhere--in both senses. I have endeavoured to
+remedy this defect in the language by introducing the qualifying words,
+"Absolutely" and "Relatively," which, although not appropriate words, are
+the best that I am able to supply. The conceptive faculty of the individual
+having been determined by the experience of the race, that which is
+inconceivable by the intelligence of the race may be said to be
+inconceivable to the intelligence of the individual in an _absolute_ sense;
+no effort on his part can enable him to surmount the organically imposed
+conditions of his conceptive faculty. But that which is inconceivable
+merely to one individual or generation, while it is not inconceivable to
+the intelligence of the race, may properly be said to be inconceivable to
+the intelligence of that individual or generation only in a _relative_
+sense; apart from the special condition to which the individual
+intelligence has been subjected, there is nothing in the conditions of
+human intelligence as such to prevent the thing from being conceived.
+[While this work has been passing through the press, I have found that Mr.
+G. H. Lewes has already employed the above terms in precisely the same
+sense as that which is above explained.--1878.]
+
+[34] I should here like to have added some considerations on Sir W.
+Hamilton's remarks concerning the effect of training upon the mind in this
+connection; but, to avoid being tedious, I shall condense what I have to
+say into a few sentences. What Hamilton maintains is very true, viz., that
+the study of classics, moral and mental philosophy, &c., renders the mind
+more capable of believing in a God than does the study of physical science.
+The question, however, is, Which class of studies ought to be considered
+the more authoritative in this matter? I certainly cannot see what title
+classics, history, political economy, &c., have to be regarded at all; and
+although the mental and moral sciences have doubtless a better claim, still
+I think they must be largely subordinate to those sciences which deal with
+the whole domain of nature besides. Further, I should say that there is no
+very strong _affirmative_ influence created on the mind in this respect by
+any class of studies; and that the only reason why we so generally find
+Theism and classics, &c., united, is because we so seldom find classics,
+&c., and physical science united; the _negative_ influence of the latter,
+in the case of classical minds, being therefore generally absent.
+
+[35] The qualities named are only known in a relative sense, and therefore
+the apparent contradiction may be destitute of meaning in an absolute
+sense.
+
+[36] All the quotations in this Appendix have been taken from the chapter
+on "Our knowledge of the existence of a God," and from the early part of
+that on "The extent of human knowledge," together with the appended letter
+to the Bishop of Worcester.
+
+[37] A criticism of Mr. John Fiske's proposed system of theology as
+expounded in his work on "Cosmic Philosophy" (Macmillan & Co., 1874).
+
+[38] Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 87-89.
+
+[39] Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 429, 430.
+
+[40] Ibid., p. 441.
+
+[41] Ibid., pp. 450, 451.
+
+[42] Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 159-161.
+
+[43] We thus see that the question whether there may not be "something
+quasi-psychical in the constitution of things" is a question which does not
+affect the position of Theism as it has been left by a negation of the
+self-conscious personality of God. But as the speculations on which this
+question has been reared are in themselves of much philosophical interest,
+I may here observe that, in one form or another, they have been dimly
+floating in men's minds for a long time past. Thus, excepting the degree of
+certainty with which it is taught, we have in Mr. Spencer's words above
+quoted a reversion to the doctrine of Buddha; for, as "force is
+persistent," all that would happen on death, supposing the doctrine true,
+would be an escape of the "circumscribed aggregate" of units forming the
+individual consciousness into the unlimited abyss of similar units
+constituting the "Absolute Being" of the Cosmists, or the "Divine Essence"
+of the Buddhists. Again, the doctrine in a vague form pervades the
+philosophy of Spinoza, and is next clearly enunciated by Wundt. Lastly, in
+a recently published very remarkable essay "On the Nature of Things in
+Themselves," Professor Clifford arrives at a similar doctrine by a
+different route. The following is the conclusion to which he
+arrives:--"That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest
+feeling is a complex, I shall call _Mind-stuff_. A moving molecule of
+inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a
+small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to
+form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff
+which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of
+Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and
+nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff
+are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say,
+changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked
+together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other.
+When matters take the complex form of a living human brain, the
+corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having
+intelligence and volition." (Mind, January, 1878.)
+
+[44] Theism, by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the
+University of Edinburgh, &c.
+
+[45] Such being the objects in view, I have not thought it necessary to
+extend this criticism into anything resembling a review of Professor
+Flint's work as a whole; but, on the contrary, I have aimed rather at
+confining my observations to those parts of his treatise which embody the
+current arguments from teleology alone. I may here observe, however, in
+general terms, that I consider all his arguments to have been answered by
+anticipation in the foregoing examination of Theism. I may also here
+observe, that throughout the following essay I have used the word "design"
+in the sense in which it is used by Professor Flint himself. This sense is
+distinctly a different one from that which the word bears in the writings
+of the Paley, Bell, and Chalmers school. For while in the latter writings,
+as pointed out in Chapter III., the word bears its natural meaning of a
+certain _process of thought_, in Professor Flint's work it is used rather
+as expressive of a _product of intelligence_. In other words, "design," as
+used by Professor Flint, is synonymous with _intention_, irrespective of
+the particular psychological process by which the intention may have been
+put into effect.
+
+[46] Op. cit., pp. 255-257.
+
+[47] Let it be observed that there is a distinction between what I may call
+substantial and formal existence. Thus there is no doubt that flowers as
+flowers perish, or become non-existent; but the substances of which they
+were composed persist. And, in this connection, I may here point out that
+if the universe is infinite in space and time, the universe as a whole
+would present substantial existence as standing out of relation to space
+and time, whereas innumerable portions of the universe present only formal
+existences, because standing in relation both to space and time. Thus, for
+instance, the solar system, as a solar system, must have an end in time as
+it has a boundary in space; but as the substance of which it consists will
+not become extinguished by the extinction of the system, it may not now
+stand in any real relation to what we call space and time. I am inclined to
+think that it is upon the idea of non-existence in this formal sense that
+we construct a pseud-idea of non-existence in a substantial sense; but it
+is evident that if the universe as a whole is absolute, this pseud-idea
+must represent as impossibility. And from this it follows, that if
+existence is infinite in space and time, every _quantum_ of it with which
+our experience comes into relation must represent, as its essential
+quality, that quality which we find to be presented by the substance of
+things--the quality, that is, of persistence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Candid Examination of Theism, by 
+George John Romanes
+
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+
+Project Gutenberg's A Candid Examination of Theism, by George John Romanes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Candid Examination of Theism
+
+Author: George John Romanes
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2006 [EBook #19003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANDID EXAMINATION OF THEISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Keith Edkins and
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+</pre>
+
+<h4>A</h4>
+
+<h1>CANDID EXAMINATION</h1>
+
+<h4>OF</h4>
+
+<h1>THEISM.</h1>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>PHYSICUS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;">BOSTON:<br />
+HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, &amp; COMPANY.<br />
+1878.<br />
+[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="center" style="margin-top: 2em;"><i>CANST THOU BY SEARCHING FIND OUT GOD?</i></p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="short" />
+
+  <p>The following essay was written several years ago; but I have hitherto
+  refrained from publishing it, lest, after having done so, I should find
+  that more mature thought had modified the conclusions which the essay
+  sets forth. Judging, however, that it is now more than ever improbable
+  that I shall myself be able to detect any errors in my reasoning, I feel
+  that it is time to present the latter to the contemplation of other
+  minds; and in doing so, I make this explanation only because I feel it
+  desirable to state at the outset that the present treatise was written
+  before the publication of Mr. Mill's treatise on the same subject. It is
+  desirable to make this statement, first, because in several instances the
+  trains of reasoning in the two essays are parallel, and next, because in
+  other instances I have quoted passages from Mr. Mill's essay in
+  connections which would be scarcely intelligible were it not understood
+  that these passages are insertions made after the present essay had been
+  completed. I have also added several supplementary essays which have been
+  written since the main essay was finished.</p>
+
+  <p>It is desirable further to observe, that the only reason why I publish
+  this edition anonymously is because I feel very strongly that, in matters
+  of the kind with which the present essay deals, opinions and arguments
+  should be allowed to produce the exact degree of influence to which as
+  opinions and arguments they are entitled: they should be permitted to
+  stand upon their own intrinsic merits alone, and quite beyond the shadow
+  of that unfair prejudication which cannot but arise so soon as their
+  author's authority, or absence of authority, becomes known.
+  Notwithstanding this avowal, however, I fear that many who glance over
+  the following pages will read in the "Physicus" of the first one a very
+  different motive. There is at the present time a wonderfully wide-spread
+  sentiment pervading all classes of society&mdash;a sentiment which it
+  would not be easy to define, but the practical outcome of which is, that
+  to discuss the question of which this essay treats is, in some way or
+  other, morally wrong. Many, therefore, who share this sentiment will
+  doubtless attribute my reticence to a puerile fear on my part to meet it.
+  I can only say that such is not the case. Although I allude to this
+  sentiment with all respect&mdash;believing as I do that it is an offshoot
+  from the stock which contains all that is best and greatest in human
+  nature&mdash;nevertheless it seems to me impossible to deny that the
+  sentiment in question is as unreasonable as the frame of mind which
+  harbours it must be unreasoning. If there is no God, where can be the
+  harm in our examining the spurious evidence of his existence? If there is
+  a God, surely our first duty towards him must be to exert to our utmost,
+  in our attempts to find him, the most noble faculty with which he has
+  endowed us&mdash;as carefully to investigate the evidence which he has
+  seen fit to furnish of his own existence as we investigate the evidence
+  of inferior things in his dependent creation. To say that there is one
+  rule or method for ascertaining truth in the latter case, which it is not
+  legitimate to apply in the former case, is merely a covert way of saying
+  that the Deity, if he exists, has not supplied us with rational evidence
+  of his existence. For my own part, I feel that such an assertion cannot
+  but embody far more unworthy conceptions of a Personal God than are
+  represented by any amount of earnest inquiry into whatever evidence of
+  his existence there may be present; but, neglecting this reflection, if
+  there is a God, it is certain that reason is the faculty by which he has
+  enabled man to discover truth, and it is no less certain that the
+  scientific methods have proved themselves by far the most trustworthy for
+  reason to adopt. To my mind, therefore, it is impossible to resist the
+  conclusion that, looking to this undoubted pre-eminence of the scientific
+  methods as ways to truth, whether or not there is a God, the question as
+  to his existence is both more morally and more reverently contemplated if
+  we regard it purely as a problem for methodical analysis to solve, than
+  if we regard it in any other light. Or, stating the case in other words,
+  I believe that in whatever degree we intentionally abstain from using in
+  this case what we <i>know</i> to be the most trustworthy methods of
+  inquiry in other cases, in that degree are we either unworthily closing
+  our eyes to a dreaded truth, or we are guilty of the worst among human
+  sins&mdash;"Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways."
+  If it is said that, supposing man to be in a state of probation, faith,
+  and not reason, must be the instrument of his trial, I am ready to admit
+  the validity of the remark; but I must also ask it to be remembered, that
+  unless faith has <i>some</i> basis of reason whereon to rest, it differs
+  in nothing from superstition; and hence that it is still our duty to
+  investigate the <i>rational</i> standing of the question before us by the
+  <i>scientific</i> methods alone. And I may here observe parenthetically,
+  that the same reasoning applies to all investigations concerning the
+  reality of a supposed revelation. With such investigations, however, the
+  present essay has nothing to do, although, I may remark that if there is
+  any evidence of a Divine Mind discernible in the structure of a
+  professing revelation, such evidence, in whatever degree present, would
+  be of the best possible kind for substantiating the hypothesis of
+  Theism.</p>
+
+  <p>Such being, then, what I conceive the only reasonable, as well as the
+  most truly moral, way of regarding the question to be discussed in the
+  following pages, even if the conclusions yielded by this discussion were
+  more negative than they are, I should deem it culpable cowardice in me
+  <i>for this reason</i> to publish anonymously. For even if an inquiry of
+  the present kind could ever result in a final demonstration of Atheism,
+  there might be much for its author to regret, but nothing for him to be
+  ashamed of; and, by parity of reasoning, in whatever degree the result of
+  such an inquiry is seen to have a tendency to negative the theistic
+  theory, the author should not be ashamed candidly to acknowledge his
+  conviction as to the degree of such tendency, provided only that his
+  conviction is an <i>honest</i> one, and that he is conscious of its
+  having been reached by using his faculties with the utmost care of which
+  he is capable.</p>
+
+  <p>If it is retorted that the question to be dealt with is of so ultimate
+  a character that even the scientific methods are here untrustworthy, I
+  reply that they are nevertheless the <i>best</i> methods available, and
+  hence that the retort is without pertinence: the question is still to be
+  regarded as a scientific one, although we may perceive that neither an
+  affirmative nor a negative answer can be given to it with any approach to
+  a full demonstration. But if the question is thus conceded to be one
+  falling within the legitimate scope of rational inquiry, it follows that
+  the mere fact of demonstrative certainty being here antecedently
+  impossible should not deter us from instituting the inquiry. It is a
+  well-recognised principle of scientific research, that however difficult
+  or impossible it may be to <i>prove</i> a given theory true or false, the
+  theory should nevertheless be tested, so far as it admits of being
+  tested, by the full rigour of the scientific methods. Where demonstration
+  cannot be hoped for, it still remains desirable to reduce the question at
+  issue to the last analysis of which it is capable.</p>
+
+  <p>Adopting these principles, therefore, I have endeavoured in the
+  following analysis to fix the precise standing of the evidence in favour
+  of the theory of Theism, when the latter is viewed in all the flood of
+  light which the progress of modern science&mdash;physical and
+  speculative&mdash;has shed upon it. And forasmuch as it is impossible
+  that demonstrated truth can ever be shown untrue, and forasmuch as the
+  demonstrated truths on which the present examination rests are the most
+  fundamental which it is possible for the human mind to reach, I do not
+  think it presumptuous to assert what appears to me a necessary deduction
+  from these facts&mdash;namely, that, possible errors in reasoning apart,
+  the rational position of Theism as here defined must remain without
+  material modification as long as our intelligence remains human.</p>
+
+<font class="sc">London</font>, 1878.
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h2>ANALYSIS.</h2>
+
+<h3><a href="#ChapI">CHAPTER I</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR
+OF THEISM.</h4>
+
+<font class="sc">sect</font>.
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect1">1</a>. Introductory.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect2">2</a>. Object of the chapter.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect3">3</a>. The Argument from the Inconceivability of
+  Self-existence.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect4">4</a>. The Argument from the Desirability of there
+  being a God.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect5">5</a>. The Argument from the Presence of Human
+  Aspirations.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect6">6</a>. The Argument from Consciousness.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect7">7</a>. The Argument for a First Cause.</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ChapII">CHAPTER II</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND.</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect8">8</a>. Introductory.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect9">9</a>. Examination of the Argument, and the
+  independent coincidence of my views regarding it with those of Mr.
+  Mill.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect10">10</a>. Locke's exposition of the Argument, and a
+  re-enunciation of it in the form of a Syllogism.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect11">11</a>. The Syllogism defective in that it cannot
+  explain Mind in the abstract. Mill quoted and answered. This defect in
+  the Syllogism clearly defined.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect12">12</a>. The Syllogism further defective, in that it
+  assumes Intelligence to be the only possible cause of Intelligence. This
+  assumption amounts to begging the whole question as to the being of a
+  God. Inconceivability of Matter thinking no proof that it may not think.
+  Locke himself strangely concedes this. His fallacies and
+  self-contradictions pointed out in an Appendix.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect13">13</a>. Objector to the Syllogism need not be a
+  Materialist, but assuming that he is one, he is as much entitled to the
+  hypothesis that Matter thinks as a Theist is to his hypothesis that it
+  does not.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect14">14</a>. The two hypotheses are thus of exactly
+  equivalent value, save that while Theism is arbitrary, Materialism has a
+  certain basis of fact to rest upon. This basis defined in a footnote,
+  where also Professor Clifford's essay on "Body and Mind" is briefly
+  examined. Difficulty of estimating the worth of the Argument as to the
+  <i>most</i> conceivable being <i>most</i> likely true.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect15">15</a>. Locke's comparison between certainty of the
+  Inconceivability Argument as applied to Theism and to mathematics shown
+  to contain a <i>virtual</i> though not a <i>formal</i> fallacy.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect16">16</a>. Summary of considerations as to the value of
+  this Argument from Inconceivability.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect17">17</a>. Introductory to the other Arguments in
+  favour of the conclusion that only Intelligence can have caused
+  Intelligence.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect18">18</a>. Locke's presentation of the view that the
+  cause must contain all that is contained in the effects. His statements
+  contradicted. Mill quoted to show that the analogy of Nature is against
+  the doctrine of higher perfections never growing out of lower ones.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect19">19</a>. Enunciation of the last of the Arguments in
+  favour of the proposition that only Intelligence can cause Intelligence.
+  Hamilton quoted to show that in his philosophy the entire question as to
+  the being of a God hinges upon that as to whether or not human volitions
+  are caused.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect20">20</a>. Absurdity of the old theory of Free-will.
+  Hamilton erroneously identified this theory with the fact that we possess
+  a moral sense. His resulting dilemma.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect21">21</a>. Although Hamilton was wrong in thus
+  identifying genuine fact with spurious theory, yet his Argument from the
+  fact of our having a moral sense remains to be considered.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect22">22</a>. The question here is merely as to whether or
+  not the presence of the moral sense can be explained by natural causes.
+  <i>A priori</i> probability of the moral sense having been evolved. <i>A
+  posteriori</i> confirmation supplied by Utilitarianism, &amp;c.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect23">23</a>. Mill's presentation of the Argument a
+  resuscitation of Paley's. His criticism on Paley shown to be unfair.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect24">24</a>. The real fallacy of Paley's presentation
+  pointed out.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect25">25</a>. The same fallacy pointed out in another
+  way.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect26">26</a>. Paley's typical case quoted and examined, in
+  order to illustrate the root fallacy of his Argument from Design. Mill's
+  observations upon this Argument criticised.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect27">27</a>. Result yielded by the present analysis of
+  the Argument from Design. The Argument shown to be a <i>petitio
+  principii</i>.</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ChapIV">CHAPTER IV</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect28">28</a>. My belief that no competent writer in favour
+  of the Argument from Design could have written upon it at all, had it not
+  been for his instinctive appreciation of the much more important Argument
+  from General Laws. The nature of this Argument stated, and its cogency
+  insisted upon.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect29">29</a>. The rational standing of the Argument from
+  General Laws prior to the enunciation of the doctrine of the Conservation
+  of Energy. The Rev. Baden Powell quoted.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect30">30</a>. The nature of General Laws when these are
+  interpreted in terms of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. The
+  word "Law" defined in terms of this doctrine.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect31">31</a>. The rational standing of the Argument from
+  General Laws subsequent to the enunciation of the doctrine of the
+  Conservation of Energy.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect32">32</a>. The self-evolution of General Laws, or the
+  objective aspect of the question as to whether we may infer the presence
+  of Mind in Nature because Nature admits of being intelligently
+  interrogated.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect33">33</a>. The subjective aspect of this question,
+  according to the data afforded by evolutionary psychology.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect34">34</a>. Correspondence between products due to human
+  intelligence and products supposed due to Divine Intelligence, a
+  correspondence which is only generic. Illustrations drawn from
+  prodigality in Nature. Further illustrations. Illogical manner in which
+  natural theologians deal with such difficulties. The generic resemblance
+  contemplated is just what we should expect to find, if the doctrine of
+  evolutionary psychology be true.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect35">35</a>. The last three sections parenthetical.
+  Necessary nature of the conclusion which follows from the last five
+  sections.</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ChapV">CHAPTER V</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE
+BEING OF A GOD.</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect36">36</a>. Emphatic re-statement of the conclusion
+  reached in the previous chapter. This conclusion shown to be of merely
+  scientific, and not of logical conclusiveness. Preparation for
+  considering the question in its purely logical form.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect37">37</a>. The logic of probability in general
+  explained, and canon of interpretation enunciated.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect38">38</a>. Application of this canon to the particular
+  case of Theism.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect39">39</a>. Exposition of the logical state of the
+  question.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect40">40</a>. Exposition continued.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect41">41</a>. Result of the exposition; "Suspended
+  Judgment" the only logical attitude of mind with regard to the question
+  of Theism.</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ChapVI">CHAPTER VI</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect42">42</a>. Statement of the position to which the
+  question of Theism has been reduced by the foregoing analysis.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect43">43</a>. Distinction between a scientific and a
+  metaphysical teleology. Statement of the latter in legitimate terms.
+  Criticism of this statement legitimately made on the side of Atheism as
+  being gratuitous. Impartial judgment on this criticism.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect44">44</a>. Examination of the question as to whether
+  the metaphysical system of teleology is really destitute of all rational
+  support. Pleading of a supposed Theist in support of the system. The
+  principle of correlation of general laws. The complexity of Nature.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect45">45</a>. Summary of the Theist's pleading, and
+  judgment that it fairly removes from the hypothesis of metaphysical
+  teleology the charge of the latter being gratuitous.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect46">46</a>. Examination of the degree of probability
+  that is presented by the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology, comprising
+  an examination of the Theistic objection to the scientific train of
+  reasoning on account of its symbolism, and showing that a no less cogent
+  objection lies against the metaphysical train of reasoning on account of
+  its embodying the supposition of unknowable causes. Distinction between
+  "inconceivability" in a formal or symbolical, and in a material or
+  realisable sense. Reply of a supposed Atheist to the previous pleading of
+  the supposed Theist. Herbert Spencer quoted on inconceivability of cosmic
+  evolution as due to Mind.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect47">47</a>. Final judgment on the rational value of a
+  metaphysical system of teleology. Distinction between "inconceivability"
+  in an absolute and in a relative sense. Final judgment on the attitude of
+  mind which it is rational to adopt towards the question of Theism. The
+  desirability and the rationality of tolerance in this particular
+  case.</p>
+
+<h3><a href="#ChapVII">CHAPTER VII</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.</h4>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect48">48</a>. General summary of the whole essay.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#Sect49">49</a>. Concluding remarks.</p>
+
+<h3>APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.</h3>
+
+  <p><a href="#Appendix"><font class="sc">Appendix</font>.</a></p>
+
+  <p>A Critical Exposition of a Fallacy in Locke's use of the Argument
+  against the possibility of Matter thinking on grounds of its being
+  inconceivable that it should.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#SuppEssI"><font class="sc">Supplementary Essay</font>
+  I.</a></p>
+
+  <p>Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theistical Argument, and
+  criticism to show that it is inadequate to sustain the doctrine of
+  "Cosmic Theism" which Mr. Fiske endeavours to rear upon it.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#SuppEssII"><font class="sc">Supplementary Essay</font>
+  II.</a></p>
+
+  <p>A Critical Examination of the Rev. Professor Flint's work on
+  "Theism".</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#SuppEssIII"><font class="sc">Supplementary Essay</font>
+  III.</a></p>
+
+  <p>On the Speculative Standing of Materialism.</p>
+
+  <p><a href="#SuppEssIV"><font class="sc">Supplementary Essay</font>
+  IV.</a></p>
+
+  <p>On the Final Mystery of Things.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h1>THEISM.</h1>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapI">CHAPTER I</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR
+OF THEISM.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect1">§ 1</a>. Few subjects have occupied so much attention
+  among speculative thinkers as that which relates to the being of God.
+  Notwithstanding, however, the great amount that has been written on this
+  subject, I am not aware that any one has successfully endeavoured to
+  approach it, on all its various sides, from the ground of pure reason
+  alone, and thus to fix, as nearly as possible, the exact position which,
+  in pure reason, this subject ought to occupy. Perhaps it will be thought
+  that an exception to this statement ought to be made in favour of John
+  Stuart Mill's posthumous essay on Theism; but from my great respect for
+  this author, I should rather be inclined to regard that essay as a
+  criticism on illogical arguments, than as a <i>careful</i> or
+  <i>matured</i> attempt to formulate the strictly rational <i>status</i>
+  of the question in all its bearings. Nevertheless, as this essay is in
+  some respects the most scientific, just, and cogent, which has yet
+  appeared on the subject of which it treats, and as anything which came
+  from the pen of that great and accurate thinker is deserving of the most
+  serious attention, I shall carefully consider his views throughout the
+  course of the following pages.</p>
+
+  <p>Seeing then that, with this partial exception, no competent writer has
+  hitherto endeavoured once for all to settle the long-standing question as
+  to the rational probability of Theism, I cannot but feel that any
+  attempt, however imperfect, to do this, will be welcome to thinkers of
+  every school&mdash;the more so in view of the fact that the prodigious
+  rapidity which of late years has marked the advance both of physical and
+  of speculative science, has afforded highly valuable data for assisting
+  us towards a reasonable and, I think, a final decision as to the strictly
+  logical standing of this important matter. However, be my attempt welcome
+  or no, I feel that it is my obvious duty to publish the results which
+  have been yielded by an honest and careful analysis.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect2">§ 2</a>. I may most fitly begin this analysis by
+  briefly disposing of such arguments in favour of Theism as are manifestly
+  erroneous. And I do this the more willingly because, as these arguments
+  are at the present time most in vogue, an exposure of their fallacies may
+  perhaps deter our popular apologists of the future from drawing upon
+  themselves the silent contempt of every reader whose intellect is not
+  either prejudiced or imbecile.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect3">§ 3</a>. A favourite piece of apologetic juggling is
+  that of first demolishing Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &amp;c., by
+  successively calling upon them to explain the mystery of self-existence,
+  and then tacitly assuming that the need of such an explanation is absent
+  in the case of Theism&mdash;as though the attribute in question were more
+  conceivable when posited in a Deity than when posited elsewhere.</p>
+
+  <p>It is, I hope, unnecessary to observe that, so far as the ultimate
+  mystery of existence is concerned, any and every theory of things is
+  equally entitled to the inexplicable fact that something is; and that any
+  endeavour on the part of the votaries of one theory to shift from
+  themselves to the votaries of another theory the <i>onus</i> of
+  explaining the necessarily inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality
+  which borders on the ludicrous.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect4">§ 4</a>. Another argument, or semblance of an
+  argument, is the very prevalent one, "Our heart requires a God; therefore
+  it is probable that there is a God:" as though such a subjective
+  necessity, even if made out, could ever prove an objective existence.<a
+  name="footnotetag1" href="#footnote1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect5">§ 5</a>. If it is said that the theistic aspirations
+  of the human heart, by the mere fact of their presence, point to the
+  existence of a God as to their explanatory cause, I answer that the
+  argument would only be valid after the possibility of any more proximate
+  causes having been in action has been excluded&mdash;else the theistic
+  explanation violates the fundamental rule of science, the Law of
+  Parcimony, or the law which forbids us to assume the action of more
+  remote causes where more proximate ones are found sufficient to explain
+  the effects. Consequently, the validity of the argument now under
+  consideration is inversely proportional to the number of possibilities
+  there are of the aspirations in question being due to the agency of
+  physical causes; and forasmuch as our ignorance of psychological
+  causation is well-nigh total, the Law of Parcimony forbids us to allow
+  any determinate degree of logical value to the present argument. In other
+  words, we must not use the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its
+  presence&mdash;must not argue from our ignorance of psychological
+  possibilities, as though this ignorance were knowledge of corresponding
+  impossibilities. The burden of proof thus lies on the side of Theism, and
+  from the nature of the case this burden cannot be discharged until the
+  science of psychology shall have been fully perfected. I may add that,
+  for my own part, I cannot help feeling that, even in the present
+  embryonic condition of this science, we are not without some indications
+  of the manner in which the aspirations in question arose; but even were
+  this not so, the above considerations prove that the argument before us
+  is invalid. If it is retorted that the fact of these aspirations having
+  had <i>proximate</i> causes to account for their origin, even if made
+  out, would not negative the inference of these being due to a Deity as to
+  their <i>ultimate</i> cause; I answer that this is not to use the
+  argument from the presence of these aspirations; it is merely to beg the
+  question as to the being of a God.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect6">§ 6</a>. Next, we may consider the argument from
+  consciousness. Many persons ground their belief in the existence of a
+  Deity upon a real or supposed necessity of their own subjective thought.
+  I say "real or supposed," because, in its bearing upon rational argument,
+  it is of no consequence of which character the alleged necessity actually
+  is. Even if the necessity of thought be real, all that the fact entitles
+  the thinker to affirm is, that it is impossible for <i>him</i>, by any
+  effort of thinking, to rid himself of the persuasion that God exists; he
+  is not entitled to affirm that this persuasion is necessarily bound up
+  with the constitution of the human mind. Or, as Mill puts it, "One man
+  cannot by proclaiming with ever so much confidence that <i>he</i>
+  perceives an object, convince other people that they see it too.... When
+  no claim is set up to any peculiar gift, but we are told that all of us
+  are as capable of seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels, nay, that
+  we actually do so, and when the utmost effort of which we are capable
+  fails to make us aware of what we are told, we perceive this supposed
+  universal faculty of intuition is but</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>'The Dark Lantern of the Spirit</p>
+      <p>Which none see by but those who bear it.'"</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <p>It is thus, I think, abundantly certain that the present argument
+  must, from its very nature, be powerless as an argument to anyone save
+  its assertor; as a matter of fact, the alleged necessity of thought is
+  not universal; it is peculiar to those who employ the argument.</p>
+
+  <p>And now, it is but just to go one step further and to question whether
+  the alleged necessity of thought is, in any case and properly speaking, a
+  <i>real</i> necessity. Unless those who advance the present argument are
+  the victims of some mental aberration, it is overwhelmingly improbable
+  that their minds should differ in a fundamental and important attribute
+  from the minds of the vast majority of their species. Or, to continue the
+  above quotation, "They may fairly be asked to consider, whether it is not
+  more likely that they are mistaken as to the origin of an impression in
+  their minds, than that others are ignorant of the very existence of an
+  impression in theirs." No doubt it is true that education and habits of
+  thought may so stereotype the intellectual faculties, that at last what
+  is conceivable to one man or generation may not be so to another;<a
+  name="footnotetag2" href="#footnote2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> but to adduce
+  this consideration in this place would clearly be but to destroy the
+  argument from the <i>intuitive</i> necessity of believing in a God.</p>
+
+  <p>Lastly, although superfluous, it may be well to point out that even if
+  the impossibility of conceiving the negation of God were an universal law
+  of human mind&mdash;which it certainly is not&mdash;the fact of his
+  existence could not be thus proved. Doubtless it would be felt to be much
+  more probable than it now is&mdash;as probable, for instance, if not more
+  probable, than is the existence of an external world;&mdash;but still it
+  would not be necessarily true.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect7">§ 7</a>. The argument from the general consent of
+  mankind is so clearly fallacious, both as to facts and principles, that I
+  shall pass it over and proceed at once to the last of the untenable
+  arguments&mdash;that, namely, from the existence of a First Cause. And
+  here I should like to express myself indebted to Mr. Mill for the
+  following ideas:&mdash;"The cause of every change is a prior change; and
+  such it cannot but be; for if there were no new antecedent, there would
+  be no new consequent. If the state of facts which brings the phenomenon
+  into existence, had existed always or for an indefinite duration, the
+  effect also would have existed always or been produced an indefinite time
+  ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of causation, within the
+  sphere of experience, that the causes as well as the effects had a
+  beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem, therefore,
+  that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a first cause,
+  is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation, as it exists
+  within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First
+  Cause."</p>
+
+  <p>The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause argument are
+  tolerably obvious, and had occurred to me before the publication of his
+  essay. I shall, however, adhere to his order of presenting them.</p>
+
+  <p>"But it is necessary to look more particularly into this matter, and
+  analyse more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have
+  experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a
+  beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no
+  beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first
+  or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause
+  anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation."</p>
+
+  <p>He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy supplies
+  us with such a datum, and thus the conclusion easily follows&mdash;"It
+  would seem, then, that the only sense in which experience supports, in
+  any shape, the doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the primæval and
+  universal element of all causes, the First Cause can be no other than
+  Force."</p>
+
+  <p>Still, however, it may be maintained that "all force is will-force."
+  But "if there be any truth in the doctrine of Conservation of Force, ...
+  this doctrine does not change from true to false when it reaches the
+  field of voluntary agency. The will does not, any more than other
+  agencies, create Force: granting that it originates motion, it has no
+  means of doing so but by converting into that particular manifestation, a
+  portion of Force which already existed in other forms. It is known that
+  the source from which this portion of Force is derived, is chiefly, or
+  entirely, the force evolved in the processes of chemical composition and
+  decomposition which constitute the body of nutrition: the force so
+  liberated becomes a fund upon which every muscular and every nervous
+  action, as of a train of thought, is a draft. It is in this sense only
+  that, according to the best lights of science, volition is an originating
+  cause. Volition, therefore, does not answer to the idea of a First Cause;
+  since Force must, in every instance, be assumed as prior to it; and there
+  is not the slightest colour, derived from experience, for supposing Force
+  itself to have been created by a volition. As far as anything can be
+  concluded from human experience, Force has all the attributes of a thing
+  eternal and uncreated....</p>
+
+  <p>"All that can be affirmed (even) by the strongest assertion of the
+  Freedom of the Will, is that volitions are themselves uncaused and are,
+  therefore, alone fit to be the first or universal cause. But, even
+  assuming volitions to be uncaused, the properties of matter, so far as
+  experience discloses, are uncaused also, and have the advantage over any
+  particular volition, in being, so far as experience can show, eternal.
+  Theism, therefore, in so far as it rests on the necessity of a First
+  Cause, has no support from experience."</p>
+
+  <p>Such may be taken as a sufficient refutation of the argument that, as
+  human volition is apparently a cause in nature, and moreover constitutes
+  the basis of our conception of all causation, therefore all causation is
+  probably volitional in character. But as this is a favourite argument
+  with some theists, I shall introduce another quotation from Mr. Mill,
+  which is taken from a different work.</p>
+
+  <p>"Volitions are not known to produce anything directly except nervous
+  action, for the will influences even the muscles only through the nerves.
+  Though it were granted, then, that every phenomenon has an efficient and
+  not merely a phenomenal cause, and that volition, in the case of the
+  particular phenomena which are known to be produced by it, is that cause;
+  are we therefore to say with these writers that since we know of no other
+  efficient cause, and ought not to assume one without evidence, there
+  <i>is</i> no other, and volition is the direct cause of all phenomena? A
+  more outrageous stretch of inference could hardly be made. Because among
+  the infinite variety of the phenomena of nature there is one, namely, a
+  particular mode of action of certain nerves which has for its cause and,
+  as we are now supposing, for its efficient cause, a state of our mind;
+  and because this is the only efficient cause of "which we are conscious,
+  being the only one of which, in the nature of the case, we <i>can</i> be
+  conscious, since it is the only one which exists within ourselves; does
+  this justify us in concluding that all other phenomena must have the same
+  kind of efficient cause with that one eminently special, narrow, and
+  peculiarly human or animal phenomenon?" It is then shown that a logical
+  parallel to this mode of inference is that of generalising from the one
+  known instance of the earth being inhabited, to the conclusion that
+  "every heavenly body without exception, sun, planet, satellite, comet,
+  fixed star, or nebula, is inhabited, and must be so from the inherent
+  constitution of things." After which the passage continues, "It is true
+  there are cases in which, with acknowledged propriety, we generalise from
+  a single instance to a multitude of instances. But they must be instances
+  which resemble the one known instance, and not such as have no
+  circumstance in common with it except that of being instances.... But the
+  supporters of the volition theory ask us to infer that volition causes
+  everything, for no other reason except that it causes one particular
+  thing; although that one phenomenon, far from being a type of all natural
+  phenomena, is eminently peculiar; its laws bearing scarcely any
+  resemblance to those of any other phenomenon, whether of inorganic or of
+  organic nature."<a name="footnotetag3"
+  href="#footnote3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapII">CHAPTER II</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE
+HUMAN MIND.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect8">§ 8</a>. Leaving now the obviously untenable
+  arguments, we next come to those which, in my opinion, may properly be
+  termed scientific.</p>
+
+  <p>It will be convenient to classify those as three in number; and under
+  one or other of these heads nearly all the more intelligent advocates of
+  Theism will be found to range themselves.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect9">§ 9</a>. We have first the argument drawn from the
+  existence of the human mind. This is an argument which, for at least the
+  last three centuries, and especially during the present one, has been
+  more relied upon than any other by philosophical thinkers. It consists in
+  the reflection that the being of our own subjective intelligence is the
+  most certain fact which our experience supplies, that this fact demands
+  an adequate cause for its explanation, and that the only adequate cause
+  of our intelligence must be some other intelligence. Granting the
+  existence of a conditioned intelligence (and no one could reasonably
+  suppose his own intelligence to be otherwise), and the existence of an
+  unconditioned intelligence becomes a logical necessity, unless we deny
+  either the validity of the principle that every effect must have an
+  adequate cause, or else that the only adequate cause of Mind is Mind.</p>
+
+  <p>It has been a great satisfaction to me to find that my examination of
+  this argument&mdash;an examination which was undertaken and completed
+  several months before Mr. Mill's essay appeared&mdash;has been minutely
+  corroborated by that of our great logician. I mention this circumstance
+  here, as on previous occasions, not for the petty motive of vindicating
+  my own originality, but because in matters of this kind the accuracy of
+  the reasoning employed, and therefore the logical validity of the
+  conclusions attained, are guaranteed in the best possible manner, if the
+  trains of thought have been independently pursued by different minds.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect10">§ 10</a>. Seeing that, among the advocates of this
+  argument, Locke went so far as to maintain that by it alone he could
+  render the existence of a Deity as certain as any mathematical
+  demonstration, it is only fair, preparatory to our examining this
+  argument, to present it in the words of this great thinker.</p>
+
+  <p>He says:&mdash;"There was a time when there was no knowing
+  (<i>i.e.</i>, conscious) being, and when knowledge began to be; or else
+  there has been also a knowing being from all eternity. If it be said,
+  there was a time when no being had any knowledge, when that eternal being
+  was void of all understanding, I reply, that then it was impossible there
+  should ever have been any knowledge: it being as impossible that things
+  wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without perception,
+  should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle
+  should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as
+  repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into
+  itself, sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea
+  of a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two
+  right ones."<a name="footnotetag4"
+  href="#footnote4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Now, although this argument has been more fully elaborated by other
+  writers, the above presentation contains its whole essence. It will be
+  seen that it has the great advantage of resting <i>immediately</i> upon
+  the foundation from which all argument concerning this or any other
+  matter, must necessarily arise, viz.,&mdash;upon the very existence of
+  our argumentative faculty itself. For the sake of a critical examination,
+  it is desirable to throw the argument before us into the syllogistic
+  form. It will then stand thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>All known minds are caused by an unknown mind. Our mind is a known
+  mind; therefore, our mind is caused by an unknown mind.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect11">§ 11</a>. Now the major premiss of this syllogism is
+  inadmissible for two reasons: in the first place, it is assumed that
+  known mind can only be caused by unknown mind; and, in the second place,
+  even if this assumption were granted, it would not explain the existence
+  of Mind as Mind. To take the last of these objections first, in the words
+  of Mr. Mill, "If the mere existence of Mind is supposed to require, as a
+  necessary antecedent, another Mind greater and more powerful, the
+  difficulty is not removed by going one step back: the creating mind
+  stands as much in need of another mind to be the source of its existence
+  as the created mind. Be it remembered that we have no direct knowledge
+  (at least apart from Revelation) of a mind which is even apparently
+  eternal, as Force and Matter are: an eternal mind is, as far as the
+  present argument is concerned, a simple hypothesis to account for the
+  minds which we know to exist. Now it is essential to an hypothesis that,
+  if admitted, it should at least remove the difficulty and account for the
+  facts. But it does not account for mind to refer our mind to a prior mind
+  for its origin. The problem remains unsolved, nay, rather increased."</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless, I think that it is open to a Theist to answer, "My
+  object is not to explain the existence of Mind in the abstract, any more
+  than it is my object to explain Existence itself in the abstract&mdash;to
+  either of which absurd attempts Mr. Mill's reasoning would be equally
+  applicable;&mdash;but I seek for an explanation of <i>my own individual
+  finite mind</i>, which I know to have had a beginning in time, and which,
+  therefore, in accordance with the widest and most complete analogy that
+  experience supplies, I believe to have been <i>caused</i>. And if there
+  is no other objection to my believing in Intelligence as the cause of my
+  intelligence, than that I cannot prove my own intelligence caused, then I
+  am satisfied to let the matter rest here; for as every argument must have
+  <i>some</i> basis of assumption to stand upon, I am well pleased to find
+  that the basis in this case is the most solid which experience can
+  supply, viz.,&mdash;the law of causation. Fully admitting that it does
+  not account for Mind (in the abstract) to refer one mind to a prior mind
+  for its origin; yet my hypothesis, if admitted, <i>does</i> account for
+  the fact that <i>my mind</i> exists; and this is all that my hypothesis
+  is intended to cover. For to endeavour to <i>explain</i> the existence of
+  an <i>eternal</i> mind, could only be done by those who do not understand
+  the meaning of these words."</p>
+
+  <p>Now, I think that this reply to Mr. Mill, on the part of a theist,
+  would so far be legitimate; the theistic hypothesis <i>does</i> supply a
+  provisional explanation of the existence of known minds, and it is,
+  therefore, an explanation which, in lieu of a better, a theist may be
+  allowed to retain. But a theist may not be allowed to confuse this
+  provisional explanation of his own mind's existence with that of the
+  existence of Mind in the abstract; he must not be allowed to suppose
+  that, by thus hypothetically explaining the existence of known minds, he
+  is thereby establishing a probability in favour of that hypothetical
+  cause, an Unknown Mind. Only if he has some independent reason to infer
+  that such an Unknown Mind exists, could such a probability be made out,
+  and his hypothetical explanation of known mind become of more value than
+  a guess. In other words, although the theistic hypothesis supplies <i>a
+  possible</i> explanation of known mind, we have no reason to conclude
+  that it is <i>the true</i> explanation, unless other reasons can be shown
+  to justify, on independent grounds, the validity of the theistic
+  hypothesis. Hence it is manifestly absurd to adduce this explanation as
+  evidence of the hypothesis on which it rests&mdash;to argue that Theism
+  must therefore be true; because we assume it to be so, in order to
+  explain <i>known</i> mind, as distinguished from <i>Mind</i>. If it be
+  answered, We are justified in assuming Theism true, because we are
+  justified in assuming that known mind can <i>only</i> have been caused by
+  an unknown mind, and hence that Mind must somewhere be self-existing,
+  then this is to lead us to the second objection to the above
+  syllogism.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect12">§ 12</a>. And this second objection is of a most
+  serious nature. "Mind can only be caused by Mind," and, therefore, Mind
+  must either be uncaused, or caused by a Mind. What is our warrant for
+  ranking this assertion? Where is the proof that nothing can have caused a
+  mind except another mind? Answer to this question there is none. For
+  aught that we can ever know to the contrary, anything within the whole
+  range of the Possible may be competent to produce a self-conscious
+  intelligence&mdash;and to assume that Mind is so far an entity <i>sui
+  generis</i>, that it must either be self-existing, or derived from
+  another mind which is self-existing, is merely to beg the whole question
+  as to the being of a God. In other words, if we can prove that the order
+  of existence to which Mind belongs, is so essentially different from that
+  order, or those orders, to which all else belongs, as to render it
+  <i>abstractedly impossible</i> that the latter can produce the
+  former&mdash;if we can prove this, we have likewise proved the existence
+  of a Deity. But this is just the point in dispute, and to set out with a
+  bare affirmation of it is merely to beg the question and to abandon the
+  discussion. Doubtless, by the mere act of consulting their own
+  consciousness, the fact now in dispute appears to some persons
+  self-evident. But in matters of such high abstraction as this, even the
+  evidence of self-evidence must not be relied upon too implicitly. To the
+  country boor it appears self-evident that wood is annihilated by
+  combustion; and even to the mind of the greatest philosophers of
+  antiquity it seemed impossible to doubt that the sun moved over a
+  stationary earth. Much more, therefore, may our broad distinction between
+  "cogitative and incogitative being"<a name="footnotetag5"
+  href="#footnote5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> not be a distinction which is
+  "legitimated by the conditions of external reality."</p>
+
+  <p>Doubtless many will fall back upon the position already indicated, "It
+  is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into
+  itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea
+  of a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two
+  right ones." But, granting this, and also that conscious matter is the
+  sole alternative, and what follows? Not surely that matter cannot
+  perceive, and feel, and know, merely because it is repugnant to our idea
+  of it that it should. Granting that there is no other alternative in the
+  whole possibility of things, than that matter must be conscious, or that
+  self-conscious Mind must somewhere be self-existing; and granting that it
+  is quite "impossible for us to conceive" of consciousness as an attribute
+  of matter; still surely it would be a prodigious leap to conclude that
+  for this reason matter cannot possess this attribute. Indeed, Locke
+  himself elsewhere strangely enough insists that thought may be a property
+  of matter, if only the Deity chose to unite that attribute with that
+  substance. Why it should be deemed abstractedly impossible for matter to
+  think if there is no God, and yet abstractedly possible that it should
+  think if there is a God, I confess myself quite unable to determine; but
+  I conceive that it is very important clearly to point out this
+  peculiarity in Locke's views, for he is a favourite authority with
+  theists, and this peculiarity amounts to nothing less than a suicide of
+  his entire argument. The mere circumstance that he assumed the Deity
+  capable of endowing matter with the faculty of thinking, could not have
+  enabled him to <i>conceive</i> of matter as thinking, any more than he
+  could <i>conceive</i> of this in the absence of his assumption. Yet in
+  the one case he recognises the possibility of matter thinking, and in the
+  other case denies such possibility, <i>and this on the sole ground of its
+  being inconceivable</i>! However, I am not here concerned with Locke's
+  eccentricities:<a name="footnotetag6"
+  href="#footnote6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> I am merely engaged with the general
+  principle, that a subjective inability to establish certain relations in
+  thought is no sufficient warrant for concluding that corresponding
+  objective relations may not obtain.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect13">§ 13</a>. Hence, an objector to the above syllogism
+  need not be a materialist; it is not even necessary that he should hold
+  any theory of things at all. Nevertheless, for the sake of definition, I
+  shall assume that he is a materialist. As a materialist, then, he would
+  appear to be as much entitled to his hypothesis as a theist is to
+  his&mdash;in respect, I mean, of this particular argument. For although I
+  think, as before shown, that in strict reasoning a theist might have
+  taken exception to the last-quoted passage from Mill in its connection
+  with the law of causation, that passage, if considered in the present
+  connection, is certainly unanswerable. What is the state of the present
+  argument as between a materialist and a theist? The mystery of existence
+  and the inconceivability of matter thinking are their common data. Upon
+  these data the materialist, justly arguing that he has no right to make
+  his own conceptive faculty the unconditional test of objective
+  possibility, is content to merge the mystery of his own mind's existence
+  into that of Existence in general; while the theist, compelled to accept
+  without explanation the mystery of Existence in general, nevertheless has
+  recourse to inventing a wholly gratuitous hypothesis to explain one mode
+  of existence in particular. If it is said that the latter hypothesis has
+  the merit of causing the mystery of material existence and the mystery of
+  mental existence to be united in a thinkable manner&mdash;viz., in a
+  self-existing Mind,&mdash;I reply, It is not so; for in whatever degree
+  it is unthinkable that Matter should be the cause of Mind, in that
+  precise degree must it be unthinkable that Mind was ever the cause of
+  Matter, the correlatives being in each case the same, and experience
+  affording no evidence of causality in either.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect14">§ 14</a>. The two hypotheses, therefore, are of
+  exactly equivalent value, save that while the one has a certain basis of
+  fact to rest upon,<a name="footnotetag7"
+  href="#footnote7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> the other is wholly arbitrary. But
+  it may still be retorted, 'Is not that which is <i>most</i> conceivable
+  <i>most likely</i> to be true? and if it is more conceivable that my
+  intelligence is caused by another Intelligence than that it is caused by
+  Non-intelligence, may I not regard the more conceivable hypothesis as
+  also the more probable one? It is somewhat difficult to say how far this
+  argument is, in this case, valid; only I think it is quite evident that
+  its validity is open to grave dispute. For nothing can be more evident to
+  a philosophical thinker than that the substance of Mind must&mdash;so far
+  at least as we can at present see&mdash;<i>necessarily</i> be unknowable;
+  so that if Matter (and Force) be this substance, we should antecedently
+  expect to find that the actual causal connection should, in this
+  particular case, be more inconceivable than some imaginary one: it would
+  be more natural for the mind to infer that something conceivably more
+  akin to itself should be its cause, than that this cause should be the
+  entity which really gives rise to the unthinkable connection. But even
+  waiving this reflection, and granting that the above argument is
+  <i>valid</i>, it is still to an indefinite degree <i>valueless</i>,
+  seeing that we are unable to tell <i>how much it is more likely</i> that
+  the more conceivable should here be true than that the less conceivable
+  should be so.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect15">§ 15</a>. Returning then to Locke's comparison
+  between the certainty of this argument and that which proves the sum of
+  the angles of a triangle to be equal to two right-angles, I should say
+  that there is a <i>virtual</i>, though not a <i>formal</i>, fallacy in
+  his presentation. For mathematical science being confessedly but of
+  relative significance, any comparison between the degree of certainty
+  attained by reasoning upon so transcendental a subject as the present,
+  and that of mathematical demonstrations regarding relative truth, must be
+  misleading. In the present instance, the whole strain of the argument
+  comes upon the adequacy of the proposed test of truth, viz., our being
+  able to conceive it if true. Now, will any one undertake to say that this
+  test of truth is of equivalent value when it is applied to a triangle and
+  when it is applied to the Deity. In the one case we are dealing with a
+  geometrical figure of an exceedingly simple type, with which our
+  experience is well acquainted, and presenting a very limited number of
+  relations for us to contemplate. In the other case we are endeavouring to
+  deal with the <i>summum genus</i> of all mystery, with reference to which
+  experience is quite impossible, and which in its mention contains all the
+  relations that are to us unknown and unknowable. Here, then, is the
+  oversight. Because men find conceivability a valid test of truth in the
+  affairs of everyday life&mdash;as it is easy to show <i>à priori</i> that
+  it must be, if our experience has been formed under a given code of
+  constant and general laws&mdash;therefore they conclude that it must be
+  equally valid <i>wherever</i> it is applied; forgetting that its validity
+  must perforce decrease in proportion to the distance at which the test is
+  applied from the sphere of experience.<a name="footnotetag8"
+  href="#footnote8"><sup>[8]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect16">§ 16</a>. Upon the whole, then, I think it is
+  transparently obvious that the mere fact of our being unable to conceive,
+  say, how any disposition of matter and motion could possibly give rise to
+  a self-conscious intelligence, in no wise warrants us in concluding that
+  for this reason no such disposition is possible. The only question would
+  appear to be, whether the test which is here proposed as an unconditional
+  criterion of truth should be allowed any the smallest degree of credit.
+  Seeing, on the one hand, how very fallible the test in question is known
+  to have proved itself in many cases of much less speculative
+  difficulty&mdash;seeing, too, that even now "the philosophy of the
+  condition proves that things there are which may, nay must, be true, of
+  which nevertheless the mind is unable to construe to itself the
+  possibility;"<a name="footnotetag9" href="#footnote9"><sup>[9]</sup></a>
+  and seeing, on the other hand, that the substance of Mind, whatever it
+  is, must necessarily be unknowable;&mdash;seeing these things, if any
+  question remains as to whether the test of inconceivability should in
+  this case be regarded as having any degree of validity at all, there can,
+  I think, be no reasonable doubt that such degree should be regarded as of
+  the smallest.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect17">§ 17</a>. Let us then turn to the other
+  considerations which have been supposed to justify the assertion that
+  nothing can have caused our mind save another Mind. Neglecting the
+  crushing fact that "it does not account for Mind to refer it to another
+  Mind for its origin," let as see what positive reasons there are for
+  concluding that no other influence than Intelligence can possibly have
+  produced our intelligence.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect18">§ 18</a>. First we may notice the argument which is
+  well and tersely presented by Locke, thus:&mdash;"Whatsoever is first of
+  all things must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at least,
+  all the perfections that can ever after exist; nor can it ever give to
+  another any perfection that it hath not actually in itself, or at least
+  in a higher degree; it necessarily follows that the first eternal being
+  cannot be Matter." Now, as this presentation is strictly formal, I shall
+  first meet it with a formal reply, and this reply consists in a direct
+  contradiction. It is simply untrue that "whatsoever is first of all
+  things must necessarily contain in it, and actually have, at least, all
+  the perfections that can after exist;" or that it can never "give to
+  another any perfection that it hath not actually in itself." In a sense,
+  no doubt, a cause contains all that is contained in its effects; the
+  latter content being <i>potentially</i> present in the former. But to say
+  that a cause already contains <i>actually</i> all that its effects may
+  afterwards so contain, is a statement which logic and common sense alike
+  condemn as absurd.</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless, although the argument now before us thus admits of a
+  childishly easy refutation on strictly formal grounds, I suspect that in
+  substance the argument in a general way is often relied upon as one of
+  very considerable weight. Even though it is clearly illogical to say that
+  causes cannot give to their effects any perfection which they themselves
+  do not actually present, yet it seems in a general way incredible that
+  gross matter could contain, even potentially, the faculty of thinking.
+  Nevertheless, this is but to appeal to the argument from
+  Inconceivability; to do which, even were it here legitimate, would, as we
+  have seen, be unavailing. But to appeal to the argument from
+  Inconceivability in this case would <i>not</i> be legitimate; for we are
+  in possession of an abundant analogy to render the supposition in
+  question, not only conceivable, but credible. In the words of Mr. Mill,
+  "Apart from experience, and arguing on what is called reason, that is, on
+  supposed self-evidence, the notion seems to be that no causes can give
+  rise to products of a more precious or elevated kind than themselves. But
+  this is at variance with the known analogies of nature. How vastly nobler
+  and more precious, for instance, are the vegetables and animals than the
+  soil and manure out of which, and by the properties of which, they are
+  raised up! The tendency of all recent speculation is towards the opinion
+  that the development of inferior orders of existence into superior, the
+  substitution of greater elaboration, and higher organisation for lower,
+  is the general rule of nature. Whether this is so or not, there are at
+  least in nature a multitude of facts bearing that character, and this is
+  sufficient for the argument."</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect19">§ 19</a>. We now come to the last of the arguments
+  which, so far as I know, have ever been adduced in support of the
+  assertion that there can be no other cause of our intelligence than
+  another and superior Intelligence. The argument is chiefly remarkable for
+  the very great prominence which was given to it by Sir W. Hamilton.</p>
+
+  <p>This learned and able author says:&mdash;"The Deity is not an object
+  of immediate contemplation; as existing and in himself, he is beyond our
+  reach; we can know him only mediately through his works, and are only
+  warranted in assuming his existence as a certain kind of cause necessary
+  to account for a certain state of things, of whose reality our faculties
+  are supposed to inform us. The affirmation of a God being thus a
+  regressive inference from the existence of a special class of effects to
+  the existence of a special character of cause, it is evident that the
+  whole argument hinges on the fact,&mdash;Does a state of things really
+  exist such as is only possible through the agency of a Divine Cause? For
+  if it can be shown that such a state of things does not really exist,
+  then our inference to the kind of cause requisite to account for it is
+  necessarily null.</p>
+
+  <p>"This being understood, I now proceed to show you that the class of
+  phænomena which requires that kind of cause we denominate a Deity is
+  exclusively given in the phænomena of mind,&mdash;that the phænomena of
+  matter taken by themselves, (you will observe the qualification taken by
+  themselves) so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a
+  God, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation.</p>
+
+  <p>"If, in man, intelligence be a free power,&mdash;in so far as its
+  liberty extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and
+  matter; and a power independent of matter necessarily implies the
+  existence of an immaterial subject,&mdash;that is, a spirit. If, then,
+  the original independence of intelligence on matter in the human
+  constitution, in other words, if the spirituality of mind in man be
+  supposed a datum of observation, in this datum is also given both the
+  condition and the proof of a God. For we have only to infer, what analogy
+  entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the same relative supremacy in
+  the universe which it holds in us, and the first positive condition of a
+  Deity is established in the establishment of the absolute priority of a
+  free creative intelligence."<a name="footnotetag10"
+  href="#footnote10"><sup>[10]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect20">§ 20</a>. Thus, according to Sir W. Hamilton, the
+  whole question as to the being of a God depends upon that as to whether
+  our "intelligence be a free power,"&mdash;or, as he elsewhere states it
+  himself, "Theology is wholly dependent upon Psychology, for with the
+  proof of the moral nature of man stands or falls the proof of the
+  existence of a Deity." It will be observed that I am not at present
+  engaged with the legitimacy of this author's decision upon the
+  comparative merits of the different arguments in favour of Theism: I am
+  merely showing the high opinion he entertained of the particular argument
+  before us. He positively affirms that, unless the freedom of the human
+  will be a matter of experience, Atheism is the sole alternative.
+  Doubtless most well-informed readers will feel that the solitary basis
+  thus provided for Theism is a very insecure one, while many such readers
+  will at once conclude that if this is the only basis which reason can
+  provide for Theism to stand upon, Theism is without any rational basis to
+  stand upon at all. I have no hesitation in saying that the last-mentioned
+  opinion is the one to which I myself subscribe, for I am quite unable to
+  understand how any one at the present day, and with the most moderate
+  powers of abstract thinking, can possibly bring himself to embrace the
+  theory of Free-will. I may add that I cannot but believe that those who
+  do embrace this theory with an honest conviction, must have failed to
+  understand the issue to which modern thought has reduced the question.
+  Here, however, is not the place to discuss this question. It will be
+  sufficient for my purpose to show that even Sir W. Hamilton himself
+  considered it a very difficult one; and although he thought upon the
+  whole that the will must be free, he nevertheless allowed&mdash;nay,
+  insisted&mdash;that he was unable to conceive how it could be so. Such
+  inability in itself does not of course show the Free-will theory to be
+  untrue; and I merely point out the circumstance that Hamilton allowed the
+  supposed fact unthinkable, in order to show how very precarious, even in
+  his eyes, the argument which we are considering must have appeared. Let
+  us then, for this purpose, contemplate his attitude with regard to it a
+  little more closely. He says, "It would have been better to show
+  articulately that Liberty and Necessity are both incomprehensible, as
+  beyond the limits of legitimate thought; but that though the Free-agency
+  of Man cannot be speculatively proved, so neither can it be speculatively
+  disproved; while we may claim for it as a fact of real actuality, though
+  of inconceivable possibility, the testimony of consciousness, that we are
+  morally free, as we are morally accountable for our actions. In this
+  manner the whole question of free- and bond-will is in theory abolished,
+  leaving, however, practically our Liberty, and all the moral instincts of
+  Man entire."<a name="footnotetag11"
+  href="#footnote11"><sup>[11]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>From this passage it is clear that Sir W. Hamilton regarded these two
+  counter-theories as of precisely equivalent value in everything save "the
+  testimony of consciousness;" or, as he elsewhere states it, "as equally
+  unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided, schemes are thus
+  theoretically balanced. But, practically, our consciousness of the moral
+  law ... gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over
+  the doctrine of fate."</p>
+
+  <p>But the whole question concerning the freedom of the will has now come
+  to be as to whether or not consciousness <i>does</i> give its verdict on
+  the side of freedom. Supposing we grant that "we are warranted to rely on
+  a deliverance of consciousness, when that deliverance is <i>that</i> a
+  thing is, although we may be unable to think <i>how</i> it can be,"<a
+  name="footnotetag12" href="#footnote12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> in this case
+  the question still remains, whether our opponents have rightly
+  interpreted the deliverance of their consciousness. I, for one, am quite
+  persuaded that I never perform any action without some appropriate
+  motive, or set of motives, having induced me to perform it. However, I am
+  not discussing this question, and I have merely made the above quotations
+  for the purpose of showing that Sir W. Hamilton appears to identify the
+  <i>theory</i> of Free-will with the <i>fact</i> that we possess a moral
+  sense. He argues throughout as though the theory he advocates were the
+  only one that can explain a given "fact of real actuality." But no one
+  with whom we have to deal questions the fact of our having a moral sense;
+  and to identify this "deliverance of consciousness" with belief in the
+  theory that volitions are uncaused, is, or would now be, merely to
+  abandon the only questions in dispute.</p>
+
+  <p>It is very instructive, from this point of view, to observe the
+  dilemma into which Hamilton found himself driven by this identification
+  of genuine fact with spurious theory. He believed that the fact of man
+  possessing an ethical faculty could only be explained by the theory that
+  man's will was not determined by motives; for otherwise man could not be
+  the author of his own actions. But when he considered the matter in its
+  other aspect, he found that his theory of Free-will was as little
+  compatible with moral responsibility as was the opposing theory of
+  "Bond-will;" for not only did he candidly confess that he could not
+  conceive of will as acting without motives, but he further allowed the
+  unquestionable truth "that, though inconceivable, a motiveless volition
+  would, if conceived, be conceived as morally worthless."<a
+  name="footnotetag13" href="#footnote13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> I say this is
+  very instructive, because it shows that in Hamilton's view each theory
+  was alike irreconcilable with "the deliverance of consciousness," and
+  that he only chose the one in preference to the other, because, although
+  not any more conceivable a solution, it seemed to him a more possible
+  one.<a name="footnotetag14" href="#footnote14"><sup>[14]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect21">§ 21</a>. Such, then, is the speculative basis on
+  which, according to Sir W. Hamilton, our belief in a Deity can alone be
+  grounded.</p>
+
+  <p>Those who at the present day are still confused enough in their
+  notions regarding the Free-will question to suppose that any further
+  rational question remains, may here be left to ruminate over this
+  <i>bolus</i>, and to draw from it such nourishment as they can in support
+  of their belief in a God; but to those who can see as plainly as daylight
+  that the doctrine of Determinism not only harmonises with all the facts
+  of observation, but alone affords a possible condition for, and a
+  satisfactory explanation of, the existence of our ethical
+  faculty,&mdash;to such persons the question will naturally
+  arise:&mdash;"Although Hamilton was wrong in identifying a known fact
+  with a false theory, yet may he not have been right in the deductions
+  which he drew from the fact?" In other words, granting that his theory of
+  Free-will was wrong, does not his argument from the existence of a moral
+  sense in man to the existence of a moral Governor of the Universe remain
+  as intact as ever? Now, it is quite true that whatever degree of cogency
+  the argument from the presence of the moral sense may at any time have
+  had, this degree remains unaffected by the explosion of erroneous
+  theories to account for such presence. We have, therefore, still to face
+  the fact that the moral sense of man undoubtedly exists.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect22">§ 22</a>. The question we have to determine is, What
+  evidence have we to show that the moral part of man was created in the
+  image of God; and if there is any such evidence, what counter-existence
+  is there to show that the moral existence of man may be due to natural
+  causes? In deciding this question, just as in deciding any other question
+  of a purely scientific character, we must be guided in our examination by
+  the Law of Parcimony; we must not assume the agency of supernatural
+  causes if we can discover the agency of natural causes; neither must we
+  merge the supposed mystery directly into the highest mystery, until we
+  are quite sure that it does not admit of being proximately explained by
+  the action of proximate influences.</p>
+
+  <p>Now, whether or not Mr. Darwin's theory as to the origin and
+  development of the moral sense be considered satisfactory, there can, I
+  think, be very little doubt in any impartial mind which duly considers
+  the subject, that in <i>some way or other</i> the moral sense has been
+  evolved. The body of scientific evidence which has now been collected in
+  favour of the general theory of evolution is simply overwhelming; and in
+  the presence of so large an analogy, it would require a vast amount of
+  contradictory evidence to remove the presumption that human conscience,
+  like everything else, has been evolved. Now, for my own part, I am quite
+  unable to distinguish any such evidence, while, on the other hand, in
+  support of the <i>à priori</i> presumption that conscience has been
+  evolved, I cannot conceal from myself that there is a large amount of
+  <i>à posteriori</i> confirmation. I am quite unable to distinguish
+  anything in my sense of right and wrong which I cannot easily conceive to
+  have been brought about during the evolution of my intelligence from
+  lower forms of psychical life. On the contrary, everything that I can
+  find in my sense of right and wrong is precisely what I should expect to
+  find on the supposition of this sense having been moulded by the
+  progressive requirements of social development. Read in the light of
+  evolution, Conscience, in its every detail, is deductively explained.</p>
+
+  <p>And, as though there were not sufficient evidence of this kind to
+  justify the conclusion drawn from the theory of evolution, the doctrine
+  of utilitarianism&mdash;separately conceived and separately worked out on
+  altogether independent grounds&mdash;the doctrine of utilitarianism comes
+  in with irresistible force to confirm that <i>à priori</i> conclusion by
+  the widest and most unexceptionable of inductions.<a name="footnotetag15"
+  href="#footnote15"><sup>[15]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>In the supernatural interpretation of the facts, the whole stress of
+  the argument comes upon the character of conscience as a <i>spontaneously
+  admonishing influence which acts independently of our own volition</i>.
+  For it is from this character alone that the inference can arise that
+  conscience is the delegate of the will of another. Thus, to render the
+  whole argument in the singularly beautiful words of Dr.
+  Newman:&mdash;"If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed,
+  are frightened at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies
+  that there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed,
+  whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the same
+  tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother;
+  if, on doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity of mind, the same
+  soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one receiving praise
+  from a father,&mdash;we certainly have within us the image of some person
+  to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our
+  happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in
+  whose anger we waste away. These feelings in us are such as require for
+  their exciting cause an intelligent being; we are not affectionate
+  towards a stone, nor do we feel shame before a horse or a dog; we have no
+  remorse or compunction in breaking mere human law. Yet so it is;
+  conscience emits all these painful emotions, confusion, foreboding,
+  self-condemnation; and, on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep peace,
+  a sense of security, a resignation, and a hope which there is no
+  sensible, no earthly object to elicit. 'The wicked flees when no one
+  pursueth;' then why does he flee? whence his terror? Who is it that he
+  sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart? If
+  the cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the
+  Object to which his perception is directed must be supernatural and
+  divine; and thus the phenomena of conscience as a dictate avail to
+  impress the imagination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge,
+  holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive."<a name="footnotetag16"
+  href="#footnote16"><sup>[16]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Now I have quoted this passage because it seems to me to convey in a
+  concise form the whole of the argument from Conscience. But how
+  tremendous are the inferences which are drawn from the facts! As the
+  first step in our criticism, it is necessary to point out that two very
+  different orders of feelings are here treated by Dr. Newman. There is
+  first the pure or uncompounded ethical feelings, which spring directly
+  from the moral sense alone, and which all men experience in varying
+  degrees. And next there are what we may term the
+  <i>ethico-theological</i> feelings, which can only spring from a blending
+  of the moral sense with a belief in a personal God, or other supernatural
+  agents. The former class of feelings, or the uncompounded ethical class,
+  have exclusive reference to the moral obligations that subsist between
+  ourselves and other human beings, or sentient organisms. The latter class
+  of feelings, or the ethico-theological class, have reference to the moral
+  obligations that are believed to subsist between ourselves and the Deity,
+  or other supernatural beings. Now, in order not to lose sight of this
+  all-important distinction, I shall criticise Dr. Newman's rendering of
+  the ordinary argument from Conscience in each of these two points of
+  views separately. To begin, then, with the uncompounded ethical
+  feelings.</p>
+
+  <p>Such emotions as attend the operation of conscience in those who
+  follow its light alone without any theories as to its supernatural
+  origin, are all of the character of <i>reasonable</i> or
+  <i>explicable</i> emotions. Granting that fellow-feeling has been for the
+  benefit of the race, and therefore that it has been developed by natural
+  causes, certainly there is nothing <i>mysterious</i> in the emotions that
+  attend the violating or the following of the dictates of conscience. For
+  conscience is, by this naturalistic supposition, nothing more than an
+  organised body of certain psychological elements, which, by long
+  inheritance, have come to inform us, by way of intuitive feeling, how we
+  should act for the interests of society; so that, if this hypothesis is
+  correct, there cannot be anything more mysterious or supernatural in the
+  working of conscience than there is in the working of any of our other
+  faculties. That the disagreeable feeling of <i>self-reproach</i>, as
+  distinguished from <i>religious</i> feeling, should follow upon a
+  violation of such an organized body of psychological elements, cannot be
+  thought surprising, if it is remembered that one of these elements is
+  natural fellow-feeling, and the others the elements which lead us to know
+  directly that we have violated the interests of other persons. And as
+  regards the mere fact that the working of conscience is independent of
+  the will, surely this is not more than we find, in varying degrees, to be
+  true of all our emotions; and conscience, according to the evolution
+  theory, has its root in the emotions. Hence, it is no more an argument to
+  say that the irrepressible character of conscience refers us to a God of
+  morality, than it would be to say that the sometimes resistless force of
+  the ludicrous refers us to a god of laughter. Love, again, is an emotion
+  which cannot be subdued by volition, and in its tendency to persist bears
+  just such a striking resemblance to the feelings of morality as we should
+  expect to find on the supposition of the former having played an
+  important part in the genesis of the latter. The <i>dictating</i>
+  character of conscience, therefore, is clearly in itself of no avail as
+  pointing to a superhuman Dictator. Thus, for example, to take Dr.
+  Newman's own illustration, why should we feel such tearful,
+  broken-hearted sorrow on intentionally or carelessly hurting a mother? We
+  see no shadow of a reason for resorting to any supernatural hypothesis to
+  explain the fact&mdash;love between mother and offspring being an
+  essential condition to the existence of higher animals. Yet this is a
+  simple case of truly conscientious feeling, where the thought of any
+  <i>personal</i> cause of conscience <i>need</i> not be entertained, and
+  is certainly not necessary to explain the effects. And similarly with
+  <i>all</i> cases of conscientious feeling, <i>except in cases where it
+  refers directly to its supposed author</i>. But these latter cases, or
+  the ethico-theological class of feelings, are in no way surprising. If
+  the moral sense has had a natural genesis in the actual relations between
+  man and man, as soon as an ideal "image" of "a holy, just, powerful,
+  all-seeing, retributive" God is firmly believed to have an objective
+  existence, as a matter of course moral feelings must become transferred
+  to the relations which are believed to obtain between ourselves and this
+  most holy God. Indeed, it is these very feelings which, in the absence of
+  any proof to the contrary, must be concluded, in accordance with the law
+  of parcimony, to have <i>generated</i> this idea of God as "holy, just,"
+  and good. And the mere fact that, when the complex system of religious
+  belief has once been built up, conscience is strongly wrought upon by
+  that belief and its accompanying emotions, is surely a fact the very
+  reverse of mysterious. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the moral
+  sense has been evolved from the social feelings, and should we not
+  certainly expect that, when the belief in a moral and all-seeing God is
+  superadded, conscience should be distracted at the thought of offending
+  him, and experience a "soothing, satisfactory delight" in the belief that
+  we are pleasing him? And as to the argument, "Why does the wicked flee
+  when none pursueth? whence his terror?" the question admits of only too
+  easy an answer. Indeed, the form into which the question is thrown would
+  almost seem&mdash;were it not written by Dr. Newman&mdash;to imply a
+  sarcastic reference to the power of superstition. "Who is it that," not
+  only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the mediæval sorcerer, or the
+  frightened child, "sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers
+  of his heart?" Who but the "image" of his own thought? "If the cause of
+  these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which
+  his perception is directed must be supernatural and divine." Assuredly;
+  but what an inference from what an assumption! Whether or not the moral
+  sense has been developed by natural causes, "these emotions" of terror at
+  the thought of offending beings "supernatural and divine" are not of such
+  unique occurrence "in the visible world" as to give Dr. Newman the
+  monopoly of his particular "Object." With a deeper meaning, therefore,
+  than he intends may we repeat, "The phenomena of conscience as a dictate
+  <i>avail</i> to impress the <i>imagination</i> with the <i>picture</i> of
+  a Supreme Governor." But criticism here is positively painful. Let it be
+  enough to say that those of us who do not already believe in any such
+  particular "Object"&mdash;be it ghost, shape, demon, or deity&mdash;are
+  strangers, utter and complete, to any such supernatural pursuers. The
+  fact, therefore, of these various religious emotions being associated
+  with conscience in the minds of theists, can in itself be no proof of
+  Theism, seeing that it is the theory of Theism which itself
+  <i>engenders</i> these emotions; those who do not believe in this theory
+  experiencing none of these feelings of personal dread, responsibility to
+  an unknown God, and the feelings of doing injury to, or of receiving
+  praise from, a parent. To such of us the violation of conscience is its
+  own punishment, as the pursuit of virtue is its own reward. For we know
+  that not more certainly than fire will burn, any violation of the
+  deeply-rooted feelings of our humanity will leave a gaping wound which
+  even time may not always heal. And when it is shown us that our natural
+  dread of fire is due to a supernatural cause, we may be prepared to
+  entertain the argument that our natural dread of sin, as distinguished
+  from our dread of God, is likewise due to such a cause. But until this
+  can be done we must, as reasonable men, <i>whose minds have been trained
+  in the school of nature</i>, forbear to allow that the one fact is of any
+  greater cogency than the other, so far as the question of a supernatural
+  cause of either is concerned. For, as we have already seen, the law of
+  parcimony forbids us to ascribe "the phenomena of conscience as a
+  dictate" to a supernatural cause, until the science of psychology shall
+  have proved that they cannot have been due to natural causes. But, as we
+  have also seen, the science of psychology is now beginning, as quick and
+  thoroughly as can be expected, to prove the very converse; so that the
+  probability is now overwhelming that our moral sense, like all our other
+  faculties, has been evolved. Therefore, while the burden of proof really
+  lies on the side of Theism&mdash;or with those who account for the
+  natural phenomena of conscience by the hypothesis of a supernatural
+  origin&mdash;this burden is now being rapidly discharged by the opposite
+  side. That is to say, while the proofs which are now beginning to
+  substantiate the naturalistic hypothesis are all in full accord with the
+  ordinary lines of scientific explanations, the vague and feeble
+  reflections of those who still maintain that Conscience is evidence of
+  Deity, are all such as run counter to the very truisms of scientific
+  method.</p>
+
+  <p>In the face of all the facts, therefore, I find it impossible to
+  recognise as valid any inference which is drawn from the existence of our
+  moral sense to the existence of a God; although, of course, all
+  inferences drawn from the existence of our moral sense to the
+  <i>character</i> of a God already believed to exist remain unaffected by
+  the foregoing considerations.<a name="footnotetag17"
+  href="#footnote17"><sup>[17]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapIII">CHAPTER III</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect23">§ 23</a>. The argument from Design, as presented by
+  Mill, is merely a resuscitation of it as presented by Paley. True it is
+  that the logical penetration of the former enabled him to perceive that
+  the latter had "put the case much too strongly;" although, even here, he
+  has failed to see wherein Paley's error consisted. He says:&mdash;"If I
+  found a watch on an apparently desolate island, I should indeed infer
+  that it had been left there by a human being; but the inference would not
+  be from the marks of design, but because I already know by direct
+  experience that watches are made by men." Now I submit that this misses
+  the whole point of Paley's meaning; for it is evident that there would be
+  no argument at all unless this author be understood to say what he
+  clearly enough expresses, viz., that the evidence of design supposed to
+  be afforded by the watch is supposed to be afforded by examination of its
+  mechanism only, and not by any previous knowledge as to how that
+  particular mechanism called a watch is made. Paley, I take it, only chose
+  a watch for his example because he knew that no reader would dispute the
+  fact that watches are constructed by design: except for the purpose of
+  pointing out that mechanism is in some cases admitted to be due to
+  intelligence, for all the other purposes of his argument he might as well
+  have chosen for his illustration any case of mechanism occurring in
+  nature. What the real fallacy in Paley's argument is, is another
+  question, and this I shall now endeavour to answer; for, as Mill's
+  argument is clearly the same in kind as that of Paley and his numberless
+  followers, in examining the one I am also examining the other.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect24">§ 24</a>. In nature, then, we see innumerable
+  examples of apparent design: are these of equal value in testifying to
+  the presence of a designing intelligence as are similar examples of human
+  contrivance, and if not, why not? The answer to the first of these
+  questions is patent. If such examples were of the same value in the one
+  case as they are in the other, the existence of a Deity would be, as
+  Paley appears to have thought it was, demonstrated by the fact. A brief
+  and yet satisfactory answer to the second question is not so easy, and we
+  may best approach it by assuming the existence of a Deity. If, then,
+  there is a God, it by no means follows that every apparent contrivance in
+  nature is an actual contrivance, in the same sense as is any human
+  contrivance. The eye of a vertebrated animal, for instance, exhibits as
+  much apparent design as does a watch; but no one&mdash;at the present
+  day, at least&mdash;will undertake to affirm that the evidence of divine
+  thought furnished by one example is as conclusive as is the evidence of
+  human thought furnished by the other&mdash;and this even assuming a Deity
+  to exist. Why is this? The reason, I think, is, that we know by our
+  personal experience what are our own relations to the material world, and
+  to the laws which preside over the action of physical forces; while we
+  can have no corresponding knowledge of the relations subsisting between
+  the Deity and these same objects of our own experience. Hence, to suppose
+  that the Deity constructed the eye by any such process of thought as we
+  know that men construct watches, is to make an assumption not only
+  incapable of proof, but destitute of any assignable degree of likelihood.
+  Take an example. The relation in which a bee stands to the external world
+  is to a large extent a matter of observation, and, therefore, no one
+  imagines that the formation of its scientifically-constructed cells is
+  due to any profound study on the bee's part. Whatever the origin of the
+  cell-making instinct may have been, its nature is certainly not the same
+  as it would have been in man, supposing him to have had occasion to
+  construct honeycombs. It may be said that the requisite calculations have
+  been made for the bees by the Deity; but, even if this assumption were
+  true, it would be nothing to the point, which is merely that even within
+  the limits of the animal kingdom the relations of intelligence to the
+  external world are so diverse, that the same results may be accomplished
+  by totally different intellectual processes. And as this example is
+  parallel to the case on which we are engaged in everything save the
+  <i>observability</i> of the relations involved, it supplies us with the
+  exact measure of the probability we are trying to estimate. Hence it is
+  evident that so long as we remain ignorant of the element essential to
+  the argument from design in its Paleyerian form&mdash;viz., knowledge or
+  presumption of the relations subsisting between an hypothetical Deity and
+  his creation&mdash;so long must that argument remain, not only
+  unassignably weak, but incapable of being strengthened by any number of
+  examples similar in kind.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect25">§ 25</a>. To put the case in another way. The root
+  fallacy in Paley's argument consisted in reasoning from a particular to
+  an universal. Because he knew that design was the cause of adaptation in
+  some cases, and because the phenomena of life exhibited more instances of
+  adaptation than any other class of phenomena in nature, he pointed to
+  these phenomena as affording an exceptional kind of proof of the presence
+  in nature of intelligent agency. Yet, if it is admitted&mdash;and of
+  this, even in Paley's days, there was a strong analogical
+  presumption&mdash;that the phenomena of life are throughout their history
+  as much subject to law as are any other phenomena whatsoever,&mdash;that
+  the method of the divine government, supposing such to exist, is the same
+  here as elsewhere; then nothing can be clearer than that any amount of
+  observable adaptation of means to ends within this class of phenomena
+  cannot afford any different kind of evidence of <i>design</i> than is
+  afforded by any other class of phenomena whatsoever. Either we know the
+  relations of the Deity to his creation, or we do not. If we do, then we
+  must know whether or not <i>every</i> physical change which occurs in
+  accordance with law&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, every change occurring within
+  experience, and so, until contrary evidence is produced, presumably every
+  change occurring beyond experience&mdash;was separately planned by the
+  Deity. If we do not, then we have no more reason to suppose that any one
+  set of physical changes rather than another has been separately planned
+  by him, unless we could point (as Paley virtually pointed) to one
+  particular set of changes and assert, These are not subject to the same
+  method of divine government which we observe elsewhere, or, in other
+  words, to law. If it is retorted that <i>in some way or other</i> all
+  these wonderful adaptations must ultimately have been due to
+  intelligence, this is merely to shift the argument to a ground which we
+  shall presently have to consider: all we are now engaged upon is to show
+  that we have no right to found arguments on the assumed <i>mode</i>,
+  <i>manner</i>, or <i>process</i> by which the supposed intelligence is
+  thought to have operated. We can here see, then, more clearly where Paley
+  stumbled. He virtually assumed that the relations subsisting between the
+  Deity and the universe were such, that the exceptional adaptations met
+  with in the organised part of the latter cannot have been due to the same
+  intellectual <i>processes</i> as was the rest of the universe&mdash;or
+  that, if they were, still they yielded better evidence of having been due
+  to these processes than does the rest of the universe. And it is easy to
+  perceive that his error arose from his pre-formed belief in special
+  creation. So long as a man regards every living organism which he sees as
+  the lineal descendant of a precisely similar organism originally struck
+  out by the immediate fiat of Deity, so long is he justified in holding
+  his axiom, "Contrivance must have had a contriver." For "adaptation" then
+  becomes to our minds the synonym of "contrivance"&mdash;it being utterly
+  inconceivable that the numberless adaptations found in any living
+  organism could have resulted in any other way than by intelligent
+  contrivance, at the time when this organism was in the first instance
+  <i>suddenly</i> introduced into its complex conditions of life. Still, as
+  an argument, this is of course merely reasoning in a circle: we adopt a
+  hypothesis which presupposes the existence of a Deity as the first step
+  in the proof of his existence. I do not say that Paley committed this
+  error expressly, but merely that if it had not been for his pre-formed
+  conviction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he would
+  probably not have written his "Natural Theology."</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect26">§ 26</a>. Thus let us take a case of his own
+  choosing, and the one which is adduced by him as typical of "the
+  application of the argument." "I know of no better method of introducing
+  so large a subject than that of comparing a single thing with a single
+  thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As far as the examination
+  of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye
+  was made for vision as there is that the telescope was made for assisting
+  it. They are both made upon the same principles, both being adjusted to
+  the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are
+  regulated. I speak not of the origin of the laws themselves; but these
+  laws being fixed, the construction in both cases is adapted to them. For
+  instance: these laws require, in order to produce the same effect, that
+  the rays of light, in passing through water into the eye, should be
+  refracted by a more convex surface than when it passes out of air into
+  the eye. Accordingly we find that the eye of a fish, in that part of it
+  called the crystalline lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial
+  animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there be than this
+  difference?" But what, let us ask, is the proximate cause of this
+  difference? 'The immediate volition of the Deity, manifested in special
+  creation,' virtually answers Paley; while we of to-day are able to reply,
+  'The agency of natural laws, to wit, inheritance, variation, survival of
+  the fittest, and probably of other laws as yet not discovered.' Now, of
+  course, according to the former of these two premises, there can be no
+  more legitimate conclusion than that the difference in question is due to
+  intelligent and special design; but, according to the other premise, it
+  is equally clear that no conclusion can be more unwarranted; for, under
+  the latter view, the greater rotundity of the crystalline lens in a
+  fish's eye no more exhibits the presence of any special design than does
+  the adaptation of a river to the bed which it has itself been the means
+  of excavating. When, therefore, Paley goes on to ask:&mdash;"How is it
+  possible, under circumstances of such close affinity, and under the
+  operation of equal evidence, to exclude contrivance from the case of the
+  eye, yet to acknowledge the proof of contrivance having been employed, as
+  the plainest and clearest of all propositions, in the case of the
+  telescope?" the answer is sufficiently obvious, namely, that the
+  "evidence" in the two cases is <i>not</i> "equal;"&mdash;any more than is
+  the existence, say, of the Nile of equal value in point of evidence that
+  it was designed for traffic, as is the existence of the Suez Canal that
+  it was so designed. And the mere fact that the problem of achromatism was
+  solved by "the mind of a sagacious optician inquiring how this matter was
+  managed in the eye," no more proves that "this could not be in the eye
+  without purpose, which suggested to the optician the only effectual means
+  of attaining that purpose," than would the fact, say, of the winnowing of
+  corn having suggested the fanning-machine prove that air currents were
+  designed for the purpose of eliminating chaff from grain. In short, the
+  real substance of the argument from Design must eventually merge into
+  that which Paley, in the above-quoted passage, expressly passes
+  over&mdash;viz., "the origin of the laws themselves;" for so long as
+  there is any reason to suppose that any apparent "adaptation" to a
+  certain set of "fixed laws" is itself due to the influence of other
+  "fixed laws," so long have we as little right to say that the latter set
+  of fixed laws exhibit any better indications of intelligent adaptation to
+  the former set, than the former do to that of the latter&mdash;the eye to
+  light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive that Mill is entirely
+  wrong when he says of Paley's argument, "It surpasses analogy exactly as
+  induction surpasses it," because "the instances chosen are particular
+  instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a real
+  connection with an intelligent origin&mdash;the fact of conspiring to an
+  end." Experience shows as this, but it shows us more besides; it shows us
+  that there is no <i>necessary</i> or <i>uniform</i> connection between an
+  "intelligent origin" and the fact of apparent "means conspiring to an
+  [apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to compare this
+  quotation just made from Mill, and the long train of reasoning that
+  follows, with an admirable illustration in Mr. Wallace's "Natural
+  Selection," he will be well rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr.
+  Mill's reasoning so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for
+  the respective dates of publication, one might have thought the latter
+  had an express reference to the former.<a name="footnotetag18"
+  href="#footnote18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> True, Mr. Mill closes his argument
+  with a brief allusion to the "principle of the survival of the fittest,"
+  observing that "creative forethought is not absolutely the only link by
+  which the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be connected
+  with the fact of sight." I am surprised, however, that a man of Mr.
+  Mill's penetration did not see that whatever view we may take as to "the
+  adequacy of this principle (<i>i.e.</i>, Natural Selection) to account
+  for such truly admirable combinations as some of those in nature," the
+  argument from <i>Design</i> is not materially affected. So far as this
+  argument is concerned, the issue is not Design <i>versus</i> Natural
+  Selection, but it is Design <i>versus</i> Natural Law. By all means,
+  "leaving this remarkable speculation (<i>i.e.</i>, Mr. Darwin's) to
+  whatever fate the progress of discovery may have in store for it," and it
+  by no means follows that "in the present state of knowledge the
+  adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability in favour of
+  creation by intelligence." For whatever we may think of this special
+  theory as to the <i>mode</i>, there can be no longer any reasonable
+  doubt, "in the present state of our knowledge," as to the truth of the
+  general theory of <i>Evolution</i>; and the latter, if accepted, is as
+  destructive to the argument from <i>Design</i> as would the former be if
+  proved. In a word, it is the <i>fact</i> and not the <i>method</i> of
+  Evolution which is subversive of Teleology in its Paleyerian form.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect27">§ 27</a>. We have come then to this:&mdash;Apparent
+  intellectual adaptations are perfectly valid indications of design, so
+  long as their authorship is known to be confined to human intelligence;
+  for then we know from experience what are our relations to these laws,
+  and so in any given case can argue <i>à posteriori</i> that such an
+  adaptation to such a set of laws by such an intelligence can only have
+  been due to such a process. But when we overstep the limits of
+  experience, we are not entitled to argue anything <i>à priori</i> of any
+  other intelligence in this respect, even supposing any such intelligence
+  to exist. The analogy by which the unknown relations are inferred from
+  the known is "infinitely precarious;" seeing that two of the analogous
+  terms&mdash;to wit, the divine intelligence and the human&mdash;may
+  differ to an immeasurable extent in their properties&mdash;nay, are
+  supposed thus to differ, the one being supposed omniscient, omnipotent,
+  &amp;c., and the other not. And, as a final step, we may now see that the
+  argument from Design, in its last resort, resolves itself into a
+  <i>petitio principii</i>. For, ultimately, the only point which the
+  analogical argument in question is adduced to prove is, that the
+  relations subsisting between an Unknown Cause and certain physical forces
+  are so far identical with the relations known to subsist between human
+  intelligence and these same forces, that similar intellectual processes
+  are required in the two cases to account for the production of similar
+  effects&mdash;and hence that the Unknown Cause is intelligent. But it is
+  evident that the analogy itself can have no existence, except upon the
+  presupposition that these two sets of relations <i>are</i> thus
+  identical. The point which the analogy is adduced to prove is therefore
+  postulated by the fact of its being adduced at all, and the whole
+  argument resolves itself into a case of <i>petitio principii</i>.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapIV">CHAPTER IV</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect28">§ 28</a>. Turning now to an important error of Mr.
+  Mill's in respect of omission, I firmly believe that all competent
+  writers who have ever undertaken to support the argument from Design,
+  have been moved to do so by their instinctive appreciation of the much
+  more important argument, which Mill does not mention at all and which we
+  now proceed to consider&mdash;the argument from General Laws. That is to
+  say, I cannot think that any one competent writer ever seriously
+  believed, had he taken time to analyse his beliefs, that the cogency of
+  his argument lay in assuming any knowledge concerning the <i>process</i>
+  of divine thought; he must have really believed that it lay entirely in
+  his observation of the <i>product</i> of divine thought&mdash;or rather,
+  let us say, of divine intelligence. Now this is the whole difference
+  between the argument from Design and the argument from General Laws. The
+  argument from Design says, There must be a God, because such and such an
+  organic structure must have been due to such and such an intellectual
+  <i>process</i>. The argument from General Laws says, There must be a God,
+  because such and such an organic structure must <i>in some way or other
+  have been ultimately due to</i> intelligence. Nor does this argument end
+  here. Not only must such and such an organic structure have been
+  ultimately due to intelligence, but every such structure&mdash;nay, every
+  phenomenon in the universe&mdash;must have been the same; for all
+  phenomena are alike subject to the same method of sequence. The argument
+  is thus a cumulative one; for as there is no single known exception to
+  this universal mode of existence, the united effect of so vast a body of
+  evidence is all but irresistible, and its tendency is clearly to point us
+  to some <i>one</i> explanatory cause. The scope of this argument is
+  therefore co-extensive with the universe; it draws alike upon all
+  phenomena with which experience is acquainted. For instance, it contains
+  all the phenomena covered by the Design argument, just as a genus
+  contains any one of its species; it being manifest, from what was said in
+  the last section, that if the general doctrine of Evolution is accepted,
+  the argument from Design must of necessity merge into that from General
+  Laws. And this wide basis, we may be sure, must be the most legitimate
+  one whereon to rest an argument in favour of Theism. If there is any such
+  thing as such an argument at all, the most unassailable field for its
+  display must be the universe as a whole, seeing that if we separate any
+  one section of the universe from the rest, and suppose that we here
+  discover a different kind of testimony to intelligence from that which we
+  can discover elsewhere, we may from analogy be abundantly sure that on
+  the confines of our division there must be second causes and general laws
+  at work (whether discoverable or not), which are the immediate agents in
+  the production of the observed results. Of course I do not deny that some
+  classes of phenomena afford us more and better proofs of intellectual
+  agency than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being more
+  numerous, subtle, and complex; but it will be seen that this is a
+  different interpretation of the evidence from that against which I am
+  contending. Thus, if there are tokens of divine intention (as
+  distinguished from design) to be met with in the eye,&mdash;if it is
+  inconceivable that so "nice and intricate a structure" should exist
+  without intelligence as its <i>ultimate</i> cause; then the discovery of
+  natural selection, or of any other law, as the <i>manner</i> in which
+  this intelligence wrought in no wise attenuates the proof as to the fact
+  of an intelligent cause. On the contrary, it tends rather to confirm it;
+  for, besides the evidence before existing, there is added that which
+  arises from the conformity of the method to that which is observable in
+  the rest of the universe.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and others have said, I
+  cannot but feel that the ubiquitous action of general laws is, of all
+  facts supplied by experience, the most cogent in its bearing upon
+  teleology. If perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does not
+  indicate the existence of a presiding intelligence, it becomes a question
+  whether any other kind of method&mdash;short of the intelligently
+  miraculous&mdash;could possibly do so; seeing that the further the divine
+  <i>modus operandi</i> (supposing such to exist) were removed from
+  absolute uniformity, the greater would be the room for our interpreting
+  it as mere fortuity. But forasmuch as the progress of science has shown
+  that within experience the method of the Supreme Causality is absolutely
+  uniform, the hypothesis of fortuity is rendered irrational; and let us
+  think of this Supreme Causality as we may, the fact remains that from it
+  there emanates a directive influence of uninterrupted consistency, on a
+  scale of stupendous magnitude and exact precision, worthy of our highest
+  possible conceptions of Deity.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect29">§ 29</a>. Had it been my lot to have lived in the
+  last generation, I doubt not that I should have regarded the foregoing
+  considerations as final: I should have concluded that there was an
+  overwhelming balance of rational probability in favour of Theism; and I
+  think I should also have insisted that this balance of rational
+  probability would require to continue as it was till the end of time. I
+  should have maintained, in some such words as the following, in which the
+  Rev. Baden Powell conveys this argument:&mdash;"The very essence of the
+  whole argument is the invariable preservation of the principle of
+  <i>order</i>: not necessarily such as we can directly recognise, but the
+  universal conviction of the unfailing subordination of everything to
+  <i>some</i> grand principles of <i>law</i>, however imperfectly
+  apprehended in our partial conceptions, and the successive subordination
+  of such laws to others of still higher generality, to an extent
+  transcending our conceptions, and constituting the true chain of
+  universal causation which culminates in the sublime conception of the
+  <font class="sc">Cosmos</font>.</p>
+
+  <p>"It is in immediate connection with this enlarged view of universal
+  immutable natural order that I have regarded the narrow notions of those
+  who obscure the sublime prospect by imagining so unworthy an idea as that
+  of occasional interruptions in the physical economy of the world.</p>
+
+  <p>"The only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden
+  supernatural origination of new species of organised beings in remote
+  geological epochs. It is in relation to the broad principle of law, if
+  once rightly apprehended, that such inferences are seen to be wholly
+  unwarranted by science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and
+  inadmissible in philosophy; while, even in those instances properly
+  understood, the real scientific conclusions of the invariable and
+  indissoluble chain of causation stand vindicated in the sublime
+  contemplations with which they are thus associated.</p>
+
+  <p>"To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essential
+  requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of this
+  <i>one grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting
+  the very idea of nature</i>;&mdash;which forms the vital essence of the
+  whole of inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher
+  inferences from the inductive study of natural causes which are the
+  vindications of a supreme intelligence and a moral cause.</p>
+
+  <p>"<i>The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the
+  admission of this grand principle</i>. Those who are not prepared to
+  embrace it in its full extent may probably not accept the conclusions;
+  but they must be sent back to the school of inductive science, where
+  alone it must be independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with
+  the mind of the student in the first instance.</p>
+
+  <p>"On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and
+  general results of inductive science,... we recognise the powers of
+  intellect fitly employed in the study of nature,... pre-eminently leading
+  us to perceive <i>in nature</i>, and in the invariable and universal
+  constancy of its laws, the indications of universal, unchangeable, and
+  recondite arrangement, dependence, and connection in reason....</p>
+
+  <p>"We thus see the importance of taking a more enlarged view of the
+  great argument of natural theology; and the necessity for so doing
+  becomes the more apparent when we reflect on the injury to which these
+  sublime inferences are exposed from the narrow and unworthy form in which
+  the reasoning has been too often conducted....</p>
+
+  <p>"The satisfactory view of the whole case can only be found in those
+  more enlarged conceptions which are furnished by the grand contemplation
+  of cosmical order and unity, and which do not refer to inferences from
+  the <i>past</i>, but to proofs of the <i>ever-present</i> mind and reason
+  in nature.</p>
+
+  <p>"If we read a book which it requires much thought and exercise of
+  reason to understand, but which we find discloses more and more truth and
+  reason as we proceed in the study, and contains clearly more than we can
+  at present comprehend, then undeniably we properly say that thought and
+  reason <i>exist in that book</i> irrespectively of our minds, and equally
+  so of any question as to its author or origin. Such a book confessedly
+  exists, and is ever open to us in the natural world. Or, to put the case
+  under a slightly different form:&mdash;When the astronomer, the
+  physicist, the geologist, or the naturalist notes down a series of
+  observed facts or measured dates, he is not an <i>author</i> expressing
+  his own ideas,&mdash;he is a mere <i>amanuensis</i> taking down the
+  dictations of nature: his observation book is the record of the thoughts
+  of <i>another mind</i>: he has but set down literally what he himself
+  does not understand, or only very imperfectly. On further examination,
+  and after deep and anxious study, he perhaps begins to decipher the
+  meaning, by perceiving some law which gives a signification to the facts;
+  and the further he pursues the investigation up to any more comprehensive
+  theory, the more fully he perceives that there is a higher reason, of
+  which his own is but the humbler interpreter, and into whose depths he
+  may penetrate continually further, to discover yet more profound and
+  invariable order and system, always indicating still deeper and more
+  hidden abysses yet unfathomed, but throughout which he is assured the
+  same recondite and immutable arrangement ever prevails.</p>
+
+  <p>"That which requires thought and reason to understand must be itself
+  thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or express must
+  be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained is but partial,
+  then the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind and reason of
+  the student. If the more it be studied the more vast and complex is the
+  necessary connection in reason disclosed, then the more evident is the
+  vast extent and compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested,
+  and its reality, as <i>existing in the immutably connected order of
+  objects examined</i>, independently of the mind of the investigator.</p>
+
+  <p>"But considerations of this kind, just and transcendently important as
+  they are in themselves, give us no aid in any inquiry into the
+  <i>origin</i> of the order of things thus investigated, or the
+  <i>nature</i> or other attributes of the mind evinced in them.</p>
+
+  <p>"The real argument for universal <i>intelligence</i>, manifested in
+  the universality of order and law in the material world, is very
+  different from any attempt to give a form to our conceptions, even by the
+  language of analogy, as to the <i>nature</i> or <i>mode of existence</i>
+  or operation of that intelligence [<i>i.e.</i>, as I have stated the
+  case, the argument can only rest on a study of the <i>products</i>, as
+  distinguished from the <i>processes</i> of such intelligence]: and still
+  more different from any extension of our inference from what <i>is</i> to
+  what <i>may have been</i>, from <i>present</i> order to a supposed
+  <i>origination</i>, first adjustment, or planning of that order.</p>
+
+  <p>"By keeping these distinctions steadily in view, we appreciate
+  properly both the limits and the extent and compass of what we may
+  appropriately call <font class="sc">cosmotheology</font>."<a
+  name="footnotetag19" href="#footnote19"><sup>[19]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>I have quoted these passages at length, because they convey in a more
+  forcible, guarded, and accurate manner than any others with which I am
+  acquainted, the strictly rational standing of this great subject prior to
+  the date at which the above-quoted passage was written. Therefore, as I
+  have said, if it had been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I
+  should certainly have rested in these "sublime conceptions" as in an
+  argument supreme and irrefutable. I should have felt that the progress of
+  physical knowledge could never exert any other influence on Theism than
+  that of ever tending more and more to confirm that magnificent belief, by
+  continuously expanding our human thoughts into progressively advancing
+  conceptions, ever grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin
+  of Things&mdash;the Mind of God. Such would have been my hope&mdash;such
+  would have been my prayer. But now, how changed! Never in the history of
+  man has so terrific a calamity befallen the race as that which all who
+  look may now behold advancing as a deluge, black with destruction,
+  resistless in might, uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our
+  most precious creed, and burying our highest life in mindless desolation.
+  Science, whom erstwhile we thought a very Angel of God, pointing to that
+  great barrier of Law, and proclaiming to the restless sea of changing
+  doubt, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy
+  proud waves be stayed,"&mdash;even Science has now herself thrown down
+  this trusted barrier; the flood-gates of infidelity are open, and Atheism
+  overwhelming is upon us.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect30">§ 30</a>. All and every law follows as a necessary
+  consequence from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
+  matter.<a name="footnotetag20" href="#footnote20"><sup>[20]</sup></a>
+  That this must be so is evident if we consider that, were it not so,
+  force could not be permanent nor matter constant. For instance, if action
+  and reaction were not invariably equal and opposite, force would not be
+  invariably persistent, seeing that in no case can the formula fail,
+  unless some one or other of the forces concerned, or parts of them,
+  disappear. And as with a simple law of this kind, so with every other
+  natural law and inter-operation of laws, howsoever complex such
+  inter-operation may be; for it is manifest that if in any case similar
+  antecedents did not determine similar consequents, on one or other of
+  these occasions some quantum of force, or of matter, or of both, must
+  have disappeared&mdash;or, which is the same thing, the law of causation
+  cannot have been constant. Every natural law, therefore, may be defined
+  as the formula of a sequence, which must either ensue upon certain forces
+  of a given intensity impinging upon certain given quantities, kinds, and
+  forms of matter, or else, by not ensuing, prove that the force or the
+  matter concerned were not of a permanent nature.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect31">§ 31</a>. The argument, then, which was elaborated in
+  <a href="#Sect29">§ 29</a>, and which has so long and so generally
+  received the popular sanction in the common-sense epitome, that in the
+  last record there must be mind in external nature, since "that which it
+  requires thought and reason to understand must itself be thought and
+  reason,"&mdash;this argument, I say, must now for ever be abandoned by
+  reasonable men. No doubt it would be easy to point to several speculative
+  thinkers who have previously combated this argument,<a
+  name="footnotetag21" href="#footnote21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> and from this
+  fact some readers will perhaps be inclined to judge, from a false
+  analogy, that as the argument in question has withstood previous
+  assaults, it need not necessarily succumb to the present one. Be it
+  observed, however, that the present assault differs from all previous
+  assaults, just as demonstration differs from speculation. What has
+  hitherto been but mere guess and unwarrantable assertion has now become a
+  matter of the greatest certainty. That the argument from General Laws is
+  a futile argument, is no longer a matter of unverifiable opinion: it is
+  as sure as is the most fundamental axiom of science. That the argument
+  will long remain in illogical minds, I doubt not; but that it is from
+  henceforth quite inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no
+  question. For the sake, however, of impressing this fact still more
+  strongly upon such readers as have been accustomed to rely upon this
+  argument, and so find it difficult thus abruptly to reverse the whole
+  current of their thoughts,&mdash;for the sake of such, I shall here add a
+  few remarks with the view of facilitating the conception of an universal
+  Order existing independently of Mind.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect32">§ 32</a>. Interpreting the mazy nexus of phenomena
+  only by the facts which science has revealed, and what conclusion are we
+  driven to accept? Clearly, looking to what has been said in the last two
+  sections, that from the time when the process of evolution first
+  began,&mdash;from the time before the condensation of the nebula had
+  showed any signs of commencing,&mdash;every subsequent change or event of
+  evolution was <i>necessarily bound</i> to ensue; else force and matter
+  have not been persistent. How then, it will be asked, did the vast nexus
+  of natural laws which is now observable ever begin or continue to be? In
+  this way. When the first womb of things was pregnant with all the future,
+  there would probably have been existent at any rate not more than one of
+  the formulæ which we now call natural laws. This one law, of course,
+  would have been the law of gravitation. Here we may take our stand. It
+  does not signify whether there ever was a time when gravitation was
+  not,&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, if ever there was a time when matter, <i>as we
+  now know it</i>, was not in existence;&mdash;for if there ever was such a
+  time, there is no reason to doubt, but every reason to conclude, that the
+  evolution of matter, as we now know it, was accomplished in accordance
+  with law. Similarly, we are not concerned with the question as to how the
+  law of gravitation came to be associated with matter; for it is
+  overwhelmingly probable, from the extent of the analogy, that if our
+  knowledge concerning molecular physics were sufficiently great, the
+  existence of the law in question would be found to follow as a necessary
+  deduction from the primary qualities of matter and force, just as we can
+  now see that, when present, its peculiar quantitative action necessarily
+  follows from the primary qualities of space.</p>
+
+  <p>Starting, then, with these data,&mdash;matter, force, and the law of
+  gravitation,&mdash;what must happen? We have the strongest scientific
+  reason to believe that the matter of the solar system primordially
+  existed in a highly diffused or nebulous form. By mutual gravitation,
+  therefore, all the substance of the nebula must have begun to concentrate
+  upon itself, or to condense. Now, from this point onwards, I wish it to
+  be clearly understood that the mere consideration of the supposed facts
+  not admitting of scientific proof, or of scientific explanation if true,
+  in no wise affects the certainty of the doctrine which these facts are
+  here adduced to establish. Fully granting that the alleged facts are not
+  beyond dispute, and that, even if true, innumerable other unknown and
+  unknowable facts must have been associated with them&mdash;fully
+  admitting, in short, that our ideas concerning the genesis of the solar
+  system are of the crudest and least trustworthy character; still, if it
+  be admitted, what at the present day only ignorance or prejudice can
+  deny, viz., that, as a whole, evolution has been the method of the
+  universe; then it follows that the doctrine here contended for is as
+  certainly true as it would be were we fully acquainted with every cause
+  and every change which has acted and ensued throughout the whole process
+  of the genesis of things.</p>
+
+  <p>Now, bearing this caveat in mind, we have next to observe that when
+  once the nebula began to condense, new relations among its constituent
+  parts would, <i>for this reason</i>, begin to be established. "Given a
+  rare and widely diffused mass of nebulous matter,... what are the
+  successive changes that will take place? Mutual gravitation will
+  approximate its atoms, but their approximation will be opposed by atomic
+  repulsion, the overcoming of which implies the evolution of heat." That
+  is to say, the condensation of the nebula as a whole of necessity implies
+  at least the origination of these new material and dynamical relations
+  among its constituent parts. "As fast as this heat partially escapes by
+  radiation, further approximation will take place, attended by further
+  evolution of heat, and so on continuously: the processes not occurring
+  separately, as here described, but simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and
+  with increasing activity." Hence the newly established relations
+  continuously acquire new increments of intensity. But now observe a more
+  important point. The previous essential conditions remaining
+  unaltered&mdash;viz., the persistence of matter and force, as well as, or
+  rather let us say and consequently, the law of gravitation&mdash;these
+  conditions, I say, remaining constant, and the newly established
+  relations would necessarily <i>of themselves</i> give origin to
+  <i>new</i> laws. For whenever two given quantities of force and matter
+  met in one of the novel relations, they would of necessity give rise to
+  novel effects; and whenever, on any future occasion, similar quantities
+  of force and matter again so met, precisely similar effects would of
+  necessity require to occur: but the occurrence of similar effects under
+  similar conditions is all that we mean by a natural law.</p>
+
+  <p>Continuing, then, our quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer's terse and
+  lucid exposition of the nebular theory, we find this doctrine virtually
+  embodied in the next sentences:&mdash;"Eventually this slow movement of
+  the atoms towards their common centre of gravity will bring about
+  phenomena of another order.</p>
+
+  <p>"Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, it will happen
+  that, when the nebulous mass has reached a particular stage of
+  condensation&mdash;when its internally situated atoms have approached to
+  within certain distances, have generated a certain amount of heat, and
+  are subject to a certain mutual pressure (the heat and pressure
+  increasing as the aggregation progresses), some of them will suddenly
+  enter into chemical union. Whether the binary atoms so produced be of
+  kinds such as we know, which is possible, or whether they be of kinds
+  simpler than any we know, which is more probable, matters not to the
+  argument. It suffices that molecular combinations of some species will
+  finally take place." We have, then, here a new and important change of
+  relations. Matter, primordially uniform, has itself become heterogeneous;
+  and in as many places as it has thus changed its state, it must, in
+  virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto novel relations, and so,
+  in many cases, to new laws.<a name="footnotetag22"
+  href="#footnote22"><sup>[22]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this genesis of natural
+  law any further: indeed, it would be quite impossible so to trace it for
+  any considerable distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes
+  of relations renders all speculation as to the actual processes quite
+  useless. This fact, however, as before insisted, in no wise affects the
+  only doctrine which I here enunciate&mdash;viz., that the self-generation
+  of natural law is a necessary corollary from the persistence of matter
+  and force. And that this must be so is now, I hope, sufficiently evident.
+  Just as in the first dawn of things, when the proto-binary compounds of
+  matter gave rise to new relations together with their appropriate laws,
+  so throughout the whole process of evolution, as often as matter acquired
+  a hitherto novel state, or in one of its old states entered into hitherto
+  novel relations, so often would non-existent or even impossible laws
+  become at once possible and necessary. And in this way I cannot see that
+  there is any reason to stop until we arrive at all the marvellous
+  complexity of things as they are. For aught that speculative reason can
+  ever from henceforth show to the contrary, the evolution of all the
+  diverse phenomena of inorganic nature, of life, and of mind, appears to
+  be as necessary and as self-determined as is the being of that mysterious
+  Something which is Everything,&mdash;the Entity we must all believe in,
+  which without condition and beyond relation holds its existence in
+  itself.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect33">§ 33</a>. Does it still seem incredible that,
+  notwithstanding it requires mental processes to interpret external
+  nature, external nature may nevertheless be destitute of mind? Then let
+  us look at the subject on its obverse aspect.</p>
+
+  <p>According to the theory of evolution&mdash;which, be it always
+  remembered, is no mere gratuitous supposition, but a genuine scientific
+  theory&mdash;human intelligence, like everything else, has been evolved.
+  Now in what does the evolution of intelligence consist? Any one
+  acquainted with the writings of our great philosopher can have no
+  hesitation in answering: Clearly and only in the establishment of more
+  and more numerous and complex internal or psychological relations. In
+  other words, the law of intelligence being "that the strengths of the
+  inner cohesions between psychical states must be proportionate to the
+  persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it follows that the
+  development of intelligence is "secured by the one simple principle that
+  experience of the outer relations <i>produces</i> inner cohesions, and
+  makes the inner cohesions strong in proportion as the outer relations are
+  persistent." Now the question before us at present is merely
+  this:&mdash;Must we not infer that these outer relations are regulated by
+  mind, seeing that order is undoubtedly apparent among them, and that it
+  requires mental processes on our part to interpret this order? The only
+  legitimate answer to this question is, that these outer relations
+  <i>may</i> be regulated by mind, but that, in view of the evolution
+  theory, we are certainly not entitled to infer that they <i>are</i> so
+  regulated, <i>merely</i> because it requires mental processes on our part
+  to interpret their orderly character. For if it is true that the human
+  mind was itself evolved by these outer relations&mdash;ever continuously
+  moulded into conformity with them as the prime condition of its
+  existence&mdash;then its process of interpreting them is but reflecting
+  (as it were) in consciousness these outer relations by which the inner
+  ones were originally produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an
+  objective macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable that
+  this objective macrocosm is <i>of itself</i> sufficient to evolve a
+  subjective microcosm, I do not see any the faintest reason for the latter
+  to conclude that a self-conscious intelligence is inherent in the former,
+  merely because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those orderly
+  objective relations by which its own corresponding subjective relations
+  were originally produced. If it is said that it is impossible to conceive
+  how, apart from mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever
+  have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the ground of
+  discussion to that which occupied us in the last section: all we are now
+  engaged upon is,&mdash;Granting that the existence of such orderly
+  relations is actual, whether with or without mind to account for them;
+  and granting also that these relations are <i>of themselves</i>
+  sufficient to produce corresponding subjective relations; then the mere
+  fact of our conscious intelligence being able to discover numerous and
+  complex outer relations answering to those which they themselves have
+  caused in our intelligence, does not warrant the latter in concluding
+  that the causal connection between intelligence and non-intelligence has
+  ever been reversed&mdash;that these outer relations in turn are caused by
+  a similar conscious intelligence. How such a thing as a conscious
+  intelligence is possible is another and wholly unanswerable question
+  (though not more so than that as to the existence of force and matter,
+  and would not be rendered less so by merging the fact in a hypothetical
+  Deity); but granting, as we must, that such an entity does exist, and
+  supposing it to have been evolved by natural causes, then it would appear
+  incontestably to follow, that whether or not objective existence is
+  presided over by objective mind, our subjective mind would <i>alike</i>
+  and <i>equally</i> require to read in the facts of the external world an
+  indication, whether true or false, of some such presiding agency. The
+  subjective mind being, by the supposition, but the obverse aspect of the
+  sum total of such among objective relations as have had a share in its
+  production, when, as in observation and reflection, this obverse aspect
+  is again inverted upon its die, it naturally fits more or less exactly
+  into all the prints.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect34">§ 34</a>. This last illustration, however, serves to
+  introduce us to another point. The supposed evidence from which the
+  existence of mind in nature is inferred does not always depend upon such
+  minute correspondences between subjective method and objective method as
+  the illustration suggests. Every natural theologian has experienced more
+  or less difficulty in explaining the fact, that while there is a
+  tolerably general similarity between the contrivances due to human
+  thought and the apparent contrivances in nature which he regards as due
+  to divine thought, the similarity is nevertheless <i>only</i> general.
+  For instance, if a man has occasion to devise any artificial appliance,
+  he does so with the least possible cost of labour to himself, and with
+  the least possible expenditure of material. Yet it is obvious that in
+  nature as a whole no such economic considerations obtain. Doubtless by
+  superficial minds this assertion will be met at first with an indignant
+  denial: they have been accustomed to accumulate instances of this very
+  principle of economy in nature; perhaps written about it in books, and
+  illustrated it in lectures,&mdash;totally ignoring the fact that the
+  instances of economy in nature bear no proportion at all to the instances
+  of prodigality. Conceive of the force which is being quite uselessly
+  expended by all the wind-currents which are at this moment blowing over
+  the face of Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dissipated
+  during the secular cooling of this single planet. Feebly try to think of
+  what the sun is radiating into space. If it is retorted that we are
+  incompetent to judge of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this
+  is but to abandon the argument from economy whenever it is found
+  untenable: we presume to be competent judges of almighty purposes so long
+  as they appear to imitate our own; but so soon as there is any divergence
+  observable, we change front. By thus selecting all the instances of
+  economy in nature, and disregarding all the vastly greater instances of
+  reckless waste, we are merely laying ourselves open to the charge of an
+  unfair eclecticism. And this formal refutation of the argument from
+  economy admits of being further justified in a strikingly substantial
+  manner; for if all the examples of economy in nature that were ever
+  observed, or admit being observed, were collected into one view, I
+  undertake to affirm that, without exception, they would be found to
+  marshal themselves in one great company&mdash;the subjects whose law is
+  <i>survival of the fittest</i>. One question only will I here ask. Is it
+  possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, after due
+  consideration, to withstand the fact that the solitary exceptions to the
+  universal prodigality so painfully conspicuous in nature are to be found
+  where there is also to be found a full and adequate physical explanation
+  of their occurrence?</p>
+
+  <p>But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars wherein the
+  modes and the means of the supposed divine intelligence differ from those
+  of its human counterpart. Comparative anatomists can point to organic
+  structures which are far from being theoretically perfect: even the mind
+  of man in these cases, notwithstanding its confessed deficiencies in
+  respect both of cognitive and cogitative powers, is competent to suggest
+  improvements to an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all-wise!
+  And what shall we say of the numerous cases in which the supposed
+  purposes of this intelligence could have been attained by other and less
+  roundabout means? In short, not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is
+  admitted, even by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties
+  of reconciling, even approximately, the supposed processes of divine
+  thought with the known processes of human thought are quite insuperable.
+  The fact is expressed by such writers in various ways,&mdash;<i>e.g.</i>,
+  that it would be presumptuous in man to expect complete conformity in all
+  cases; that the counsels of God are past finding out; that his ways are
+  not as our ways, and so on. Observing only, as before, that in thus
+  ignoring adverse cases natural theologians are guilty of an unfair
+  eclecticism, it is evident that all such expressions concede the fact,
+  that even in those provinces of nature where the evidence of superhuman
+  intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance of its apparent products
+  to those of human intelligence consists in a general approximation of
+  method rather than in any precise similarity of particulars: the likeness
+  is generic rather than specific.</p>
+
+  <p>Now this is exactly what we should expect to be the case, if the
+  similarity in question be due to the cause which the present section
+  endeavours to set forth. If all natural laws are self-evolved, and if
+  human intelligence is but a subjective photograph of certain among their
+  interrelations, it seems but natural that when this photograph compares
+  itself with the whole external world from parts of which it was taken,
+  its subjective lights and shadows should be found to correspond with some
+  of the objective lights and shadows much more perfectly than with others.
+  Still there would doubtless be sufficient general conformity to lead the
+  thinking photograph to conclude that the great world of objective
+  reality, instead of being the <i>cause</i> of such conformity as exists,
+  was itself the <i>effect</i> of some common cause,&mdash;that it too was
+  of the nature of a picture. Dropping the figure, if it is true that human
+  intelligence has been evolved by natural law, then in view of all that
+  has been said it must now, I think, be tolerably apparent, <i>that as by
+  the hypothesis human intelligence has always been required to think and
+  to act in conformity with law, human intelligence must at last be in
+  danger of confusing or identifying the fact of action in conformity with
+  law with the existence and the action of a self-conscious intelligence.
+  Reading then in external nature innumerable examples of action in
+  conformity with law, human intelligence falls back upon the unwarrantable
+  identification, and out of the bare fact that law exists in nature
+  concludes that beyond nature there is an Intelligent Lawgiver.</i></p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect35">§ 35</a>. From what has been said in the last five
+  sections, it manifestly follows that all the varied phenomena of the
+  universe not only may, but must, depend upon the persistence of force and
+  the primary qualities of matter.<a name="footnotetag23"
+  href="#footnote23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> Be it remembered that the object
+  of the last three sections was merely to "<i>facilitate conception</i>"
+  of the fact that it does not at all follow, because the phenomena of
+  external nature admit of being intelligently inquired into, therefore
+  they are due to an intelligent cause. The last three sections are hence
+  in a manner parenthetical, and it is of comparatively little importance
+  whether or not they have been successful in their object; for, from what
+  went before, it is abundantly manifest that, whether or not the
+  subjective side of the question admits of satisfactory elucidation, there
+  can be no doubt that the objective side of it is as certain as are the
+  fundamental axioms of science. It does not admit of one moment's
+  questioning that it is as certainly true that all the exquisite beauty
+  and melodious harmony of nature follow as necessarily and as inevitably
+  from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter, as it
+  is certainly true that force is persistent, or that matter is extended
+  and impenetrable. No doubt this generalisation is too vast to be
+  adequately conceived, but there can be equally little doubt that it is
+  necessarily true. If matter and force have been eternal, so far as human
+  mind can soar it can discover no need of a superior mind to explain the
+  varied phenomena of existence. Man has truly become in a new sense the
+  measure of the universe, and in this the latest and most appalling of his
+  soundings, indications are returned from the infinite voids of space and
+  time by which he is surrounded, that his intelligence, with all its noble
+  capacities for love and adoration, is yet alone&mdash;destitute of kith
+  or kin in all this universe of being.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapV">CHAPTER V</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO
+THE BEING OF A GOD.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect36">§ 36</a>. But the discussion must not end here.
+  Inexorable logic has forced us to conclude that, viewing the question as
+  to the existence of a God only by the light which modern science has shed
+  upon it, there no longer appears to be any semblance of an argument in
+  its favour. Let us then turn upon science herself, and question her right
+  to be our sole guide in this matter. Undoubtedly we have no alternative
+  but to conclude that the hypothesis of mind in nature is now logically
+  proved to be as certainly superfluous is the very basis of all science is
+  certainly true. There can no longer be any more doubt that the existence
+  of a God is wholly unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of the
+  universe, than there is doubt that if I leave go of my pen it will fall
+  upon the table. Nay, the doubt is even less than this, because while the
+  knowledge that my pen will fall if I allow it to do so is founded chiefly
+  upon empirical knowledge (I could not predict with <i>à priori</i>
+  certainty that it would so fall, for the pen might be in an electrical
+  state, or subject to some set of unknown natural laws antagonistic to
+  gravity), the knowledge that a Deity is superfluous as an explanation of
+  anything, being grounded on the doctrine of the persistence of force, is
+  grounded on an <i>à priori</i> necessity of reason&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, if
+  this fact were not so, our science, our thought, our very existence
+  itself, would be scientifically impossible.</p>
+
+  <p>But now, having thus stated the case as strongly as I am able, it
+  remains to question how far the authority of science extends. Even our
+  knowledge of the persistence of force and of the primary qualities of
+  matter is but of relative significance. Deeper than the foundations of
+  our experience, "deeper than demonstration&mdash;deeper even than
+  definite cognition,&mdash;deep as the very nature of mind,"<a
+  name="footnotetag24" href="#footnote24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> are these the
+  most ultimate of known truths; but where from this is our warrant for
+  concluding with certainty that these known truths are everywhere and
+  eternally true? It will be said that there is a strong analogical
+  probability. Perhaps so, but of this next: I am not now speaking of
+  probability; I am speaking of certainty; and unless we deny the doctrine
+  of the relativity of knowledge, we cannot but conclude that there is no
+  absolute certainty in this case. As I deem this consideration one of
+  great importance, I shall proceed to develop it at some length. It will
+  be observed, then, that the consideration really amounts to
+  this:&mdash;Although it must on all hands be admitted that the fact of
+  the theistic hypothesis not being required to explain any of the
+  phenomena of nature is a fact which has been demonstrated
+  <i>scientifically</i>, nevertheless it must likewise on all hands be
+  admitted that this fact has not, and cannot be, demonstrated
+  <i>logically</i>. Or thus, although it is unquestionably true that so far
+  as science can penetrate she cannot discern any speculative necessity for
+  a God, it may nevertheless be true that if science could penetrate
+  further she might discern some such necessity. Now the present discussion
+  would clearly be incomplete if it neglected to define as carefully this
+  the logical standing of our subject, as it has hitherto endeavoured to
+  define its scientific standing. As a final step in our analysis,
+  therefore, we must altogether quit the region of experience, and,
+  ignoring even the very foundations of science and so all the most certain
+  of relative truths, pass into the transcendental region of purely formal
+  considerations. In this region theist and atheist must alike consent to
+  forego all their individual predilections, and, after regarding the
+  subject as it were in the abstract and by the light of pure logic alone,
+  finally come to an agreement as to the transcendental probability of the
+  question before them. Disregarding the actual probability which they
+  severally feel to exist in relation to their own individual
+  intelligences, they must apply themselves to ascertain the probability
+  which exists in relation to those fundamental laws of thought which
+  preside over the intelligence of our race. In fine, it will now, I hope,
+  be understood that, as we have hitherto been endeavouring to determine,
+  by deductions drawn from the very foundations of all possible science,
+  the <i>relative</i> probability as to the existence of a God, so we shall
+  next apply ourselves to the task of ascertaining the <i>absolute</i>
+  probability of such existence&mdash;or, more correctly, what is the
+  strictly <i>formal</i> probability of such existence when its possibility
+  is contemplated in an absolute sense.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect37">§ 37</a>. To begin then. In the last resort, the
+  value of every probability is fixed by "ratiocination." In endeavouring,
+  therefore, to fix the degree of strictly formal probability that is
+  present in any given case, our method of procedure should be, first to
+  ascertain the ultimate ratios on which the probability depends, and then
+  to estimate the comparative value of these ratios. Now I think there can
+  be no doubt that the value of any probability in this its last analysis
+  is determined by the number, the importance, and the definiteness of the
+  relations known, as compared with those of the relations unknown; and,
+  consequently, that in all cases where the sum of the unknown relations is
+  larger, or more important, or more indefinite than is the sum of the
+  known relations, it is an essential principle that the value of the
+  probability decreases in exact proportion to the decrease in the
+  similarity between the two sets of relations, whether this decrease
+  consists in the number, in the importance, or in the definiteness of the
+  relations involved. This rule or canon is self-evident as soon as pointed
+  out, and has been formulated by Professor Bain in his "Logic" when
+  treating of Analogy, but not with sufficient precision; for, while
+  recognising the elements of number and importance, he has overlooked that
+  of definiteness. This element, however, is a very essential
+  one&mdash;indeed the most essential of the three; for there are many
+  analogical inferences in which either the character or the extent of the
+  unknown relations is quite indefinite; and it is obvious that, whenever
+  this is the case, the value of the analogy is proportionably diminished,
+  and diminished in a much more material particular than it is when the
+  diminution of value arises from a mere excess of the unknown relations
+  over the known ones in respect of their number or of their importance.
+  For it is evident that, in the latter case, however little value the
+  analogy may possess, the exact degree of such value admits of being
+  <i>determined</i>; while it is no less evident that, in the former case,
+  we are precluded from estimating the value of the analogy at all, and
+  this just in proportion to the indefiniteness of the unknown
+  relations.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect38">§ 38</a>. Now the particular instance with which we
+  are concerned is somewhat peculiar. Notwithstanding we have the entire
+  sphere of human experience from which to argue, we are still unable to
+  gauge the strictly logical probability of any argument whatsoever; for
+  the unknown relations in this case are so wholly indefinite, both as to
+  their character and extent, that any attempt to institute a definite
+  comparison between them and the known relations is felt at once to be
+  absurd. The question discussed, being the most ultimate of all possible
+  questions, must eventually contain in itself all that is to man unknown
+  and unknowable; the whole orbit of human knowledge is here insufficient
+  to obtain a parallax whereby to institute the required measurements.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect39">§ 39</a>. I think it is desirable to insist upon this
+  truth at somewhat greater length, and, for the sake of impressing it
+  still more deeply, I shall present it in another form. No one can for a
+  single moment deny that, beyond and around the sphere of the Knowable,
+  there exists the unfathomable abyss of the Unknowable. I do not here use
+  this latter word as embodying any theory: I merely wish it to state the
+  undoubted fact, which all must admit, viz., that beneath all our possible
+  explanations there lies a great Inexplicable. Now let us see what is the
+  effect of making this necessary admission. In the first place, it clearly
+  follows that, while our conceptions as to what the Unknowable contains
+  may or may not represent the truth, it is certain that we can never
+  discover whether or not they do. Further, it is impossible for us to
+  determine even a definite <i>probability</i> as to the existence (much
+  less the nature) of anything which we may suppose the Unknowable to
+  contain. We may, of course, perceive that such and such a supposition is
+  more <i>conceivable</i> than such and such; but, as already indicated,
+  the fact does not show that the one is in itself more definitely
+  <i>probable</i> than the other, unless it has been previously shown,
+  either that the capacity of our conceptions is a <i>fully adequate
+  measure</i> of the Possible, or that the proportion between such capacity
+  and the extent of the Possible is a proportion that can be
+  <i>determined</i>. In either of these cases, the Conceivable would be a
+  fair measure of the Possible: in the former case, an exact equivalent
+  (<i>e.g.</i>, in any instance of contradictory propositions, the most
+  conceivable would <i>certainly</i> be true); in the latter case, a
+  measure any degree less than an exact equivalent&mdash;the degree
+  depending upon the <i>then</i> ascertainable disparity between the extent
+  of the Possible and the extent of the Conceivable. Now the Unknowable
+  (including of course the Inconceivable Existent) is a species of the
+  Possible, and in its name carries the declaration that the disparity
+  between its extent and the extent of the Conceivable (<i>i.e.</i>, the
+  other species of the Possible) is a disparity that cannot be determined.
+  We are hence driven to the conclusion that the most apparently probable
+  of all propositions, if predicated of anything within the Unknowable, may
+  not in reality be a whit more so than is the most apparently improbable
+  proposition which it is possible to make; for if it is admitted (as of
+  course it must be) that we are necessarily precluded from comparing the
+  extent of the Conceivable with that of the Unknowable, then it
+  necessarily follows that in no case whatever are we competent to judge
+  how far an <i>apparent</i> probability relating to the latter province is
+  an <i>actual</i> probability. In other words, did we know the proportion
+  subsisting between the Conceivable and the Unknowable in respect of
+  relative extent and character, and so of inherent probabilities, we
+  should then be able to estimate the actual value of any apparent
+  probability relating to the latter province; but, as it is, our ability
+  to make this estimate varies inversely as our inability to estimate our
+  ignorance in this particular. And as our ignorance in this particular is
+  total&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, since we cannot even approximately determine the
+  proportion that subsists between the Conceivable and the
+  Unknowable,&mdash;the result is that our ability to make the required
+  estimate in any given case is absolutely <i>nil</i>.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect40">§ 40</a>. I have purposely rendered this presentation
+  in terms of the highest abstraction, partly to avoid the possibility of
+  any one, whatever his theory of things may be, finding anything at which
+  to object, and partly in order that my meaning may be understood to
+  include all things which are beyond the range of possible knowledge. Most
+  of all, therefore, must this presentation (if it contains anything of
+  truth) apply to the question regarding the existence of Deity; for the
+  <i>Ens Realissimum</i> must of all things be furthest removed from the
+  range of possible knowledge. Hence, if this presentation contains
+  anything of truth&mdash;and of its rigidly accurate truth I think there
+  can be no question&mdash;the assertion that the Self-existing Substance
+  is a Personal and Intelligent Being, and the assertion that this
+  Substance is an Impersonal and Non-Intelligent Being, are alike
+  assertions wholly destitute of any assignable degree of logical
+  probability, I say <i>assignable</i> degree of logical probability,
+  because that <i>some</i> degree of such probability may exist I do not
+  undertake to deny. All I assert is, that if we are here able to institute
+  any such probability at all, we are unable logically to assign to it any
+  determinate degree of value. Or, in other words, although we may
+  establish some probability in a sense relative to ourselves, we are
+  unable to know how far this probability is a probability in an absolute
+  sense. Or again, the case is not as though we were altogether
+  unacquainted with the Possible. Experience undoubtedly affords us some
+  information regarding this, although, comparatively speaking, we are
+  unable to know how much. Consequently, we must suppose that, in any given
+  case, it is more likely that the Conceivable should be Possible than that
+  the Inconceivable should be so, and that the Conceivably Probable should
+  exist than that the Conceivably Improbable should do so: in neither case,
+  however, can we know <i>what degree</i> of such likelihood is
+  present.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect41">§ 41</a>. From the foregoing considerations, then, it
+  would appear that the only attitude which in strict logic it is
+  admissible to adopt towards the question concerning the being of a God is
+  that of "suspended judgment." Formally speaking, it is alike illegitimate
+  to affirm or to deny Intelligence as an attribute of the Ultimate. And
+  here I would desire it to be observed, that this is the attitude which
+  the majority of scientifically-trained philosophers actually have adopted
+  with regard to this matter. I am not aware, however, that any one has yet
+  endeavoured to formulate the justification of this attitude; and as I
+  think there can be no doubt that the above presentation contains in a
+  logical shape the whole of such justification, I cannot but think that
+  some important ends will have been secured by it. For we are here in
+  possession, not merely of a vague and general impression that the
+  Ultimate is super-scientific, and so beyond the range of legitimate
+  prediction; but we are also in possession of a logical formula whereby at
+  once to vindicate the rationality of our opinion, and to measure the
+  precise degree of its technical value.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapVI">CHAPTER VI</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect42">§ 42</a>. Let us now proceed to examine the effect of
+  the formal considerations which have been adduced in the last chapter on
+  the scientific considerations which were dealt with in the previous
+  chapters. In these previous chapters the proposition was clearly
+  established that, just as certainly as the fundamental data of science
+  are true, so certainly is it true that the theory of Theism in any shape
+  is, scientifically considered, superfluous; for these chapters have
+  clearly shown that, if there is a God, his existence, considered as a
+  cause of things, is as certainly unnecessary as it is certainly true that
+  force is persistent and that matter is indestructible. But after this
+  proposition had been carefully justified, it remained to show that the
+  doctrine of the relativity of knowledge compelled us to carry our
+  discussion into a region of yet higher abstraction. For although we
+  observed that the essential qualities of matter and of force are the most
+  ultimate data of human knowledge, and although, by showing how far the
+  question of Theism depended on these data, we carried the discussion of
+  that question to the utmost possible limits of scientific thought, it
+  still devolved on us to contemplate the fact that even these the most
+  ultimate data of science are only known to be of relative significance.
+  And the bearing of this fact to the question of Theism was seen to be
+  most important. For, without waiting to recapitulate the substance of a
+  chapter so recently concluded, it will be remembered that its effect was
+  to establish this position beyond all controversy&mdash;viz., that when
+  ideas which have been formed by our experience within the region of
+  phenomenal actuality are projected into the region of ontological
+  possibility, they become utterly worthless; seeing that we can never have
+  any means whereby to test the actual value of whatever transcendental
+  probabilities they may appear to establish. Therefore it is that even the
+  most ultimate of relative truths with which, as we have seen, the
+  question of Theism is so vitally associated, is almost without meaning
+  when contemplated in an absolute sense. What, then, is the effect of
+  these metaphysical considerations on the position of Theism as we have
+  seen it to be left by the highest generalisations of physical science?
+  Let us contemplate this question with the care which it deserves.</p>
+
+  <p>In the first place, it is evident that the effect of these purely
+  formal considerations is to render all reasonings on the subject of
+  Theism equally illegitimate, unless it is constantly borne in mind that
+  such reasonings can only be of relative signification. Thus, as a matter
+  of pure logic, these considerations are destructive of all assignable
+  validity of any such reasoning whatsoever. Still, even a strictly
+  relative probability is, in some undefinable degree, of more value than
+  no probability at all, as we have seen these same formal considerations
+  to show (see <a href="#Sect40">§ 40</a>); and, moreover, even were this
+  not so, the human mind will never rest until it attains to the furthest
+  probability which to its powers is accessible. Therefore, if we do not
+  forget the merely relative nature of the considerations which are about
+  to be adduced, by adducing them we may at the same time satisfy our own
+  minds and abstain from violating the conditions of sound logic.</p>
+
+  <p>The shape, then, to which the subject has now been reduced is simply
+  this:&mdash;Seeing that the theory of Evolution in its largest sense has
+  shown the theory of Theism to be superfluous in a scientific sense, does
+  it not follow that the theory of Theism is thus shown to be superfluous
+  in any sense? For it would seem from the discussion, so far as it has
+  hitherto gone, that the only rational basis on which the theory of Theism
+  can rest is a basis of teleology; and if, as has been clearly shown, the
+  theory of evolution, by deducing the genesis of natural law from the
+  primary data of science, irrevocably destroys this basis, does it not
+  follow that the theory of evolution has likewise destroyed the theory
+  which rested on that basis? Now I conclude, as stated at the close of <a
+  href="#ChapIV">Chapter IV.,</a> that the question here put must certainly
+  be answered in the affirmative, so far as its scientific aspect is
+  concerned. But when we consider the question in its purely logical
+  aspect, as we have done in <a href="#ChapV">Chapter V.,</a> the case is
+  otherwise. For although, so far as the utmost reach of scientific vision
+  enables us to see, we can discern no evidence of Deity, it does not
+  therefore follow that beyond the range of such vision Deity does not
+  exist. Science indeed has proved that if there is a Divine Mind in
+  nature, and if by the hypothesis such a Mind exerts any causative
+  influence on the phenomena of nature, such influence is exerted beyond
+  the sphere of experience. And this achievement of science, be it never
+  forgotten, is an achievement of prodigious importance, effectually
+  destroying, as it does, all vestiges of a scientific teleology. But be it
+  now carefully observed, although all vestiges of a <i>scientific</i>
+  teleology are thus completely and permanently ruined, the formal
+  considerations adduced in the <a href="#ChapV">last chapter</a> supply
+  the conditions for constructing what may be termed a <i>metaphysical</i>
+  teleology. I use these terms advisedly, because I think they will serve
+  to bring out with great clearness the condition to which our analysis of
+  the teleological argument has now been reduced.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect43">§ 43</a>. In the first place, let it be understood
+  that I employ the terms "scientific" and "metaphysical" in the convenient
+  sense in which they are employed by Mr. Lewes, viz., as respectively
+  designating a theory that is verifiable and a theory that is not.
+  Consequently, by the term "scientific teleology" I mean to denote a form
+  of teleology which admits either of being proved or disproved, while by
+  the term "metaphysical teleology" I mean to denote a form of teleology
+  which does not admit either of being proved or of being disproved. Now,
+  with these significations clearly understood, it will be seen that the
+  forms of teleology which we have hitherto considered belong entirely to
+  the scientific class. That the Paleyerian form of the argument did so is
+  manifest, first because this argument itself treats the problem of Theism
+  as a problem that is susceptible of scientific demonstration, and next
+  because we have seen that the advance of science has proved this argument
+  susceptible of scientific refutation. In other words, from the supposed
+  axiom, "There cannot be apparent design without a designer," adaptations
+  in nature become logically available as purely scientific evidence of an
+  intelligent cause; and that Paley himself regarded them exclusively in
+  this light is manifest, both from his own "statement of the argument,"
+  and from the character of the evidence by which he seeks to establish the
+  argument when stated&mdash;witness the typical passage before quoted (<a
+  href="#Sect26">§ 26</a>). On the other hand, we have clearly seen that
+  this Paleyerian system of natural theology has been effectually
+  demolished by the scientific theory of natural selection&mdash;the
+  fundamental axiom of the former having been shown by the latter to be
+  scientifically untrue. Hence the term "scientific teleology" is without
+  question applicable to the Paleyerian system.</p>
+
+  <p>Nor is the case essentially different with the more refined form of
+  the teleological argument which we have had to consider&mdash;the
+  argument, namely, from General Laws. For here, likewise, we have clearly
+  seen that the inference from the ubiquitous operation of General Laws to
+  the existence of an omniscient Law-maker is quite as illegitimate as is
+  the inference from apparent Design to the existence of a Supreme
+  Designer. In other words, science, by establishing the doctrine of the
+  persistence of force and the indestructibility of matter, has effectually
+  disproved the hypothesis that the presence of Law in nature is of itself
+  sufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent Law-giver.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus it is that scientific teleology in any form is now and for ever
+  obsolete. But not so with what I have termed metaphysical teleology. For
+  as we have seen that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge
+  precludes us from asserting, or even from inferring, that beyond the
+  region of the Knowable Mind does not exist, it remains logically possible
+  to institute a metaphysical hypothesis that beyond this region of the
+  Knowable Mind does exist. There being a necessary absence of any positive
+  information whereby to refute this metaphysical hypothesis, any one who
+  chooses to adopt it is fully justified in doing so, provided only he
+  remembers that the purely metaphysical quality whereby the hypothesis is
+  ensured against disproof, likewise, and in the same degree, precludes it
+  from the possibility of proof. He must remember that it is no longer open
+  to him to point to any particular set of general laws and to assert,
+  these proclaim Intelligence as their cause; for we have repeatedly seen
+  that the known states of matter and force themselves afford sufficient
+  explanation of the facts to which he points. And he must remember that
+  the only reason why his hypothesis does not conflict with any of the
+  truths known to science, is because he has been careful to rest that
+  hypothesis upon a basis of purely formal considerations, which lie beyond
+  even the most fundamental truths of which science is cognisant.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus, for example, he may present his metaphysical theory of Theism in
+  some such terms as these:&mdash;'Fully conceding what reason shows must
+  be conceded, and there still remains this possible
+  supposition&mdash;viz., that there is a presiding Mind in nature, which
+  exerts its causative influence beyond the sphere of experience, thus
+  rendering it impossible for us to obtain scientific evidence of its
+  action. For such a Mind, exerting such an influence beyond experience,
+  may direct affairs within experience by methods conceivable or
+  inconceivable to us&mdash;producing, possibly, innumerable and highly
+  varied results, which in turn may produce their effects within
+  experience, their introduction being then, of course, in the ordinary way
+  of natural law. For instance, there can be no question that by the
+  intelligent creation or dissipation of energy, all the phenomena of
+  cosmic evolution might have been directed, and, for aught that science
+  can show to the contrary, thus only rendered possible. Hence there is at
+  least one nameable way in which, even in accordance with observed facts,
+  a Supreme Mind could be competent to direct the phenomena of observable
+  nature. But we are not necessarily restricted to the limits of the
+  nameable in this matter, so that it is of no argumentative importance
+  whether or not this suggested method is the method which the supposed
+  Mind actually adopts, seeing that there may still be other possible
+  methods, which, nevertheless, we are unable to suggest.'</p>
+
+  <p>Doubtless the hypothesis of Theism, as thus presented, will be deemed
+  by many persons but of very slender probability. I am not, however,
+  concerned with whatever character of probability it may be supposed to
+  exhibit. I am merely engaged in carefully presenting the only hypothesis
+  which can be presented, if the theory as to an Intelligent Author of
+  nature is any longer to be maintained on grounds of a rational teleology.
+  No doubt, scientifically considered, the hypothesis in question is purely
+  gratuitous; for, so far as the light of science can penetrate, there is
+  no need of any such hypothesis at all. Thus it may well seem, at first
+  sight, that no hypothesis could well have less to recommend it; and, so
+  far as the presentation has yet gone, it is therefore fully legitimate
+  for an atheist to reply:&mdash;'All that this so-called metaphysical
+  theory amounts to is a wholly gratuitous assumption. No doubt it is
+  always difficult, and usually impossible, logically or unequivocally to
+  prove a negative. If my adversary chose to imagine that nature is
+  presided over by a demon with horns and hoofs, or by a dragon with claws
+  and tail, I should be as unable to disprove this his supposed theory as I
+  am now unable to disprove his actual theory. But in all cases reasonable
+  men ought to be guided in their beliefs by such positive evidence as is
+  available; and if, as in the present case, the alternative belief is
+  wholly gratuitous&mdash;adopted not only without any evidence, but
+  against all that great body of evidence which the sum-total of science
+  supplies&mdash;surely we ought not to hesitate for one moment in the
+  choice of our creed?'</p>
+
+  <p>Now all this is quite sound in principle, provided only that the
+  metaphysical theory of Theism <i>is</i> wholly gratuitous, in the sense
+  of being utterly destitute of evidential support. That it is destitute of
+  all <i>scientific</i> support, we have already and repeatedly seen; but
+  the question remains as to whether it is similarly destitute of
+  <i>metaphysical</i> support.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect44">§ 44</a>. To this question, then, let us next address
+  ourselves. From the theistic pleading which we have just heard, it is
+  abundantly manifest that the formal conditions of a metaphysical
+  teleology are present: the question now before us is as to whether or not
+  any actual evidence exists in favour of such a theory. In order to
+  discuss this question, let us begin by allowing the theist to continue
+  his pleading. 'You have shown me,' he may say, 'that a scientific or
+  demonstrable system of teleology is no longer possible, and, therefore,
+  as I have already conceded, I must take my stand on a metaphysical or
+  non-demonstrable system. But I reflect that the latter term is a loose
+  one, seeing that it embraces all possible degrees of evidence short of
+  actual proof. The question, therefore, I conceive to be, What amount of
+  evidence is there in favour of this metaphysical system of teleology? And
+  this question I answer by the following considerations:&mdash;As general
+  laws separately have all been shown to be the necessary outcome of the
+  primary data of science, it certainly follows that general laws
+  collectively must be the same&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, that the whole system of
+  general laws must be, so far as the lights of our science can penetrate,
+  the necessary outcome of the persistence of force and the
+  indestructibility of matter. But you have also dearly shown me that these
+  lights are of the feeblest conceivable character when they are brought to
+  illuminate the final mystery of things. I therefore feel at liberty to
+  assert, that if there is any one principle to be observed in the
+  collective operation of general laws which cannot conceivably be
+  explained by any cause other than that of intelligent guidance, I am
+  still free to fall back on such a principle and to
+  maintain&mdash;Although the collective operation of general laws follows
+  as a necessary consequence from the primary data of science, this one
+  principle which pervades their united action, and which cannot be
+  conceivably explained by any hypothesis other than that of intelligent
+  guidance, is a principle which still remains to be accounted for; and as
+  it cannot conceivably be accounted for on grounds of physical science, I
+  may legitimately account for it on grounds of metaphysical teleology. Now
+  I cannot open my eyes without perceiving such a principle everywhere
+  characterising the collective operation of general laws. Universally I
+  behold in nature, order, beauty, harmony,&mdash;that is, a perfect
+  <i>correlation</i> among general laws. But this ubiquitous correlation
+  among general laws, considered as the cause of cosmic harmony, itself
+  requires some explanatory cause such as the persistence of force and the
+  indestructibility of matter cannot conceivably be made to supply. For
+  unless we postulate some one integrating cause, the greater the number of
+  general laws in nature, the less likelihood is there of such laws being
+  so correlated as to produce harmony by their combined action. And
+  forasmuch as the only cause that I am able to imagine as competent to
+  produce such effects is that of intelligent guidance, I accept the
+  metaphysical hypothesis that beyond the sphere of the Knowable there
+  exists an Unknown God.<a name="footnotetag25"
+  href="#footnote25"><sup>[25]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>'If it is retorted that the above argument involves an absurd
+  contradiction, in that while it sets out with an explicit avowal of the
+  fact that the collective operation of general laws follows as a necessary
+  consequence from the primary data of physical science, it nevertheless
+  afterwards proceeds to explain an effect of such collective operation by
+  a metaphysical hypothesis; I answer that it was expressly for the purpose
+  of eliciting this retort that I threw my argument into the above form.
+  For the position which I wish to establish is this, that fully accepting
+  the logical cogency of the reasoning whereby the action of every law is
+  deduced from the primary data of science, I wish to show that when this
+  train of reasoning is followed to its ultimate term, it leads us into the
+  presence of a fact for which it is inadequate to account. If, then, my
+  contention be granted&mdash;viz., that to human faculties it is not
+  conceivable how, in the absence of a directing intelligence, general laws
+  could be so correlated as to produce universal harmony&mdash;then I have
+  brought the matter to this issue:&mdash;Notwithstanding the scientific
+  train of argument being complete in itself, it still leaves us in the
+  presence of a fact which it cannot conceivably explain; and it is this
+  unexplained residuum&mdash;this total product of the operation of general
+  laws&mdash;that I appeal to as the logical justification for a system of
+  metaphysical teleology&mdash;a system which offers the only conceivable
+  explanation of this stupendous fact.</p>
+
+  <p>'And here I may further observe, that the scientific train of
+  reasoning is of the kind which embodies what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls
+  "symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate order."<a name="footnotetag26"
+  href="#footnote26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> That is to say, we can see how
+  such simple laws as that action and reaction are equal and opposite may
+  have been self-evolved, and from this fact we go on generalising and
+  generalising, until we land ourselves in wholly symbolic and&mdash;a
+  paradox is here legitimate&mdash;inconceivable conceptions. Now the
+  farther we travel into this region of unrealisable ideas, the less
+  trustworthy is the report that we are able to bring back. The method is
+  in a sense scientific; but when even scientific method is projected into
+  a region of really super-scientific possibility, it ceases to have that
+  character of undoubted certainty which it enjoys when dealing with
+  verifiable subjects of inquiry. The demonstrations are formal, but they
+  are not real.</p>
+
+  <p>'Therefore, looking to this necessarily suspicious character of the
+  scientific train of reasoning, and then observing that, even if accepted,
+  it leaves the fact of cosmic harmony unexplained, I maintain, that
+  whatever probability the phenomena of nature may in former times have
+  been thought to establish in favour of the theory as to an intelligent
+  Author of nature, that probability has been in no wise
+  annihilated&mdash;nor apparently can it ever be annihilated&mdash;by the
+  advance of science. And not only so, but I question whether this
+  probability has been even seriously impaired by such advance, seeing that
+  although this advance has revealed a speculative <i>raison d'être</i> of
+  the mechanical precision of nature, it has at the same time shown the
+  baffling complexity of nature; and therefore, in view of what has just
+  been said, leaves the balance of probability concerning the existence of
+  a God very much where it always was. For stay awhile to contemplate this
+  astounding complexity of harmonious nature! Think of how much we already
+  know of its innumerable laws and processes, and then think that this
+  knowledge only serves to reveal, in a glimmering way, the huge immensity
+  of the unknown. Try to picture the meshwork of contending rhythms which
+  must have been before organic nature was built up, and then let us ask,
+  Is it conceivable, is it credible, that all this can have been the work
+  of blind fate? Must we not feel that had there not been intelligent
+  agency at work somewhere, other and less terrifically intricate results
+  would have ensued? And if we further try to symbolise in thought the
+  unimaginable complexity of the material and dynamical changes in virtue
+  of which that thought itself exists,&mdash;if we then extend our symbols
+  to represent all the history of all the orderly changes which must have
+  taken place to evolve human intelligence into what it is,&mdash;and if we
+  still further extend our symbols to try if it be possible, even in the
+  language of symbols, to express the number and the subtlety of those
+  natural laws which now preside over the human will;&mdash;in the face of
+  so vast an assumption as that all this has been self-evolved, I am
+  content still to rest in the faith of my forefathers.'</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect45">§ 45</a>. Now I think it must be admitted that we
+  have here a valid argument. That is to say, the considerations which we
+  have just adduced must, I think, in fairness be allowed to have
+  established this position:&mdash;That the system of metaphysical
+  teleology for which we have supposed a candid theist to plead, is
+  something more than a purely gratuitous system&mdash;that it does not
+  belong to the same category of baseless imaginings as that to which the
+  atheist at first sight, and in view of the scientific deductions alone,
+  might be inclined to assign it. For we have seen that our supposed
+  theist, while fully admitting the formal cogency of the scientific train
+  of reasoning, is nevertheless able to point to a fact which, in his
+  opinion, lies without that train of reasoning. For he declares that it is
+  beyond his powers of conception to regard the complex harmony of nature
+  otherwise than as a product of some one integrating cause; and that the
+  only cause of which he is able to conceive as adequate to produce such an
+  effect is that of a conscious Intelligence. Pointing, therefore, to this
+  complex harmony of nature as to a fact which cannot to his mind be
+  conceivably explained by any deductions from physical science, he feels
+  that he is justified in explaining this fact by the aid of a metaphysical
+  hypothesis. And in so doing he is in my opinion perfectly justified, at
+  any rate to this extent&mdash;that his antagonist cannot fairly dispose
+  of this metaphysical hypothesis as a purely gratuitous hypothesis. How
+  far it is a probable hypothesis is another question, and to this question
+  we shall now address ourselves.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect46">§ 46</a>. If it is true that the deductions from
+  physical science cannot be conceived to explain some among the observed
+  facts of nature, and if it is true that these particular facts admit of
+  being conceivably explained by the metaphysical hypothesis in question,
+  then, beyond all controversy, this metaphysical hypothesis must be
+  provisionally accepted. Let us then carefully examine the premises which
+  are thus adduced to justify acceptance of this hypothesis as their
+  conclusion.</p>
+
+  <p>In the first place, it is not&mdash;cannot&mdash;be denied, even by a
+  theist, that the deductions from physical science <i>do</i> embrace the
+  fact of cosmic harmony in their explanation, seeing that, as they explain
+  the operation of general laws collectively, they must be regarded as also
+  explaining every effect of such operation. And this, as we have seen, is
+  a consideration to which our imaginary theist was not blind. How then did
+  he meet it? He met it by the considerations&mdash;1st. That the
+  scientific train of reasoning evolved this conclusion only by employing,
+  in a wholly unrestricted manner, "symbolic conceptions of the
+  illegitimate order;" and, 2d. That when the conclusion thus
+  illegitimately evolved was directly confronted with the fact of cosmic
+  harmony which it professes to explain, he found it to be beyond the
+  powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due to such a
+  cause. Now, as already observed, I consider these strictures on the
+  scientific train of reasoning to be thoroughly valid. There can be no
+  question that the highly symbolic character of the conceptions which that
+  train of reasoning is compelled to adopt, is a source of serious weakness
+  to the conclusions which it ultimately evolves; while there can, I think,
+  be equally little doubt that there does not live a human being who would
+  venture honestly to affirm, that he can really conceive the fact of
+  cosmic harmony as exclusively due to the causes which the scientific
+  train of reasoning assigns. But freely conceding this much, and an
+  atheist may reply, that although the objections of his antagonist against
+  this symbolic method of reasoning are undoubtedly valid, yet, from the
+  nature of the case, this is the only method of scientific reasoning which
+  is available. If, therefore, he expresses his obligations to his
+  antagonist for pointing out a source of weakness in this method of
+  reasoning&mdash;a source of weakness, be it observed, which renders it
+  impossible for him to estimate the actual, as distinguished from the
+  apparent, probability of the conclusion attained&mdash;this is all that
+  he can be expected to do: he cannot be expected to abandon the only
+  scientific method of reasoning available, in favour of a metaphysical
+  method which only escapes the charge of symbolism by leaping with a
+  single bound from a known cause (human intelligence) to the inference of
+  an unknowable cause (Divine Intelligence). For the atheist may well point
+  out that, however objectionable his scientific method of reasoning may be
+  on account of the symbolism which it involves, it must at any rate be
+  preferable to the metaphysical method, in that its symbols throughout
+  refer to known causes.<a name="footnotetag27"
+  href="#footnote27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> With regard, then, to this
+  stricture on the scientific method of reasoning, I conclude that although
+  the caveat which it contains should never be lost sight of by atheists,
+  it is not of sufficient cogency to justify theists in abandoning a
+  scientific in favour of a metaphysical mode of reasoning.</p>
+
+  <p>How then does it fare with the other stricture, or the consideration
+  that, "when the conclusion thus illegitimately<a name="footnotetag28"
+  href="#footnote28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> evolved is confronted with the
+  fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, we find it to be
+  beyond the powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due
+  to such a cause"? The atheist may answer, in the first place, that a
+  great deal here turns on the precise meaning which we assign to the word
+  "conceive." For we have just seen that, by employing "symbolic
+  conceptions," we <i>are</i> able to frame what we may term a
+  <i>formal</i> conception of universal harmony as due to the persistence
+  of force and the primary qualities of matter. That is to say, we have
+  seen that such universal harmony as nature presents must be regarded as
+  an effect of the collective operation of general laws; and we have
+  previously arrived at a formal conception of general laws as singly and
+  collectively the product of self-evolution. Consequently, the word
+  "conceive," as used in the theistic argument, must be taken to mean our
+  ability to frame what we may term a <i>material</i> conception, or a
+  representation in thought of the whole history of cosmic evolution, which
+  representation shall be in some satisfactory degree intellectually
+  realisable. Observing, then, this important difference between an
+  inconceivability which arises from an impossibility of establishing
+  relations in thought between certain <i>abstract</i> or <i>symbolic</i>
+  conceptions, and an inconceivability which arises from a mere failure to
+  realise in imagination the results which must follow among external
+  relations if the symbolically conceivable combinations among them ever
+  took place, an atheist may here argue as follows; and it does not appear
+  that there is any legitimate escape from his reasonings.</p>
+
+  <p>'I first consider the undoubted fact that the existence of a Supreme
+  Mind in nature is, scientifically considered, unnecessary; and,
+  therefore, that the only reason we require to entertain the supposition
+  of any such existence at all is, that the complexity of nature being so
+  great, we are unable adequately to conceive of its
+  self-evolution&mdash;notwithstanding our reason tells us plainly that,
+  given a self-existing universe of force and matter, and such
+  self-evolution becomes abstractedly possible. I then reflect that this is
+  a negative and not a positive ground of belief. If the hypothesis of
+  self-evolution is true, we should <i>à priori</i> expect that by the time
+  evolution had advanced sufficiently far to admit of the production of a
+  reasoning intelligence, the complexity of nature must be so great that
+  the nascent reasoning powers would be completely baffled in their
+  attempts to comprehend the various processes going on around them. This
+  seems to be about the state of things which we now experience. Still, as
+  reason advances more and more, we may expect, both from general <i>à
+  priori</i> principles and from particular historical analogies, that more
+  and more of the processes of nature will admit of being interpreted by
+  reason, and that in proportion as our ability to <i>understand</i> the
+  frame and the constitution of things progresses, so our ability to
+  <i>conceive</i> of them as all naturally and necessarily evolved will
+  likewise and concurrently progress. Thus, for example, how vast a number
+  of the most intricate and delicate correlations in nature have been
+  rendered at once intelligible and conceivably due to non-intelligent
+  causes, by the discovery of a single principle in nature&mdash;the
+  principle of natural selection.</p>
+
+  <p>'In the adverse argument, conceivability is again made the
+  unconditional test of truth, just as it was in the argument against the
+  possibility of matter thinking. We reject the hypothesis of
+  self-evolution, not because it is the more remote one, but simply because
+  we experience a subjective incapacity adequately to frame the requisite
+  generalisations in thought, or to frame them with as much clearness as we
+  could wish. Yet our reason tells us as plainly as it tells us any general
+  truth which is too large to be presented in detail, that there is nothing
+  in the nature of things themselves, as far as we can see, antagonistic to
+  the supposition of their having been self-evolved. Only on the ground,
+  therefore, of our own intellectual deficiencies; only because as yet, by
+  the self-evolutionary hypothesis, the inner order does not completely
+  answer to the outer order; only because the number and complexity of
+  subjective relations have not yet been able to rival those of the
+  objective relations producing them; only on this ground do we refuse to
+  assent to the obvious deductions of our reason.<a name="footnotetag29"
+  href="#footnote29"><sup>[29]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>'And here I may observe, further, that the presumption in favour of
+  atheism which these deductions establish is considerably fortified by
+  certain <i>à posteriori</i> considerations which we cannot afford to
+  overlook. In particular, I reflect that, as a matter of fact, the
+  theistic theory is born of highly suspicious parentage,&mdash;that
+  Fetichism, or the crudest form of the theory of personal agency in
+  external nature, admits of being easily traced to the laws of a primitive
+  psychology; that the step from this to Polytheism is easy; and that the
+  step from this to Monotheism is necessary. If it is objected to this view
+  that it does not follow that because some theories of personal agency
+  have proved themselves false, therefore all such theories must be
+  so&mdash;I answer, Unquestionably not; but the above considerations are
+  not adduced in order to <i>negative</i> the theistic theory: they are
+  merely adduced to show that the human mind has hitherto undoubtedly
+  exhibited an undue and a vicious tendency to interpret the objective
+  processes of nature in terms of its own subjective processes; and as we
+  can see quite well that the current theory of personal agency in nature,
+  whether or not true, is a necessary outcome of intellectual evolution, I
+  think that the fact of so abundant an historical analogy ought to be
+  allowed to lend a certain degree of antecedent suspicion to this
+  theory&mdash;although, of course, the suspicion is of a kind which would
+  admit of immediate destruction before any satisfactory positive evidence
+  in favour of the theory.<a name="footnotetag30"
+  href="#footnote30"><sup>[30]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>'But what is 'the satisfactory positive evidence' that is offered me?
+  Nothing, save an alleged subjective incapacity on the part of my opponent
+  adequately to conceive of the fact of cosmic harmony as due to physical
+  causation alone. Now I have already commented on the weakness of his
+  position; but as my opponent will doubtless resort to the consideration
+  that inconceivability of an opposite is, after all, the best criterion of
+  truth which at any given stage of intellectual evolution is available, I
+  will now conclude my overthrow by pointing out that, even if we take the
+  argument from teleology in its widest possible sense&mdash;the argument,
+  I mean, from the general order and beauty of nature, as well as the gross
+  constituent part of it from design&mdash;even taking this argument in its
+  widest sense and upon its own ground (which ground, I presume, it is now
+  sufficiently obvious <i>can</i> only be that of the inconceivability of
+  its negation), I will conclude my examination of this argument by showing
+  that it is quite as inconceivable to predicate cosmic harmony an effect
+  of Intelligence, as it is to predicate it an effect of Non-intelligence;
+  and therefore that the argument from inconceivability admits of being
+  turned with quite as terrible a force upon Theism as it can be made to
+  exert upon Atheism.</p>
+
+  <p>'"In metaphysical controversy, many of the propositions propounded and
+  accepted as quite believable are absolutely inconceivable. There is a
+  perpetual confusing of actual ideas with what are nothing but
+  pseud-ideas. No distinction is made between propositions that contain
+  real thoughts and propositions that are only the forms of thoughts. A
+  thinkable proposition is one of which the <i>two terms can be brought
+  together in consciousness under the relation said to exist between
+  them</i>. But very often, when the subject of a proposition has been
+  thought of as something known, and when the predicate of a proposition
+  has been thought of as something known, and when the relation alleged
+  between them has been thought of as a known relation, it is supposed that
+  the proposition itself has been thought. The thinking separately of the
+  elements of a proposition is mistaken for the thinking of them in the
+  combination which the proposition affirms. And hence it continually
+  happens that propositions which cannot be rendered into thought at all
+  are supposed to be not only thought but believed. The proposition that
+  Evolution is caused by Mind is one of this nature. The two terms are
+  separately intelligible; but they can be regarded in the relation of
+  effect and cause only so long as no attempt is made to put them together
+  in this relation.</p>
+
+  <p>'"The only thing which any one knows as Mind is the series of his own
+  states of consciousness; and if he thinks of any mind other than his own,
+  he can think of it only in terms derived from his own. If I am asked to
+  frame a notion of Mind divested of all those structural traits under
+  which alone I am conscious of mind in myself, I cannot do it. I know
+  nothing of thought save as carried on in ideas originally traceable to
+  the effects wrought by objects on me. A mental act is an unintelligible
+  phrase if I am not to regard it as an act in which states of
+  consciousness are severally known as like other states in the series that
+  has gone by, and in which the relations between them are severally known
+  as like past relations in the series. If, then, I have to conceive
+  evolution as caused by an 'originating Mind,' I must conceive this Mind
+  as having attributes akin to those of the only mind I know, and without
+  which I cannot conceive mind at all.</p>
+
+  <p>'"I will not dwell on the many incongruities hence resulting, by
+  asking how the 'originating Mind' is to be thought of as having states
+  produced by things objective to it, as discriminating among these states,
+  and classing them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective
+  result to another. I will simply ask, What happens if we ascribe to the
+  'originating Mind' the character absolutely essential to the conception
+  of mind, that it consists of a series of states of consciousness? Put a
+  series of states of consciousness as cause and the evolving universe as
+  effect, and then endeavour to see the last as flowing from the first. I
+  find it possible to imagine in some dim way a series of states of
+  consciousness serving as antecedent to any one of the movements I see
+  going on; for my own states of consciousness are often indirectly the
+  antecedents to such movements. But how if I attempt to think of such a
+  series as antecedent to <i>all</i> actions throughout the
+  universe&mdash;to the motions of the multitudinous stars throughout
+  space, to the revolutions of all their planets round them, to the
+  gyrations of all these planets on their axes, to the infinitely
+  multiplied physical processes going on in each of these suns and planets?
+  I cannot think of a single series of states of consciousness as causing
+  even the relatively small groups of actions going on over the earth's
+  surface. I cannot think of it even as antecedent to all the various winds
+  and the dissolving clouds they bear, to the currents of all the rivers,
+  and the grinding actions of all the glaciers; still less can I think of
+  it as antecedent to the infinity of processes simultaneously going on in
+  all the plants that cover the globe, from scattered polar lichens to
+  crowded tropical palms, and in all the millions of quadrupeds that roam
+  among them, and the millions of millions of insects that buzz about them.
+  Even a single small set of these multitudinous terrestrial changes I
+  cannot conceive as antecedent a single series of states of
+  consciousness&mdash;cannot, for instance, think of it as causing the
+  hundred thousand breakers that are at this instant curling over on the
+  shores of England. How, then, is it possible for me to conceive an
+  'originating Mind,' which I must represent to myself as a <i>single</i>
+  series of states of consciousness, working the infinitely multiplied sets
+  of changes <i>simultaneously</i> going on in worlds too numerous to
+  count, dispersed throughout a space that baffles imagination?</p>
+
+  <p>'"If, to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere
+  going on, 'Mind must be conceived as there' 'under the guise of simple
+  Dynamics,' then the reply is, that, to be so conceived, Mind must be
+  divested of all attributes by which it is distinguished; and that, when
+  thus divested of its distinguishing attributes, the conception
+  disappears&mdash;the word Mind stands for a blank....</p>
+
+  <p>'"Clearly, therefore, the proposition that an 'originating Mind' is
+  the cause of evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long
+  only as no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the
+  alleged relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of <i>faith</i>
+  may be a defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should
+  be so accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of
+  <i>understanding</i>&mdash;as a statement making the order of the
+  universe comprehensible&mdash;is a quite indefensible position."'<a
+  name="footnotetag31" href="#footnote31"><sup>[31]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect47">§ 47</a>. We have now heard the pleading on both
+  sides of the ultimate issue to which it is possible that the argument
+  from teleology can ever be reduced. It therefore devolves on us very
+  briefly to adjudicate upon the contending opinions. And this it is not
+  difficult to do; for throughout the pleading on both sides I have been
+  careful to exclude all arguments and considerations which are not
+  logically valid. It is therefore impossible for me now to pass any
+  criticisms on the pleading of either side which have not already been
+  passed by the pleading of the other. But nevertheless, in my capacity of
+  an impartial judge, I feel it desirable to conclude this chapter with a
+  few general considerations.</p>
+
+  <p>In the first place, I think that the theist's antecedent objection to
+  a scientific mode of reasoning on the score of its symbolism, may be
+  regarded as fairly balanced by the atheist's antecedent objection to a
+  metaphysical mode of reasoning on the score of its postulating an
+  unknowable cause. And it must be allowed that the force of this
+  antecedent objection is considerably increased by the reflection that the
+  <i>kind</i> of unknowable cause which is thus postulated is that which
+  the human mind has always shown an overweening tendency to postulate as a
+  cause of natural phenomena.</p>
+
+  <p>I think, therefore, that neither disputant has the right to regard the
+  <i>à priori</i> standing of his opponent's theory as much more suspicious
+  than that of his own; for it is obvious that neither disputant has the
+  means whereby to estimate the actual value of these antecedent
+  objections.</p>
+
+  <p>With regard, then, to the <i>à posteriori</i> evidence in favour of
+  the rival theories, I think that the final test of their
+  validity&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, the inconceivability of their respective
+  negations&mdash;fails equally in the case of both theories; for in the
+  case of each theory any proposition which embodies it must itself contain
+  an infinite, <i>i.e.</i>, an inconceivable&mdash;term. Thus, whether we
+  speak of an Infinite Mind as the cause of evolution, or of evolution as
+  due to an infinite duration of physical processes, we are alike open to
+  the charge of employing unthinkable propositions.</p>
+
+  <p>Hence, two unthinkables are presented to our choice; one of which is
+  an eternity of matter and of force,<a name="footnotetag32"
+  href="#footnote32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> and the other an Infinite Mind, so
+  that in this respect again the two theories are tolerably parallel; and
+  therefore, all that can be concluded with rigorous certainty upon the
+  subject is, that neither theory has anything to gain us against the other
+  from an appeal to the test of inconceivability.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect47.1"></a></p>
+
+  <p>Yet we have seen that this is a test than which none can be more
+  ultimate. What then shall we say is the final outcome of this discussion
+  concerning the rational standing of the teleological argument? The
+  answer, I think, to this question is, that in strict reasoning the
+  teleological argument, in its every shape, is inadequate to form a basis
+  of Theism; or, in other words, that the logical cogency of this argument
+  is insufficient to justify a wholly impartial mind in accepting the
+  theory of Theism on so insecure a foundation. Nevertheless, if the
+  further question were directly put to me, 'After having heard the
+  pleading both for and against the most refined expression of the argument
+  from teleology, with what degree of strictly rational probability do you
+  accredit it?'&mdash;I should reply as follows:&mdash;'The question which
+  you put I take to be a question which it is wholly impossible to answer,
+  and this for the simple reason that the degree of even rational
+  probability may here legitimately vary with the character of the mind
+  which contemplates it.' This statement, no doubt, sounds paradoxical; but
+  I think it is justified by the following considerations. When we say that
+  one proposition is more conceivable than another, we may mean either of
+  two very different things, and this quite apart from the distinction
+  previously drawn between symbolic conceptions and realisable conceptions.
+  For we may mean that one of the two propositions presents terms which
+  cannot possibly be rendered into thought at all in the relation which the
+  proposition alleges to subsist between them; or we may mean that one of
+  the two propositions presents terms in a relation which is more congruous
+  with the habitual tenor of our thoughts than does the other proposition.
+  Thus, as an example of the former usage, we may say, It is more
+  conceivable that two and two should make four than that two and two
+  should make five; and, as an example of the latter usage, we may say, It
+  is more conceivable that a man should be able to walk than that he should
+  be able to fly. Now, for the sake of distinction, I shall call the first
+  of these usages the test of <i>absolute</i> inconceivability, and the
+  second the test of <i>relative</i> inconceivability. Doubtless, when the
+  word "inconceivability" is used in the sense of relative
+  inconceivability, it is incorrectly used, unless it is qualified in some
+  way; because, if used without qualification, there is danger of its being
+  confused with inconceivability in its absolute sense. Nevertheless, if
+  used with some qualifying epithet, it becomes quite unexceptionable. For
+  the process of conception being in all cases the process of establishing
+  relations in thought, we may properly say, It is relatively more
+  conceivable that a man should walk than that a man should fly, since it
+  is <i>more easy</i> to establish, the necessary relations in thought in
+  the case of the former than in the case of the latter proposition. The
+  only difference, then, between what I have called absolute
+  inconceivability and what I have called relative inconceivability
+  consists in this&mdash;that while the latter admits of <i>degrees</i>,
+  the former does not.<a name="footnotetag33"
+  href="#footnote33"><sup>[33]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>With this distinction clearly understood, I may now proceed to observe
+  that in everyday life we constantly apply the test of relative
+  inconceivability as a test of truth. And in the vast majority of cases
+  this test of relative inconceivability is, for all practical purposes, as
+  valid a test of truth as is the test of absolute conceivability. For as
+  every man is more or less in harmony with his environment, his habits of
+  thought with regard to his environment are for the most part stereotyped
+  correctly; so that the most ready and the most trustworthy gauge of
+  probability that he has is an immediate appeal to consciousness as to
+  whether he <i>feels</i> the probability. Thus every man learns for
+  himself to endow his own sense of probability with a certain undefined
+  but massive weight of authority. Now it is this test of relative
+  conceivability which all men apply in varying degrees to the question of
+  Theism. For if, from education and organised habits of thought, the
+  probability in this matter appears to a man to incline in a certain
+  direction, when this probability is called in question, the whole body of
+  this organised system of thought rises in opposition to the questioning,
+  and being individually conscious of this strong feeling of subjective
+  opposition, the man declares the sceptical propositions to be more
+  inconceivable to him than are the counter-propositions. And in so saying
+  he is, of course, perfectly right. Hence I conceive that the acceptance
+  or the rejection of metaphysical teleology as probable will depend
+  entirely upon individual habits of thought. The test of absolute
+  inconceivability making equally for and against the doctrine of Theism,
+  disputants are compelled to fall back on the test of relative
+  inconceivability; and as the direction in which the more inconceivable
+  proposition will here seem to lie will be determined by previous habits
+  of thought, it follows that while to a theist metaphysical teleology will
+  appear a probable argument, to an atheist it will appear an improbable
+  one. Thus to a theist it will no doubt appear more conceivable that the
+  Supreme Mind should be such that in some of its attributes it resembles
+  the human mind, while in other of its attributes&mdash;among which he
+  will place omnipresence, omnipotence, and directive agency&mdash;it
+  transcends the human mind as greatly as the latter "transcends mechanical
+  motion;" and therefore that although it is true, as a matter of logical
+  terminology, that we ought to designate such an entity "Not mind" or
+  "Blank," still, as a matter of psychology, we may come nearer to the
+  truth by assimilating in thought this entity with the nearest analogies
+  which experience supplies, than by assimilating it in thought with any
+  other entity&mdash;such as force or matter&mdash;which are felt to be in
+  all likelihood still more remote from it in nature. On the other hand, to
+  an atheist it will no doubt appear more conceivable, because more simple,
+  to accept the dogma of an eternal self-existence of something which we
+  call force and matter, and with this dogma to accept the implication of a
+  necessary self-evolution of cosmic harmony, than to resort to the
+  additional and no less inconceivable supposition of a self-existing Agent
+  which must be regarded both as Mind and as Not-mind at the same time. But
+  in both cases, in whatever degree this test of relative inconceivability
+  of a negative is held by the disputants to be valid in solving the
+  problem of Theism, in that degree is each man entitled to his respective
+  estimate of the probability in question. And thus we arrive at the
+  judgment that the rational probability of Theism legitimately varies with
+  the character of the mind which contemplates it. For, as the test of
+  absolute inconceivability is equally annihilative in whichever direction
+  it is applied, the test of relative inconceivability is the only one that
+  remains; and as the formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are
+  undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the formal conditions of a
+  physical explanation of cosmic harmony are no less undoubtedly present on
+  the other hand, it follows that a theist and an atheist have an equal
+  right to employ this test of relative inconceivability. And as there is
+  no more ultimate court of appeal whereby to decide the question than the
+  universe as a whole, each man has here an equal argumentative right to
+  abide by the decision which that court awards <i>to him
+  individually</i>&mdash;to accept whatever probability the sum-total of
+  phenomena appears to present to his particular understanding. And it is
+  needless to say that experience shows, even among well-informed and
+  accurate reasoners, how large an allowance must thus be made for personal
+  equations. To some men the facts of external nature seem to proclaim a
+  God with clarion voice, while to other men the same facts bring no
+  whisper of such a message. All, therefore, that a logician can here do is
+  to remark, that the individuals in each class&mdash;provided they bear in
+  mind the strictly <i>relative</i> character of their belief&mdash;have a
+  similar right to be regarded as holding a rational creed: the grounds of
+  belief in this case logically vary with the natural disposition and the
+  subsequent training of different minds.<a name="footnotetag34"
+  href="#footnote34"><sup>[34]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>It only remains to show that disputants on either side are apt to
+  endow this test of relative inconceivability with far more than its real
+  logical worth. Being accustomed to apply this test of truth in daily
+  life, and there finding it a trustworthy test, most men are apt to forget
+  that its value as a test must clearly diminish in proportion to the
+  distance from experience at which it is applied. This, indeed, we saw to
+  be the case even with the test of absolute inconceivability (see <a
+  href="#ChapV">Chapter V.</a>), but much more must it be the case with
+  this test of relative inconceivability. For, without comment, it is
+  manifest that our acquired sense of probability, as distinguished from
+  our innate sense of possibility, with regard to any particular question
+  of a transcendental nature, cannot be at all comparable with its value in
+  the case of ordinary questions, with respect to which our sense of
+  probability is being always rectified by external facts. Although,
+  therefore, it is true that both those who reject and those who retain a
+  belief in Theism on grounds of relative conceivability are equally
+  entitled to be regarded as displaying a rational attitude of mind, in
+  whatever degree either party considers their belief as of a higher
+  validity than the grounds of psychology from which it takes its rise, in
+  that degree must the members of that party be deemed irrational. In other
+  words, not only must a man be careful not to confuse the test of relative
+  inconceivability with that of absolute conceivability&mdash;not to
+  suppose that his sense of probability in this matter is determined by an
+  innate psychological inability to conceive a proposition, when in reality
+  it is only determined by the difficulty of dissociating ideas which have
+  long been habitually associated;&mdash;but he must also be careful to
+  remember that the test of relative inconceivability in this matter is
+  only valid as justifying a belief of the most diffident possible
+  kind.</p>
+
+  <p>And from this the practical deduction is&mdash;tolerance. Let no man
+  think that he has any argumentative right to expect that the mere
+  subjective habit or tone of his own mind should exert any influence on
+  that of his fellow; but rather let him always remember that the only
+  legitimate weapons of his intellectual warfare are those the
+  <i>material</i> of which is derived from the external world, and only the
+  <i>form</i> of which is due to the forging process of his own mind. And
+  if in battle such weapons seem to be unduly blunted on the hardened
+  armoury of traditional beliefs, or on the no less hardened armoury of
+  confirmed scepticism, let him remember further that he must not too
+  confidently infer that the fault does not lie in the character of his own
+  weapons. To drop the figure, let none of us forget in how much need we
+  all stand of this caution:&mdash;Knowing how greatly the value of
+  arguments is affected, even to the most impartial among us, by the frame
+  of mind in which we regard them, let all of us be jealously careful not
+  to over-estimate the certainty that our frame or habit of mind is
+  actually superior to that of our neighbour. And, in conclusion, it is
+  surely needless to insist on the yet greater need there is for most of us
+  to bear in mind this further caution:&mdash;Knowing with what great
+  subjective opposition arguments are met when they conflict with our
+  established modes of thought, let us all be jealously careful to guard
+  the sanctuary of our judgment from the polluting tyranny of habit.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3><a name="ChapVII">CHAPTER VII</a>.</h3>
+
+<h4>GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.</h4>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect48">§ 48</a>. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very
+  few words will here suffice to convey an epitomised recollection of the
+  numerous facts and conclusions which we have found it necessary to
+  contemplate. We first disposed of the conspicuously absurd supposition
+  that the origin of things, or the mystery of existence, admits of being
+  explained by the theory of Theism in any further degree than by the
+  theory of Atheism. Next it was shown that the argument "Our heart
+  requires a God" is invalid, seeing that such a subjective necessity, even
+  if made out, could not be sufficient to prove&mdash;or even to render
+  probable&mdash;an objective existence. And with regard to the further
+  argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations point to God as to
+  their explanatory cause, it became necessary to observe that the argument
+  could only be admissible after the possibility of the operation of
+  natural causes had been excluded. Similarly the argument from the
+  supposed intuitive necessity of individual thought was found to be
+  untenable, first, because, even if the supposed necessity were a real
+  one, it would only possess an individual applicability; and second, that,
+  as a matter of fact, it is extremely improbable that the supposed
+  necessity is a real necessity even for the individual who asserts it,
+  while it is absolutely certain that it is not such to the vast majority
+  of the race. The argument from the general consent of mankind, being so
+  obviously fallacious both as to facts and principles, was passed over
+  without comment; while the argument from a first cause was found to
+  involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the argument that, as human volition
+  is a cause in nature, therefore all causation is probably volitional in
+  character, was shown to consist in a stretch of inference so outrageous
+  that the argument had to be pronounced worthless.</p>
+
+  <p>Proceeding next to examine the less superficial arguments in favour of
+  Theism, it was first shown that the syllogism, All known minds are caused
+  by an unknown mind; our mind is a known mind; therefore our mind is
+  caused by an unknown mind,&mdash;is a syllogism that is inadmissible for
+  two reasons. In the first place, "it does not account for mind (in the
+  abstract) to refer it to a prior mind for its origin;" and therefore,
+  although the hypothesis, if admitted, would be <i>an</i> explanation of
+  <i>known</i> mind, it is useless as an argument for the existence of the
+  unknown mind, the assumption of which forms the basis of that
+  explanation. Again, in the next place, if it be said that mind is so far
+  an entity <i>sui generis</i> that it must be either self-existing or
+  caused by another mind, there is no assignable warrant for the assertion.
+  And this is the second objection to the above syllogism; for anything
+  within the whole range of the possible may, for aught that we can tell,
+  be competent to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus an objector
+  to the above syllogism need not hold any theory of things at all; but
+  even as opposed to the definite theory of materialism, the above
+  syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to stand upon. We know
+  that what we call matter and force are to all appearance eternal, while
+  we have no corresponding evidence of a "mind that is even apparently
+  eternal." Further, within experience mind is invariably associated with
+  highly differentiated collocations of matter and distributions of force,
+  and many facts go to prove, and none to negative, the conclusion that the
+  grade of intelligence invariably depends upon, or at least is associated
+  with, a corresponding grade of cerebral development. There is thus both a
+  qualitative and a quantitative relation between intelligence and cerebral
+  organisation. And if it is said that matter and motion cannot produce
+  consciousness because it is inconceivable that they should, we have seen
+  at some length that this is no conclusive consideration as applied to a
+  subject of a confessedly transcendental nature, and that in the present
+  case it is particularly inconclusive, because, as it is speculatively
+  certain that the substance of mind must be unknowable, it seems <i>à
+  priori</i> probable that, whatever is the cause of the unknowable
+  reality, this cause should be more difficult to render into thought in
+  that relation than would some other hypothetical substance which is
+  imagined as more akin to mind. And if it is said that the <i>more</i>
+  conceivable cause is the <i>more</i> probable cause, we have seen that it
+  is in this case impossible to estimate the validity of the remark.
+  Lastly, the statement that the cause must contain actually all that its
+  effects can contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and
+  contradicted by everyday experience; while the argument from the supposed
+  freedom of the will and the existence of the moral sense was negatived
+  both deductively by the theory of evolution, and inductively by the
+  doctrine of utilitarianism. On the whole, then, with regard to the
+  argument from the existence of the human mind, we were compelled to
+  decide that it is destitute of any assignable weight, there being nothing
+  more to lead to the conclusion that our mind has been caused by another
+  mind, than to the conclusion that it has been caused by anything else
+  whatsoever.</p>
+
+  <p>With regard to the argument from Design, it was observed that Mill's
+  presentation of it is merely a resuscitation of the argument as presented
+  by Paley, Bell, and Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first-named
+  writer treated this whole subject with a feebleness and inaccuracy very
+  surprising in him; for while he has failed to assign anything like due
+  weight to the inductive evidence of organic evolution, he did not
+  hesitate to rush into a supernatural explanation of biological phenomena.
+  Moreover, he has failed signally in his <i>analysis</i> of the Design
+  argument, seeing that, in common with all previous writers, he failed to
+  observe that it is utterly impossible for us to know the relations in
+  which the supposed Designer stands to the Designed,&mdash;much less to
+  argue from the fact that the Supreme Mind, even supposing it to exist,
+  caused the observable products by any particular intellectual
+  <i>process</i>. In other words, all advocates of the Design argument have
+  failed to perceive that, even if we grant nature to be due to a creating
+  Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to conclude that this Mind can
+  only have exerted its creative power by means of such and such cogitative
+  operations. How absurd, therefore, must it be to raise the supposed
+  evidence of such cogitative operations into evidences of the existence of
+  a creating Mind! If a theist retorts that it is, after all, of very
+  little importance whether or not we are able to divine the <i>methods</i>
+  of creation, so long as the <i>facts</i> are there to attest that, <i>in
+  some way or other</i>, the observable phenomena of nature must be due to
+  Intelligence of some kind as their ultimate cause, then I am the first to
+  endorse this remark. It has always appeared to me one of the most
+  unaccountable things in the history of speculation that so many competent
+  writers can have insisted upon <i>Design</i> as an argument for Theism,
+  when they must all have known perfectly well that they have no means of
+  ascertaining the subjective psychology of that Supreme Mind whose
+  existence the argument is adduced to demonstrate. The truth is, that the
+  argument from teleology must, and can only, rest upon the observable
+  <i>facts</i> of nature, without reference to the intellectual
+  <i>processes</i> by which these facts may be supposed to have been
+  accomplished. But, looking to the "present state of our knowledge," this
+  is merely to change the teleological argument from its gross Paleyerian
+  form, into the argument from the ubiquitous operation of general laws.
+  And we saw that this transformation is now a rational necessity. How far
+  the great principle of natural selection may have been instrumental in
+  the evolution of organic forms, is not here, as Mill erroneously
+  imagined, the question; the question is simply as to whether we are to
+  accept the theory of special creation or the theory of organic evolution.
+  And forasmuch as no competent judge at the present time can hesitate for
+  one moment in answering this question, the argument from a proximate
+  teleology must be regarded as no longer having any rational
+  existence.</p>
+
+  <p>How then does it fare with the last of the arguments&mdash;the
+  argument from an ultimate teleology? Doubtless at first sight this
+  argument seems a very powerful one, inasmuch as it is a generic argument,
+  which embraces not only biological phenomena, but all the phenomena of
+  the universe. But nevertheless we are constrained to acknowledge that its
+  apparent power dwindles to nothing in view of the indisputable fact that,
+  if force and matter have been eternal, all and every natural law must
+  have resulted by way of necessary consequence. It will be remembered that
+  I dwelt at considerable length and with much earnestness upon this truth,
+  not only because of its enormous importance in its bearing upon our
+  subject, but also because no one has hitherto considered it in that
+  relation.</p>
+
+  <p>The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of the conclusion
+  that was liable to be formed upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all
+  the possible arguments in favour of Theism. Having fully demonstrated
+  that there is no shadow of a positive argument in support of the theistic
+  theory, there arose the danger that some persons might erroneously
+  conclude that for this reason the theistic theory must be untrue. It
+  therefore became necessary to point out, that although, as far as we can
+  see, nature does not require an Intelligent Cause to account for any of
+  her phenomena, yet it is possible that, if we could see farther, we
+  should see that nature could not be what she is unless she had owed her
+  existence to an Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the probability
+  there is that an Intelligent Cause is unnecessary to explain any of the
+  phenomena of nature, is only equal to the probability there is that the
+  doctrine of the persistence of force is everywhere and eternally
+  true.</p>
+
+  <p>As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we altogether quitted the
+  region of experience, and ignoring even the very foundations of science,
+  and so all the most certain of relative truths, we carried the discussion
+  into the transcendental region of purely formal considerations. And here
+  we laid down the canon, "that the value of any probability, in its last
+  analysis, is determined by the number, the importance, and the
+  definiteness of the relations known, as compared with those of the
+  relations unknown;" and, consequently, that in cases where the unknown
+  relations are more numerous, more important, or more indefinite than are
+  the known relations, the value of our inference varies inversely as the
+  difference in these respects between the relations compared. From which
+  canon it followed, that as the problem of Theism is the most ultimate of
+  all problems, and so contains in its unknown relations all that is to man
+  unknown and unknowable, these relations must be pronounced the most
+  indefinite of all relations that it is possible for man to contemplate;
+  and, consequently, that although we have here the entire range of
+  experience from which to argue, we are unable to estimate the real value
+  of any argument whatsoever. The unknown relations in our attempted
+  induction being wholly indefinite, both in respect of their number and
+  importance, as compared with the known relations, it is impossible for us
+  to determine any definite probability either for or against the being of
+  a God. Therefore, although it is true that, so far as human science can
+  penetrate or human thought infer, we can perceive no evidence of God, yet
+  we have no right on this account to conclude that there is no God. The
+  probability, therefore, that nature is devoid of Deity, while it is of
+  the strongest kind if regarded scientifically&mdash;amounting, in fact,
+  to a scientific demonstration,&mdash;is nevertheless wholly worthless if
+  regarded logically. Notwithstanding it is as true as is the fundamental
+  basis of all science and of all experience that, if there is a God, his
+  existence, considered as a cause of the universe, is superfluous, it may
+  nevertheless be true that, if there had never been a God, the universe
+  could never have existed.</p>
+
+  <p>Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively that, no matter
+  how great the probability of Atheism might appear to be in a relative
+  sense, we have no means of estimating such probability in an absolute
+  sense. From which position there emerged the possibility of another
+  argument in favour of Theism&mdash;or rather let us say, of a
+  reappearance of the teleological argument in another form. For it may be
+  said, seeing that these formal considerations exclude legitimate
+  reasoning either for or against Deity in an absolute sense, while they do
+  not exclude such reasoning in a relative sense, if there yet remain any
+  theistic deductions which may properly be drawn from experience, these
+  may now be adduced to balance the atheistic deductions from the
+  persistence of force. For although the latter deductions have clearly
+  shown the existence of Deity to be superfluous in a scientific sense, the
+  formal considerations in question have no less clearly opened up beyond
+  the sphere of science a possible <i>locus</i> for the existence of Deity;
+  so that if there are any facts supplied by experience for which the
+  atheistic deductions appear insufficient to account, we are still free to
+  account for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of Theism. And, it
+  may be urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in the correlation
+  of general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It signifies
+  nothing, the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the methods
+  whereby the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony; nor does
+  it signify that its operation must now be relegated to a super-scientific
+  province. What does signify is that, taking a general view of nature, we
+  find it impossible to conceive of the extent and variety of her
+  harmonious processes as other than products of intelligent causation. Now
+  this sublimated form of the teleological argument, it will be remembered,
+  I denoted a metaphysical teleology, in order sharply to distinguish it
+  from all previous forms of that argument, which, in contradistinction I
+  denoted scientific teleologies. And the distinction, it will be
+  remembered, consisted in this&mdash;that while all previous forms of
+  teleology, by resting on a basis which was not beyond the possible reach
+  of science, laid themselves open to the possibility of scientific
+  refutation, the metaphysical system of teleology, by resting on a basis
+  which is clearly beyond the possible reach of science, can never be
+  susceptible of scientific refutation. And that this metaphysical system
+  of teleology does rest on such a basis is indisputable; for while it
+  accepts the most ultimate truths of which science can ever be
+  cognisant&mdash;viz., the persistence of force and the consequently
+  necessary genesis of natural law,&mdash;it nevertheless maintains that
+  the necessity of regarding Mind as the ultimate cause of things is not on
+  this account removed; and, therefore, that if science now requires the
+  operation of a Supreme Mind to be posited in a super-scientific sphere,
+  then in a super-scientific sphere it ought to be posited. No doubt this
+  hypothesis at first sight seems gratuitous, seeing that, so far as
+  science can penetrate, there is no need of any such hypothesis at
+  all&mdash;cosmic harmony resulting as a physically necessary consequence
+  from the combined action of natural laws, which in turn result as a
+  physically necessary consequence of the persistence of force and the
+  primary qualities of matter. But although it is thus indisputably true
+  that metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered
+  scientifically, it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if
+  considered psychologically. In other words, if it is more conceivable
+  that Mind should be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the
+  persistence of force should be so, then it is not irrational to accept
+  the more conceivable hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable
+  one, provided that the choice is made with the diffidence which is
+  required by the considerations adduced in <a href="#ChapV">Chapter
+  V.</a></p>
+
+  <p>I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology,
+  although in a physical sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense
+  legitimate. But as against the fundamental position on which alone this
+  argument can rest&mdash;viz., the position that the fundamental postulate
+  of Atheism is more <i>inconceivable</i> than is the fundamental postulate
+  of Theism&mdash;we have seen two important objections to lie.</p>
+
+  <p>For, in the first place, the sense in which the word "inconceivable"
+  is here used is that of the impossibility of framing <i>realisable</i>
+  relations in the thought; not that of the impossibility of framing
+  <i>abstract</i> relations in thought. In the same sense, though in a
+  lower degree, it is true that the complexity of the human organisation
+  and its functions is inconceivable; but in this sense the word
+  "inconceivable" has much less weight in an argument than it has in its
+  true sense. And, without waiting again to dispute (as we did in the case
+  of the speculative standing of Materialism) how far even the genuine test
+  of inconceivability ought to be allowed to make against an inference
+  which there is a body of scientific evidence to substantiate, we went on
+  to the second objection against this fundamental position of metaphysical
+  teleology. This objection, it will be remembered, was, that it is as
+  impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as an effect of Mind, as it is
+  to conceive of it as an effect of mindless evolution. The argument from
+  inconceivability, therefore, admits of being turned with quite as
+  terrible an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be made to exert on
+  Atheism.</p>
+
+  <p>Hence this more refined form of teleology which we are considering,
+  and which we saw to be the last of the possible arguments in favour of
+  Theism, is met on its own ground by a very crushing opposition: by its
+  metaphysical character it has escaped the opposition of physical science,
+  only to encounter a new opposition in the region of pure psychology to
+  which it fled. As a conclusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it
+  devolved on us to determine the relative magnitudes of these opposing
+  forces. And in doing this we first observed that, if the supporters of
+  metaphysical teleology objected <i>à priori</i> to the method whereby the
+  genesis of natural law was deduced from the datum of the persistence of
+  force, in that this method involved an unrestricted use of illegitimate
+  symbolic conceptions; then it is no less open to an atheist to object
+  <i>à priori</i> to the method whereby a directing Mind was inferred from
+  the datum of cosmic harmony, in that this method involved the population
+  of an unknowable cause,&mdash;and this of a character which the whole
+  history of human thought has proved the human mind to exhibit an
+  overweening tendency to postulate as the cause of natural phenomena. On
+  these grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as their respective
+  standing <i>à priori</i> is concerned, both theories may be regarded as
+  about equally suspicious. And similar with regard to their standing <i>à
+  posteriori</i>; for as both theories require to embody at least one
+  infinite term, they must each alike be pronounced absolutely
+  inconceivable. But, finally, if the question were put to me which of the
+  two theories I regarded as the more rational, I observed that this is a
+  question which no one man can answer for another. For as the test of
+  absolute inconceivability is equally destructive of both theories, if a
+  man wishes to choose between them, his choice can only be determined by
+  what I have designated relative inconceivability&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, in
+  accordance with the verdict given by his individual sense of probability
+  as determined by his previous habits of thought. And forasmuch as the
+  test of relative inconceivability may be held in this matter legitimately
+  to vary with the character of the mind which applies it, the strictly
+  rational probability of the question to which it is applied varies in
+  like manner. Or, otherwise presented, the only alternative for any man in
+  this matter is either to discipline himself into an attitude of pure
+  scepticism, and thus to refuse in thought to entertain either a
+  probability or an improbability concerning the existence of a God; or
+  else to incline in thought towards an affirmation or a negation of God,
+  according as his previous habits of thought have rendered such an
+  inclination more facile in the one direction than in the other. And
+  although, under such circumstances, I should consider that man the more
+  rational who carefully suspended his judgment, I conclude that if this
+  course is departed from, neither the metaphysical teleologist nor the
+  scientific atheist has any perceptible advantage over the other in
+  respect of rationality. For as the formal conditions of a metaphysical
+  teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the formal
+  conditions of a speculative atheism are as undoubtedly present on the
+  other, there is thus in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein the
+  pendulum of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may be
+  made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas.</p>
+
+  <p>Such is the outcome of our investigation, and considering the abstract
+  nature of the subject, the immense divergence of opinion which at the
+  present time is manifested with regard to it, as well as the confusing
+  amount of good, bad, and indifferent literature on both sides of the
+  controversy which is extant;&mdash;considering these things, I do not
+  think that the result of our inquiry can be justly complained of on the
+  score of its lacking precision. At a time like the present, when
+  traditional beliefs respecting Theism are so generally accepted and so
+  commonly concluded, as a matter of course, to have a large and valid
+  basis of induction whereon to rest, I cannot but feel that a perusal of
+  this short essay, by showing how very concise the scientific
+  <i>status</i> of the subject really is, will do more to settle the minds
+  of most readers as to the exact standing at the present time of all the
+  probabilities of the question, than could a perusal of all the rest of
+  the literature upon this subject. And, looking to the present condition
+  of speculative philosophy, I regard it as of the utmost importance to
+  have clearly shown that the advance of science has now entitled us to
+  assert, without the least hesitation, that the hypothesis of Mind in
+  nature is as certainly superfluous to account for any of the phenomena of
+  nature, as the scientific doctrine of the persistence of force and the
+  indestructibility of matter is certainly true.</p>
+
+  <p>On the other hand, if any one is inclined to complain that the logical
+  aspect of the question has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as
+  has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, in any matter which
+  does not admit of actual demonstration, some margin must of necessity be
+  left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he bears this
+  consideration in mind, I feel sure that he cannot properly complain of my
+  not having done my utmost in this case to define as sharply as possible
+  the character and the limits of this margin.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="Sect49">§ 49</a>. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is
+  desirable to state that any antecedent bias with regard to Theism which I
+  individually possess is unquestionably on the side of traditional
+  beliefs. It is therefore with the utmost sorrow that I find myself
+  compelled to accept the conclusions here worked out; and nothing would
+  have induced me to publish them, save the strength of my conviction that
+  it is the duty of every member of society to give his fellows the benefit
+  of his labours for whatever they may he worth. Just as I am confident
+  that truth must in the end be the most profitable for the race, so I am
+  persuaded that every individual endeavour to attain it, provided only
+  that such endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, ought without hesitation to
+  be made the common property of all men, no matter in what direction the
+  results of its promulgation may appear to tend. And so far as the
+  ruination of individual happiness is concerned, no one can have a more
+  lively perception than myself of the possibly disastrous tendency of my
+  work. So far as I am individually concerned, the result of this analysis
+  has been to show that, whether I regard the problem of Theism on the
+  lower plane of strictly relative probability, or on the higher plane of
+  purely formal considerations, it equally becomes my obvious duty to
+  stifle all belief of the kind which I conceive to be the noblest, and to
+  discipline my intellect with regard to this matter into an attitude of
+  the purest scepticism. And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree
+  with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the "new faith" is a
+  desirable substitute for the waning splendour of "the old," I am not
+  ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe to
+  me has lost its soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the
+  precept to "work while it is day" will doubtless but gain an intensified
+  force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words that "the night
+  cometh when no man can work," yet when at times I think, as think at
+  times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of
+  that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as
+  now I find it,&mdash;at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to
+  avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible. For whether it
+  be due to my intelligence not being sufficiently advanced to meet the
+  requirements of the age, or whether it be due to the memory of those
+  sacred associations which to me at least were the sweetest that life has
+  given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for others who think as I do,
+  there is a dreadful truth in those words of Hamilton,&mdash;Philosophy
+  having become a meditation, not merely of death, but of annihilation, the
+  precept <i>know thyself</i> has become transformed into the terrific
+  oracle to &#338;dipus&mdash;</p>
+
+  <div class="poem">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <p>"Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art."</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h2>APPENDIX</h2>
+
+<h4>AND</h4>
+
+<h2>SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.</h2>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+  <p><a name="Appendix"></a></p>
+
+<h2>APPENDIX.</h2>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h4>A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF A FALLACY IN LOCKE'S
+USE OF THE ARGUMENT AGAINST THE POSSIBILITY
+OF MATTER THINKING ON GROUNDS OF
+ITS BEING INCONCEIVABLE THAT IT SHOULD.</h4>
+
+  <p>Lest it should be thought that I am doing injustice to the views of
+  this illustrious theist, I here quote his own words:&mdash;"We have the
+  ideas of matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know
+  whether any mere material being thinks or no, it being impossible for us,
+  by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover
+  whether omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter fitly
+  disposed a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to
+  matter so disposed a thinking immaterial substance; it being, in respect
+  of our notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive
+  that God can, if He pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking,
+  than that He should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of
+  thinking; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort
+  of substance the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which
+  cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and
+  bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it that the first
+  eternal thinking being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of
+  created senseless matter, put together as he thinks fit, some degrees of
+  sense, perception, and thought: though, as I think, I have proved, lib.
+  iv., ch. 10 and 14, &amp;c., it is no less than a contradiction to
+  suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature void of sense and
+  thought) should be that eternal first-thinking being. What certainty of
+  knowledge can any one have that some perceptions, such as, <i>e.g.</i>,
+  pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves, after a
+  certain manner modified and moved, as well as that they should be in an
+  immaterial substance upon the motion of the parts of body? Body, as far
+  as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affect body; and
+  motion, according to the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce
+  nothing but motion: so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain,
+  or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go
+  beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our
+  Maker. For since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which we
+  can no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to
+  conclude that He could not order them as well to be produced in a subject
+  we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot
+  conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon? I say not this,
+  that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul's immateriality,
+  &amp;c.... It is a point which seems to me to be put out of the reach of
+  our knowledge; and he who will give himself leave to consider freely, and
+  look into the dark and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce
+  find his reason able to determine him fixedly for or against the soul's
+  materiality. Since on which side soever he views it, either as an
+  unextended substance or as a thinking extended matter, the difficulty to
+  conceive either will, whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive
+  him to the contrary side. An unfair way which some men take with
+  themselves, who, because of the inconceivableness of something they find
+  in one, throw themselves violently into the contrary hypothesis, though
+  altogether as unintelligible to an unbiassed understanding."</p>
+
+  <p>This passage, I do not hesitate to say, is one of the most remarkable
+  in the whole range of philosophical literature, in respect of showing how
+  even the strongest and most candid intellect may have its reasoning
+  faculty impaired by the force of a preformed conviction. Here we have a
+  mind of unsurpassed penetration and candour, which has left us side by
+  side two parallel trains of reasoning. In the one, the object is to show
+  that the author's preformed conviction as to the being of a God is
+  justifiable on grounds of reason; in the other, the object is to show
+  that, granting the existence of a God, and it is not impossible that he
+  may have endowed matter with the faculty of thinking. Now, in the former
+  train of reasoning, the whole proof rests entirely upon the fact that "it
+  is impossible to conceive that ever bare incogitative matter should
+  produce a thinking intelligent being." Clearly, if this proposition is
+  true, it must destroy one or other of the trains of reasoning; for it is
+  common to them both, and in one of them it is made the sole ground for
+  concluding that matter cannot think, while in the other it is made
+  compatible with the supposition that matter may think. This extraordinary
+  inconsistency no doubt arose from the fact that the author was
+  antecedently persuaded of the existence of an <i>Omnipotent</i> Mind, and
+  having been long accustomed in his intellectual symbols to regard it
+  presumptuous in him to impose any limitations on this almighty power,
+  when he asked himself whether it would be possible for this almighty
+  power, if it so willed, to endow matter with the faculty of thinking, he
+  argued that it might be possible, notwithstanding his being unable to
+  conceive the possibility. But when he banished from his mind the idea of
+  this personal and almighty power, and with that idea banished all its
+  associations, he then felt that he had a right to argue more freely, and
+  forthwith made his conceptive faculty a test of abstract possibility. Yet
+  <i>the sum total of abstract possibility, in relation to him, must have
+  been the same in the two cases</i>; so that in whichever of the two
+  trains of reasoning his argument was sound, in the other it must
+  certainly have been null.</p>
+
+  <p>We may well feel amazed that so able a thinker can have fallen into so
+  obvious an error, and afterwards have persisted in it through pages and
+  pages of his work. It will be instructive, however, to those who rely
+  upon Locke's exposition of the argument from Inconceivability to see how
+  effectually he has himself destroyed it. For this purpose, therefore, I
+  shall make some further quotations from the same train of reasoning. The
+  statement of Locke's opinion that the Almighty could endow matter with
+  the faculty of thinking if He so willed, called down some remonstrances
+  and rebukes from the then Bishop of Worcester. Locke's reply was a very
+  lengthy one, and from it the following extracts are taken. I merely
+  request the reader throughout to substitute for the words God, Creator,
+  Almighty, Omipotency, &amp;c., the words <i>Summum genus</i> of
+  Possibility.</p>
+
+  <p>"But it is further urged that we cannot conceive how matter can think.
+  I grant it, but to argue from thence that God therefore cannot give to
+  matter a faculty of thinking is to say God's omnipotency is limited to a
+  narrow compass because man's understanding is so, and brings down God's
+  infinite power to the size of our capacities....</p>
+
+  <p>"If God can give no power to any parts of matter but what men can
+  account for from the essence of matter in general; if all such qualities
+  and properties must destroy the essence, or change the essential
+  properties of matter, which are to our conceptions above it, and we
+  cannot conceive to be the natural consequence of that essence; it is
+  plain that the essence of matter is destroyed, and its essential
+  properties changed, in most of the sensible parts of this our system. For
+  it is visible that all the planets have revolutions about certain remote
+  centres, which I would have any one explain or make conceivable by the
+  bare essence, or natural powers depending on the essence of matter in
+  general, without something added to that essence which we cannot
+  conceive; for the moving of matter in a crooked line, or the attraction
+  of matter by matter, is all that can be said in the case; either of which
+  it is above our reach to derive from the essence of matter or body in
+  general, though one of these two must unavoidably be allowed to be
+  superadded, in this instance, to the essence of matter in general. The
+  omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the making of the world, and
+  His ways are not the less excellent because they are past finding
+  out....</p>
+
+  <p>"In all such cases, the superinducement of greater perfections and
+  nobler qualities destroys nothing of the essence or perfections that were
+  there before, unless there can be showed a manifest repugnancy between
+  them; but all the proof offered for that is only that we cannot conceive
+  how matter, without such superadded perfections, can produce such
+  effects; which is, in truth, no more than to say matter in general, or
+  every part of matter, as matter, has them not, but is no reason to prove
+  that God, if He pleases, cannot superadd them to some parts of matter,
+  unless it can be proved to be a contradiction that God should give to
+  some parts of matter qualities and perfections which matter in general
+  has not, though we cannot conceive how matter is invested with them, or
+  how it operates by virtue of those new endowments; nor is it to be
+  wondered that we cannot, whilst we limit all its operations to those
+  qualities it had before, and would explain them by the known properties
+  of matter in general, without any such induced perfections. For if this
+  be a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to be because we cannot
+  conceive the manner how it comes to be, I shall desire them who use it to
+  stick to this rule, and see what work it will make both in divinity as
+  well as philosophy, and whether they can advance anything more in favour
+  of scepticism.</p>
+
+  <p>"For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and
+  self-motion bestowed by omnipotent power in some parts of matter: the
+  objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is
+  the consequence? Ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. Let this
+  stand for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same.</p>
+
+  <p>"You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter at any distance,
+  much less at the distance of 1,000,000 miles; ergo, God cannot give it
+  such a power: you cannot conceive how matter should feel or move itself,
+  or affect any material being, or be moved by it; ergo, God cannot give it
+  such powers: which is in effect to deny gravity, and the revolution of
+  the planets about the sun; to make brutes mere machines, without sense or
+  spontaneous motion; and to allow man neither sense nor voluntary
+  motion.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let us apply this rule one degree farther. You cannot conceive how an
+  extended solid substance should think, therefore God cannot make it
+  think: can you conceive how your own soul or any substance thinks? You
+  find, indeed, that you do think, and so do I; but I want to be told how
+  the action of thinking is performed: this, I confess, is beyond my
+  conception; and I would be glad any one who conceives it would explain it
+  to me.</p>
+
+  <p>"God, I find, has given me this faculty; and since I cannot but be
+  convinced of His power in this instance, which, though I every moment
+  experience in myself, yet I cannot conceive the manner of, what would it
+  be less than an insolent absurdity to deny His power in other like cases,
+  only for this reason, because I cannot conceive the manner how?...</p>
+
+  <p>"That Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be solid and not solid at
+  the same time, I think with due reverence [diffidence?<a
+  name="footnotetag35" href="#footnote35"><sup>[35]</sup></a>] we may say;
+  but that a solid substance may not have qualities, perfections, and
+  powers, which have no natural or visibly necessary connection with
+  solidity and extension, is too much for us (who are but of yesterday, and
+  know nothing) to be positive in.</p>
+
+  <p>"If God cannot join things together by connections inconceivable to
+  us, we must deny even the consistency and being of matter itself; since
+  every particle of it having some bulk, has its parts connected by ways
+  inconceivable to us. So that all the difficulties that are raised against
+  the thinking of matter, from our ignorance or narrow conceptions, stand
+  not at all in the way of the power of God, if He pleases to ordain it so;
+  nor prove anything against His having actually endowed some parcels of
+  matter, so disposed as He thinks fit, with a faculty of thinking, till it
+  can he shown that it contains a contradiction to suppose it.</p>
+
+  <p>"Though to me sensation be comprehended under thinking in general, in
+  the foregoing discourse I have spoke of sense in brutes as distinct from
+  thinking; because your lordship, as I remember, speaks of sense in
+  brutes. But here I take liberty to observe, that if your lordship allows
+  brutes to have sensation, it will follow, either that God can and doth
+  give to some parcels of matter a power of perception and thinking, or
+  that all animals have immaterial, and consequently, according to your
+  lordship, immortal souls, as well as men; and to say that fleas and
+  mites, &amp;c., have immortal souls as well as men, will possibly be
+  looked on as going a great way to serve an hypothesis....</p>
+
+  <p>"It is true, I say, 'That bodies operate by impulse, and nothing
+  else,' and so I thought when I writ it, and can yet conceive no other way
+  of their operation. But I am since convinced, by the judicious Mr.
+  Newton's incomparable book, that it is too bold a presumption to limit
+  God's power in this point by my narrow conceptions. The gravitation of
+  matter towards matter, by way unconceivable to me, is not only a
+  demonstration that God can, if He pleases, put into bodies powers and
+  ways of operation above what can be derived from our idea of body, or can
+  be explained by what we know of matter, but also an unquestionable and
+  everywhere visible instance that He has done so. And therefore, in the
+  next edition of my book, I will take care to have that passage
+  rectified....</p>
+
+  <p>"As to self-consciousness, your lordship asks, 'What is there like
+  self-consciousness in matter?' Nothing at all in matter as matter. But
+  that God cannot bestow on some parcels of matter a power of thinking, and
+  with it self-consciousness, will never be proved by asking how is it
+  possible to apprehend that mere body should perceive that it doth
+  perceive? The weakness of our apprehension I grant in the case: I confess
+  as much as you please, that we cannot conceive how an unsolid created
+  substance thinks; but this weakness of our apprehension reaches not the
+  power of God, whose weakness is stronger than anything in man."</p>
+
+  <p>Lastly, Locke turns upon his opponent the power of the <i>odium
+  theologicum</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is
+  that should keep the parts of a material soul together after it is
+  separated from the body, yet it will be always as easy to give an account
+  of it as to give an account what it is that shall keep together a
+  material and immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is
+  to give an account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken
+  the credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity;
+  and I persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship
+  appeals in this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point
+  much weakened by that difficulty.... But you will say, you speak only of
+  the soul; and your words are, that it is no easy matter to give an
+  account how the soul should be capable of immortality unless it be a
+  material substance. I grant it, but crave leave to say, that there is not
+  any one of these difficulties that are or can be raised about the manner
+  how a material soul can be immortal, which do not as well reach the
+  immortality of the body....</p>
+
+  <p>"But your lordship, as I guess from your following words, would argue
+  that a material substance cannot be a free agent; whereby I suppose you
+  only mean that you cannot see or conceive how a solid substance should
+  begin, stop, or change its own motion. To which give me leave to answer,
+  that when you can make it conceivable how any created, finite, dependent
+  substance can move itself, I suppose you will find it no harder for God
+  to bestow this power on a solid than an unsolid created substance.... But
+  though you cannot see how any created substance, solid or not solid, can
+  be a free agent (pardon me, my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship
+  please to explain it of either, and show the manner how either of them
+  can of itself move itself or anything else), yet I do not think you will
+  so far deny men to be free agents, from the difficulty there is to see
+  how they are free agents, as to doubt whether there be foundation enough
+  for the day of judgment."</p>
+
+  <p>Let us now, for the sake of contrast, turn to some passages which
+  occur in the other train of reasoning.</p>
+
+  <p>"If we suppose only matter and motion first or eternal, thought can
+  never begin to be. For it is impossible to conceive that matter, either
+  with or without motion, could have originally in and from itself sense,
+  perception, and knowledge; as is evident from hence, that then sense,
+  perception, and knowledge must be a property eternally inseparable from
+  matter and every particle of it." There is a double fallacy here. In the
+  first place, conceivability is made the unconditional test of
+  possibility; and, in the next place, it is asserted that unless every
+  particle of matter can think, no collocation of such particles can
+  possibly do so. This latter fallacy is further insisted upon
+  thus:&mdash;"If they will not allow matter as matter, that is, every
+  particle of matter, to be as well cogitative as extended, they will have
+  as hard a task to make out to their own reasons a cogitative being out of
+  incogitative particles, as an extended being out of unextended parts, if
+  I may so speak.... Every particle of matter, as matter, is capable of all
+  the same figures and motions of any other, and I challenge any one in his
+  thoughts to add anything else to one above another." Now, as we have
+  seen, Locke himself has shown in his other trains of argument that this
+  challenge is thoroughly futile as a refutation of possibilities; but the
+  point to which I now wish to draw attention is this&mdash;It does not
+  follow because certain and highly complex collocations of material
+  particles may be supposed capable of thinking, that therefore every
+  particle of matter must be regarded as having this attribute. We have
+  innumerable analogies in nature of a certain collocation of matter and
+  force producing certain results which another somewhat similar
+  collocation could not produce: in such cases we do not assume that all
+  the resulting attributes of the one collocation must be presented also by
+  the other&mdash;still less that these resulting attributes must belong to
+  the primary qualities of matter and force. Hence, it is not fair to
+  assume that thought must either be inherent in every particle of matter,
+  or else not producible by any possible collocation of such particles,
+  unless it has previously been shown that so to produce it by any possible
+  collocation is in the nature of things impossible. But no one could
+  refute this fallacy better than Locke himself has done in some of the
+  passages already quoted from his other train of reasoning.</p>
+
+  <p>But to continue the quotation:&mdash;"If, therefore, it be evident
+  that something necessarily must exist from eternity, it is also as
+  evident that that something must necessarily be a cogitative being; for
+  it is as impossible [<i>inconceivable</i>] that incogitative matter
+  should produce a cogitative being, as that nothing, or the negation of
+  all being, should produce a positive being or matter." Again,&mdash;"For
+  unthinking particles of matter, however put together, can have [<i>can be
+  taught to have</i>] nothing thereby added to them, but a new relation of
+  position, which it is impossible [<i>inconceivable</i>] should give
+  thought and knowledge to them."</p>
+
+  <p>It is unnecessary to multiply these quotations, for, in effect, they
+  would all be merely repetitions of one another. It is enough to have seen
+  that this able author undertakes to demonstrate the existence of a God,
+  and that his whole demonstration resolves itself into the unwarrantable
+  inference, that as we are unable to conceive how thought can be a
+  property of matter, therefore a property of matter thought cannot be.
+  That such an erroneous inference should occur in any writings of so old a
+  date as those of Locke is not in itself surprising. What is surprising is
+  the fact, that in the same writings, and in the course of the same
+  discussion, the fallacy of this very inference is repeatedly pointed out
+  and insisted upon in a great variety of ways; and it has been chiefly for
+  the sake of showing the pernicious influence which preformed opinion may
+  exert&mdash;viz., even to blinding the eyes of one of the most
+  clear-sighted and thoughtful men that ever lived to a glaring
+  contradiction repeated over and over again in the course of a few
+  pages,&mdash;it has been chiefly for this reason that I have extended
+  this Appendix to so great a length. I shall now conclude it by quoting
+  some sentences which occur on the very next page after that from which
+  the last quoted sentences were taken. Our author here again returns to
+  his defence of the omnipotency of God; and as he now again thus
+  personifies the sum total of possibility, his mind abruptly reverts to
+  all its other class of associations. In this case the transition is
+  particularly interesting, not only on account of its suddenness, but also
+  because the correlations contemplated happen to be exactly the same in
+  the two cases&mdash;viz., matter as the cause of mind, and mind as the
+  cause of matter. Remember that on the last page this great philosopher
+  supposed he had demonstrated the abstract impossibility of matter being
+  the cause of mind on the ground of a causal connection being
+  inconceivable, let us now observe what he says upon this page regarding
+  the abstract possibility of mind being the cause of matter. "Nay,
+  possibly, if we would emancipate ourselves from vulgar notions, and raise
+  our thoughts as far as they would reach to a closer contemplation of
+  things, we might be able to aim at some dim and seeming conception how
+  matter might at first be made and begin to exist by the power of that
+  eternal first being.... But you will say, Is it not impossible to admit
+  of the making anything out of nothing, since we cannot possibly conceive
+  it? I answer&mdash;No; because it is not reasonable to deny the power of
+  an infinite being [this phrase, in the absence of hypothesis,
+  <i>i.e.</i>, in Locke's other train of reasoning, is of course equivalent
+  to the sum-total of possibility] because we cannot comprehend its
+  operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground, because we
+  cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production. We cannot
+  conceive how anything but impulse of body can move body; and yet that is
+  not a reason sufficient to make us deny it possible, against the constant
+  experience we have of it in ourselves, in all our voluntary motions,
+  which are produced in us only by the free action or thought of our minds,
+  and are not, nor can be, the effects of the impulse or determination of
+  the blind matter in or upon our own bodies; for then it could not be in
+  our power or choice to alter it. For example, my right hand writes,
+  whilst my left hand is still: what causes rest in one and motion in the
+  other? Nothing but my will, a thought in my mind; my thought only
+  changing, the right hand rests, and the left hands moves. This is matter
+  of fact, which cannot be denied: explain this and make it intelligible,
+  and then the next step will be to understand creation."<a
+  name="footnotetag36" href="#footnote36"><sup>[36]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+  <p><a name="SuppEssI"></a></p>
+
+<h2>SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.</h2>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="short" />
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<h3>COSMIC THEISM.<a name="footnotetag37" href="#footnote37"><sup>[37]</sup></a></h3>
+
+  <p>Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a doctrine of so
+  much speculative importance, that it behoves all students of philosophy
+  to have clear views respecting its character and implications. Mr.
+  Spencer has himself so fully explained the character of this doctrine,
+  that no attentive reader can fail to understand it; but concerning those
+  of its implications which may be termed theological&mdash;as
+  distinguished from religious&mdash;Mr. Spencer is silent. Within the last
+  two or three years, however, there has appeared a valuable work by an
+  able exponent of the new philosophy; and in this work the writer,
+  adopting his master's teaching of the Unknowable, proceeds to develop it
+  into a definite system of what may be termed scientific theology. And not
+  only so, but he assures the world that this system of scientific theology
+  is the highest, the purest, and the most ennobling form of religion that
+  mankind has ever been privileged to know in the past, or, from the nature
+  of the case, can ever be destined to know in the future. It is a system,
+  we are told, wherein the most fundamental truths of Theism are taught as
+  necessary deductions from the highest truths of Science; it is a system
+  wherein no single doctrine appeals for its acceptance to any principle of
+  blind or credulous faith, but wherein every doctrine can be fully
+  justified by the searching light of reason; it is a system wherein the
+  noblest of our aspirations and the most sublime of our emotions are able
+  to find an object far more worthy and much more glorious than has ever
+  been supplied to them by any of the older forms of Theism; and it is a
+  system, therefore, in which, with a greatly enlarged and intensified
+  meaning, we may worship God, and all that is within us bless His holy
+  name. Assuredly a proclamation such as this, emanating from the most
+  authoritative expounders of modern thought, as the highest and the
+  greatest result to which a rigorous philosophic synthesis has led, is a
+  proclamation which cannot fail to arrest our most serious attention. Nay,
+  may it not do more than this? May it not appeal to hearts which long have
+  ceased to worship? May it not once more revive a hope&mdash;long
+  banished, perhaps, but still the dearest which our poor natures have
+  experienced&mdash;that somewhere, sometime, or in some way, it may yet be
+  possible to feel that God is not far from any one of us? For to those who
+  have known the anguish of a shattered faith, it will not seem so childish
+  that our hearts should beat the quicker when we once more hear a voice
+  announcing to a world of superstitious idolaters&mdash;"Whom ye
+  ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you." But if, when we have
+  listened to the glad tidings of the new gospel, we find that the
+  preacher, though apparently in earnest, is not worthy to be heard again
+  on this matter; and if, as we turn away, our eyes grow dim with the
+  memory of a vanished dream, surely we may feel that the preacher is
+  deserving of our blame for obtruding thus upon the most sacred of our
+  sorrows.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. John Fiske is, as is well known, an author who unites in himself
+  the qualities of a well-read student of philosophy, a clear and accurate
+  thinker, a thorough master of the principles which in his recent work he
+  undertakes to explain and to extend, and a writer gifted in a remarkable
+  degree with the power of lucid exposition. Such being the intellectual
+  calibre of the man who elaborates this new system of scientific theology,
+  I confess that, on first seeing his work, I experienced a faint hope
+  that, in the higher departments of the Philosophy of Evolution as
+  conceived by Mr. Spencer and elaborated by his disciple, there might be
+  found some rational justification for an attenuated form of Theism. But
+  on examination I find that the bread which these fathers have offered us
+  turns out to be a stone; and thinking that it is desirable to warn other
+  of the children&mdash;whether of the family Philosophical or
+  Theological&mdash;against swallowing on trust a morsel so injurious, I
+  shall endeavour to point out what I conceive to be the true nature of
+  "Cosmic Theism."</p>
+
+  <p>Starting from the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, Mr. Fiske,
+  following Mr. Spencer, proceeds to show how the doctrine implies that
+  there must be a mode of Being to which human knowledge is non-relative.
+  Or, in other words, he shows that the postulation of phenomena
+  necessitates the further postulation of noumena of which phenomena are
+  the manifestations. Now what may we affirm of noumena without departing
+  from a scientific or objective mode of philosophising? We may affirm at
+  least this much of noumena, that they constitute a mode of existence
+  which need not necessarily vanish were our consciousness to perish; and,
+  therefore, that they now stand out of necessary relation to our
+  consciousness. Or, in other words, so far as human consciousness is
+  concerned, noumena must be regarded as absolute. "But now, what do we
+  mean by this affirmation of absolute reality independent of the
+  conditions of the process of knowing? Do we mean to ... affirm, in
+  language savouring strongly of scholasticism, that beneath the phenomena
+  which we call subjective there is an occult substratum Mind, and beneath
+  the phenomena which we call objective there is an occult substratum
+  Matter? Our conclusion cannot be stated in any such form.... Our
+  conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena, external or
+  internal, can be framed without postulating an Absolute Existence of
+  which phenomena are the manifestations. And now let us carefully note
+  what follows. We cannot identify this Absolute Existence with Mind, since
+  what we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal manifestations.... Nor can
+  we identify this Absolute Existence with Matter, since what we know as
+  Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations.... Absolute Existence,
+  therefore,&mdash;the Reality which persists independently of us, and of
+  which Mind and Matter are the phenomenal manifestations,&mdash;cannot be
+  identified either with Mind or with Matter. Thus is Materialism included
+  in the same condemnation with Idealism.... See then how far we have
+  travelled from the scholastic theory of occult substrata underlying each
+  group of phenomena. These substrata were but the ghosts of the phenomena
+  themselves; behind the tree or the mountain a sort of phantom tree or
+  mountain, which persists after the body of perception has gone away with
+  the departure of the percipient mind. Clearly this is no scientific
+  interpretation of the facts, but is rather a specimen of naïve barbaric
+  thought surviving in metaphysics. The tree or mountain being groups of
+  phenomena, what we assert as persisting independently of the percipient
+  mind is a something which we are unable to condition either as tree or as
+  mountain.</p>
+
+  <p>"And now we come down to the very bottom of the problem. Since we do
+  postulate Absolute Existence, and do not postulate a particular occult
+  substance underlying each group of phenomena, are we to be understood as
+  implying that there is a single Being of which all phenomena, internal
+  and external to consciousness, are manifestations? Such must seem to be
+  the inevitable conclusion, since we are able to carry on thinking at all
+  only under the relations of Difference and No-difference.... It may seem
+  that, since we cannot attribute to the Absolute Reality any relations of
+  Difference, we must positively ascribe to it No-difference. Or, what is
+  the same thing, in refusing to predicate multiplicity of it, do we not
+  virtually predicate of it unity? We do, simply because we cannot think
+  without so doing."<a name="footnotetag38"
+  href="#footnote38"><sup>[38]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>A single Absolute Reality being thus posited, our author proceeds,
+  towards the close of his work, to argue that as this Reality cannot be
+  conceived as limited either in space or time, it constitutes a Being
+  which corresponds with our essential conception of Deity. True it is
+  devoid of certain accessory attributes, such as personality,
+  intelligence, and volition; but for this very reason, it is insisted, the
+  theistic ideal as thus presented is a purer, and therefore a better,
+  ideal than has ever been presented before. Nay, it is the highest
+  possible form of this ideal, as the following considerations will show.
+  In what has consisted that continuous purification of Theism which the
+  history of thought shows to have been effected, from the grossest form of
+  belief in supernatural agency as exhibited in Fetichism, through its more
+  refined form as exhibited in Polytheism, to its still more refined form
+  as exhibited in Monotheism? In nothing but in a continuous process of
+  what Mr. Fiske calls "deanthropomorphisation." Consequently, must we not
+  conclude that when we carry this process yet one step further, and divest
+  our conception of Deity of all the yet lingering remnants of
+  anthropomorphism which occur in the current conceptions of Deity, we are
+  but still further purifying that conception? Assuredly, the attributes of
+  personality, intelligence, and so forth, are only known as attributes of
+  Humanity, and therefore to ascribe them to Deity is but to foster, in a
+  more refined form, the anthropomorphic teachings of previous religions.
+  But if we carefully refuse to limit Deity by the ascription of any human
+  attributes whatever, and if the only attributes which we do ascribe are
+  such as on grounds of pure reason alone we are compelled to ascribe, must
+  we not conclude that the form of Theism which results is the purest and
+  the most refined form in which it is possible for Theism to exist? "From
+  the anthropomorphic point of view it will quite naturally be urged in
+  objection, that this apparently desirable result is reached through the
+  degradation of Deity from an 'intelligent personality' to a 'blind
+  force,' and is therefore in reality an undesirable and perhaps
+  quasi-atheistic result."<a name="footnotetag39"
+  href="#footnote39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> But the question which really
+  presents itself is, "theologically phrased, whether the creature is to be
+  taken as a measure of the Creator. Scientifically phrased, the question
+  is whether the highest form of Being as yet suggested to one petty race
+  of creatures by its ephemeral experience of what is going on in one tiny
+  corner of the universe, is necessarily to be taken as the equivalent of
+  that absolutely highest form of Being in which all the possibilities of
+  existence are alike comprehended."<a name="footnotetag40"
+  href="#footnote40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> Therefore, in conclusion, "whether
+  or not it is true that, within the bounds of the phenomenal universe the
+  highest type of existence is that which we know as humanity, the
+  conclusion is in every way forced upon us that, quite independently of
+  limiting conditions in space or time, there is a form of Being which can
+  neither be assimilated to humanity nor to any lower type of existence. We
+  have no alternative, therefore, but to regard it as higher than humanity,
+  even 'as the heavens are higher than the earth,' and except for the
+  intellectual arrogance which the arguments of theologians show lurking
+  beneath their expressions of humility, there is no reason why this
+  admission should not be made unreservedly, without the anthropomorphic
+  qualifications by which its effect is commonly nullified. The time is
+  surely coming when the slowness of men in accepting such a conclusion
+  will be marvelled at, and when the very inadequacy of human language to
+  express Divinity will be regarded as a reason for a deeper faith and more
+  solemn adoration."<a name="footnotetag41"
+  href="#footnote41"><sup>[41]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>I have now sufficiently detailed the leading principles of Cosmic
+  Theism to render a clear and just conception of those fundamental parts
+  of the system which I am about to criticise; but it is needless to say
+  that, for all minor details of this system, I must refer those who may
+  not already have perused them to Mr. Fiske's somewhat elaborate essays.
+  In now beginning my criticisms, it may be well to state at the outset,
+  that they are to be restricted to the philosophical aspect of the
+  subject. With matters of sentiment I do not intend to deal,&mdash;partly
+  because to do so would be unduly to extend this essay, and partly also
+  because I believe that, so far as the acceptance or the rejection of
+  Cosmic Theism is to be determined by sentiment, much, if not all, will
+  depend on individual habits of thought. For whether or not Cosmic Theism
+  is to be regarded as a religion adapted to the needs of any individual
+  man, will depend on what these needs are felt to be by that man himself:
+  we cannot assert magisterially that this religion must be adapted to his
+  needs because we have found it to be adapted to our own. And if it is
+  retorted that, human nature being everywhere the same, a form of religion
+  that is adapted to one man must on this account be adapted to another, I
+  reply that it is not so. For if a man who is what Mr. Fiske calls an
+  "Anthropomorphic Theist" finds from experience that his system of
+  religion&mdash;say Christianity&mdash;creates and sustains a class of
+  emotions and general habits of thought which he feels to be the highest
+  and the best of which he is capable, it is useless for a "Cosmic Theist"
+  to offer such a man another system of religion, in which the conditions
+  essential to the existence of these particular emotions and habits of
+  thought are manifestly absent. For such a man cannot but feel that the
+  proffered substitution would be tantamount, if accepted, to an utter
+  destruction of all that he regards as essentially religious. He will tell
+  us that he finds it perfectly easy to understand and to appreciate those
+  feelings of vague awe and "worship of the silent kind" which the Cosmic
+  Theist declares to be fostered by Cosmic Theism; but he will also tell us
+  that those feelings, which he has experienced with equal vividness under
+  his own system of Anthropomorphic Theism, are to him but as non-religious
+  dross compared with the unspeakable felicity of holding definite commune
+  with the Almighty and Most Merciful, or of rendering worship that is a
+  glad hosanna&mdash;a fearless shout of joy. On the other hand, I believe
+  that it is possible for philosophic habits of thought so to discipline
+  the mind that the feelings of vague awe and silent worship in the
+  presence of an appalling Mystery become more deep and steady than a
+  theist proper can well believe. It is therefore impossible that either
+  party can fully appreciate those sentiments of the other which they have
+  never fully experienced themselves; for even in those cases where an
+  anthropomorphic theist has been compelled to abandon his creed, as the
+  change must take place in mature life, his tone of mind has been
+  determined before it does take place; and therefore in sentiment, though
+  not in faith, he is more or less of a theist for the rest of his life:
+  the only effect of the change is to create a troubled interference
+  between his desires and his beliefs.</p>
+
+  <p>However, I do not intend to develop this branch of the subject further
+  than thus to point out, in a general way, that religion-mongers as a
+  class are apt to show too little regard for the sentiments, as
+  distinguished from the beliefs, of those to whom they offer their wares.
+  But although I do not intend to constitute myself a champion of theology
+  by pointing out the defects of Cosmic Theism in the aspect which it
+  presents to current modes of thought, there is one such defect which I
+  must here dwell upon, because we shall afterwards have occasion to refer
+  to it. A theologian may very naturally make this objection to Cosmic
+  Theism as presented by Mr. Fiske&mdash;viz., that the argument on which
+  this philosopher throughout relies as a self-evident demonstration that
+  the new system of Theism is a further and a final improvement on all the
+  previous systems of Theism, is a fallacious argument. As we have already
+  seen, this argument is, that as the progress in the purification of
+  Theism has throughout consisted in a process of "deanthropomorphisation,"
+  therefore the terminal phase in this process, which Cosmic Theism
+  introduces, must be still in the direction of that progress. But to this
+  argument a theologian may not unreasonably object, that this terminal
+  phase differs from all the previous phases in one all-important
+  feature&mdash;viz., in effecting a <i>total abolition</i> of the
+  anthropomorphic element. Before, therefore, it can be shown that this
+  terminal phase is a further development of <i>Theism</i>, it must he
+  shown that Theism still remains Theism after this hitherto characteristic
+  element has been removed. If it is true, as Mr. Fiske very properly
+  insists, that all the various forms of belief in God have thus far had
+  this as a common factor, that they ascribed to God the attributes of Man;
+  it becomes a question whether we may properly abstract this hitherto
+  invariable factor of a belief, and still call that belief by the same
+  name. Or, to put the matter in another light, as cosmists maintain that
+  Theism, in all the phases of its development, has been the product of a
+  probably erroneous theory of personal agency in nature, when this theory
+  is expressly discarded&mdash;as it is by the doctrine of the
+  Unknowable&mdash;is it philosophically legitimate for cosmists to render
+  their theory of things in terms which belong to the totally different
+  theory which they discard? No doubt it is true that the progressive
+  refinement of Theism has throughout consisted in a progressive discarding
+  of anthropomorphic qualities; but this fact does not touch the
+  consideration that, when we proceed to strip off the last remnants of
+  these qualities, we are committing an act which differs <i>toto
+  c&#339;lo</i> from all the previous acts which are cited as precedents;
+  for by this terminal act we are not, as heretofore, <i>refining</i> the
+  theory of Theism&mdash;we are completely <i>transforming</i> it by
+  removing an element which, both genetically and historically, would seem
+  to constitute the very essence of Theism.</p>
+
+  <p>Or the case may be presented in yet another light. The only use of
+  terms, whether in daily talk or in philosophical disquisition, is that of
+  designating certain things or attributes to which by general custom we
+  agree to affix them; so that if anyone applies a term to some thing or
+  attribute which general custom does not warrant him in so applying, he is
+  merely laying himself open to the charge of abusing that term. Now apply
+  these elementary principles to the case before us. We have but to think
+  of the disgust with which the vast majority of living persons would
+  regard the sense in which Mr. Fiske uses the term "Theism," to perceive
+  how intimate is the association of that term with the idea of a Personal
+  God. Such persons will feel strongly that, by this final act of
+  purification, Mr. Fiske has simply purified the Deity altogether out of
+  existence. And I scarcely think it is here competent to reply that all
+  previous acts of purification were at first similarly regarded as
+  destructive, because it is evident that none of these previous acts
+  affected, as this one does, the central core of Theism. And, lastly, if
+  it should be still further objected, that by declaring the theory of
+  Personal Agency the central core of Theism, I am begging the question as
+  to the appropriateness of Mr. Fiske's use of the word
+  "Theism,"&mdash;seeing he appears to regard the essential meaning of this
+  word to be that of a postulation of merely Causal Agency,&mdash;I answer,
+  More of this anon; but meanwhile let it be observed that any charge of
+  question-begging lies rather at the door of Mr. Fiske, in that he
+  assumes, without any expressed justification, that the essence of Theism
+  <i>does</i> consist in such a postulation and in nothing more. And as he
+  unquestionably has against him the present world of theists no less than
+  the history of Theism in the past, I do not see how he is to meet this
+  charge except by confessing to an abuse of the term in question.</p>
+
+  <p>I will now proceed to examine the structure of Cosmic Theism. We are
+  all, I suppose, at one in allowing that there are only three "verbally
+  intelligible" theories of the universe,&mdash;viz., that it is
+  self-existent, or that it is self-created, or that it has been created by
+  some other and external Being. It is usual to call the first of these
+  theories Atheism, the second Pantheism, and the third Theism. Now as
+  there are here three distinct nameable theories, it is necessary, if the
+  term "Cosmic Theism" is to be justified as an appropriate term, that the
+  particular theory which it designates should be shown to be in its
+  essence theistic&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, that the theory should present those
+  distinguishing features in virtue of which Theism differs from Atheism on
+  the one hand, and from Pantheism on the other. Now what are these
+  features? The postulate of an Eternal Self-existing Something is common
+  to Theism and to Atheism. Here Atheism ends. Theism, however, is
+  generally said to assume Personality, Intelligence, and Creative Power as
+  attributes of the single self-existing substance. Lastly, Pantheism
+  assumes the Something now existing to have been self-created. To which,
+  then, of these distinct theories is Cosmic Theism most nearly allied? For
+  the purpose of answering this question, I shall render that theory in
+  terms of a formula which Mr. Fiske presents as a full and complete
+  statement of the theory:&mdash;"<i>There exists a</i> POWER, <i>to which
+  no limit in space or time is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as
+  presented in consciousness, are manifestations, but which we can only
+  know through these manifestations.</i>" But although the word "Power" is
+  here so strongly emphasised, we are elsewhere told that it is not to be
+  regarded as having more than a strictly relative or symbolic meaning; so
+  that, in point of fact, some more neutral word, such as "Something,"
+  "Being," or "Substance," ought in strictness to be here substituted for
+  the word "Power." Well, if this is done, we have the postulation of a
+  Being which is self-existing, infinite, and eternal&mdash;relatively, at
+  all events, to our powers of conception. Thus far, therefore, it would
+  seem that we are still on the common standing-ground of Atheism,
+  Pantheism, and Theism; for as it is not, so far as I can see, incumbent
+  on Pantheism to affirm that "thought is a measure of things," the
+  <i>apparent</i> or <i>relative</i> eternity which the Primal Something
+  must be supposed to present may not be <i>actual</i> or <i>absolute</i>
+  eternity. Nevertheless, as Mr. Fiske, by predicating Divinity of the
+  Primal Something, implicitly attributes to it the quality of an
+  <i>eternal</i> self-existence, I infer that Cosmic Theism may be
+  concluded at this point to part company with Pantheism. There remain,
+  then, Theism and Atheism.</p>
+
+  <p>Now undoubtedly, at first sight, Cosmic Theism appears to differ from
+  Atheism in one all-important particular. For we have seen that, by means
+  of a subtle though perfectly logical argument, Cosmic Philosophy has
+  evolved this conclusion&mdash;that all phenomena as presented in
+  consciousness are manifestations of a not improbable Single Self-existing
+  Power, of whose existence these manifestations alone can make us
+  cognisant. From which it apparently follows, that this hypothetical Power
+  must be regarded as existing out of necessary relation to the phenomenal
+  universe; that it is, therefore, beyond question "Absolute Being;" and
+  that, as such, we are entitled to call it Deity. But in the train of
+  reasoning of which this is a very condensed epitome, it is evident that
+  the legitimacy of denominating this Absolute Being Deity, must depend on
+  the exact meaning which we attach to the word "Absolute"&mdash;and this,
+  be it observed, quite apart from the question, before touched upon, as to
+  whether Personality and Intelligence are not to be considered as
+  attributes essential to Deity. In what sense, then, is the word
+  "Absolute" used? It is used in this sense. As from the relativity of
+  knowledge we cannot know things in themselves, but only symbolical
+  representations of such things, therefore things in themselves are
+  absolute to consciousness: but analysis shows that we cannot conceivably
+  predicate Difference among things in themselves, so that we are at
+  liberty, with due diffidence, to predicate of them No-difference: hence
+  the noumena of the schoolmen admit of being collected into a <i>summum
+  genus</i> of noumenal existence; and since, before their colligation
+  noumena were severally absolute, after their colligation they become
+  collectively absolute: therefore it is legitimate to designate this
+  sum-total of noumenal existence, "Absolute Being." Now there is clearly
+  no exception to be taken to the formal accuracy of this reasoning; the
+  only question is as to whether the "Absolute Being" which it evolves is
+  absolute in the sense required by Theism. I confess that to me this Being
+  appears to be absolute in a widely different sense from that in which
+  Deity must be regarded as absolute. For this Being is thus seen to be
+  absolute in no other sense than as holding&mdash;to quote from Mr.
+  Fiske&mdash;"existence independent of the conditions of the process of
+  knowing." In other words, it is absolute only as standing out of
+  necessary relation to <i>human consciousness</i>. But Theism requires, as
+  an essential feature, that Deity should be absolute as standing out of
+  necessary relation to <i>all else</i>. Before, therefore, the Absolute
+  Being of Cosmism can be shown, by the reasoning adopted, to deserve, even
+  in part, the appellation of Deity, it must be shown that there is no
+  other mode of Being in existence save our own subjective consciousness
+  and the Absolute Reality which becomes objective to it through the world
+  of phenomena. But any attempt to establish this position would involve a
+  disregard of the doctrine that knowledge is relative; and to do this, it
+  is needless to say, would be to destroy the basis of the argument whereby
+  the Absolute Being of Cosmism was posited.</p>
+
+  <p>Or, to state this part of the criticism in other words, as the first
+  step in justifying the predication of Deity, it must be shown that the
+  Being of which the predication is made is absolute, and this not merely
+  as independent of human consciousness, but as independent of the whole
+  noumenal universe&mdash;Deity itself alone excepted. That is, the Being
+  of which Deity is predicated must be Unconditioned. Hence it is incumbent
+  on Cosmic Theism to prove, either that the Causal Agent which it
+  denominates Deity is itself the whole noumenal universe, or that it
+  created the rest of a noumenal universe; else there is nothing to show
+  that this Causal Agent was not itself created&mdash;seeing that, even if
+  we assume the existence of a God, there is nothing to indicate that the
+  Causal Agent of Cosmism is that God.</p>
+
+  <p>It would appear therefore from this, that whatever else the Cosmist's
+  theory of things may be, it certainly is not Theism; and I think that
+  closer inspection will tend to confirm this judgment. To this then let us
+  proceed.</p>
+
+  <p>Mr. Fiske is very hard on the atheists, and so will probably repudiate
+  with scorn any insinuations to the effect that his theory of things is
+  "quasi-atheistic." Nevertheless, it seems to me that he is very unjust to
+  the atheists, in that while he spares no pains to "purify" and "refine"
+  the theory of the theists, so as at last to leave nothing but what he
+  regards as the distilled essence of Theism behind; he habitually leaves
+  the theory of the atheists as he finds it, without making any attempt
+  either to "purify" it by removing its weak and unnecessary ingredients,
+  or to "refine" it by adding such sublimated ingredients as modern
+  speculation has supplied. Thus, while he despises the atheists of the
+  eighteenth century for their irrationality in believing in the
+  self-existence of a <i>phenomenal</i> universe, and reviles them for
+  their irreligion in denying that "the religious sentiment needed
+  satisfaction;" he does not wait to inquire whether, in its essential
+  substance, the theory of these men is not the one that has proved itself
+  best able to withstand the grinding action of more recent thought. But
+  let us in fairness ask, What was the essential substance of that theory?
+  Apparently it was the bare statement of the unthinkable fact that
+  Something Is. It therefore seems to me useless in Mr. Fiske to lay so
+  much stress on the fact that this Something was originally identified by
+  atheists with the phenomenal universe. It seems useless to do this,
+  because such identification is clearly no part of the <i>essence</i> of
+  Atheism, which, as just stated, I take to consist in the single dogma of
+  self-existence as itself sufficient to constitute a theory of things.
+  And, if so, it is a matter of scarcely any moment, as regards that
+  theory, whether we are <i>immediately</i> cognisant of that which is
+  self-existent, or only become so through the world of phenomena&mdash;the
+  vital point of the theory being, that Self-existence, <i>wherever
+  posited</i>, is itself the only admissible explanation of phenomena. Or,
+  in other words, it does not seem that there is anything in the atheistic
+  theory, as such, which is incompatible with the doctrine of the
+  Relativity of Knowledge; so that whatever cogency there may be in the
+  train of reasoning whereby a single Causal Agent is deduced from that
+  doctrine, it would seem that an atheist has as much right to the benefit
+  of this reasoning as a theist; and there is thus no more apparent reason
+  why this single Causal Agent should be appropriated as the God of Theism,
+  than that it should be appropriated as the Self-existing X of Atheism.
+  Indeed, there seems to be less reason. For an atheist of to-day may very
+  properly argue:&mdash;'So far from beholding anything divine in this
+  Single Being absolute to human consciousness, it is just precisely the
+  form of Being which my theory postulates as the Self-existing All. In
+  order to constitute such a Being God, it must be shown, as we have
+  already seen, to be something more than a merely Causal Agent which is
+  absolute in the grotesquely restricted sense of being independent of 'one
+  petty race of creatures with an ephemeral experience of what is going on
+  in one tiny corner of the universe;' it must be shown to be something
+  more than absolute even in the wholly unrestricted sense of being
+  Unconditioned; it must be shown to possess such other attributes as are
+  distinctive of Deity. For I maintain that even Unconditioned Being,
+  <i>merely as such</i>, would only then have a right to the name of God
+  when it has been shown that the theory of Theism has a right to
+  monopolise the doctrine of Relativity.'</p>
+
+  <p>In thus endeavouring to "purify" the theory of Atheism, by divesting
+  it of all superfluous accessories, and laying bare what I conceive to be
+  its essential substance; it may be well to state that, even apart from
+  their irreligious character, I have no sympathy with the atheists of the
+  past century. I mean, that these men do not seem to me to deserve any
+  credit for advanced powers of speculation merely because they adopted a
+  theory of things which in its essential features now promises to be the
+  most enduring. For it is evident that the strength of this theory now
+  lies in its <i>simplicity</i>,&mdash;in its undertaking to explain, so
+  far as explanation is possible, the sum-total of phenomena by the single
+  postulate of self-existence. But it seems to me that in the last century
+  there were no sufficient data for rendering such a theory of things a
+  rational theory; for so long as the quality of self-existence was
+  supposed to reside in phenomena themselves, the very simplicity of the
+  theory, as expressed in words, must have seemed to render it inapplicable
+  as a reasonable theory of things. The astounding variety, complexity, and
+  harmony which are everywhere so conspicuous in the world of phenomena
+  must have seemed to necessitate as an explanation some one integrating
+  cause; and it is impossible that in the eighteenth century any such
+  integrating cause can have been conceivable other than Intelligence.
+  Therefore I think, with Mr. Fiske, that the atheists of the eighteenth
+  century were irrational in applying their single postulate of
+  self-existence as alone a sufficient explanation of things. But of course
+  the aspect of the case is now completely changed, when we regard it in
+  all the flood of light which has been shed on it by recent science,
+  physical and speculative. For the demonstration of the fact that energy
+  is indestructible, coupled with the corollary that every so-called
+  natural law is a physically necessary consequence of that fact, clearly
+  supply us with a completely novel datum as the ultimate source of
+  experience&mdash;and a datum, moreover, which is as different as can well
+  be imagined from the ever-changing, ever-fleeting, world of phenomena. We
+  have, therefore, but to apply the postulate of self-existence to this
+  single ultimate datum, and we have a theory of things as rational as the
+  Atheism of the last century was irrational. Nevertheless, that this
+  theory is more akin to the Atheism of the last century than to any other
+  theory of that time, is, I think, unquestionable; for while we retain the
+  central doctrine of self-existence as alone a scientifically admissible,
+  or non-gratuitous, explanation of things, we only change the original
+  theory by transferring the application of this doctrine from the world of
+  manifestations to that which causes the manifestations: we do not resort
+  to any of the <i>additional</i> doctrines whereby the other theories of
+  the universe were distinguished from the theory of Atheism in its
+  original form. However, as by our recognition of the relativity of
+  knowledge we are precluded from dogmatically denying any theory of the
+  universe that may be proposed, it would clearly be erroneous to identify
+  the doctrine of the Unknowable with the theory of Atheism: all we can say
+  is, that, so far as speculative thought can soar, the permanent
+  self-existence of an inconceivable Something, which manifests itself to
+  consciousness as force and matter, constitutes the only datum that can be
+  shown to be required for the purposes of a rational ontology.</p>
+
+  <p>To sum up. In the theory which Mr. Fiske calls Cosmic Theism, while I
+  am able to discern the elements which I think may properly be regarded as
+  common to Theism and to Atheism, I am not able to discern any single
+  element that is specifically distinctive of Theism. Still I am far from
+  concluding that the theory in question is the theory of Atheism. All I
+  wish to insist upon is this&mdash;that as the Absolute Being of Cosmism
+  presents no other qualities than such as are required by the renovated
+  theory of Atheism, its postulation supplies a basis, not for Theism, but
+  for Non-theism: a man with such a postulate ought in strictness to
+  abstain from either affirming or denying the existence of God. And this,
+  I may observe, appears to be the position which Mr. Spencer himself has
+  adopted as the only logical outcome of his doctrine of the
+  Unknowable&mdash;a position which, in my opinion, it is most undesirable
+  to obscure by endeavouring to give it a quasi-theistic interpretation. I
+  may further observe, that we here seem to have a philosophical
+  justification of the theological sentiment previously alluded
+  to&mdash;the sentiment, namely, that by his attempt at a final
+  purification of Theism, Mr. Fiske has destroyed those essential features
+  of the theory in virtue of which alone it exists as Theism. For seeing it
+  is impossible, from the relativity of knowledge, that the Absolute Being
+  of Cosmism can ever be shown absolute in the sense required by Theism,
+  and, even if it could, that it would still be but the Unconditioned Being
+  of Atheism; it follows that if this Absolute Being is to be shown even in
+  part to deserve the appellation of Deity, it must be shown to possess the
+  only remaining attributes which are distinctive of Deity&mdash;to wit,
+  personality and intelligence. But forasmuch as the final act of purifying
+  the conception of Deity consists, according to Mr. Fiske, in expressly
+  removing these particular attributes from the object of that conception,
+  does it not follow that the conception which remains is, as I have said,
+  not theistic, but non-theistic?</p>
+
+  <p>Here my criticism might properly have ended, were it not that Mr.
+  Fiske, after having divested the Deity of all his psychical attributes,
+  forthwith proceeds to show how it may be dimly possible to reinvest him
+  with attributes that are "quasi-psychical." Mr. Fiske is, of course, far
+  too subtle a thinker not to see that his previous argument from
+  relativity precludes him from assigning much weight to the ontological
+  speculations in which he here indulges, seeing that in whatever degree
+  the relativity of knowledge renders legitimate the non-ascription to
+  Deity of known psychical attributes, in some such degree at least must it
+  render illegitimate the ascription to Deity of unknown psychical
+  attributes. But in the part of his work in which he treats of the
+  quasi-psychical attributes, Mr. Fiske is merely engaged in showing that
+  the speculative standing of the "materialists" is inferior to that of the
+  "spiritualists;" so that, as this is a subject distinct from Theism, he
+  is not open to the charge of inconsistency. Well, feeble as these
+  speculations undoubtedly are in the support which they render to Theism,
+  it nevertheless seems desirable to consider them before closing this
+  review. The speculations in question are quoted from Mr. Spencer, and are
+  as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"Mind, as known to the possessor of it, is a circumscribed aggregate
+  of activities; and the cohesion of these activities, one with another,
+  throughout the aggregate, compels the postulation of a something of which
+  they are the activities. But the same experiences which make him aware of
+  this coherent aggregate of mental activities, simultaneously make him
+  aware of activities that are not included in it&mdash;outlying activities
+  which become known by their effects on this aggregate, but which are
+  experimentally proved to be not coherent with it, and to be coherent with
+  one another (<i>First Principles</i>, §§ 43, 44). As, by the definition
+  of them, these external activities cannot be brought within the aggregate
+  of activities distinguished as those of Mind, they must for ever remain
+  to him nothing more than the unknown correlatives of their effects on
+  this aggregate; and can be thought of only in terms furnished by this
+  aggregate. Hence, if he regards his conceptions of these activities lying
+  beyond Mind as constituting knowledge of them, he is deluding himself: he
+  is but representing these activities in terms of Mind, and can never do
+  otherwise. Eventually he is obliged to admit that his ideas of Matter and
+  Motion, merely symbolic of unknowable realities, are complex states of
+  consciousness built out of units of feeling. But if, after admitting
+  this, he persists in asking whether units of feeling are of the same
+  nature as the units of force distinguished as external, or whether the
+  units of force distinguished as external are of the same nature as units
+  of feeling; then the reply, still substantially the same, is that we may
+  go further towards conceiving units of external force to be identical
+  with units of feeling, than we can towards conceiving units of feeling to
+  be identical with units of external force. Clearly, if units of external
+  force are regarded as absolutely unknown and unknowable, then to
+  translate units of feeling into them is to translate the known into the
+  unknown, which is absurd. And if they are what they are supposed to be by
+  those who identify them with their symbols, then the difficulty of
+  translating units of feeling into them is insurmountable: if Force as it
+  objectively exists is absolutely alien in nature from that which exists
+  subjectively as Feeling, then the transformation of Force into Feeling is
+  unthinkable. Either way, therefore, it is impossible to interpret inner
+  existence in terms of outer existence. But if, on the other hand, units
+  of Force as they exist objectively are essentially the same in nature
+  with those manifested subjectively as units of Feeling, then a
+  conceivable hypothesis remains open. Every element of that aggregate of
+  activities constituting a consciousness is known as belonging to
+  consciousness only by its cohesion with the rest. Beyond the limits of
+  this coherent aggregate of activities exist activities quite independent
+  of it, and which cannot be brought into it. We may imagine, then, that by
+  their exclusion from the circumscribed activities constituting
+  consciousness, these outer activities, though of the same intrinsic
+  nature, become antithetically opposed in aspect. Being disconnected from
+  consciousness, or cut off by its limits, they are thereby rendered
+  foreign to it. Not being incorporated with its activities, or linked with
+  these as they are with one another, consciousness cannot, as it were, run
+  through them; and so they come to be figured as unconscious&mdash;are
+  symbolised as having the nature called material, as opposed to that
+  called spiritual. While, however, it thus seems an imaginable possibility
+  that units of external Force may be identical in nature with units of the
+  force known as Feeling, yet we cannot by so representing them get any
+  nearer to a comprehension of external Force. For, as already shown,
+  supposing all forms of Mind to be composed of homogeneous units of
+  feeling variously aggregated, the resolution of them into such units
+  leaves us as unable as before to think of the substance of Mind as it
+  exists in such units; and thus, even could we really figure to ourselves
+  all units of external Force as being essentially like units of the force
+  known as Feeling, and as so constituting a universal sentiency, we should
+  be as far as ever from forming a conception of that which is universally
+  sentient."<a name="footnotetag42"
+  href="#footnote42"><sup>[42]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Now while I agree with Mr. Fiske that we have here "the most subtle
+  conclusion now within the ken of the scientific speculator, reached
+  without any disregard of the canons prescribed by the doctrine of
+  relativity," I would like to point out to minds less clear-sighted than
+  his, that this same "doctrine of relativity" effectually debars us from
+  using this "conclusion" as an argument of any assignable value in favour
+  of Theism. For the value of conceivability as a test of truth, on which
+  this conclusion is founded, is here vitiated by the consideration that,
+  <i>whatever</i> the nature of Force-units may be, we can clearly perceive
+  it to be a subjective necessity of the case that they should admit of
+  being more easily conceived by us to be of the nature of Feeling-units
+  than to be of any other nature. For as units of Feeling are the only
+  entities of which we are, or can be, conscious, they are the entities
+  into which units of Force must be, so to speak, subjectively translated
+  before we can cognise their existence at all. Therefore, <i>whatever</i>
+  the real nature of Force-units may be, ultimate analysis must show that
+  it is more conceivable to identify them in thought with the only units of
+  which we are cognisant, than it is to think of them as units of which we
+  are not cognisant, and concerning which, therefore, conception is
+  necessarily impossible. Or thus, the only alternative with respect to the
+  classifying of Force-units lies between refusing to classify them at all,
+  or classifying them with the only ultimate units with which we are
+  acquainted. But this restriction, for aught that can ever be shown to the
+  contrary, arises only from the subjective conditions of our own
+  consciousness; there is nothing to indicate that, in objective reality,
+  units of Force are in any wise akin to units of Feeling. Conceivability,
+  therefore, as a test of truth, is in this particular case of no
+  assignable degree of value; for as the entities to which it is applied
+  are respectively the highest known abstractions of subjective and
+  objective existence, the test of conceivability is neutralised by
+  directly encountering the inconceivable relation that subsists between
+  subject and object. I think, therefore, it is evident that these
+  ontological speculations present no sufficient warrant for an inference,
+  even of the slenderest kind, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism possesses
+  attributes of a nature quasi-psychical; and, if so, it follows that these
+  speculations are incompetent to form the basis of a theory which, even by
+  the greatest stretch of courtesy, can in any legitimate sense be termed
+  quasi-theistic.<a name="footnotetag43"
+  href="#footnote43"><sup>[43]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>On the whole, then, I conclude that the term "Cosmic Theism" is not an
+  appropriate term whereby to denote the theory of things set forth in
+  "Cosmic Philosophy;" and that it would therefore be more judicious to
+  leave the doctrine of the Unknowable as Mr. Spencer has left
+  it&mdash;that is, without theological implications of any kind. But in
+  now taking leave of this subject, I should like it to be understood that
+  the only reason why I have ventured thus to take exception to a part of
+  Mr. Fiske's work is because I regret that a treatise which displays so
+  much of literary excellence and philosophic power should lend itself to
+  promoting what I regard as mistaken views concerning the ontological
+  tendencies of recent thought, and this with no other apparent motive than
+  that of unworthily retaining in the new philosophy a religious term the
+  distinctive connotations of which are considered by that philosophy to
+  have become obsolete.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+  <p><a name="SuppEssII"></a></p>
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<h3>SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY IN REPLY TO A
+RECENT WORK ON THEISM.<a name="footnotetag44" href="#footnote44"><sup>[44]</sup></a></h3>
+
+  <p>On perusing my main essay several years after its completion, it
+  occurred to me that another very effectual way of demonstrating the
+  immense difference between the nature of all previous attacks upon the
+  teleological argument and the nature of the present attack, would be
+  briefly to review the reasonable objections to which all the previous
+  attacks were open. Very opportunely a work on Theism has just been
+  published which states these objections with great lucidity, and answers
+  them with much ability. The work to which I allude is by the Rev.
+  Professor Flint, and as it is characterised by temperate candour in tone
+  and logical care in exposition, I felt on reading it that the work was
+  particularly well suited for displaying the enormous change in the
+  speculative standing of Theism which the foregoing considerations must be
+  rationally deemed to have effected. I therefore determined on throwing my
+  supplementary essay, which I had previously intended to write, into the
+  form of a criticism on Professor Flint's treatise, and I adopted this
+  course the more willingly because there are several other points dwelt
+  upon in that treatise which it seems desirable for me to consider in the
+  present one, although, for the sake of conciseness, I abstained from
+  discussing them in my previous essay. With these two objects in view,
+  therefore, I undertook the following criticism.<a name="footnotetag45"
+  href="#footnote45"><sup>[45]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>In the first place, it is needful to protest against an argument which
+  our author adopts on the authority of Professor Clark Maxwell. The
+  argument is now a well-known one, and is thus stated by Professor Maxwell
+  in his presidential address before the British Association for the
+  Advancement of Science, 1870:&mdash;"None of the processes of nature,
+  since the time when nature began, have produced the slightest difference
+  in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe
+  either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties
+  to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural. On the other
+  hand, the exact quality of each molecule to all others of the same kind
+  gives it, as Sir John Herschel has well said, the essential character of
+  a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and
+  self-existent. Thus we have been led along a strictly scientific path,
+  very near to the point at which science must stop. Not that science is
+  debarred from studying the external mechanism of a molecule which she
+  cannot take to pieces, any more than from investigating an organism which
+  she cannot put together. But in tracing back the history of matter,
+  science is arrested when she assures herself, on the one hand, that the
+  molecule has been made, and, on the other, that it has not been made by
+  any of the processes we call natural."</p>
+
+  <p>Now it is obvious that we have here no real argument, since it is
+  obvious that science can never be in a position to assert that atoms, the
+  very existence of which is hypothetical, were never "made by any of the
+  processes we call natural." The mere fact that in the universe, as we now
+  know it, the evolution of material atoms is not observed to be taking
+  place "by any of the processes we call natural," cannot possibly be taken
+  as proof, or even as presumption, that there ever was a time when the
+  material atoms now in existence were created by a supernatural cause. The
+  fact cannot be taken to justify any such inference for the following
+  reasons. In the first place, assuming the atomic theory to be true, and
+  there is nothing in the argument to show that the now-existing atoms are
+  not self-existing atoms, endowed with their peculiar and severally
+  distinctive properties from all eternity. Doubtless the argument is, that
+  as there appear to be some sixty or more elementary atoms constituting
+  the raw material of the observable universe, it is incredible that they
+  can all have owed their correlated properties to any cause other than
+  that of a designing and manufacturing intelligence. But, in the next
+  place&mdash;and here comes the demolishing force of the
+  criticism&mdash;science is not in a position to assert that these sixty
+  or more elementary atoms are in any real sense of the term elementary.
+  The mere fact that chemistry is as yet in too undeveloped a condition to
+  pronounce whether or not all the forms of matter known to her are
+  modifications of some smaller number of elements, or even of a single
+  element, cannot possibly be taken as a warrant for so huge an inference
+  as that there are really more than sixty elements all endowed with
+  absolutely distinctive properties by a supernatural cause. Now this
+  consideration, which arises immediately from the doctrine of the
+  relativity of knowledge, is alone amply sufficient to destroy the present
+  argument. But we must not on this account lose sight of the fact that,
+  even to our strictly relative science in its present embryonic condition,
+  we are not without decided indications, not only that the so-called
+  elements are probably for the most part compounds, but even that matter
+  as a whole is one substance, which is itself probably but some
+  modification of energy. Indeed, the whole tendency of recent scientific
+  speculation is towards the view that the universe consists of some one
+  substance, which, whether self-existing or created, is diverse only in
+  its relation to ignorance. And if this view is correct, how obvious is
+  the inference which I have elaborated in <a href="#Sect32">§ 32</a>, that
+  all the diverse forms of matter, as we know them, were probably evolved
+  by natural causes. So obvious, indeed, is this inference, that to resort
+  to any supernatural hypothesis to explain the diverse properties of the
+  various chemical elements appears to me a most glaring violation of the
+  law of parcimony&mdash;as much more glaring, for instance, than the
+  violation of this law by Paley, as the number and variety of organic
+  species are greater than the number and variety of chemical species. And
+  if it was illegitimate in Paley to use a mere absence of knowledge as to
+  how the transmutation of apparently fixed species of animals was effected
+  as equivalent to the possession of knowledge that such transmutation had
+  not been effected, how much more illegitimate must it be to commit a
+  similar sin against logic in the case of the chemical elements, where our
+  classification is confessedly beset with numberless difficulties, and
+  when we begin to discern that in all probability it is a classification
+  essentially artificial. Lastly, the mere fact that the transmutation of
+  chemical species and the evolution of chemical "atoms" are processes
+  which we do not now observe as occurring in nature, is surely a
+  consideration of a far more feeble kind than it is even in the case of
+  biological species and biological evolution; seeing that nature's
+  laboratory must be now so inconceivably different from what it was during
+  the condensation of the nebula. What an atrocious piece of arrogance,
+  therefore, it is to assert that "none of the processes of nature,
+  <i>since the time when nature began</i>, have produced the slightest
+  difference in the properties of any molecule!" No one can entertain a
+  higher respect for Professor Clark Maxwell than I do; but a single
+  sentence of such a kind as this cannot leave two opinions in any
+  impartial mind concerning his competency to deal with such subjects.</p>
+
+  <p>I am therefore sorry to see this absurd argument approvingly
+  incorporated in Professor Flint's work. He says, "I believe that no reply
+  to these words of Professor Clark Maxwell is possible from any one who
+  holds the ordinary view of scientific men as to the ultimate constitution
+  of matter. They must suppose every atom, every molecule, to be of such a
+  nature, to be so related to others and to the universe generally, that
+  things may be such as we see them to be; but this their fitness to be
+  built up into the structure of the universe is a proof that they have
+  been made fit, and since natural forces could not have acted on them
+  while not yet existent, a supernatural power must have created them, and
+  created them with a view to their manifold uses." Here the inference so
+  confidently drawn would have been a weak one even were we not able to see
+  that the doctrine of natural evolution probably applies to inorganic
+  nature no less than to organic. For the inference is drawn from
+  considerations of a character so transcendental and so remote from
+  science, that unless we wish to be deceived by a merely verbal argument,
+  we must feel that the possibilities of error in the inference are so
+  numerous and indefinite, that the inference itself is well-nigh worthless
+  as a basis of belief. But when we add that in <a href="#ChapIV">Chapter
+  IV.</a> of the foregoing essay it has been shown to be within the
+  legitimate scope of scientific reasoning to conclude that material atoms
+  have been progressively evolved <i>pari passu</i> with the natural laws
+  of chemical combination, it is evident that any force which the present
+  argument could ever have had must now be pronounced as neutralised.
+  Natural causes have been shown, so far as scientific inference can
+  extend, as not improbably sufficient to produce the observed effects; and
+  therefore we are no longer free to invoke the hypothetical action of any
+  supernatural cause.</p>
+
+  <p>The same observations apply to Professor Flint's theistic argument
+  drawn from recent scientific speculations as to the vortex-ring
+  construction of matter. If these speculations are sound, their only
+  influence on Theism would be that of supplying a scientific demonstration
+  of the substantial identity of Force and Matter, and so of supplying a
+  still more valid basis for the theory as to the natural genesis of matter
+  from a single primordial substance, in the manner sketched out in <a
+  href="#ChapIV">Chapter IV.</a> For the argument adduced by Professor
+  Flint, that as the manner in which the vorticial motion of a ring is
+  originated has not as yet been suggested, therefore its origination must
+  have been due to a "Divine impulse," is an argument which again uses the
+  absence of knowledge as equivalent to its possession. We are in the
+  presence of a very novel and highly abstruse theory, or rather
+  hypothesis, in physics, which was originally suggested by, and has
+  hitherto been mainly indebted to, empirical experiments as distinguished
+  from mathematical calculations; and from the mere fact that, in the case
+  of such a hypothesis, mathematicians have not as yet been able to
+  determine the physical conditions required to originate vorticial motion,
+  we are expected to infer that no such conditions can ever have existed,
+  and therefore that every such vortex system, if it exists, is a
+  miracle!</p>
+
+  <p>And substantially the same criticism applies to the argument which
+  Professor Flint adduces&mdash;the argument also on which Professors
+  Balfour and Tait lay so much stress in their work on the <i>Unseen
+  Universe</i>&mdash;the argument, namely, as to the non-eternal character
+  of heat. The calculations on which this argument depends would only be
+  valid as sustaining this argument if they were based upon a knowledge of
+  the universe <i>as a whole</i>; and therefore, as before, the absence of
+  requisite knowledge must not be used as equivalent to its possession.</p>
+
+  <p>These, however, are the weakest parts of Professor Flint's work. I
+  therefore gladly turn to those parts which are exceedingly cogent as
+  written from his standpoint, but which, in view of the strictures on the
+  teleological argument that I have adduced in <a href="#ChapIV">Chapters
+  IV.</a> and <a href="#ChapVI">VI.</a>, I submit to be now wholly
+  valueless.</p>
+
+  <p>"How could matter of itself produce order, even if it were
+  self-existent and eternal? It is far more unreasonable to believe that
+  the atoms or constituents of matter produced of themselves, without the
+  action of a Supreme Mind, this wonderful universe, than that the letters
+  of the English alphabet produced the plays of Shakespeare, without the
+  slightest assistance from the human mind known by that famous name. These
+  atoms might, perhaps, now and then, here and there, at great distances
+  and long intervals, produce by a chance contact some curious collocation
+  or compound; but never could they produce order or organisation on an
+  extensive scale, or of a durable character, unless ordered, arranged, and
+  adjusted in ways of which intelligence alone can be the ultimate
+  explanation. To believe that these fortuitous and indirected movements
+  could originate the universe, and all the harmonies and utilities and
+  beauties which abound in it, evinces a credulity far more extravagant
+  than has ever been displayed by the most superstitious of religionists.
+  Yet no consistent materialist can refuse to accept this colossal chance
+  hypothesis. All the explanations of the order of the universe which
+  materialists, from Democritus and Epicurus to Diderot and Lange, have
+  devised, rest on the assumption that the elements of matter, being
+  eternal, must pass through infinite combinations, and that one of these
+  must be our present world&mdash;a special collocation among the countless
+  millions of collocations, past and future. Throw the letters of the Greek
+  alphabet, it has been said, an infinite number of times, and you must
+  produce the 'Iliad' and all the Greek books. The theory of probabilities,
+  I need hardly say, requires us to believe nothing so absurd.... But what
+  is the 'Iliad' to the hymn of creation and the drama of providence?"
+  &amp;c.</p>
+
+  <p>Now this I conceive to have been a fully valid argument at the time it
+  was published, and indeed the most convincing of all the arguments in
+  favour of Theism. But, as already so frequently pointed out, the
+  considerations adduced in <a href="#ChapIV">Chapter IV.</a> of the
+  present work are utterly destructive of this argument. For this argument
+  assumes, rightly enough, that the only alternative we have in choosing
+  our hypothesis concerning the final explanation of things is either to
+  regard that explanation as Intelligence or as Fortuity. This, I say, was
+  a legitimate argument a few months ago, because up to that time no one
+  had shown that strictly natural causes, as distinguished from chances,
+  could conceivably be able to produce a cosmos; and although the several
+  previous writers to whom Professor Flint alludes&mdash;and he might have
+  alluded to others in this connection&mdash;entertained a dim anticipation
+  of the fact that natural causes might alone be sufficient to produce the
+  observed universe, still these dim anticipations were worthless as
+  <i>arguments</i> so long as it remained impossible to suggest any natural
+  <i>principle</i> whereby such a result could have been conceivably
+  effected by such causes. But it is evident that Professor Flint's
+  time-honoured argument is now completely overthrown, unless it can be
+  proved that there is some radical error in the reasoning whereby I have
+  endeavoured to show that natural causes not only <i>may</i>, but
+  <i>must</i>, have produced existing order. The overthrow is complete,
+  because the very groundwork of the argument in question is knocked away;
+  a third possibility, of the nature of a necessity, is introduced, and
+  therefore the alternative is no longer between Intelligence and Fortuity,
+  but between Intelligence and Natural Causation. Whereas the overwhelming
+  strength of the argument from Order has hitherto consisted in the
+  supposition of Intelligence as the one and only conceivable cause of the
+  integration of things, my exposition in <a href="#ChapIV">Chapter IV.</a>
+  has shown that such integration must have been due, at all events in a
+  relative or proximate sense, to a strictly physical cause&mdash;the
+  persistence of force and the consequent self-evolution of natural law.
+  And the question as to whether or not Intelligence may not have been the
+  absolute or ultimate cause is manifestly a question altogether alien to
+  the argument from Order; for if existing order admits of being accounted
+  for, in a relative or proximate sense, by merely physical causes, the
+  argument from a relative or proximate order is not at liberty to infer or
+  to assume the existence of any higher or more ultimate cause. Although,
+  therefore, in <a href="#ChapV">Chapter V.</a>, I have been careful to
+  point out that the fact of existing order having been due to proximate or
+  natural causes does not actually <i>disprove</i> the possible existence
+  of an ultimate and supernatural cause, still it must be carefully
+  observed that this <i>negative</i> fact cannot possibly justify any
+  <i>positive</i> inference to the existence of such a cause.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus, upon the whole, it may be said, without danger of reasonable
+  dispute, that as the argument from Order has hitherto derived its immense
+  weight entirely from the fact that Intelligence appeared to be the one
+  and only cause sufficient to produce the observed integration of the
+  cosmos, this immense weight has now been completely counterpoised by the
+  demonstration that other causes of a strictly physical kind must have
+  been instrumental, if not themselves alone sufficient, to produce this
+  integration, So that, just as in the case of Astronomy the demonstration
+  of the one natural principle of gravity was sufficient to classify under
+  one physical explanation several observed facts which many persons had
+  previously attributed to supernatural causes; and just as in the more
+  complex science of Geology the demonstration of the one principle of
+  uniformitarianism was sufficient to explain, without the aid of
+  supernaturalism, a still greater number of facts; and, lastly, just as in
+  the case of the still more complex science of Biology the demonstration
+  of the one principle of natural selection was sufficient to marshal under
+  one scientific, or natural, hypothesis an almost incalculable number of
+  facts which were previously explained by the metaphysical hypothesis of
+  supernatural design; so in the science which includes all other sciences,
+  and which we may term the science of Cosmology, I assert with confidence
+  that in the one principle of the persistence of force we have a
+  demonstrably harmonising principle, whereby all the facts within our
+  experience admit of being collocated under one natural explanation,
+  without there being the smallest reason to attribute these facts to any
+  supernatural cause.</p>
+
+  <p>But perhaps the immense change which these considerations must
+  logically be regarded as having produced in the speculative standing of
+  the argument from teleology will be better appreciated if I continue to
+  quote from Professor Flint's very forcible and thoroughly logical
+  exposition of the previous standing of this argument. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"To ascribe the origination of order to <i>law</i> is a manifest
+  evasion of the real problem. Law is order. Law is the very thing to be
+  explained. The question is&mdash;Has law a reason, or is it without a
+  reason? The unperverted human mind cannot believe it to be without a
+  reason."</p>
+
+  <p>I do not know where a more terse and accurate statement of the case
+  could be found; and to my mind the question so lucidly put admits of the
+  direct answer&mdash;Law clearly has a reason of a purely physical kind.
+  And therefore I submit that the following quotation which Professor Flint
+  makes from Professor Jevons, logical as it was when written, must now be
+  regarded as embodying an argument which is obsolete.</p>
+
+  <p>"As an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in unlimited space in
+  an unlimited number of modes of distribution, there must, even granting
+  matter to have had all its laws from eternity, have been at some moment
+  in time, out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible, that
+  one choice and distribution which yielded the fair and orderly universe
+  that now exists. Only out of rational choice can order have come."</p>
+
+  <p>But clearly the alternative is now no longer one between chance and
+  choice. If natural laws arise by way of necessary consequence from the
+  persistence of a single self-existing substance, it becomes a matter of
+  scientific (though not of logical) demonstration that "the fair and
+  orderly universe that now exists" is the one and only universe that, in
+  the nature of things, <i>can</i> exist. But to continue this interesting
+  passage from Dr. Flint's work&mdash;interesting not only because it sets
+  forth the previous standing of this subject with so much clearness, but
+  also because the work is of such very recent publication.</p>
+
+  <p>"The most common mode, perhaps, of evading the problem which order
+  presents to reason is the indication of the process by which the order
+  has been realised. From Democritus to the latest Darwinian there have
+  been men who supposed they had completely explained away the evidences of
+  design in nature when they had described the physical antecedents of the
+  arrangements appealed to as evidences. Aristotle showed the absurdity of
+  this supposition more than 2200 years ago."</p>
+
+  <p>Now this is a perfectly valid criticism on all such previous
+  non-theistical arguments as were drawn from an "indication of the process
+  by which the order has been realised;" for in all these previous
+  arguments there was an absence of any physical explanation of the
+  <i>ultimate</i> cause of the process contemplated, and so long as this
+  ultimate cause remained obscure, although the evidence of design might by
+  these arguments have been excluded from particular processes, the
+  evidence of design could not be similarly excluded from the ultimate
+  cause of these processes. Thus, for instance, it is doubtless illogical,
+  as Professor Flint points out, in any Darwinian to argue that because his
+  theory of natural selection supplies him with a natural explanation of
+  the process whereby organisms have been adapted to their surroundings,
+  therefore this process need not itself have been designed. That is to
+  say, in general terms, as insisted upon in the foregoing essay, the
+  discovery of a natural law or orderly process cannot of itself justify
+  the inference that this law or method of orderly procedure is not itself
+  a product of supernatural Intelligence; but, on the contrary, the very
+  existence of such orderly processes, considered only in relation to their
+  products, must properly be regarded as evidence of the best possible kind
+  in favour of supernatural Intelligence, <i>provided that no natural cause
+  can be suggested as adequate to explain the origin of these
+  processes</i>. But this is precisely what the persistence of force,
+  considered as a natural cause, must be pronounced as necessarily
+  competent to achieve; for we can clearly see that all these processes
+  obviously must and actually do derive their origin from this one
+  causative principle. And whether or not behind this one causative
+  principle of natural law there exists a still more ultimate cause in the
+  form of a supernatural Intelligence, this is a question altogether
+  foreign to any argument from teleology, seeing that teleology, in so far
+  as it is <i>teleology</i>, can only rest upon the observed facts of the
+  cosmos; and if these facts admit of being explained by the action of a
+  single causative principle inherent in the cosmos itself, teleology is
+  not free to assume the action of any causative principle of a more
+  ultimate character. Still, as I have repeatedly insisted, these
+  considerations do not entitle us dogmatically to deny the existence of
+  some such more ultimate principle; all that these considerations do is to
+  remove any rational argument from teleological sources that any such more
+  ultimate principle exists. Therefore I am, of course, quite at one with
+  Professor Flint when he says Professor Huxley "admits that the most
+  thoroughgoing evolutionist must at least assume 'a primordial molecular
+  arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the
+  consequences,' and 'is thereby at the mercy of the theologist, who can
+  defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not
+  intended to involve the phenomena of the universe.' Granting this much,
+  he is logically bound to grant more. If the entire evolution of the
+  universe may have been intended, the several stages of its evolution may
+  have been intended, and they may have been intended for their own sakes
+  as well as for the sake of the collective evolution or its final result."
+  Now that such <i>may have been</i> the case, I have been careful to
+  insist in <a href="#ChapV">Chapter V.</a>; all I am now concerned with is
+  to show that, in view of the considerations adduced in Chapter <a
+  href="#ChapIV">IV.</a>, there is no longer any evidence to prove, or even
+  to indicate, that such <i>has been</i> the case. And with reference to
+  this opportune quotation from Professor Huxley I may remark, that the
+  "thoroughgoing evolutionist" is now no longer "at the mercy of the
+  theologian" to any further extent than that of not being able to disprove
+  a purely metaphysical hypothesis, which is as certainly superfluous, in
+  any scientific sense, as the fundamental data of science are certainly
+  true.</p>
+
+  <p>It may seem almost unnecessary to extend this postscript by pursuing
+  further the criticism on Professor Flint's exposition in the light of "a
+  single new reason ... for the denial of design" which he challenges; but
+  there are nevertheless one or two other points which it seems desirable
+  to consider. Professor Flint writes:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"M. Comte imagines that he has shown the inference from design, from
+  the order and stability of the solar system, to be unwarranted, when he
+  has pointed out the physical conditions through which that order and
+  stability are secured, and the process by which they have been
+  obtained.... Now the assertion that the peculiarities which make the
+  solar system stable and the earth habitable have flowed naturally and
+  necessarily from the simple mutual gravity of the several parts of
+  nebulous matter is one which greatly requires proof, but which has never
+  received it. In saying this, we do not challenge the proof of the nebular
+  theory itself. That theory may or may not be true. We are quite willing
+  to suppose it true&mdash;to grant that it has been scientifically
+  established. What we maintain is, that even if we admit unreservedly that
+  the earth and the whole system to which it belongs once existed in a
+  nebulous state, from which they were gradually evolved into their present
+  condition conformably to physical laws, we are in no degree entitled to
+  infer from the admission the conclusion which Comte and others have
+  drawn. The man who fancies that the nebular theory implies that the law
+  of gravitation, or any other physical law, has of itself determined the
+  course of cosmical evolution, so that there is no need for believing in
+  the existence and operation of a divine mind, proves merely that he is
+  not exempt from reasoning very illogically. The solar system could only
+  have been evolved out of its nebulous state into that which it now
+  presents if the nebula possessed a certain size, mass, form, and
+  constitution, if it was neither too fluid nor too tenacious&mdash;if its
+  atoms were all numbered, its elements all weighed, its constituents all
+  disposed in due relation to one another; that is to say, only if the
+  nebula was in reality as much a system of order, which Intelligence alone
+  could account for, as the worlds which have been developed from it. The
+  origin of the nebula thus presents itself to reason as a problem which
+  demands solution no less than the origin of the planets. All the
+  properties and laws of the nebula require to be accounted for. What
+  origin are we to give them? It must be either reason or unreason. We may
+  go back as far as we please, but, at every step and stage of the regress
+  we must find ourselves confronted with the same question, the same
+  alternative&mdash;intelligent purpose or colossal chance."</p>
+
+  <p>Now, so far as Comte is here guilty of the fallacy I have already
+  dwelt upon of building a destructive argument upon a demonstration of
+  mere orderly processes in nature, as distinguished from a demonstration
+  of the natural cause of these processes, it is not for me to defend him.
+  All we can say with regard to him in this connection is, that, having a
+  sort of scientific presentiment that if the knowledge of his day were
+  sufficiently advanced it would prove destructive of supernaturalism in
+  the higher and more abstruse provinces of physical speculation, as it had
+  previously proved in the lower and less abstruse of these provinces,
+  Comte allowed his inferences to outrun their legitimate basis. Being
+  necessarily ignorant of the one generating cause of orderly processes in
+  nature, he improperly allowed himself to found conclusions on the basis
+  of these processes alone, which could only be properly founded on the
+  basis of their cause. But freely granting this much to Professor Flint,
+  and the rest of his remarks in this connection will be found, in view of
+  the altered standing of this subject, to be open to amendment. For, in
+  the first place, no one need now resort to the illogical supposition that
+  "the law of gravitation or any other physical law has of itself
+  determined the course of cosmical evolution." What we may argue, and what
+  must be conceded to us, is, that the common substratum of all physical
+  laws was at one time sufficient to produce the simplest physical laws,
+  and that throughout the whole course of evolution this common substratum
+  has always been sufficient to produce the more complex laws in the
+  ascending series of their ever-increasing number and variety. And hence
+  it becomes obvious that the "origin of the nebula" presents a difficulty
+  neither greater nor less than "the origin of the planets," since, "if we
+  may go back as far as we please," we can entertain no <i>scientific</i>
+  doubt that we should come to a time, prior even to the nebula, when the
+  substance of the solar system existed merely as such&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>,
+  in an almost or in a wholly undifferentiated form, the product, no doubt,
+  of endless cycles of previous evolutions and dissolutions of formal
+  differentiations. Therefore, although it is undoubtedly true that "the
+  solar system could only have been evolved out of its nebulous state into
+  that which it now presents if the nebula possessed" those particular
+  attributes which were necessity to the evolution of such a product, this
+  consideration is clearly deprived of all its force from our present point
+  of view. For unless it can be shown that there is some independent reason
+  for believing these particular attributes&mdash;which must have been of a
+  more and more simple a character the further we recede in time&mdash;to
+  have been miraculously imposed, the analogy is overwhelming that they all
+  progressively arose <i>by way of natural law</i>. And if so, the universe
+  which has been thus produced is the only universe in this particular
+  point of space and time which could have been thus produced. That it is
+  an <i>orderly</i> universe we have seen <i>ad nauseam</i> to be no
+  argument in favour of its having been a <i>designed</i> universe, so long
+  as the cause of its order&mdash;general laws&mdash;can be seen to admit
+  of a natural explanation.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus there is clearly nothing to be gained on the side of teleology by
+  going back to the dim and dismal birth of the nebula; for no
+  "thoroughgoing evolutionist" would for one moment entertain the
+  supposition that natural law in the simplest phases of its development
+  partook any more of a miraculous character than it does in its more
+  recent and vastly more complex phases. The absence of knowledge must not
+  be used as equivalent to its presence; and if analogy can be held to
+  justify any inference whatsoever, surely we may conclude with confidence
+  that if existing general laws admit of being conceivably attributed to a
+  natural genesis, the primordial laws of a condensing nebula must have
+  been the same.</p>
+
+  <p>There is another passage in Professor Flint's work to which it seems
+  desirable to refer. It begins thus: "There is the law of heredity: like
+  produces like. But why is there such a law? Why does like produce
+  like?... Physical science cannot answer these questions; but that is no
+  reason why they should not both be asked and answered. I can conceive of
+  no other intelligent answer being given to them than that there is a God
+  of wisdom, who designed that the world should be for all ages the abode
+  of life," &amp;c.</p>
+
+  <p>Now here we have in another form that same vicious tendency to take
+  refuge in the more obscure cases of physical causation as proofs of
+  supernatural design&mdash;the obscurity in this case arising from the
+  <i>complexity</i> of the causes and work, as in the former case it arose
+  from their <i>remoteness</i> in time. But in both cases the same answer
+  is patent, viz., that although "physical science cannot answer these
+  questions" by pointing out the precise sequence of causes and effects,
+  physical science is nevertheless quite as certain that this precise
+  sequence arises in its last resort from the persistence of force, as she
+  would be were she able to trace the whole process. And therefore, in view
+  of the considerations set forth in <a href="#ChapIV">Chapter IV.</a> of
+  this work, it is no longer open to Professor Flint or to any other writer
+  logically to assert&mdash;"I can conceive of no other intelligent answer
+  being given to" such questions "than that there is a God of wisdom."</p>
+
+  <p>The same answer awaits this author's further disquisition on other
+  biological laws, so it is needless to make any further quotations in this
+  connection. But there is one other principle embodied in some of these
+  passages which it seems undesirable to overlook. It is said, for
+  instance, "Natural selection might have had no materials, or altogether
+  insufficient materials, to work with, or the circumstances might have
+  been such that the lowest organisms were the best endowed for the
+  struggle for life. If the earth were covered with water, fish would
+  survive and higher creatures would perish."</p>
+
+  <p>Now the principle here embodied&mdash;viz., that had the conditions of
+  evolution been other than they were, the results would have been
+  different&mdash;is, of course, true; but clearly, on the view that
+  <i>all</i> natural laws spring from the persistence of force, no other
+  conditions than those which actually occurred, or are now occurring,
+  could ever have occurred,&mdash;the whole course of evolution must have
+  been, in all its phases and in all its processes, an unconditional
+  necessity. But if it is said, How fortunate that the outcome, being
+  unconditionally necessary, has happened to be so good as it is; I answer
+  that the remark is legitimate enough if it is not intended to convey an
+  implication that the general quality of the outcome points to beneficent
+  design as to its cause. Such an implication would not be legitimate,
+  because, in the first place, we have no means of knowing in how many
+  cases, whether in planets, stars, or systems, the course of evolution has
+  failed to produce life and mind&mdash;the one known case of this earth,
+  whether or not it is the one success out of millions of abortions, being
+  of necessity the only known case. In how vastly greater a number of cases
+  the course of evolution may have been, so to speak, deflected by some
+  even slight, though strictly necessary, cause from producing
+  self-conscious intelligence, it is impossible to conjecture. But this
+  consideration, be it observed, is not here adduced in order to
+  <i>disprove</i> the assertion that telluric evolution has been effected
+  by Intelligence; it is merely adduced to prove that such an assertion
+  cannot rest on the single known result of telluric evolution, so long as
+  an infinite number of the results of evolution elsewhere remain
+  unknown.</p>
+
+  <p>And now, lastly, it must be observed that even in the one case with
+  which we are acquainted, the net product of evolution is not such as can
+  of itself point us to <i>beneficent</i> design. Professor Flint, indeed,
+  in common with theologians generally, argues that it does. I will
+  therefore briefly criticise his remarks on this subject, believing, as I
+  do, that they form a very admirable illustration of what I conceive to be
+  a general principle&mdash;viz., that minds which already believe in the
+  existence of a Deity are, as a rule, not in a position to view this
+  question of beneficence in nature in a perfectly impartial manner. For if
+  the existence of a Deity is presupposed, a mind with any particle of that
+  most noble quality&mdash;reverence&mdash;will naturally hesitate to draw
+  conclusions that partake of the nature of blasphemy; and therefore,
+  unconsciously perhaps to themselves, they endeavour in various ways to
+  evade the evidence which, if honestly and impartially considered, can
+  scarcely fail to negative the argument from beneficence in the
+  universe.</p>
+
+  <p>Professor Flint argues that the "law of over-production," and the
+  consequent struggle for existence, being "the reason why the world is so
+  wonderfully rich in the most varied forms of life," is "a means to an end
+  worthy of Divine Wisdom." "Although involving privation, pain, and
+  conflict, its final result is order and beauty. All the perfections of
+  sentient creatures are represented as due to it. Through it the lion has
+  gained its strength, the deer its speed, and the dog its sagacity. The
+  inference seems natural that these perfections were designed to be
+  attained by it; that this state of struggle was ordained for the sake of
+  the advantages which it is actually seen to produce. The suffering which
+  the conflict involves may indicate that God has made even animals for
+  some higher end than happiness&mdash;that he cares for animal perfection
+  as well as for animal enjoyment; but it affords no reason for denying
+  that the ends which the conflict actually serves it was intended to
+  serve."</p>
+
+  <p>Now, whatever may be thought of such an argument as an attempted
+  justification of beneficent design already on independent ground believed
+  to exist, it is manifestly no argument at all as establishing any
+  presumption in favour of such design, unless it could be shown that the
+  Deity is so far limited in his power of adapting means to ends that the
+  particular method adopted in this case was the best, all things
+  considered, that he was able to adopt. For supposing the Deity to be,
+  what Professor Flint maintains that he is&mdash;viz.,
+  omnipotent&mdash;and there can be no inference more transparent than that
+  such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends designed, exhibits an
+  incalculably greater deficiency of beneficence in the divine character
+  than that which we know in any, the very worst, of human characters. For
+  let us pause for one moment to think of what suffering in nature means.
+  Some hundreds of millions of years ago some millions of millions of
+  animals must be supposed to have been sentient. Since that time till the
+  present, there must have been millions and millions of generations of
+  millions of millions of individuals. And throughout all this period of
+  incalculable duration, this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have
+  been in a state of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the
+  outcome, we find that more than half of the species which have survived
+  the ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and
+  insentient forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find
+  teeth and talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for
+  torment&mdash;everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, and sickness, with
+  oozing blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of
+  innocence that dimly close in deaths of brutal torture! Is it said that
+  there are compensating enjoyments? I care not to strike the balance; the
+  enjoyments I plainly perceive to be as physically necessary as the pains,
+  and this whether or not evolution is due to design. Therefore all I am
+  concerned with is to show, that if such a state of things is due to
+  "omnipotent design," the omnipotent designer must be concluded, so far as
+  reason can infer, to be non-beneficent. And this it is not difficult to
+  show. When I see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring-trap, I
+  abhor the devilish nature of the being who, with full powers of realising
+  what pain means, can deliberately employ his noble faculties of invention
+  in contriving a thing so hideously cruel. But if I could believe that
+  there is a being who, with yet higher faculties of thought and knowledge,
+  and with an unlimited choice of means to secure his ends, has contrived
+  untold thousands of mechanisms no less diabolical than a spring-trap; I
+  should call that being a fiend, were all the world besides to call him
+  God. Am I told that this is arrogance? It is nothing of the kind; it is
+  plain morality, and to say otherwise would be to hide our eyes from
+  murder because we dread the Murderer. Am I told that I am not competent
+  to judge the purposes of the Almighty? I answer that if these are
+  <i>purposes</i>, I <i>am</i> able to judge of them so far as I can see;
+  and if I am expected to judge of his purposes when they appear to be
+  beneficent, I am in consistency obliged also to judge of them when they
+  appear to be malevolent. And it can be no possible extenuation of the
+  latter to point to the "final result" as "order and beauty," so long as
+  the means adopted by the "<i>Omnipotent</i> Designer" are known to have
+  been so revolting. All that we could legitimately assert in this case
+  would be, that so far as observation can extend, "he cares for animal
+  perfection" <i>to the exclusion of</i> "animal enjoyment," and even to
+  the <i>total disregard</i> of animal suffering. But to assert this would
+  merely be to deny beneficence as an attribute of God.</p>
+
+  <p>The dilemma, therefore, which Epicurus has stated with great lucidity,
+  and which Professor Flint quotes, appears to me so obvious as scarcely to
+  require statement. The dilemma is, that, looking to the facts of organic
+  nature, theists must abandon their belief, either in the divine
+  omnipotence, or in the divine beneficence. And yet, such is the warping
+  effect of preformed beliefs on the mind, that even so candid a writer as
+  Professor Flint can thus write of this most obvious truth:&mdash;</p>
+
+  <p>"The late Mr. John Stuart Mill, for no better reason than that nature
+  sometimes drowns men and burns them, and that childbirth is a painful
+  process, maintained that God could not possibly be infinite. I shall not
+  say what I think of the shallowness and self-conceit displayed by such an
+  argument. What it proves is not the finiteness of God, but the littleness
+  of man. The mind of man never shows itself so small as when it tries to
+  measure the attributes and limit the greatness of its Creator."</p>
+
+  <p>But the argument&mdash;or rather the truism&mdash;in question is an
+  attempt to do neither the one nor the other; it simply asserts the patent
+  fact that, if God is omnipotent, and so had an unlimited choice of means
+  whereby to accomplish the ends of "animal perfection," "animal
+  enjoyment," and the rest; then the fact of his having chosen to adopt the
+  means which he has adopted is a fact which is wholly incompatible with
+  his beneficence. And on the other hand, if he is beneficent, the fact of
+  his having adopted these means in order that the sum of ultimate
+  enjoyment might exceed the sum of concomitant pain, is a fact which is
+  wholly incompatible with his omnipotence. To a man who already believes,
+  on independent grounds, in an omnipotent and beneficent Deity, it is no
+  doubt possible to avoid facing this dilemma, and to rest content with the
+  assumption that, in a sense beyond the reach of human reason, or even of
+  human conception, the two horns of this dilemma must be united in some
+  transcendental reconciliation; but if a man undertakes to reason on the
+  subject at all, as he must and ought when the question is as to the
+  <i>existence</i> of such a Deity, then clearly he has no alternative but
+  to allow that the dilemma is a hopeless one. With inverted meaning,
+  therefore, may we quote Professor Flint's words against
+  himself:&mdash;"The mind of man never shows itself so small as when it
+  tries to measure the attributes ... of its Creator;" for certainly, if
+  Professor Flint's usually candid mind has had a Creator, it nowhere
+  displays the "littleness" of prejudice in so marked a degree as it does
+  when "measuring his attributes."</p>
+
+  <p>Thus in a subsequent chapter he deals at greater length with this
+  difficulty of the apparent failure of beneficence in nature, arguing, in
+  effect, that as pain and suffering "serve many good ends" in the way of
+  warning animals of danger to life, &amp;c., therefore we ought to
+  conclude that, if we could see farther, we should see pain and suffering
+  to be unmitigated good, or nearly so. Now this argument, as I have
+  previously said, may possibly be admissible as between Christians or
+  others who <i>already</i> believe in the existence and in the beneficence
+  of God; but it is only the blindest prejudice which can fail to perceive
+  that the argument is quite without relevancy when the question is as to
+  the <i>evidences</i> of such existence and the <i>evidences</i> of such
+  character. For where the <i>fact</i> of such an existence and character
+  is the question in dispute, it clearly can be no argument to state its
+  bare assumption by saying that if we knew more of nature we should find
+  the relative preponderance of good over evil to be immeasurably greater
+  than that which we now perceive. The platform of argument on which the
+  question of "Theism" must be discussed is that of the observable Cosmos;
+  and if, as Dr. Flint is constrained to admit, there is a fearful
+  spectacle of misery presented by this Cosmos, it becomes mere
+  question-begging to gloss over this aspect of the subject by any vague
+  assumption that the misery must have some unobservable ends of so
+  transcendentally beneficent a nature, that were they known they would
+  justify the means. Indeed, this kind of discussion seems to me worse than
+  useless for the purposes which the Professor has in view; for it only
+  serves by contrast to throw out into stronger relief the natural and the
+  unstrained character of the adverse interpretation of the facts.
+  According to this adverse interpretation, sentiency has been evolved by
+  natural selection to secure the benefits which are pointed out by
+  Professor Flint; and therefore the fact of this, its cause, having been a
+  <i>mindless</i> cause, clearly implies that the <i>restriction</i> of
+  pain and suffering cannot be an active principle, or a <i>vera causa</i>,
+  as between species and species, though it must be such within the limits
+  of the same organism, and to a lesser extent within the limits of the
+  same species. And this is just what we find to be the case. Therefore,
+  without the need of resorting to wholly arbitrary assumptions concerning
+  transcendental reconciliations between apparently needless suffering and
+  a supposed almighty beneficence, the non-theistic hypothesis is saved by
+  merely opening our eyes to the observable facts around us, and there
+  seeing that pain and misery, alike in the benefits which they bring and
+  in the frightful excesses which they manifest, play just that part in
+  nature which this hypothesis would lead us to expect.</p>
+
+  <p>Therefore, to sum up these considerations on physical suffering, the
+  case between a theist and a sceptic as to the question of divine
+  beneficence is seen to be a case of extreme simplicity. The theist
+  believes in such beneficence by purposely concealing from his mind all
+  adverse evidence&mdash;feeling, on the one side, that to entertain the
+  doubt to which this evidence points would be to hold dalliance with
+  blasphemy, and, on the other side, that the subject is of so
+  transcendental a nature that, in view of so great a risk, it is better to
+  avoid impartial reasoning upon it. A sceptic, on the other hand, is under
+  no such obligation to preconceived ideas, and is therefore free to draw
+  unbiassed inferences as to the character of God, if he exists, to the
+  extent which such character is indicated by the sphere of observable
+  nature. And, as I have said, when the subject is so viewed, the inference
+  is unavoidable that, so far as human reason can penetrate, God, if he
+  exists, must either be non-infinite in his resources, or non-beneficent
+  in his designs. Therefore it is evident that when the <i>being</i> of
+  God, as distinguished from his <i>character</i>, is the subject in
+  dispute, Theism can gain nothing by an appeal to evidences of
+  <i>beneficent</i> designs. If such evidences were unequivocal, then
+  indeed the argument which they would establish to an intelligent cause of
+  nature would be almost irresistible; for the fact of the external world
+  being in harmony with the moral nature of man would be unaccountable
+  except on the supposition of both having derived their origin from a
+  common <i>moral</i> source; and morality implies intelligence. But as it
+  is, all the so-called evidence of divine beneficence in nature is,
+  without any exception of a kind that is worthless as proving
+  <i>design</i>; for all the facts admit of being explained equally well on
+  the supposition of their having been due to purely physical processes,
+  acting through the various biological laws which we are now only
+  beginning to understand. And further than this, so far are these facts
+  from proving the existence of a moral cause, that, in view of the
+  alternative just stated, they even ground a positive argument to its
+  negation. For, as we have seen, all these facts are just of such a kind
+  as we should expect to be the facts, on the supposition of their having
+  been due to natural causes&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, causes which could have had
+  no moral solicitude for animal happiness as such. Let us now, in
+  conclusion, dwell on this antithesis at somewhat greater length.</p>
+
+  <p>If natural selection has played any large share in the process of
+  organic evolution, it is evident that animal enjoyment, being an
+  important factor in this natural cause, must always have been furthered
+  <i>to the extent in which it was necessary for the adaptation of
+  organisms to their environment</i> that it should. And such we invariably
+  find to be the limits within which animal enjoyments <i>are</i> confined.
+  On the other hand, so long as the adaptations in question are not
+  complete, so long must more or less of suffering be entailed&mdash;the
+  capacity for suffering, as for enjoyment, being no doubt itself a product
+  of natural selection. But as all specific types are perpetually
+  struggling together, it is manifest that the competition must prevent any
+  considerable number of types from becoming so far adapted to their
+  environment of other types as to become exempt from suffering as a result
+  of this competition. There being no one integrating cause of an
+  intelligent or moral nature to supply the conditions of happiness to each
+  organic type without the misery of this competition, such happiness as
+  animals have is derived from the heavy expenditure of pain suffered by
+  themselves and by their ancestry.</p>
+
+  <p>Thus, whether we look to animal pleasures or to animal pains, the
+  result is alike just what we should expect to find on the supposition of
+  these pleasures and pains having been due to necessary and physical, as
+  distinguished from intelligent and moral, antecedents; for how different
+  is that which is from that which might have been! Not only might
+  beneficent selection have eliminated the countless species of parasites
+  which now destroy the health and happiness of all the higher organisms;
+  not only might survival of the fittest, in a moral sense, have determined
+  that rapacious and carnivorous animals should yield their places in the
+  world to harmless and gentle ones; not only might life have been without
+  sickness and death without pain;&mdash;but how might the exigences and
+  the welfare of species have been consulted by the structures and the
+  habits of one another! But no! Amid all the millions of mechanisms and
+  habits in organic nature, all of which are so beautifully adapted to the
+  needs of the species presenting them, there is <i>no single instance</i>
+  of any mechanism or habit occurring in one species for the exclusive
+  benefit of another species&mdash;although, as we should expect on the
+  non-theistic theory, there are some comparatively few cases of a
+  mechanism or a habit which is of benefit to its possessor being also
+  utilised by other species. Yet, on the beneficent-design theory, it is
+  impossible to understand why, when all mechanisms and habits in the same
+  species are invariably correlated for the benefit of that species, there
+  should never be any such correlation between mechanisms and habits of
+  different species. For how magnificent, how sublime a display of supreme
+  beneficence would nature have afforded if all her sentient animals had
+  been so inter-related as to minister to each other's happiness! Organic
+  species might then have been likened to a countless multitude of voices,
+  all singing to their Creator in one harmonious psalm of praise. But, as
+  it is, we see no vestige of such correlation; every species is for
+  itself, and for itself alone&mdash;an outcome of the always and
+  everywhere fiercely raging struggle for life.</p>
+
+  <p>So much, then, for the case of <i>physical</i> evil; but Dr. Flint
+  also treats of the case of <i>moral</i> evil. Let us see what this
+  well-equipped writer can make of this old problem in the present year of
+  grace. He says&mdash;"But it will be objected, could not God have made
+  moral creatures who would be certain always to choose what is right,
+  always to acquiesce in His holy will?... Well, far be it from me to deny
+  that God could have originated a sinless moral system.... But if
+  questioned as to why He has not done better, I feel no shame in
+  confessing my ignorance. It seems to me that when you have resolved the
+  problem of the origin of moral evil into the question, Why has God not
+  originated a moral universe in which the lowest moral being would be as
+  excellent as the archangels are? you have at once shown it to be
+  <i>speculatively incapable of solution</i> [italics mine], and
+  practically without importance[!]. The question is one which would
+  obviously give rise to another, Why has God not created only moral beings
+  as much superior to the archangels as they are superior to the lowest
+  Australian aborigines? But no complete answer can be given to a question
+  which may be followed by a series of similar questions to which there is
+  no end. We have, besides, neither the facts nor the faculties to answer
+  such questions."<a name="footnotetag46"
+  href="#footnote46"><sup>[46]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Now I confess that this argument presents to my mind more of subtlety
+  than sense. I had previously imagined that the archangels were supposed
+  to enjoy a condition of moral existence which might fairly be thought to
+  remove them from any association with that of the Australian aborigines.
+  But as this question is one that belongs to Divinity, I am here quite
+  prepared to bow to Professor Flint's authority&mdash;hoping, however,
+  that he is prepared to take the responsibility should the archangels ever
+  care to accuse me of calumny. But, as a logician, I must be permitted to
+  observe, that if I ask, Why am I not better than I am? it is no answer to
+  tell me, Because the archangels are not better than they are. For aught
+  that I know to the contrary, the archangels may be morally
+  <i>perfect</i>&mdash;as an authority in such matters has told us that
+  even "just men" may become,&mdash;and therefore, for aught that I know to
+  the contrary, Professor Flint's regress of moral degrees <i>ad
+  infinitum</i>, may be an ontological absurdity. But granting, for the
+  sake of argument, that archangels fall infinitely short of moral
+  perfection, and I should only be able to see in the fact a hopeless
+  aggravation of my previous difficulty. If it is hard to reconcile the
+  supreme goodness of God with the moral turpitude of man, much more would
+  it be hard to do so if his very angels are depraved. Therefore, if the
+  reasonable question which I originally put "may be followed by a series
+  of similar questions to which there is no end," the goodness of God must
+  simply be pronounced a delusion. For the question which I originally put
+  was no mere flimsy question of a stupidly unreal description. My own
+  moral depravity is a matter of painful certainty to me, and I want to
+  know why, if there is a God of infinite power and goodness, he should
+  have made me thus. And in answer I am told that my question is
+  "practically without importance," because there may be an endless series
+  of beings who, in their several degrees, are in a similar predicament to
+  myself. Perhaps they are; but if so, the moral evil with which I am
+  directly acquainted is made all the blacker by the fact that it is thus
+  but a drop in an infinite ocean of moral imperfection. When, therefore,
+  Professor Flint goes on to say, "We ought to be content if we can show
+  that what God has done is wise and right, and not perplex ourselves as to
+  why He has not done an infinity of other things," I answer, Most
+  certainly; but <i>can</i> we show that what God has done is wise and
+  right? Unquestionably not. That what he has done <i>may</i> be wise and
+  right, could we see his whole scheme of things, no careful thinker will
+  deny; but to suppose it can be <i>shown</i> that he has done this, is an
+  instance of purblind fanaticism which is most startling in a work on
+  <i>Theism</i>. "The best world, <i>we may be assured</i>, that our
+  fancies can feign, would in reality be far inferior to the world God has
+  made, whatever imperfections we may think we see in it." Are we leading a
+  sermon on the datum "God is love"? No; but a work on the questions, Is
+  there a God? and, if so, Is he a God of love? And yet the work is written
+  by a man who evidently tries to argue fairly. What shall we say of the
+  despotism of preformed beliefs? May we not say at least this
+  much&mdash;that those who endeavour to reconcile their theories of divine
+  goodness with the facts of human evil might well appropriate to
+  themselves the words above quoted, "We have neither the facts nor the
+  faculties to answer such questions"? For the "facts" indeed are absent,
+  and the "faculties" of impartial thought must be absent also, if this
+  obvious truth cannot be seen&mdash;that "these questions" only derive
+  their "speculatively unanswerable" character from the rational falsity of
+  the manner by which it is sought to answer them. The "facts" of our moral
+  nature, so far as honest reason can perceive, belie the hypothesis of
+  Theism; and although the "faculties" of man may be forced by prejudice
+  into an acceptance of contradictory propositions, the truth is obvious
+  that only by the hypothesis of Evolution can that old-tied knot be
+  cut&mdash;the Origin of Evil. The form of Theism for which Dr. Flint is
+  arguing is the current form, viz., that there is a God who combines in
+  himself the attributes of <i>infinite</i> power and <i>perfect</i>
+  goodness&mdash;a God at once <i>omnipotent</i> and <i>wholly</i> moral.
+  But, in view of the fact that moral evil exists in man, the proposition
+  that God is omnipotent and the proposition that he is wholly moral become
+  contradictory; and therefore the fact of moral evil can only be met,
+  either by abandoning one or other of these propositions, or by altogether
+  rejecting the hypothesis of Theism.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+  <p><a name="SuppEssIII"></a></p>
+
+<h3>III.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE SPECULATIVE STANDING OF
+MATERIALISM.</h3>
+
+  <p>As a continuation of my criticism on Mr. Fiske's views, I think it is
+  desirable to add a few words concerning the speculative annihilation with
+  which he supposes Mr. Spencer's doctrines to have visited Materialism. Of
+  course it is a self-evident truism that the doctrine of Relativity is
+  destructive of Materialism, if by Materialism we mean a theory which
+  ignores that doctrine. In other words, the doctrine of Relativity, if
+  accepted, clearly excludes the doctrine that Matter, <i>as known
+  phenomenally</i>, is at all likely to be a true representative of
+  whatever <i>thing-in-itself</i> it may be that constitutes Mind. But this
+  position is fully established by the doctrine of Relativity alone, and is
+  therefore not in the least affected, either by way of confirmation or
+  otherwise, by Mr. Spencer's extended doctrine of the Unknowable&mdash;it
+  being only because the latter doctrine presupposes the doctrine of
+  Relativity that it is exclusive of Materialism in the sense which has
+  just been stated. So far, therefore, Mr. Spencer's writings cannot be
+  held to have any special bearing on the doctrine of Materialism. Such a
+  special bearing is only exerted by these writings when they proceed to
+  show that "it seems an imaginable possibility that units of external
+  force may be identical in nature with the units of the force known as
+  feeling." Let us then ascertain how far it is true that the argument
+  already quoted, and which leads to this conclusion, is utterly
+  destructive of Materialism.</p>
+
+  <p>In the first place, I may observe that this argument differs in
+  several instructive particulars from the anti-materialistic argument of
+  Locke, which we have already had occasion to consider. For while Locke
+  erroneously imagined that the test of inconceivability is of equivalent
+  value <i>wherever</i> it is applied, save only where it conflicts with
+  preconceived ideas on the subject of Theism (see <a
+  href="#Appendix">Appendix A.</a>), Spencer, of course, is much too
+  careful a thinker to fall into so obvious a fallacy. But again, it is
+  curious to observe that in the anti-materialistic argument of Spencer the
+  test of inconceivability is used in a manner the precise opposite of that
+  in which it is used in the anti-materialistic argument of Locke. For
+  while the ground of Locke's argument is that Materialism must be untrue
+  because it is inconceivable that Matter (and Force) should be of a
+  psychical nature; the ground of Spencer's argument is that what we know
+  as Force (and Matter) may <i>not</i> inconceivably be of a psychical
+  nature. For my own part, I think that Spencer's argument is,
+  psychologically speaking, the more valid of the two; but nevertheless I
+  think that, logically speaking, it is likewise invalid to a perceptibly
+  great, and to a further indefinite, degree. For the argument sets out
+  with the reflection that we can only know Matter and Force as symbols of
+  consciousness, while we know consciousness directly, and therefore that
+  we can go further in conceivably translating Matter and Force into terms
+  of Mind than <i>vice versa</i>. And this is true, but it does not
+  therefore follow that the truth is more likely to lie in the direction
+  that thought can most easily travel. For although I am at one with Mr.
+  Spencer, whom Mr. Fiske follows, in regarding his test of
+  truth&mdash;viz., inconceivability of a negation&mdash;as the most
+  <i>ultimate</i> test within our reach, I cannot agree with him that in
+  this particular case it is the most <i>trustworthy</i> test within our
+  reach. I cannot do so because the reflection is forced upon me that, "as
+  the terms which are contemplated in this particular case are respectively
+  the highest abstractions of objective and of subjective existence, the
+  test of truth in question is neutralised by directly encountering the
+  inconceivable relation that exists between subject and object." Or, in
+  other words, as before stated, "<i>whatever</i> the cause of Mind may be,
+  we can clearly perceive it to be a subjective necessity of the case that,
+  in ultimate analysis, we should find it more easy to conceive of this
+  cause as resembling Mind&mdash;the only entity of which we are directly
+  conscious&mdash;than to conceive of it as any other entity of which we
+  are only indirectly conscious." When, therefore, Mr. Spencer argues that
+  "it is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of outer
+  existence," while it is not so impossible to interpret outer existence in
+  terms of inner existence, the fact is merely what we should in any case
+  expect <i>à priori</i> to be the fact, and therefore as a fact it is not
+  a very surprising discovery <i>à posteriori</i>. So that when Mr. Fiske
+  proceeds to make this fact the basis of his argument, that because we can
+  more conceivably regard objective existence as like in kind to subjective
+  existence than conversely, therefore we should conclude that there is a
+  corresponding probability in favour of the more conceivable proposition,
+  I demur to his argument. For, fully accepting the fact on which the
+  argument rests, and it seems to me, in view of what I have said, that the
+  latter assigns an altogether disproportionate value to the test of
+  inconceivability in this case. Far from endowing this test with so great
+  an authority in this case, I should regard it not only as perceptibly of
+  very small validity, but, as I have said, invalid to a degree which we
+  have no means of ascertaining. If it be asked, What other gauge of
+  probability can we have in this matter other than such a direct appeal to
+  consciousness? I answer, that this appeal being here <i>à priori</i>
+  invalid, we are left to fall back upon the formal probability which is
+  established by an application of scientific canons to objective
+  phenomena. (See footnote in <a href="#Sect14">§ 14</a>.) For, be it
+  carefully observed, Mr. Spencer, and his disciple Mr. Fiske, are not
+  idealists. Were this the case, of course the test of an immediate appeal
+  to consciousness would be to them the only test available. But, on the
+  contrary, as all the world knows, Mr. Spencer asserts the existence of an
+  unknown Reality, of which all phenomena are the manifestations.
+  Consequently, what we call Force and Matter are, according to this
+  doctrine, phenomenal manifestations of this objective Reality. That is to
+  say, for aught that we can know, Force and Matter may be anything within
+  the whole range of the possible; and the only limitation that can be
+  assigned to them is, that they are modes of existence which are
+  independent of, or objective to, our individual consciousness, but which
+  are uniformly translated into consciousness as Force and Matter. Now it
+  does not signify one iota for the purposes of Materialism whether these
+  our symbolical representations of Force and Matter are accurate or
+  inaccurate representations of their corresponding
+  realities,&mdash;unless, of course, some <i>independent</i> reason could
+  be shown for supposing that in their reality they resemble Mind. Call
+  Force <i>x</i> and Matter <i>y</i>, and so long as we are agreed that
+  <i>x</i> and <i>y</i> are <i>objective realities which are uniformly
+  translated into consciousness as Force and Matter</i>, the materialistic
+  deductions remain unaffected by this mere change in our terminology;
+  these essential facts are allowed to remain substantially as before,
+  namely, that there is an external something or external
+  somethings&mdash;Matter and Force, or <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>&mdash;which
+  themselves display no observable tokens of consciousness, but which are
+  invariably associated with consciousness in a highly distinctive
+  manner.</p>
+
+  <p>I dwell at length upon this subject, because although Mr. Spencer
+  himself does not appear to attach much weight to his argument, Mr. Fiske,
+  as we have seen, elevates it into a basis for "Cosmic Theism." Yet so far
+  is this argument from "ruling out," as Mr. Fiske asserts, the essential
+  doctrine of Materialism&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, the doctrine that what we know
+  as Mind is an effect of certain collocations and distributions of <i>what
+  we know</i> as Matter and Force&mdash;that the argument might be employed
+  with almost the same degree of effect, or absence of effect, to disprove
+  any instance of recognised causation. Thus, for example, the doctrine of
+  Materialism is no more "ruled out" by the reflection that what we cognise
+  as cerebral matter is only cognised relatively, than would the doctrine
+  of chemical equivalents be "ruled out" by the parallel reflection that
+  what we cognise as chemical elements are only cognised relatively. I say
+  advisedly, "with <i>almost</i> the same degree of effect," because, to be
+  strictly accurate, we ought not altogether to ignore the indefinitely
+  slender presumption which Mr. Spencer's subjective test of
+  inconceivability establishes on the side of Spiritualism, as against the
+  objective evidence of causation on the side of Materialism. As this is an
+  important subject, I will be a little more explicit. We are agreed that
+  Force and Matter are entities external to consciousness, of which we can
+  possess only symbolical knowledge. Therefore, as we have said, Force and
+  Matter may be anything within the whole range of the possible. But we
+  know that Mind is a possible entity, while we have no certain knowledge
+  of any other possible entity. Hence we are justified in saying, It is
+  possible that Force and Matter may be identical with the only entity
+  which we know as certainly possible; but forasmuch as we do not know the
+  sum of possible entities, we have no means of calculating the chances
+  there are that what we know as Force and Matter are identical in nature
+  with Mind. Still, that there is <i>a</i> chance we cannot dispute; all we
+  can assert is, that we are unable to determine its value, and that it
+  would be a mistake to suppose we can do so, even in the lowest degree, by
+  Mr. Spencer's test of inconceivability. Nevertheless, the fact that there
+  is such a chance renders it in some indeterminate degree more probable
+  that what we know as Force and Matter are identical with what we know as
+  Mind, than that what we know as oxygen and hydrogen are identical with
+  what we know as water. So that to this extent the essential doctrine of
+  Materialism is "ruled out" in a further degree by the philosophy of the
+  Unknowable than is the chemical doctrine of equivalents. But, of course,
+  this indefinite possibility of what we know as Force and Matter being
+  identical with what we know as Mind does not neutralise, in any
+  determinable degree, the considerations whereby Materialism in its
+  present shape infers that what we know as Force and Matter are probably
+  distinct from what we know as Mind.</p>
+
+  <p>But I see no reason why Materialism should be restricted to this "its
+  present shape." Even if we admit to the fullest extent the validity of
+  Mr. Spencer's argument, and conclude with Professor Clifford as a matter
+  of probability that "the universe consists entirely of Mind-stuff," I do
+  not see that the admission would affect Materialism in any essential
+  respect. For here again the admission would amount to little else, so far
+  as Materialism is directly concerned, than a change of terminology:
+  instead of calling objective existence "Matter," we call it "Mind-stuff."
+  I say "to <i>little</i> else," because no doubt in one particular there
+  is here some change introduced in the speculative standing of the
+  subject. So long as Matter and Mind, <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>, are held to
+  be antithetically opposed in substance, so long must Materialism suppose
+  that a connection of <i>causality</i> subsists between the two, such that
+  the former substance is <i>produced</i> in some unaccountable way by the
+  latter. But when Matter and Mind, <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>, are supposed to
+  be identical in substance, the need for any additional supposition as to
+  a causal connection is excluded. But unless we hold, what seems to me an
+  uncalled-for opinion, that the essential feature of Materialism consists
+  in a postulation of a causal connection between <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>, it
+  would appear that the only effect of supposing <i>x</i> and <i>y</i> to
+  be really but one substance <i>z</i>, must be that of
+  <i>strengthening</i> the essential doctrine of Materialism&mdash;the
+  doctrine, namely, that conscious intellectual existence is
+  <i>necessarily</i> associated with that form of existence which we know
+  phenomenally as Matter and Motion. If it is true that a "a moving
+  molecule of inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness, but
+  it possesses a small piece of Mind-stuff," then assuredly the central
+  position of Materialism is shown to be impregnable. For while it remains
+  as true as ever that mind and consciousness can only emerge when what we
+  know phenomenally as "Matter takes the complex form of a living brain,"
+  we have abolished the necessity for assuming even a causal connection
+  between the substance of what we know phenomenally as Matter and the
+  substance of what we know phenomenally as Mind: we have found that, in
+  the last resort, the phenomenal connection between what we know as Matter
+  and what we know as Mind is actually even more intimate than a connection
+  of causality; we have found that it is a substantial identity.</p>
+
+  <p>To sum up this discussion. We have considered the bearing of modern
+  speculation on the doctrine of Materialism in three successive stages of
+  argument. First, we had to consider the bearing on Materialism of the
+  simple doctrine of Relativity. Here we saw that Materialism was only
+  affected to the extent of being compelled to allow that what we know as
+  Matter and Motion are not known as they are in themselves. But we also
+  saw that, as the inscrutable realities are uniformly translated into
+  consciousness as Matter and Motion, it still remains as true as ever that
+  <i>what we know</i> as Matter and Motion may be the causes of what we
+  know as Mind. Even, therefore, if the supposition of causality is taken
+  to be an essential feature of Materialism, Materialism would be in no
+  wise affected by substituting for the words Matter and Motion the symbols
+  <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>The second of the three stages consisted in showing that Mr. Spencer's
+  argument as to the possible identity of Force and Feeling is not in
+  itself sufficient to overthrow the doctrine that what we know as Matter
+  and Motion may be the cause of what we know as Mind. For the mere fact of
+  its being more <i>conceivable</i> that units of Force should resemble
+  units of Feeling than conversely, is no warrant for concluding that in
+  reality any corresponding probability obtains. The test of
+  conceivability, although the most ultimate test that is available, is
+  here rendered vague and valueless by the <i>à priori</i> consideration
+  that <i>whatever</i> the cause of Mind may be (if it has a cause), we
+  must find it more easy to conceive of this cause as resembling Mind than
+  to conceive of it as resembling any other entity of which we are only
+  conscious indirectly.</p>
+
+  <p>Lastly, in the third place, we saw that even if Mr. Spencer's argument
+  were fully subscribed to, and Mind in its substantial essence were
+  conceded to be causeless, the central position of Materialism would still
+  remain unaffected. For Mr. Spencer does not suppose that his "units of
+  Force" are themselves endowed with consciousness, any more than Professor
+  Clifford supposes his "moving molecules of inorganic matter" to be thus
+  endowed. So that the only change which these possibilities, even if
+  conceded to be actualities, produce in the speculative standing of
+  Materialism, is to show that the raw material of consciousness, instead
+  of requiring to be <i>caused</i> by other substances&mdash;Matter and
+  Force, <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>,&mdash;occurs ready made as those
+  substances. But the essential feature of Materialism remains
+  untouched&mdash;namely, that what we know as Mind is dependent (whether
+  by way of causality or not is immaterial) on highly complex forms of
+  <i>what we know</i> as Matter, in association with highly peculiar
+  distributions of <i>what we know</i> as Force.</p>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+  <p><a name="SuppEssIV"></a></p>
+
+<h3>IV.</h3>
+
+<h3>THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS.</h3>
+
+  <p>Some physicists are inclined to dispute the fundamental proposition in
+  which the whole of Mr. Spencer's system of philosophy may be said to
+  rest&mdash;the proposition, namely, that the fact of the "persistence of
+  force" constitutes the ultimate basis of science. For my own part, I
+  cannot but believe that any disagreement on this matter only arises from
+  some want of mutual understanding; and, therefore, in order to anticipate
+  any criticisms to which the present work may be open on this score, I
+  append this explanatory note.</p>
+
+  <p>I readily grant that the term "persistence of force" is not a happy
+  one, seeing that the word "force," as used by physicists, does not at the
+  present time convey the full meaning which Mr. Spencer desires it to
+  convey. But I think that any impartial physicist will be prepared to
+  admit that, in the present state of his science, we are entitled to
+  conclude that energy of position is merely the result of energy of
+  motion; or, in other words, that potential energy is merely an expression
+  of the fact that the universe, as a whole, is replete with actual energy,
+  whose essential characteristic is that it is indestructible. And this may
+  be concluded without committing ourselves to any particular theory as to
+  the physical explanation of gravity; all we need assert is, that in some
+  way or other gravity is the result of ubiquitous energy. And this, it
+  seems to me, we must assert, or else conclude that gravity can never
+  admit of a physical explanation. For all that we mean by a physical
+  explanation is the proved establishment of an equation between two
+  quantities of energy; so that if energy of position does not admit of
+  being interpreted in terms of energy of motion, we must conclude that it
+  does not admit of being interpreted at all&mdash;at least not in any
+  physical sense.</p>
+
+  <p>Throughout the foregoing essays, therefore, I have assumed that all
+  forms of energy are but relatively varying expressions of the same
+  fact&mdash;the fact, namely, which Mr. Spencer means to express when he
+  says that force is persistent. And it seems to me almost needless to show
+  that this fact is really the basis of all science. For unless this fact
+  is assumed as a postulate, not only would scientific inquiry become
+  impossible, but all experience would become chaotic. The physicist could
+  not prosecute his researches unless he presupposed that the forces which
+  he measures are of a permanent nature, any more than could the chemist
+  prosecute his researches unless he presupposed that the materials which
+  he estimates by energy-units are likewise of a permanent nature. And
+  similarly with all the other sciences, as well as with every judgment in
+  our daily experience. If, therefore, any one should be hypercritical
+  enough to dispute the position that the doctrine of the conservation of
+  energy constitutes the "ultimate datum" of science, I think it will be
+  enough to observe that if this is <i>not</i> the "ultimate datum" of
+  science, science can have no "ultimate datum" at all. For any datum more
+  ultimate than permanent existence is manifestly impossible, while any
+  such datum as non-permanent existence would clearly render science
+  impossible. Even, therefore, if such hypercriticism had a valid basis of
+  apparently adverse fact whereon to stand, I should feel myself justified
+  in neglecting it on <i>à priori</i> grounds; but the only basis on which
+  such hypercriticism can rest is, not the knowledge of any adverse facts,
+  but the ignorance of certain facts which we must either conclude to be
+  facts or else conclude that science can have no ultimate datum whereon to
+  rest. In the foregoing essays, therefore, I have not scrupled to maintain
+  that the ultimate datum of science is destructive of teleology as a
+  scientific argument for Theism; because, unless we deny the possibility
+  of any such ultimate datum, and so land ourselves in hopeless scepticism,
+  we must conclude that there can be no datum more ultimate than
+  this&mdash;Permanent Existence; and this is just the datum which we have
+  seen to be destructive of teleology as a scientific argument for
+  Theism.</p>
+
+  <p>It may be well to point out that from this ultimate datum of
+  science&mdash;or rather, let us say, of experience&mdash;there follows a
+  deductive explanation of the law of causation. For this law, when
+  stripped of all the metaphysical corruptions with which it has been so
+  cumbersomely clothed, simply means that a given collocation of
+  antecedents unconditionally produces a certain consequent. But this fact,
+  otherwise stated, amounts to nothing more than a re-statement of the
+  ultimate datum of experience&mdash;the fact that energy is
+  indestructible. For if this latter fact be granted, it is obvious that
+  the so-called law of causation follows as a deductive necessity&mdash;or
+  rather, as I have said, that this law becomes but another way of
+  expressing the same fact. This is obvious if we reflect that the only
+  means we have of ascertaining that energy is <i>not</i> destructible, is
+  by observing that similar antecedents <i>do</i> invariably determine
+  similar consequents. It is as a vast induction from all those particular
+  cases of sequence-changes which collectively we call causation that we
+  conclude energy to be indestructible. And, obversely, having concluded
+  energy to be indestructible, we can plainly see that in any particular
+  cases of its manifestation in sequence-phenomena, the unconditional
+  resemblance between effects due to similar causes which is formulated by
+  the law of causation is merely the direct expression of the fact which we
+  had previously concluded. It seems to me, therefore, that the
+  old-standing question concerning the nature of causation ought now
+  properly to be considered as obsolete. Doubtless there will long remain a
+  sort of hereditary tendency in metaphysical minds to look upon
+  cause-connection as "a mysterious tie" between antecedent and consequent;
+  but henceforth there is no need for scientific minds to regard this "tie"
+  as "mysterious" in any other sense than the existence of energy is
+  "mysterious." To state the law of causation is merely to state the fact
+  that energy is indestructible.</p>
+
+  <p>And from this there also arises at once the explanation and the
+  justification of our belief in the uniformity of nature. If energy is, in
+  its relation to us, ubiquitous and persistent, it clearly follows that in
+  all its manifestations which collectively we call nature, similar
+  preceding manifestations must always determine similar succeeding
+  manifestations; for otherwise the energy concerned would require on one
+  or on both of the occasions, either to have become augmented by creation,
+  or dissipated by annihilation. Thus our belief in the uniformity of
+  nature, as in the validity of the law of causation, is merely an
+  expression of our belief in the ubiquitous and indestructible character
+  of energy.</p>
+
+  <p>Such being the case, we may fairly conclude that all these
+  old-standing "mysteries" are now merged in the one mystery of existence.
+  And deeper than this it is manifestly impossible that they can be merged;
+  for it is manifestly impossible that Existence in the abstract can ever
+  admit of what we call explanation. Hence we can clearly see that, in a
+  scientific sense, there must always remain a final mystery of things. But
+  although we can thus see that, from the very meaning of what we call
+  explanation, it follows that at the base of all our explanations there
+  must lie a great Inexplicable, I think that the mystery of Existence in
+  the abstract may be rendered less appalling if we reflect that, as
+  opposed to Existence, there is only one logical
+  alternative&mdash;Non-existence. Supposing, then, our physical
+  explanations to have reached their highest limits by resolving all modes
+  of Existence into one mode&mdash;force, matter, life, and mind, being
+  shown but different manifestations of the same Infinite
+  Existence&mdash;the final mystery of things would then become resolved
+  into the simple question, Why is there Existence?&mdash;Why is there not
+  Nothing?</p>
+
+  <p>Let us then first ask, What is "Nothing"? Is it a mere word, which
+  presents no meaning as corresponding to any objective reality, or has the
+  word a meaning notwithstanding its being an inconceivable one? Or,
+  otherwise phrased, is Nothing possible or impossible? Now, although in
+  ordinary conversation it is generally taken for granted that Nothing is
+  possible, there is certainly no more ground for this supposition than
+  there is for its converse&mdash;viz., that Nothing is merely a word which
+  signifies the negation of possibility. For analysis will show that the
+  choice between these two counter-suppositions can only be made in the
+  presence of knowledge which is necessarily absent&mdash;the knowledge
+  whether the universe of Existence is finite or infinite. If the universe
+  as a whole is finite, the word Nothing would stand as a symbol to denote
+  an unthinkable blank of which a finite universe is the content. And
+  forasmuch as Something and Nothing would then become actual, as
+  distinguished from nominal correlatives, we could have no guarantee that,
+  in an absolute or transcendental sense, it may not be possible, although
+  it is inconceivable, for Something to become Nothing or Nothing
+  Something. Hence, if Existence is finite, No-existence becomes possible;
+  and the doctrine of the indestructibility of Existence becomes, for aught
+  that we can tell, of a merely relative signification. But, on the other
+  hand, if Existence is infinite, No-existence becomes impossible; and the
+  doctrine of the indestructibility of Existence becomes, in a logical
+  sense, of an absolute signification. For it is manifest that if the
+  universe of Existence is without end in space and time, the possibility
+  of No-existence is of necessity excluded, and the word "Nothing" thus
+  becomes a mere negation of possibility.<a name="footnotetag47"
+  href="#footnote47"><sup>[47]</sup></a></p>
+
+  <p>Thus, if it be conceded that the universe as a whole is infinite both
+  in space and time, the concession amounts to an abolition of the final
+  mystery of things. For all that we mean by a mystery is something that
+  requires an explanation, and the whole of the final mystery of things is
+  therefore embodied in the question, "Why is there Existence?&mdash;Why is
+  there not Nothing?" But if the universe of Existence be conceded
+  infinite, this question is sufficiently met by the answer, "Because
+  Existence is, and Nothing is not." If it is retorted, But this is no real
+  answer; I reply, It is as real as the question. For to ask, Why is there
+  Existence? is, upon the supposition which has been conceded, equivalent
+  to asking, Why is the possible possible? And if such questions cannot be
+  answered, it is scarcely right to say that on this account they embody a
+  mystery; because the questions are really not rational questions, and
+  therefore the fact of their not admitting of any rational answer cannot
+  be held to show that the questions embody any rational mystery. That
+  there <i>is</i> a rational mystery, in the sense of there being something
+  which can never be <i>explained</i>, I do not dispute; all I assert is,
+  that this mystery is inexplicable, only <i>because there is nothing to
+  explain</i>; the mystery being ultimate, to ask for an explanation of
+  that which, being ultimate, requires no explanation, is irrational. Or,
+  to state the case in another way, if it is asked, Why is there not
+  Nothing? it is a sufficient answer, on supposition of the universe being
+  infinite, to say, Because Nothing is nothing; it is merely a word which
+  presents no meaning, and which, so far as anything can be conceived to
+  the contrary, never can present any meaning.</p>
+
+  <p>The above discussion has proceeded on the supposition of Existence
+  being infinite; but practically the same result would follow on the
+  counter-supposition of Existence being finite. For although in this case,
+  as we have seen, Non-entity would still be included within the range of
+  possibility, it would still be no more conceivable as such than is
+  Entity; and hence the question, Why is there not Nothing? would still be
+  irrational, seeing that, even if the possibility which the question
+  supposes were realised, it would in no wise tend to explain the mystery
+  of Something. And even if it could, the final mystery would not be thus
+  excluded; it would merely be transferred from the mystery of Existence to
+  the mystery of Non-existence. Thus under every conceivable supposition we
+  arrive at the same termination&mdash;viz., that in the last resort there
+  must be a final mystery, which, as forming the basis of all possible
+  explanations, cannot itself receive any explanation, and which therefore
+  is really not, in any proper sense of the term, a mystery at all. It is
+  merely a fact which itself requires no explanation, because it is a fact
+  than which none can be more ultimate. So that even if we suppose this
+  ultimate fact to be an Intelligent Being, it is clearly impossible that
+  he should be able to <i>explain</i> his own existence, since the
+  possibility of any such explanation would imply that his existence could
+  not be ultimate. In the sense, therefore, of not admitting of any
+  explanation, his existence would require to be a mystery to himself,
+  rendering it impossible for him to state anything further with regard to
+  it than this&mdash;"I am that I am."</p>
+
+  <p>I do not doubt that this way of looking at the subject will be deemed
+  unsatisfactory at first sight, because it seems to be, as it were, a
+  merely logical way of cheating our intelligence out of an intuitively
+  felt justification for its own curiosity in this matter. But the fault
+  really lies in this intuitive feeling of justification not being itself
+  justifiable. For this particular question, it will be observed, differs
+  from all other possible questions with which the mind has to deal. All
+  other questions being questions concerning manifestations of existence
+  presupposed as existing, it is perfectly legitimate to seek for an
+  explanation of one series of manifestations in another&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>,
+  to refer a less known group to a group better known. But the case is
+  manifestly quite otherwise when, having merged one group of
+  manifestations into another group, and this into another for an
+  indefinite number of stages, we suddenly make a leap to the last possible
+  stage and ask, "Into what group are we to merge the basis of all our
+  previous groups, and of all groups which can possibly be formed in the
+  future? How are we to classify that which contains all possible classes?
+  Where are we to look for an explanation of Existence?" When thus clearly
+  stated, the question, is, as I have said, manifestly irrational; but the
+  point with which I am now concerned is this&mdash;When in plain reason
+  the question is <i>seen</i> to be irrational, why in intuitive sentiment
+  should it not be <i>felt</i> to be so? The answer, I think, is, that the
+  interrogative faculty being usually occupied with questions which admit
+  of rational answers, we acquire a sort of intellectual habit of
+  presupposing every wherefore to have a therefore, and thus, when
+  eventually we arrive at the last of all possible wherefores, which itself
+  supplies the basis of all possible therefores, we fail at first to
+  recognise the exceptional character of our position. We fail at first to
+  perceive that, from the very nature of this particular case, our
+  wherefore is deprived of the rational meaning which it had in all the
+  previous cases, where the possibility of a corresponding therefore was
+  presupposed. And failing fully to perceive this truth, our organised
+  habit of expecting an answer to our question asserts itself, and we
+  experience the same sense of intellectual unrest in the presence of this
+  wholly meaningless and absurd question, as we experience in the presence
+  of questions significant and rational.</p>
+
+<h4>THE END.</h4>
+
+  <br clear="all" />
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>Notes</h3>
+<div class="note">
+  <p><a name="footnote1" href="#footnotetag1">[1]</a> The above was written
+  before Mr. Mill's essay on Theism was published. Lest, therefore, my
+  refutation may be deemed too curt, I supplement it with Mr. Mill's
+  remarks upon the same subject. "It may still be maintained that the
+  feelings of morality make the existence of God eminently desirable. No
+  doubt they do, and that is the great reason why we find that good men and
+  women cling to the belief, and are pained by its being questioned. But,
+  surely, it is not legitimate to assume that, in the order of the
+  universe, whatever is desirable is true. Optimism, even when a God is
+  already believed in, is a thorny doctrine to maintain, and had to be
+  taken by Leibnitz in the limited sense, that the universe being made by a
+  good being, is the best universe possible, not the best absolutely: that
+  the Divine power, in short, was not equal to making it more free from
+  imperfections than it is. But optimism, prior to belief in a God, and as
+  the ground of that belief, seems one of the oddest of all speculative
+  delusions. Nothing, however, I believe, contributes more to keep up the
+  belief in the general mind of humanity than the feeling of its
+  desirableness, which, when clothed, as it very often is, in the form of
+  an argument, is a <i>naive</i> expression of the tendency of the human
+  mind to believe whatever is agreeable to it. Positive value the argument
+  of course has none." For Mill's remarks on the version of the argument
+  dealt with in <a href="#Sect5">§ 5</a>, see his "Three Essays," p.
+  204.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote2" href="#footnotetag2">[2]</a> The words "or not
+  conceivable," are here used in the sense of "not relatively conceivable,"
+  as explained in <a href="#Sect47.1">Chap. vi.</a></p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote3" href="#footnotetag3">[3]</a> For the full
+  discussion from which the above is an extract, see <i>System of
+  Logic</i>, vol. i. pp. 409-426 (8th ed.). But, substituting "psychical"
+  for "volitional," see also, for some mitigation of the severity of the
+  above statement, the closing paragraphs of my <a
+  href="#SuppEssI">supplementary essay</a> on "Cosmic Theism."</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote4" href="#footnotetag4">[4]</a> Essay on
+  Understanding&mdash;Existence of God.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote5" href="#footnotetag5">[5]</a> Locke, <i>loc.
+  cit.</i></p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote6" href="#footnotetag6">[6]</a> See <a
+  href="#Appendix">Appendix A</a>.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote7" href="#footnotetag7">[7]</a> Viz., the constant
+  association within experience of mind with certain highly peculiar
+  material forms; the constant proportion which is found to subsist between
+  the quantity of cerebral matter and the degree of intellectual
+  capacity&mdash;a proportion which may be clearly traced throughout the
+  ascending series of vertebrated animals, and which is very generally
+  manifested in individuals of the human species; the effects of cerebral
+  anæmia, anæsthetics, stimulants, narcotic poisons, and lesions of
+  cerebral substance. There can, in short, be no question that the whole
+  series of observable facts bearing upon the subject are precisely such as
+  they ought to be upon supposition of the materialistic theory being true;
+  while, contrariwise, there is a total absence of any known facts tending
+  to negative that theory. At the same time it must be carefully noted,
+  that the observed facts (and any additional number of the like kind) do
+  not logically warrant us in concluding that mental states are necessarily
+  <i>dependent</i> upon material changes. Nevertheless, it must also be
+  noted, that, in the absence of positive proof of causation, it is
+  certainly in accordance with scientific procedure, to yield our
+  provisional assent to an hypothesis which undoubtedly connects a large
+  order of constant <i>accompaniments</i>, rather than to an hypothesis
+  which is confessedly framed to meet but a single one of the facts.</p>
+
+  <p>Professor Clifford, in a lecture on "Body and Mind" which he delivered
+  at St. George's Hall, and afterwards published in the <i>Fortnightly
+  Review</i>, argues against the existence of God on the ground that, as
+  Mind is always associated with Matter within experience, there arises a
+  presumption against Mind existing anywhere without being thus associated,
+  so that unless we can trace in the disposition of the heavenly bodies
+  some resemblance to the conformation of cerebral structure, we are to
+  conclude that there is a considerable balance of probability in favour of
+  Atheism. Now, as this argument&mdash;if we rid it of the grotesque
+  allusion to the heavenly bodies&mdash;is one that is frequently met with,
+  it seems desirable in this place briefly to analyse it. First of all,
+  then, the validity of the argument depends upon the probability there is
+  that the constant associated of Mind with Matter within experience is due
+  to a <i>causal</i> connection; for if the association in question is
+  merely an <i>association</i> and nothing more, the origin of known mind
+  is as far from being explained as it would be were Mind never known as
+  associated with Matter. But, in the next place, supposing the constant
+  association in question to be due to a causal connection, it by no means
+  follows that because Mind is due to Matter within experience, therefore
+  Mind cannot exist in any other mode beyond experience.</p>
+
+  <p>Doubtless, from analogy, there is a presumption against the hypothesis
+  that the same entity should exist in more than one mode at the same time;
+  but clearly in this case we are quite unable to estimate the value of
+  this presumption. Consequently, even assuming a causal connection between
+  Matter and Human Mind, if there is any, the slightest, indications
+  supplied by any other facts of experience pointing to the existence of a
+  Divine Mind, such indications should be allowed as much argumentative
+  weight as they would have had in the absence of the presumption we are
+  considering. Hence Professor Clifford's conclusion cannot be regarded as
+  valid until all the other arguments in favour of Theism have been
+  separately refuted. Doubtless Professor Clifford will be the first to
+  recognise the cogency of this criticism&mdash;if indeed it has not
+  already occurred to him; for as I know that he is much too clear a
+  thinker not to perceive the validity of these considerations, I am
+  willing to believe that the substance of them was omitted from his essay
+  merely for the sake of brevity; but, for the sake of less thoughtful
+  persons, I have deemed it desirable to state thus clearly that the
+  problem of Theism cannot be solved on grounds of Materialism alone. [This
+  note was written before I had the advantage of Professor Clifford's
+  acquaintance, but now I leave it, as I leave all other parts of this
+  essay&mdash;viz., as it was originally written.&mdash;1878.]</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote8" href="#footnotetag8">[8]</a> To avoid burdening
+  the text, I have omitted another criticism which may be made on Locke's
+  argument. "Triangle" is a word by which we designate a certain figure,
+  one of the properties of which is that the sum of its angles is equal to
+  two right angles. In other words, any figure which does not exhibit this
+  property is not that figure which we designate a triangle. Hence, when
+  Locke says he cannot conceive of a triangle which does not present this
+  property, it may be answered that his inability arises merely from the
+  fact that any figure which fails to present this property is not a figure
+  to which the term "triangle" can apply. Thus viewed, however, the
+  illustration would obviously be absurd, for the same reason that the
+  question of the clown is absurd, "Can you think of a horse that is just
+  like a cow?" What Locke evidently means is, that we cannot conceive of
+  any geometrical figure which presents all the other properties of a
+  triangle without also presenting the property in question. Now, even
+  admitting, with Locke, that it is as inconceivable that the entity known
+  to us as Matter should possess the property of causing thought as it is
+  that the figure which we term a triangle should posses the property of
+  containing more than two right angles, still it remains, for the purposes
+  of Locke's supposed theistic demonstration, to prove that it is an
+  inconceivable for the entity which we call Mind <i>not</i> to be due to
+  another Mind, as it is for a triangle <i>not</i> to contain, other than
+  two right angles. But, further, even if it were possible to prove this,
+  the demonstration would make as much against Theism as in favour of it;
+  for if, as the illustration of the triangle implies, we restrict the
+  meaning of the word "Mind" to an entity one of whose essential qualities
+  is that it should be caused by another Mind, the words "Supreme and
+  Uncaused Mind" involve a contradiction in terms, just as much as would
+  the words "A square triangle having four right angles." It would,
+  therefore, seem that if we adhere to Locke's argument, and pursue it to
+  its conclusion, the only logical outcome would be this:&mdash;Seeing that
+  by the word "Mind," I expressly connote the quality of derivation from a
+  prior Mind, as a quality belonging no less essentially to Mind than the
+  quality of presenting two right angles belongs to a triangle; therefore,
+  whatever other attributes I ascribe to the First Cause, I must clearly
+  exclude the attribute Mind; and hence, whatever else such a Cause may be,
+  it follows from my argument that it certainly is&mdash;Not Mind.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote9" href="#footnotetag9">[9]</a> Hamilton.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote10" href="#footnotetag10">[10]</a> Lectures on
+  Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 25-31.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote11" href="#footnotetag11">[11]</a> Lectures on
+  Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 542.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote12" href="#footnotetag12">[12]</a> <i>Loc. cit.</i>,
+  p. 543.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote13" href="#footnotetag13">[13]</a> Appendix to
+  Discussions, pp. 614, 165.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote14" href="#footnotetag14">[14]</a> Mill, in the
+  lengthy chapter which he devotes to the freedom of the will in his
+  Examination, does not notice this point.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote15" href="#footnotetag15">[15]</a> If more evidence
+  can be wanted, it is supplied in some suggestive facts of Psychology. For
+  example, "From our earliest childhood, the idea of doing wrong (that is,
+  of doing what is forbidden, or what is injurious to others) and the idea
+  of punishment are presented to the mind together, and the intense
+  character of the impressions causes the association between them to
+  attain the highest degree of closeness and intimacy. Is it strange, or
+  unlike the usual processes of the human mind, that in these circumstances
+  we should retain the feeling and forget the reason on which it is
+  grounded? But why do I speak of forgetting? In most cases the reason has
+  never, in our early education, been presented to the mind. The only ideas
+  presented have been those of wrong and punishment, and an inseparable
+  association has been created between these directly, without the help of
+  any intervening idea. This is quite enough to make the spontaneous
+  feelings of mankind regard punishment and a wrong-doer as naturally
+  fitted to each other&mdash;as a conjunction appropriate in itself,
+  independently of any consequences," &amp;c.&mdash;Mill, Examination of
+  Hamilton, p. 599.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote16" href="#footnotetag16">[16]</a> Grammar of Assent,
+  pp. 106, 107.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote17" href="#footnotetag17">[17]</a> Throughout these
+  considerations I have confined myself to the <i>positive</i> side of the
+  subject. My argument being of the nature of a criticism on the erroneous
+  inferences which are drawn from the <i>good</i> qualities of our moral
+  nature, I thought it desirable, for the sake of clearness, not to burden
+  that argument by the additional one as to the source of the <i>evil</i>
+  qualities of that nature. This additional argument, however, will be
+  found briefly stated at the close of my <a
+  href="#SuppEssII">supplementary essay</a> on Professor Flint's "Theism."
+  On reading that additional argument, I think that any candid and
+  unbiassed mind must conclude that, alike in what it is <i>not</i> as well
+  as in what it <i>is</i>, our moral nature points to a natural genesis, as
+  distinguished from a supernatural cause.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote18" href="#footnotetag18">[18]</a> The illustration
+  to which I refer is that of the watershed of a country being precisely
+  adapted to draining purposes. The rivers just fit their own particular
+  beds: the latter occupy the lowest grounds, and get broader and deeper as
+  they advance; pebbles, gravel, and sand all occupy the best teleological
+  situations, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote19" href="#footnotetag19">[19]</a> "Order of Nature,"
+  by the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., &amp;c., 1859, pp. 228-241.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote20" href="#footnotetag20">[20]</a> I think it
+  desirable to state that I perceived this great truth before I was aware
+  that it had been perceived also by Mr. Spencer. His statement of it now
+  occurs in the short chapter of <i>First Principles</i> entitled
+  "Relations between Forces." So far as I an able to ascertain, no one has
+  hitherto considered this important doctrine in its immediate relation to
+  the question of Theism.</p>
+
+  <p>In using the term "persistence of force," I am aware that I am using a
+  term which is not unopen to criticism. But as Mr. Spencer's writings have
+  brought this term into such general use among speculative thinkers, it
+  seemed to me undesirable to modify it. Questions of mere terminology are
+  without any importance in a discussion of this kind, provided that the
+  terms are universally understood to mean what they are intended to mean;
+  and I think that the signification which Mr. Spencer attaches to his
+  term, "persistence of force," is sufficiently precise. Therefore,
+  adopting his usage, whenever throughout the following pages I speak of
+  force as persisting, what I intend to be understood is, that there is a
+  something&mdash;call it force, or energy, or <i>x</i>&mdash;which, so far
+  as experience or imagination can extend, is, in its relation to us,
+  ubiquitous and illimitable; or, in other words, that it universally
+  presents the property of permanence. (See, for a more detailed
+  explanation, <a href="#SuppEssIV">supplementary essay,</a> "On the Final
+  Mystery of Things.")</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote21" href="#footnotetag21">[21]</a> Hamilton may here
+  be especially noticed, because he went so far as to maintain that the
+  phenomena of the external world, taken by themselves, would ground a
+  valid argument to the negation of God. Although I cannot but think that
+  this position was a conspicuously irrational one for any competent
+  thinker to occupy before the scientific doctrine of the correlation of
+  the forces had been enunciated, nevertheless I cannot lose the
+  opportunity of alluding to this remarkable feature in Sir William
+  Hamilton's philosophy, showing as it does that same prophetic
+  forestalling of the results which have since followed from the discovery
+  of the conservation of energy, as was shown by his no less remarkable
+  theory of causation. (See <a href="#SuppEssIV">supplementary essay</a>
+  "On the Final Mystery of Things.")</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote22" href="#footnotetag22">[22]</a> Mr. N. Lockyer's
+  work is now supplying important evidence on these points.&mdash;1878.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote23" href="#footnotetag23">[23]</a> It will of course
+  be observed that if matter and force are identical, the unification is
+  complete.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote24" href="#footnotetag24">[24]</a> Herbert
+  Spencer.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote25" href="#footnotetag25">[25]</a> It may here be
+  observed that the above discussion would not be affected by the view of
+  Professor Clifford and others, that natural law is to be regarded as
+  having a subjective rather than an objective signification&mdash;that
+  what we call a natural law is merely an arbitrary selection made by
+  ourselves of certain among natural processes. The discussion would not be
+  affected by this view, because the argument is really based upon the
+  existence of a cosmos as distinguished from a chaos; and therefore it
+  would be rather an intensification of the argument than otherwise to
+  point out that, for the maintenance of a cosmos, natural laws, as
+  conceived by us, would be inadequate. And this seems a fitting place to
+  make the almost superfluous remark, that throughout this present essay I
+  have used the words "Natural Law," "Supreme Law-giver," &amp;c., in an
+  apparently unguarded sense, merely in order to avoid needless obscurity.
+  Fully sensible as I am of the misleading nature of the analogy which
+  these words embody, I have yet adopted them for the sake of
+  perspicuity&mdash;being careful, however, never to allow the false
+  analogy which they express to enter into an argument on either side of
+  the question. Thus, even where it is said that the existence of Natural
+  Law points to the existence of a Supreme Law-maker, the argument might
+  equally well be phrased: The existence of an orderly cosmos points to the
+  existence of a disposing mind.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote26" href="#footnotetag26">[26]</a> First Principles,
+  pp. 27-29.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote27" href="#footnotetag27">[27]</a> It may be here
+  observed that this quality of indefiniteness on the part of such
+  reasoning is merely a practical outcome of the theoretical considerations
+  adduced in <a href="#ChapV">Chapter V.</a> For as we there saw that the
+  ratio between the known and the unknown is in this case wholly
+  indefinite, it follows that any symbols derived from the region of the
+  known&mdash;even though such symbols be the highest generalities which
+  the latter region affords&mdash;must be wholly indefinite when projected
+  into the region of the unknown. Or rather let us say, that as the region
+  of the unknown is but a progressive continuation of the region of the
+  known, the determinate value of symbols of thought varies inversely as
+  the distance&mdash;or, not improbably, as the square of the
+  distance&mdash;from the sphere of the known at which they are
+  applied.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote28" href="#footnotetag28">[28]</a> <i>i.e.</i>,
+  illegitimate in a <i>relative</i> sense. The conclusion is legitimate
+  enough in a <i>formal</i> sense, and as establishing a probability of
+  some <i>unassignable</i> degree of value. But it would be illegitimate if
+  this quality of indefiniteness were disregarded, and the conclusion
+  supposed to possess the same character of actual probability as it has of
+  formal definition.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote29" href="#footnotetag29">[29]</a> In order not to
+  burden the text with details, I have presented these reflections in their
+  most general terms. Thus, if it be granted that cosmic harmony results
+  from the combined action of general laws, and that these laws are the
+  necessary result of the primary qualities of force and matter, this the
+  most general statement of the atheistic position includes all more
+  special considerations as a genus includes its species; and therefore it
+  would not signify, for the purposes of the atheistic argument, whether or
+  not any such more special considerations are possible. Nevertheless, for
+  the sake of completeness, I may here observe that we are not wholly
+  without indications in nature of the physical causation whereby the
+  effect of cosmic harmony is produced. The universal tendency of motion to
+  become rhythmical&mdash;itself, as Mr. Spencer was the first to show, a
+  necessary consequence of the persistence of force&mdash;is, so to speak,
+  a conservative tendency: it sets a premium against natural cataclysms.
+  But a more important consideration is this,&mdash;that during the
+  evolution of natural law in the way suggested in <a
+  href="#ChapIV">Chapter IV.</a>, as every newly evolved law came into
+  existence it must have been, as it were, grafted on the stock of all
+  pre-existing natural laws, and so would not enter the cosmic system as an
+  element of confusion, but rather as an element of further progress. For
+  instance, when, with the origin of organic nature, the law of natural
+  selection entered upon the cosmos, it was grafted upon the pre-existing
+  stock of other natural laws, and so combined within them in unity. And a
+  little thought will show that it was impossible that it should do
+  otherwise; for it was impossible that natural selection could ever
+  produce organisms which would ever be able by their existence to conflict
+  with the pre-existing system of astronomic or geologic laws; seeing that
+  organisms, being a product of later evolution than these laws, would
+  either have to be adapted to them or perish. And hence the new law of
+  natural selection, which consists in so adapting organisms to the
+  pre-existing laws that they must either conform to them or die. Now, I
+  have chosen the case of natural selection because, as alluded to in the
+  text, it is the law of all others which is the most conspicuously
+  effective in producing the harmonious complexity of nature. But the same
+  kind of considerations may be seen to apply to most of the other general
+  laws with which we are acquainted, particularly if we bear in mind that
+  the general outcome of their united action as we observe it&mdash;the
+  cosmic harmony on which so much stress is laid&mdash;is not
+  <i>perfectly</i> harmonious. Cataclysms&mdash;whether it be the capture
+  of an insect, or the ruin of a star&mdash;although events of
+  comparatively rare occurrence if at any given time we take into account
+  the total number of insects or the total number of stars, are events
+  which nevertheless do occasionally happen. And the fact that even
+  cataclysms take place in accordance with so-called natural law, serves
+  but to emphasise the consideration on which we are engaged&mdash;viz.,
+  that the total result of the combined action of general laws is not such
+  as to produce perfect order. Lastly, if the answer is made that human
+  ideas of perfect order may not correspond with the highest ideal of such
+  order, I observe that to make such a answer is merely to abandon the
+  subject of discussion; for if a theist rests his argument on the basis of
+  our human conception of order, he is not free to maintain his argument
+  and at the same time to abandon its basis at whatever point the latter
+  may be shown untenable.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote30" href="#footnotetag30">[30]</a> Since the above
+  was written, the first volume of Mr. Spencer's "Sociology" has been
+  published; and those who may not as yet have read the first half of that
+  work are here strongly recommended to do so; for Mr. Spencer has there
+  shown, in a more connected and conclusive manner than has ever been shown
+  before, how strictly natural is the growth of all superstitions and
+  religions&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>, of all the theories of personal agency in
+  nature.&mdash;1878.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote31" href="#footnotetag31">[31]</a> Herbert Spencer's
+  Essays, vol. iii. pp. 246-249 (1874).</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote32" href="#footnotetag32">[32]</a> This is the truly
+  inconceivable element in the physical theory. As I have shown in the
+  pleading on the side of Atheism, the supposed inconceivability of cosmic
+  harmony being due to mindless forces, is not of such a kind as wholly
+  refuses to be surmounted by symbolic conceptions of a sufficiently
+  abstract character. But it is impossible, by the aid of any symbols, to
+  gain a conception of an eternal existence. And I may here point out, that
+  if Mind is said to be the cause of evolution, not only does the statement
+  involve the inconceivable proposition that such a Mind must be infinite
+  in respect to its powers of supervision, direction, &amp;c.; but the
+  statement also involves a necessary alternative between two additional
+  inconceivable propositions&mdash;viz., either that such a Mind must have
+  been eternal, or that it must have come into existence without a cause.
+  In this respect, therefore, it would seem that the theory of Atheism has
+  the advantage over that of Theism; for while the former theory is under
+  the necessity of embodying only a single inconceivable term, the latter
+  theory is under the necessity of embodying two such terms.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote33" href="#footnotetag33">[33]</a> Mr. Herbert
+  Spencer has treated of this subject in his memorable controversy with
+  Mill on the "Universal Postulate" (see <i>Psychology</i>, <a
+  name="Sect427">§ 427</a>), and refuses to entertain the term
+  "Inconceivable" as applicable to any propositions other than those
+  wherein "the terms cannot, by any effort, be brought before consciousness
+  in that relation which the proposition asserts between them." That is to
+  say, he limits the term "Inconceivable" to that which is
+  <i>absolutely</i> inconceivable; and he then proceeds to affirm that all
+  propositions "which admit of being framed in thought, but which are so
+  much at variance with experience, in which its terms have habitually been
+  otherwise united, that its terms cannot be put in the alleged relation
+  without effort," ought properly to be termed "<i>incredible</i>"
+  propositions. Now I cannot see that the class "Incredible propositions"
+  is, as this definition asserts, identical with the class which I have
+  termed "Relatively inconceivable" propositions. For example, it is a
+  familiar observation that, on looking at the setting sun, we experience
+  an almost, if not quite, insuperable difficulty in <i>conceiving</i> the
+  sun's apparent motion as due to our own actual motion, and yet we
+  experience no difficulty in <i>believing</i> it. Conversely, I entertain
+  but little difficulty in <i>conceiving</i>&mdash;<i>i.e.</i>,
+  imagining&mdash;a shark with a mammalian heart, and yet it would require
+  extremely strong evidence to make me <i>believe</i> that such an animal
+  exists. The truth appears to be that our language is deficient in terms
+  whereby to distinguish between that which is wholly inconceivable from
+  that which is with difficulty conceivable. This, it seems to me, was the
+  principle reason of the dispute between Spencer and Mill above alluded
+  to,&mdash;the former writer having always used the word "Inconceivable"
+  in the sense of "Absolutely inconceivable," and the latter having
+  apparently used it&mdash;in his <i>Logic</i> and elsewhere&mdash;in both
+  senses. I have endeavoured to remedy this defect in the language by
+  introducing the qualifying words, "Absolutely" and "Relatively," which,
+  although not appropriate words, are the best that I am able to supply.
+  The conceptive faculty of the individual having been determined by the
+  experience of the race, that which is inconceivable by the intelligence
+  of the race may be said to be inconceivable to the intelligence of the
+  individual in an <i>absolute</i> sense; no effort on his part can enable
+  him to surmount the organically imposed conditions of his conceptive
+  faculty. But that which is inconceivable merely to one individual or
+  generation, while it is not inconceivable to the intelligence of the
+  race, may properly be said to be inconceivable to the intelligence of
+  that individual or generation only in a <i>relative</i> sense; apart from
+  the special condition to which the individual intelligence has been
+  subjected, there is nothing in the conditions of human intelligence as
+  such to prevent the thing from being conceived. [While this work has been
+  passing through the press, I have found that Mr. G. H. Lewes has already
+  employed the above terms in precisely the same sense as that which is
+  above explained.&mdash;1878.]</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote34" href="#footnotetag34">[34]</a> I should here like
+  to have added some considerations on Sir W. Hamilton's remarks concerning
+  the effect of training upon the mind in this connection; but, to avoid
+  being tedious, I shall condense what I have to say into a few sentences.
+  What Hamilton maintains is very true, viz., that the study of classics,
+  moral and mental philosophy, &amp;c., renders the mind more capable of
+  believing in a God than does the study of physical science. The question,
+  however, is, Which class of studies ought to be considered the more
+  authoritative in this matter? I certainly cannot see what title classics,
+  history, political economy, &amp;c., have to be regarded at all; and
+  although the mental and moral sciences have doubtless a better claim,
+  still I think they must be largely subordinate to those sciences which
+  deal with the whole domain of nature besides. Further, I should say that
+  there is no very strong <i>affirmative</i> influence created on the mind
+  in this respect by any class of studies; and that the only reason why we
+  so generally find Theism and classics, &amp;c., united, is because we so
+  seldom find classics, &amp;c., and physical science united; the
+  <i>negative</i> influence of the latter, in the case of classical minds,
+  being therefore generally absent.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote35" href="#footnotetag35">[35]</a> The qualities
+  named are only known in a relative sense, and therefore the apparent
+  contradiction may be destitute of meaning in an absolute sense.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote36" href="#footnotetag36">[36]</a> All the quotations
+  in this Appendix have been taken from the chapter on "Our knowledge of
+  the existence of a God," and from the early part of that on "The extent
+  of human knowledge," together with the appended letter to the Bishop of
+  Worcester.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote37" href="#footnotetag37">[37]</a> A criticism of Mr.
+  John Fiske's proposed system of theology as expounded in his work on
+  "Cosmic Philosophy" (Macmillan &amp; Co., 1874).</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote38" href="#footnotetag38">[38]</a> Cosmic Philosophy,
+  vol. i. pp. 87-89.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote39" href="#footnotetag39">[39]</a> Cosmic Philosophy,
+  vol. ii. pp. 429, 430.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote40" href="#footnotetag40">[40]</a> Ibid., p. 441.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote41" href="#footnotetag41">[41]</a> Ibid., pp. 450,
+  451.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote42" href="#footnotetag42">[42]</a> Principles of
+  Psychology, vol. i. pp. 159-161.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote43" href="#footnotetag43">[43]</a> We thus see that
+  the question whether there may not be "something quasi-psychical in the
+  constitution of things" is a question which does not affect the position
+  of Theism as it has been left by a negation of the self-conscious
+  personality of God. But as the speculations on which this question has
+  been reared are in themselves of much philosophical interest, I may here
+  observe that, in one form or another, they have been dimly floating in
+  men's minds for a long time past. Thus, excepting the degree of certainty
+  with which it is taught, we have in Mr. Spencer's words above quoted a
+  reversion to the doctrine of Buddha; for, as "force is persistent," all
+  that would happen on death, supposing the doctrine true, would be an
+  escape of the "circumscribed aggregate" of units forming the individual
+  consciousness into the unlimited abyss of similar units constituting the
+  "Absolute Being" of the Cosmists, or the "Divine Essence" of the
+  Buddhists. Again, the doctrine in a vague form pervades the philosophy of
+  Spinoza, and is next clearly enunciated by Wundt. Lastly, in a recently
+  published very remarkable essay "On the Nature of Things in Themselves,"
+  Professor Clifford arrives at a similar doctrine by a different route.
+  The following is the conclusion to which he arrives:&mdash;"That element
+  of which, as we have seen, even the simplest feeling is a complex, I
+  shall call <i>Mind-stuff</i>. A moving molecule of inorganic matter does
+  not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a small piece of
+  mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to form the film
+  on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff which go
+  along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of
+  Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and
+  nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff
+  are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say,
+  changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked
+  together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other.
+  When matters take the complex form of a living human brain, the
+  corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having
+  intelligence and volition." (Mind, January, 1878.)</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote44" href="#footnotetag44">[44]</a> Theism, by Robert
+  Flint, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh,
+  &amp;c.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote45" href="#footnotetag45">[45]</a> Such being the
+  objects in view, I have not thought it necessary to extend this criticism
+  into anything resembling a review of Professor Flint's work as a whole;
+  but, on the contrary, I have aimed rather at confining my observations to
+  those parts of his treatise which embody the current arguments from
+  teleology alone. I may here observe, however, in general terms, that I
+  consider all his arguments to have been answered by anticipation in the
+  foregoing examination of Theism. I may also here observe, that throughout
+  the following essay I have used the word "design" in the sense in which
+  it is used by Professor Flint himself. This sense is distinctly a
+  different one from that which the word bears in the writings of the
+  Paley, Bell, and Chalmers school. For while in the latter writings, as
+  pointed out in <a href="#ChapIII">Chapter III.</a>, the word bears its
+  natural meaning of a certain <i>process of thought</i>, in Professor
+  Flint's work it is used rather as expressive of a <i>product of
+  intelligence</i>. In other words, "design," as used by Professor Flint,
+  is synonymous with <i>intention</i>, irrespective of the particular
+  psychological process by which the intention may have been put into
+  effect.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote46" href="#footnotetag46">[46]</a> Op. cit., pp.
+  255-257.</p>
+
+  <p><a name="footnote47" href="#footnotetag47">[47]</a> Let it be observed
+  that there is a distinction between what I may call substantial and
+  formal existence. Thus there is no doubt that flowers as flowers perish,
+  or become non-existent; but the substances of which they were composed
+  persist. And, in this connection, I may here point out that if the
+  universe is infinite in space and time, the universe as a whole would
+  present substantial existence as standing out of relation to space and
+  time, whereas innumerable portions of the universe present only formal
+  existences, because standing in relation both to space and time. Thus,
+  for instance, the solar system, as a solar system, must have an end in
+  time as it has a boundary in space; but as the substance of which it
+  consists will not become extinguished by the extinction of the system, it
+  may not now stand in any real relation to what we call space and time. I
+  am inclined to think that it is upon the idea of non-existence in this
+  formal sense that we construct a pseud-idea of non-existence in a
+  substantial sense; but it is evident that if the universe as a whole is
+  absolute, this pseud-idea must represent as impossibility. And from this
+  it follows, that if existence is infinite in space and time, every
+  <i>quantum</i> of it with which our experience comes into relation must
+  represent, as its essential quality, that quality which we find to be
+  presented by the substance of things&mdash;the quality, that is, of
+  persistence.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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diff --git a/19003.txt b/19003.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c2bd63
--- /dev/null
+++ b/19003.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6777 @@
+Project Gutenberg's A Candid Examination of Theism, by George John Romanes
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Candid Examination of Theism
+
+Author: George John Romanes
+
+Release Date: August 7, 2006 [EBook #19003]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CANDID EXAMINATION OF THEISM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Keith Edkins and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was made using scans of
+public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+A
+
+CANDID EXAMINATION
+
+OF
+
+THEISM.
+
+BY
+
+PHYSICUS.
+
+BOSTON:
+HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, & COMPANY.
+1878.
+[_All rights reserved_]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_CANST THOU BY SEARCHING FIND OUT GOD?_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following essay was written several years ago; but I have hitherto
+refrained from publishing it, lest, after having done so, I should find
+that more mature thought had modified the conclusions which the essay sets
+forth. Judging, however, that it is now more than ever improbable that I
+shall myself be able to detect any errors in my reasoning, I feel that it
+is time to present the latter to the contemplation of other minds; and in
+doing so, I make this explanation only because I feel it desirable to state
+at the outset that the present treatise was written before the publication
+of Mr. Mill's treatise on the same subject. It is desirable to make this
+statement, first, because in several instances the trains of reasoning in
+the two essays are parallel, and next, because in other instances I have
+quoted passages from Mr. Mill's essay in connections which would be
+scarcely intelligible were it not understood that these passages are
+insertions made after the present essay had been completed. I have also
+added several supplementary essays which have been written since the main
+essay was finished.
+
+It is desirable further to observe, that the only reason why I publish this
+edition anonymously is because I feel very strongly that, in matters of the
+kind with which the present essay deals, opinions and arguments should be
+allowed to produce the exact degree of influence to which as opinions and
+arguments they are entitled: they should be permitted to stand upon their
+own intrinsic merits alone, and quite beyond the shadow of that unfair
+prejudication which cannot but arise so soon as their author's authority,
+or absence of authority, becomes known. Notwithstanding this avowal,
+however, I fear that many who glance over the following pages will read in
+the "Physicus" of the first one a very different motive. There is at the
+present time a wonderfully wide-spread sentiment pervading all classes of
+society--a sentiment which it would not be easy to define, but the
+practical outcome of which is, that to discuss the question of which this
+essay treats is, in some way or other, morally wrong. Many, therefore, who
+share this sentiment will doubtless attribute my reticence to a puerile
+fear on my part to meet it. I can only say that such is not the case.
+Although I allude to this sentiment with all respect--believing as I do
+that it is an offshoot from the stock which contains all that is best and
+greatest in human nature--nevertheless it seems to me impossible to deny
+that the sentiment in question is as unreasonable as the frame of mind
+which harbours it must be unreasoning. If there is no God, where can be the
+harm in our examining the spurious evidence of his existence? If there is a
+God, surely our first duty towards him must be to exert to our utmost, in
+our attempts to find him, the most noble faculty with which he has endowed
+us--as carefully to investigate the evidence which he has seen fit to
+furnish of his own existence as we investigate the evidence of inferior
+things in his dependent creation. To say that there is one rule or method
+for ascertaining truth in the latter case, which it is not legitimate to
+apply in the former case, is merely a covert way of saying that the Deity,
+if he exists, has not supplied us with rational evidence of his existence.
+For my own part, I feel that such an assertion cannot but embody far more
+unworthy conceptions of a Personal God than are represented by any amount
+of earnest inquiry into whatever evidence of his existence there may be
+present; but, neglecting this reflection, if there is a God, it is certain
+that reason is the faculty by which he has enabled man to discover truth,
+and it is no less certain that the scientific methods have proved
+themselves by far the most trustworthy for reason to adopt. To my mind,
+therefore, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that, looking to this
+undoubted pre-eminence of the scientific methods as ways to truth, whether
+or not there is a God, the question as to his existence is both more
+morally and more reverently contemplated if we regard it purely as a
+problem for methodical analysis to solve, than if we regard it in any other
+light. Or, stating the case in other words, I believe that in whatever
+degree we intentionally abstain from using in this case what we _know_ to
+be the most trustworthy methods of inquiry in other cases, in that degree
+are we either unworthily closing our eyes to a dreaded truth, or we are
+guilty of the worst among human sins--"Depart from us, for we desire not
+the knowledge of thy ways." If it is said that, supposing man to be in a
+state of probation, faith, and not reason, must be the instrument of his
+trial, I am ready to admit the validity of the remark; but I must also ask
+it to be remembered, that unless faith has _some_ basis of reason whereon
+to rest, it differs in nothing from superstition; and hence that it is
+still our duty to investigate the _rational_ standing of the question
+before us by the _scientific_ methods alone. And I may here observe
+parenthetically, that the same reasoning applies to all investigations
+concerning the reality of a supposed revelation. With such investigations,
+however, the present essay has nothing to do, although, I may remark that
+if there is any evidence of a Divine Mind discernible in the structure of a
+professing revelation, such evidence, in whatever degree present, would be
+of the best possible kind for substantiating the hypothesis of Theism.
+
+Such being, then, what I conceive the only reasonable, as well as the most
+truly moral, way of regarding the question to be discussed in the following
+pages, even if the conclusions yielded by this discussion were more
+negative than they are, I should deem it culpable cowardice in me _for this
+reason_ to publish anonymously. For even if an inquiry of the present kind
+could ever result in a final demonstration of Atheism, there might be much
+for its author to regret, but nothing for him to be ashamed of; and, by
+parity of reasoning, in whatever degree the result of such an inquiry is
+seen to have a tendency to negative the theistic theory, the author should
+not be ashamed candidly to acknowledge his conviction as to the degree of
+such tendency, provided only that his conviction is an _honest_ one, and
+that he is conscious of its having been reached by using his faculties with
+the utmost care of which he is capable.
+
+If it is retorted that the question to be dealt with is of so ultimate a
+character that even the scientific methods are here untrustworthy, I reply
+that they are nevertheless the _best_ methods available, and hence that the
+retort is without pertinence: the question is still to be regarded as a
+scientific one, although we may perceive that neither an affirmative nor a
+negative answer can be given to it with any approach to a full
+demonstration. But if the question is thus conceded to be one falling
+within the legitimate scope of rational inquiry, it follows that the mere
+fact of demonstrative certainty being here antecedently impossible should
+not deter us from instituting the inquiry. It is a well-recognised
+principle of scientific research, that however difficult or impossible it
+may be to _prove_ a given theory true or false, the theory should
+nevertheless be tested, so far as it admits of being tested, by the full
+rigour of the scientific methods. Where demonstration cannot be hoped for,
+it still remains desirable to reduce the question at issue to the last
+analysis of which it is capable.
+
+Adopting these principles, therefore, I have endeavoured in the following
+analysis to fix the precise standing of the evidence in favour of the
+theory of Theism, when the latter is viewed in all the flood of light which
+the progress of modern science--physical and speculative--has shed upon it.
+And forasmuch as it is impossible that demonstrated truth can ever be shown
+untrue, and forasmuch as the demonstrated truths on which the present
+examination rests are the most fundamental which it is possible for the
+human mind to reach, I do not think it presumptuous to assert what appears
+to me a necessary deduction from these facts--namely, that, possible errors
+in reasoning apart, the rational position of Theism as here defined must
+remain without material modification as long as our intelligence remains
+human.
+
+LONDON, 1878.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+ANALYSIS.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THEISM.
+
+SECT.
+
+1. Introductory.
+
+2. Object of the chapter.
+
+3. The Argument from the Inconceivability of Self-existence.
+
+4. The Argument from the Desirability of there being a God.
+
+5. The Argument from the Presence of Human Aspirations.
+
+6. The Argument from Consciousness.
+
+7. The Argument for a First Cause.
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
+
+8. Introductory.
+
+9. Examination of the Argument, and the independent coincidence of my views
+regarding it with those of Mr. Mill.
+
+10. Locke's exposition of the Argument, and a re-enunciation of it in the
+form of a Syllogism.
+
+11. The Syllogism defective in that it cannot explain Mind in the abstract.
+Mill quoted and answered. This defect in the Syllogism clearly defined.
+
+12. The Syllogism further defective, in that it assumes Intelligence to be
+the only possible cause of Intelligence. This assumption amounts to begging
+the whole question as to the being of a God. Inconceivability of Matter
+thinking no proof that it may not think. Locke himself strangely concedes
+this. His fallacies and self-contradictions pointed out in an Appendix.
+
+13. Objector to the Syllogism need not be a Materialist, but assuming that
+he is one, he is as much entitled to the hypothesis that Matter thinks as a
+Theist is to his hypothesis that it does not.
+
+14. The two hypotheses are thus of exactly equivalent value, save that
+while Theism is arbitrary, Materialism has a certain basis of fact to rest
+upon. This basis defined in a footnote, where also Professor Clifford's
+essay on "Body and Mind" is briefly examined. Difficulty of estimating the
+worth of the Argument as to the _most_ conceivable being _most_ likely
+true.
+
+15. Locke's comparison between certainty of the Inconceivability Argument
+as applied to Theism and to mathematics shown to contain a _virtual_ though
+not a _formal_ fallacy.
+
+16. Summary of considerations as to the value of this Argument from
+Inconceivability.
+
+17. Introductory to the other Arguments in favour of the conclusion that
+only Intelligence can have caused Intelligence.
+
+18. Locke's presentation of the view that the cause must contain all that
+is contained in the effects. His statements contradicted. Mill quoted to
+show that the analogy of Nature is against the doctrine of higher
+perfections never growing out of lower ones.
+
+19. Enunciation of the last of the Arguments in favour of the proposition
+that only Intelligence can cause Intelligence. Hamilton quoted to show that
+in his philosophy the entire question as to the being of a God hinges upon
+that as to whether or not human volitions are caused.
+
+20. Absurdity of the old theory of Free-will. Hamilton erroneously
+identified this theory with the fact that we possess a moral sense. His
+resulting dilemma.
+
+21. Although Hamilton was wrong in thus identifying genuine fact with
+spurious theory, yet his Argument from the fact of our having a moral sense
+remains to be considered.
+
+22. The question here is merely as to whether or not the presence of the
+moral sense can be explained by natural causes. _A priori_ probability of
+the moral sense having been evolved. _A posteriori_ confirmation supplied
+by Utilitarianism, &c.
+
+23. Mill's presentation of the Argument a resuscitation of Paley's. His
+criticism on Paley shown to be unfair.
+
+24. The real fallacy of Paley's presentation pointed out.
+
+25. The same fallacy pointed out in another way.
+
+26. Paley's typical case quoted and examined, in order to illustrate the
+root fallacy of his Argument from Design. Mill's observations upon this
+Argument criticised.
+
+27. Result yielded by the present analysis of the Argument from Design. The
+Argument shown to be a _petitio principii_.
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.
+
+28. My belief that no competent writer in favour of the Argument from
+Design could have written upon it at all, had it not been for his
+instinctive appreciation of the much more important Argument from General
+Laws. The nature of this Argument stated, and its cogency insisted upon.
+
+29. The rational standing of the Argument from General Laws prior to the
+enunciation of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. The Rev. Baden
+Powell quoted.
+
+30. The nature of General Laws when these are interpreted in terms of the
+doctrine of the Conservation of Energy. The word "Law" defined in terms of
+this doctrine.
+
+31. The rational standing of the Argument from General Laws subsequent to
+the enunciation of the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy.
+
+32. The self-evolution of General Laws, or the objective aspect of the
+question as to whether we may infer the presence of Mind in Nature because
+Nature admits of being intelligently interrogated.
+
+33. The subjective aspect of this question, according to the data afforded
+by evolutionary psychology.
+
+34. Correspondence between products due to human intelligence and products
+supposed due to Divine Intelligence, a correspondence which is only
+generic. Illustrations drawn from prodigality in Nature. Further
+illustrations. Illogical manner in which natural theologians deal with such
+difficulties. The generic resemblance contemplated is just what we should
+expect to find, if the doctrine of evolutionary psychology be true.
+
+35. The last three sections parenthetical. Necessary nature of the
+conclusion which follows from the last five sections.
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD.
+
+36. Emphatic re-statement of the conclusion reached in the previous
+chapter. This conclusion shown to be of merely scientific, and not of
+logical conclusiveness. Preparation for considering the question in its
+purely logical form.
+
+37. The logic of probability in general explained, and canon of
+interpretation enunciated.
+
+38. Application of this canon to the particular case of Theism.
+
+39. Exposition of the logical state of the question.
+
+40. Exposition continued.
+
+41. Result of the exposition; "Suspended Judgment" the only logical
+attitude of mind with regard to the question of Theism.
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.
+
+42. Statement of the position to which the question of Theism has been
+reduced by the foregoing analysis.
+
+43. Distinction between a scientific and a metaphysical teleology.
+Statement of the latter in legitimate terms. Criticism of this statement
+legitimately made on the side of Atheism as being gratuitous. Impartial
+judgment on this criticism.
+
+44. Examination of the question as to whether the metaphysical system of
+teleology is really destitute of all rational support. Pleading of a
+supposed Theist in support of the system. The principle of correlation of
+general laws. The complexity of Nature.
+
+45. Summary of the Theist's pleading, and judgment that it fairly removes
+from the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology the charge of the latter
+being gratuitous.
+
+46. Examination of the degree of probability that is presented by the
+hypothesis of metaphysical teleology, comprising an examination of the
+Theistic objection to the scientific train of reasoning on account of its
+symbolism, and showing that a no less cogent objection lies against the
+metaphysical train of reasoning on account of its embodying the supposition
+of unknowable causes. Distinction between "inconceivability" in a formal or
+symbolical, and in a material or realisable sense. Reply of a supposed
+Atheist to the previous pleading of the supposed Theist. Herbert Spencer
+quoted on inconceivability of cosmic evolution as due to Mind.
+
+47. Final judgment on the rational value of a metaphysical system of
+teleology. Distinction between "inconceivability" in an absolute and in a
+relative sense. Final judgment on the attitude of mind which it is rational
+to adopt towards the question of Theism. The desirability and the
+rationality of tolerance in this particular case.
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+48. General summary of the whole essay.
+
+49. Concluding remarks.
+
+APPENDIX AND SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+A Critical Exposition of a Fallacy in Locke's use of the Argument against
+the possibility of Matter thinking on grounds of its being inconceivable
+that it should.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY I.
+
+Examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Theistical Argument, and criticism to
+show that it is inadequate to sustain the doctrine of "Cosmic Theism" which
+Mr. Fiske endeavours to rear upon it.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY II.
+
+A Critical Examination of the Rev. Professor Flint's work on "Theism".
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY III.
+
+On the Speculative Standing of Materialism.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY IV.
+
+On the Final Mystery of Things.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THEISM.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+EXAMINATION OF ILLOGICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF THEISM.
+
+Sec. 1. Few subjects have occupied so much attention among speculative
+thinkers as that which relates to the being of God. Notwithstanding,
+however, the great amount that has been written on this subject, I am not
+aware that any one has successfully endeavoured to approach it, on all its
+various sides, from the ground of pure reason alone, and thus to fix, as
+nearly as possible, the exact position which, in pure reason, this subject
+ought to occupy. Perhaps it will be thought that an exception to this
+statement ought to be made in favour of John Stuart Mill's posthumous essay
+on Theism; but from my great respect for this author, I should rather be
+inclined to regard that essay as a criticism on illogical arguments, than
+as a _careful_ or _matured_ attempt to formulate the strictly rational
+_status_ of the question in all its bearings. Nevertheless, as this essay
+is in some respects the most scientific, just, and cogent, which has yet
+appeared on the subject of which it treats, and as anything which came from
+the pen of that great and accurate thinker is deserving of the most serious
+attention, I shall carefully consider his views throughout the course of
+the following pages.
+
+Seeing then that, with this partial exception, no competent writer has
+hitherto endeavoured once for all to settle the long-standing question as
+to the rational probability of Theism, I cannot but feel that any attempt,
+however imperfect, to do this, will be welcome to thinkers of every
+school--the more so in view of the fact that the prodigious rapidity which
+of late years has marked the advance both of physical and of speculative
+science, has afforded highly valuable data for assisting us towards a
+reasonable and, I think, a final decision as to the strictly logical
+standing of this important matter. However, be my attempt welcome or no, I
+feel that it is my obvious duty to publish the results which have been
+yielded by an honest and careful analysis.
+
+Sec. 2. I may most fitly begin this analysis by briefly disposing of such
+arguments in favour of Theism as are manifestly erroneous. And I do this
+the more willingly because, as these arguments are at the present time most
+in vogue, an exposure of their fallacies may perhaps deter our popular
+apologists of the future from drawing upon themselves the silent contempt
+of every reader whose intellect is not either prejudiced or imbecile.
+
+Sec. 3. A favourite piece of apologetic juggling is that of first demolishing
+Atheism, Pantheism, Materialism, &c., by successively calling upon them to
+explain the mystery of self-existence, and then tacitly assuming that the
+need of such an explanation is absent in the case of Theism--as though the
+attribute in question were more conceivable when posited in a Deity than
+when posited elsewhere.
+
+It is, I hope, unnecessary to observe that, so far as the ultimate mystery
+of existence is concerned, any and every theory of things is equally
+entitled to the inexplicable fact that something is; and that any endeavour
+on the part of the votaries of one theory to shift from themselves to the
+votaries of another theory the _onus_ of explaining the necessarily
+inexplicable, is an instance of irrationality which borders on the
+ludicrous.
+
+Sec. 4. Another argument, or semblance of an argument, is the very prevalent
+one, "Our heart requires a God; therefore it is probable that there is a
+God:" as though such a subjective necessity, even if made out, could ever
+prove an objective existence.[1]
+
+Sec. 5. If it is said that the theistic aspirations of the human heart, by the
+mere fact of their presence, point to the existence of a God as to their
+explanatory cause, I answer that the argument would only be valid after the
+possibility of any more proximate causes having been in action has been
+excluded--else the theistic explanation violates the fundamental rule of
+science, the Law of Parcimony, or the law which forbids us to assume the
+action of more remote causes where more proximate ones are found sufficient
+to explain the effects. Consequently, the validity of the argument now
+under consideration is inversely proportional to the number of
+possibilities there are of the aspirations in question being due to the
+agency of physical causes; and forasmuch as our ignorance of psychological
+causation is well-nigh total, the Law of Parcimony forbids us to allow any
+determinate degree of logical value to the present argument. In other
+words, we must not use the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its
+presence--must not argue from our ignorance of psychological possibilities,
+as though this ignorance were knowledge of corresponding impossibilities.
+The burden of proof thus lies on the side of Theism, and from the nature of
+the case this burden cannot be discharged until the science of psychology
+shall have been fully perfected. I may add that, for my own part, I cannot
+help feeling that, even in the present embryonic condition of this science,
+we are not without some indications of the manner in which the aspirations
+in question arose; but even were this not so, the above considerations
+prove that the argument before us is invalid. If it is retorted that the
+fact of these aspirations having had _proximate_ causes to account for
+their origin, even if made out, would not negative the inference of these
+being due to a Deity as to their _ultimate_ cause; I answer that this is
+not to use the argument from the presence of these aspirations; it is
+merely to beg the question as to the being of a God.
+
+Sec. 6. Next, we may consider the argument from consciousness. Many persons
+ground their belief in the existence of a Deity upon a real or supposed
+necessity of their own subjective thought. I say "real or supposed,"
+because, in its bearing upon rational argument, it is of no consequence of
+which character the alleged necessity actually is. Even if the necessity of
+thought be real, all that the fact entitles the thinker to affirm is, that
+it is impossible for _him_, by any effort of thinking, to rid himself of
+the persuasion that God exists; he is not entitled to affirm that this
+persuasion is necessarily bound up with the constitution of the human mind.
+Or, as Mill puts it, "One man cannot by proclaiming with ever so much
+confidence that _he_ perceives an object, convince other people that they
+see it too.... When no claim is set up to any peculiar gift, but we are
+told that all of us are as capable of seeing what he sees, feeling what he
+feels, nay, that we actually do so, and when the utmost effort of which we
+are capable fails to make us aware of what we are told, we perceive this
+supposed universal faculty of intuition is but
+
+  'The Dark Lantern of the Spirit
+  Which none see by but those who bear it.'"
+
+It is thus, I think, abundantly certain that the present argument must,
+from its very nature, be powerless as an argument to anyone save its
+assertor; as a matter of fact, the alleged necessity of thought is not
+universal; it is peculiar to those who employ the argument.
+
+And now, it is but just to go one step further and to question whether the
+alleged necessity of thought is, in any case and properly speaking, a
+_real_ necessity. Unless those who advance the present argument are the
+victims of some mental aberration, it is overwhelmingly improbable that
+their minds should differ in a fundamental and important attribute from the
+minds of the vast majority of their species. Or, to continue the above
+quotation, "They may fairly be asked to consider, whether it is not more
+likely that they are mistaken as to the origin of an impression in their
+minds, than that others are ignorant of the very existence of an impression
+in theirs." No doubt it is true that education and habits of thought may so
+stereotype the intellectual faculties, that at last what is conceivable to
+one man or generation may not be so to another;[2] but to adduce this
+consideration in this place would clearly be but to destroy the argument
+from the _intuitive_ necessity of believing in a God.
+
+Lastly, although superfluous, it may be well to point out that even if the
+impossibility of conceiving the negation of God were an universal law of
+human mind--which it certainly is not--the fact of his existence could not
+be thus proved. Doubtless it would be felt to be much more probable than it
+now is--as probable, for instance, if not more probable, than is the
+existence of an external world;--but still it would not be necessarily
+true.
+
+Sec. 7. The argument from the general consent of mankind is so clearly
+fallacious, both as to facts and principles, that I shall pass it over and
+proceed at once to the last of the untenable arguments--that, namely, from
+the existence of a First Cause. And here I should like to express myself
+indebted to Mr. Mill for the following ideas:--"The cause of every change
+is a prior change; and such it cannot but be; for if there were no new
+antecedent, there would be no new consequent. If the state of facts which
+brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed always or for an
+indefinite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been
+produced an indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of
+causation, within the sphere of experience, that the causes as well as the
+effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem,
+therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a
+first cause, is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation, as
+it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First
+Cause."
+
+The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause argument are tolerably
+obvious, and had occurred to me before the publication of his essay. I
+shall, however, adhere to his order of presenting them.
+
+"But it is necessary to look more particularly into this matter, and
+analyse more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have
+experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a
+beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no
+beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first
+or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause
+anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation."
+
+He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy supplies us
+with such a datum, and thus the conclusion easily follows--"It would seem,
+then, that the only sense in which experience supports, in any shape, the
+doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the primaeval and universal element of
+all causes, the First Cause can be no other than Force."
+
+Still, however, it may be maintained that "all force is will-force." But
+"if there be any truth in the doctrine of Conservation of Force, ... this
+doctrine does not change from true to false when it reaches the field of
+voluntary agency. The will does not, any more than other agencies, create
+Force: granting that it originates motion, it has no means of doing so but
+by converting into that particular manifestation, a portion of Force which
+already existed in other forms. It is known that the source from which this
+portion of Force is derived, is chiefly, or entirely, the force evolved in
+the processes of chemical composition and decomposition which constitute
+the body of nutrition: the force so liberated becomes a fund upon which
+every muscular and every nervous action, as of a train of thought, is a
+draft. It is in this sense only that, according to the best lights of
+science, volition is an originating cause. Volition, therefore, does not
+answer to the idea of a First Cause; since Force must, in every instance,
+be assumed as prior to it; and there is not the slightest colour, derived
+from experience, for supposing Force itself to have been created by a
+volition. As far as anything can be concluded from human experience, Force
+has all the attributes of a thing eternal and uncreated....
+
+"All that can be affirmed (even) by the strongest assertion of the Freedom
+of the Will, is that volitions are themselves uncaused and are, therefore,
+alone fit to be the first or universal cause. But, even assuming volitions
+to be uncaused, the properties of matter, so far as experience discloses,
+are uncaused also, and have the advantage over any particular volition, in
+being, so far as experience can show, eternal. Theism, therefore, in so far
+as it rests on the necessity of a First Cause, has no support from
+experience."
+
+Such may be taken as a sufficient refutation of the argument that, as human
+volition is apparently a cause in nature, and moreover constitutes the
+basis of our conception of all causation, therefore all causation is
+probably volitional in character. But as this is a favourite argument with
+some theists, I shall introduce another quotation from Mr. Mill, which is
+taken from a different work.
+
+"Volitions are not known to produce anything directly except nervous
+action, for the will influences even the muscles only through the nerves.
+Though it were granted, then, that every phenomenon has an efficient and
+not merely a phenomenal cause, and that volition, in the case of the
+particular phenomena which are known to be produced by it, is that cause;
+are we therefore to say with these writers that since we know of no other
+efficient cause, and ought not to assume one without evidence, there _is_
+no other, and volition is the direct cause of all phenomena? A more
+outrageous stretch of inference could hardly be made. Because among the
+infinite variety of the phenomena of nature there is one, namely, a
+particular mode of action of certain nerves which has for its cause and, as
+we are now supposing, for its efficient cause, a state of our mind; and
+because this is the only efficient cause of "which we are conscious, being
+the only one of which, in the nature of the case, we _can_ be conscious,
+since it is the only one which exists within ourselves; does this justify
+us in concluding that all other phenomena must have the same kind of
+efficient cause with that one eminently special, narrow, and peculiarly
+human or animal phenomenon?" It is then shown that a logical parallel to
+this mode of inference is that of generalising from the one known instance
+of the earth being inhabited, to the conclusion that "every heavenly body
+without exception, sun, planet, satellite, comet, fixed star, or nebula, is
+inhabited, and must be so from the inherent constitution of things." After
+which the passage continues, "It is true there are cases in which, with
+acknowledged propriety, we generalise from a single instance to a multitude
+of instances. But they must be instances which resemble the one known
+instance, and not such as have no circumstance in common with it except
+that of being instances.... But the supporters of the volition theory ask
+us to infer that volition causes everything, for no other reason except
+that it causes one particular thing; although that one phenomenon, far from
+being a type of all natural phenomena, is eminently peculiar; its laws
+bearing scarcely any resemblance to those of any other phenomenon, whether
+of inorganic or of organic nature."[3]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN MIND.
+
+Sec. 8. Leaving now the obviously untenable arguments, we next come to those
+which, in my opinion, may properly be termed scientific.
+
+It will be convenient to classify those as three in number; and under one
+or other of these heads nearly all the more intelligent advocates of Theism
+will be found to range themselves.
+
+Sec. 9. We have first the argument drawn from the existence of the human mind.
+This is an argument which, for at least the last three centuries, and
+especially during the present one, has been more relied upon than any other
+by philosophical thinkers. It consists in the reflection that the being of
+our own subjective intelligence is the most certain fact which our
+experience supplies, that this fact demands an adequate cause for its
+explanation, and that the only adequate cause of our intelligence must be
+some other intelligence. Granting the existence of a conditioned
+intelligence (and no one could reasonably suppose his own intelligence to
+be otherwise), and the existence of an unconditioned intelligence becomes a
+logical necessity, unless we deny either the validity of the principle that
+every effect must have an adequate cause, or else that the only adequate
+cause of Mind is Mind.
+
+It has been a great satisfaction to me to find that my examination of this
+argument--an examination which was undertaken and completed several months
+before Mr. Mill's essay appeared--has been minutely corroborated by that of
+our great logician. I mention this circumstance here, as on previous
+occasions, not for the petty motive of vindicating my own originality, but
+because in matters of this kind the accuracy of the reasoning employed, and
+therefore the logical validity of the conclusions attained, are guaranteed
+in the best possible manner, if the trains of thought have been
+independently pursued by different minds.
+
+Sec. 10. Seeing that, among the advocates of this argument, Locke went so far
+as to maintain that by it alone he could render the existence of a Deity as
+certain as any mathematical demonstration, it is only fair, preparatory to
+our examining this argument, to present it in the words of this great
+thinker.
+
+He says:--"There was a time when there was no knowing (_i.e._, conscious)
+being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has been also a
+knowing being from all eternity. If it be said, there was a time when no
+being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all
+understanding, I reply, that then it was impossible there should ever have
+been any knowledge: it being as impossible that things wholly void of
+knowledge, and operating blindly, and without perception, should produce a
+knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle should make itself three
+angles bigger than two right ones. For it is as repugnant to the idea of
+senseless matter, that it should put into itself, sense, perception, and
+knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle, that it should put
+into itself greater angles than two right ones."[4]
+
+Now, although this argument has been more fully elaborated by other
+writers, the above presentation contains its whole essence. It will be seen
+that it has the great advantage of resting _immediately_ upon the
+foundation from which all argument concerning this or any other matter,
+must necessarily arise, viz.,--upon the very existence of our argumentative
+faculty itself. For the sake of a critical examination, it is desirable to
+throw the argument before us into the syllogistic form. It will then stand
+thus:--
+
+All known minds are caused by an unknown mind. Our mind is a known mind;
+therefore, our mind is caused by an unknown mind.
+
+Sec. 11. Now the major premiss of this syllogism is inadmissible for two
+reasons: in the first place, it is assumed that known mind can only be
+caused by unknown mind; and, in the second place, even if this assumption
+were granted, it would not explain the existence of Mind as Mind. To take
+the last of these objections first, in the words of Mr. Mill, "If the mere
+existence of Mind is supposed to require, as a necessary antecedent,
+another Mind greater and more powerful, the difficulty is not removed by
+going one step back: the creating mind stands as much in need of another
+mind to be the source of its existence as the created mind. Be it
+remembered that we have no direct knowledge (at least apart from
+Revelation) of a mind which is even apparently eternal, as Force and Matter
+are: an eternal mind is, as far as the present argument is concerned, a
+simple hypothesis to account for the minds which we know to exist. Now it
+is essential to an hypothesis that, if admitted, it should at least remove
+the difficulty and account for the facts. But it does not account for mind
+to refer our mind to a prior mind for its origin. The problem remains
+unsolved, nay, rather increased."
+
+Nevertheless, I think that it is open to a Theist to answer, "My object is
+not to explain the existence of Mind in the abstract, any more than it is
+my object to explain Existence itself in the abstract--to either of which
+absurd attempts Mr. Mill's reasoning would be equally applicable;--but I
+seek for an explanation of _my own individual finite mind_, which I know to
+have had a beginning in time, and which, therefore, in accordance with the
+widest and most complete analogy that experience supplies, I believe to
+have been _caused_. And if there is no other objection to my believing in
+Intelligence as the cause of my intelligence, than that I cannot prove my
+own intelligence caused, then I am satisfied to let the matter rest here;
+for as every argument must have _some_ basis of assumption to stand upon, I
+am well pleased to find that the basis in this case is the most solid which
+experience can supply, viz.,--the law of causation. Fully admitting that it
+does not account for Mind (in the abstract) to refer one mind to a prior
+mind for its origin; yet my hypothesis, if admitted, _does_ account for the
+fact that _my mind_ exists; and this is all that my hypothesis is intended
+to cover. For to endeavour to _explain_ the existence of an _eternal_ mind,
+could only be done by those who do not understand the meaning of these
+words."
+
+Now, I think that this reply to Mr. Mill, on the part of a theist, would so
+far be legitimate; the theistic hypothesis _does_ supply a provisional
+explanation of the existence of known minds, and it is, therefore, an
+explanation which, in lieu of a better, a theist may be allowed to retain.
+But a theist may not be allowed to confuse this provisional explanation of
+his own mind's existence with that of the existence of Mind in the
+abstract; he must not be allowed to suppose that, by thus hypothetically
+explaining the existence of known minds, he is thereby establishing a
+probability in favour of that hypothetical cause, an Unknown Mind. Only if
+he has some independent reason to infer that such an Unknown Mind exists,
+could such a probability be made out, and his hypothetical explanation of
+known mind become of more value than a guess. In other words, although the
+theistic hypothesis supplies _a possible_ explanation of known mind, we
+have no reason to conclude that it is _the true_ explanation, unless other
+reasons can be shown to justify, on independent grounds, the validity of
+the theistic hypothesis. Hence it is manifestly absurd to adduce this
+explanation as evidence of the hypothesis on which it rests--to argue that
+Theism must therefore be true; because we assume it to be so, in order to
+explain _known_ mind, as distinguished from _Mind_. If it be answered, We
+are justified in assuming Theism true, because we are justified in assuming
+that known mind can _only_ have been caused by an unknown mind, and hence
+that Mind must somewhere be self-existing, then this is to lead us to the
+second objection to the above syllogism.
+
+Sec. 12. And this second objection is of a most serious nature. "Mind can only
+be caused by Mind," and, therefore, Mind must either be uncaused, or caused
+by a Mind. What is our warrant for ranking this assertion? Where is the
+proof that nothing can have caused a mind except another mind? Answer to
+this question there is none. For aught that we can ever know to the
+contrary, anything within the whole range of the Possible may be competent
+to produce a self-conscious intelligence--and to assume that Mind is so far
+an entity _sui generis_, that it must either be self-existing, or derived
+from another mind which is self-existing, is merely to beg the whole
+question as to the being of a God. In other words, if we can prove that the
+order of existence to which Mind belongs, is so essentially different from
+that order, or those orders, to which all else belongs, as to render it
+_abstractedly impossible_ that the latter can produce the former--if we can
+prove this, we have likewise proved the existence of a Deity. But this is
+just the point in dispute, and to set out with a bare affirmation of it is
+merely to beg the question and to abandon the discussion. Doubtless, by the
+mere act of consulting their own consciousness, the fact now in dispute
+appears to some persons self-evident. But in matters of such high
+abstraction as this, even the evidence of self-evidence must not be relied
+upon too implicitly. To the country boor it appears self-evident that wood
+is annihilated by combustion; and even to the mind of the greatest
+philosophers of antiquity it seemed impossible to doubt that the sun moved
+over a stationary earth. Much more, therefore, may our broad distinction
+between "cogitative and incogitative being"[5] not be a distinction which
+is "legitimated by the conditions of external reality."
+
+Doubtless many will fall back upon the position already indicated, "It is
+as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into
+itself sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of
+a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two right
+ones." But, granting this, and also that conscious matter is the sole
+alternative, and what follows? Not surely that matter cannot perceive, and
+feel, and know, merely because it is repugnant to our idea of it that it
+should. Granting that there is no other alternative in the whole
+possibility of things, than that matter must be conscious, or that
+self-conscious Mind must somewhere be self-existing; and granting that it
+is quite "impossible for us to conceive" of consciousness as an attribute
+of matter; still surely it would be a prodigious leap to conclude that for
+this reason matter cannot possess this attribute. Indeed, Locke himself
+elsewhere strangely enough insists that thought may be a property of
+matter, if only the Deity chose to unite that attribute with that
+substance. Why it should be deemed abstractedly impossible for matter to
+think if there is no God, and yet abstractedly possible that it should
+think if there is a God, I confess myself quite unable to determine; but I
+conceive that it is very important clearly to point out this peculiarity in
+Locke's views, for he is a favourite authority with theists, and this
+peculiarity amounts to nothing less than a suicide of his entire argument.
+The mere circumstance that he assumed the Deity capable of endowing matter
+with the faculty of thinking, could not have enabled him to _conceive_ of
+matter as thinking, any more than he could _conceive_ of this in the
+absence of his assumption. Yet in the one case he recognises the
+possibility of matter thinking, and in the other case denies such
+possibility, _and this on the sole ground of its being inconceivable_!
+However, I am not here concerned with Locke's eccentricities:[6] I am
+merely engaged with the general principle, that a subjective inability to
+establish certain relations in thought is no sufficient warrant for
+concluding that corresponding objective relations may not obtain.
+
+Sec. 13. Hence, an objector to the above syllogism need not be a materialist;
+it is not even necessary that he should hold any theory of things at all.
+Nevertheless, for the sake of definition, I shall assume that he is a
+materialist. As a materialist, then, he would appear to be as much entitled
+to his hypothesis as a theist is to his--in respect, I mean, of this
+particular argument. For although I think, as before shown, that in strict
+reasoning a theist might have taken exception to the last-quoted passage
+from Mill in its connection with the law of causation, that passage, if
+considered in the present connection, is certainly unanswerable. What is
+the state of the present argument as between a materialist and a theist?
+The mystery of existence and the inconceivability of matter thinking are
+their common data. Upon these data the materialist, justly arguing that he
+has no right to make his own conceptive faculty the unconditional test of
+objective possibility, is content to merge the mystery of his own mind's
+existence into that of Existence in general; while the theist, compelled to
+accept without explanation the mystery of Existence in general,
+nevertheless has recourse to inventing a wholly gratuitous hypothesis to
+explain one mode of existence in particular. If it is said that the latter
+hypothesis has the merit of causing the mystery of material existence and
+the mystery of mental existence to be united in a thinkable manner--viz.,
+in a self-existing Mind,--I reply, It is not so; for in whatever degree it
+is unthinkable that Matter should be the cause of Mind, in that precise
+degree must it be unthinkable that Mind was ever the cause of Matter, the
+correlatives being in each case the same, and experience affording no
+evidence of causality in either.
+
+Sec. 14. The two hypotheses, therefore, are of exactly equivalent value, save
+that while the one has a certain basis of fact to rest upon,[7] the other
+is wholly arbitrary. But it may still be retorted, 'Is not that which is
+_most_ conceivable _most likely_ to be true? and if it is more conceivable
+that my intelligence is caused by another Intelligence than that it is
+caused by Non-intelligence, may I not regard the more conceivable
+hypothesis as also the more probable one? It is somewhat difficult to say
+how far this argument is, in this case, valid; only I think it is quite
+evident that its validity is open to grave dispute. For nothing can be more
+evident to a philosophical thinker than that the substance of Mind must--so
+far at least as we can at present see--_necessarily_ be unknowable; so that
+if Matter (and Force) be this substance, we should antecedently expect to
+find that the actual causal connection should, in this particular case, be
+more inconceivable than some imaginary one: it would be more natural for
+the mind to infer that something conceivably more akin to itself should be
+its cause, than that this cause should be the entity which really gives
+rise to the unthinkable connection. But even waiving this reflection, and
+granting that the above argument is _valid_, it is still to an indefinite
+degree _valueless_, seeing that we are unable to tell _how much it is more
+likely_ that the more conceivable should here be true than that the less
+conceivable should be so.
+
+Sec. 15. Returning then to Locke's comparison between the certainty of this
+argument and that which proves the sum of the angles of a triangle to be
+equal to two right-angles, I should say that there is a _virtual_, though
+not a _formal_, fallacy in his presentation. For mathematical science being
+confessedly but of relative significance, any comparison between the degree
+of certainty attained by reasoning upon so transcendental a subject as the
+present, and that of mathematical demonstrations regarding relative truth,
+must be misleading. In the present instance, the whole strain of the
+argument comes upon the adequacy of the proposed test of truth, viz., our
+being able to conceive it if true. Now, will any one undertake to say that
+this test of truth is of equivalent value when it is applied to a triangle
+and when it is applied to the Deity. In the one case we are dealing with a
+geometrical figure of an exceedingly simple type, with which our experience
+is well acquainted, and presenting a very limited number of relations for
+us to contemplate. In the other case we are endeavouring to deal with the
+_summum genus_ of all mystery, with reference to which experience is quite
+impossible, and which in its mention contains all the relations that are to
+us unknown and unknowable. Here, then, is the oversight. Because men find
+conceivability a valid test of truth in the affairs of everyday life--as it
+is easy to show _a priori_ that it must be, if our experience has been
+formed under a given code of constant and general laws--therefore they
+conclude that it must be equally valid _wherever_ it is applied; forgetting
+that its validity must perforce decrease in proportion to the distance at
+which the test is applied from the sphere of experience.[8]
+
+Sec. 16. Upon the whole, then, I think it is transparently obvious that the
+mere fact of our being unable to conceive, say, how any disposition of
+matter and motion could possibly give rise to a self-conscious
+intelligence, in no wise warrants us in concluding that for this reason no
+such disposition is possible. The only question would appear to be, whether
+the test which is here proposed as an unconditional criterion of truth
+should be allowed any the smallest degree of credit. Seeing, on the one
+hand, how very fallible the test in question is known to have proved itself
+in many cases of much less speculative difficulty--seeing, too, that even
+now "the philosophy of the condition proves that things there are which
+may, nay must, be true, of which nevertheless the mind is unable to
+construe to itself the possibility;"[9] and seeing, on the other hand, that
+the substance of Mind, whatever it is, must necessarily be
+unknowable;--seeing these things, if any question remains as to whether the
+test of inconceivability should in this case be regarded as having any
+degree of validity at all, there can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that
+such degree should be regarded as of the smallest.
+
+Sec. 17. Let us then turn to the other considerations which have been supposed
+to justify the assertion that nothing can have caused our mind save another
+Mind. Neglecting the crushing fact that "it does not account for Mind to
+refer it to another Mind for its origin," let as see what positive reasons
+there are for concluding that no other influence than Intelligence can
+possibly have produced our intelligence.
+
+Sec. 18. First we may notice the argument which is well and tersely presented
+by Locke, thus:--"Whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily
+contain in it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections that can
+ever after exist; nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it
+hath not actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree; it necessarily
+follows that the first eternal being cannot be Matter." Now, as this
+presentation is strictly formal, I shall first meet it with a formal reply,
+and this reply consists in a direct contradiction. It is simply untrue that
+"whatsoever is first of all things must necessarily contain in it, and
+actually have, at least, all the perfections that can after exist;" or that
+it can never "give to another any perfection that it hath not actually in
+itself." In a sense, no doubt, a cause contains all that is contained in
+its effects; the latter content being _potentially_ present in the former.
+But to say that a cause already contains _actually_ all that its effects
+may afterwards so contain, is a statement which logic and common sense
+alike condemn as absurd.
+
+Nevertheless, although the argument now before us thus admits of a
+childishly easy refutation on strictly formal grounds, I suspect that in
+substance the argument in a general way is often relied upon as one of very
+considerable weight. Even though it is clearly illogical to say that causes
+cannot give to their effects any perfection which they themselves do not
+actually present, yet it seems in a general way incredible that gross
+matter could contain, even potentially, the faculty of thinking.
+Nevertheless, this is but to appeal to the argument from Inconceivability;
+to do which, even were it here legitimate, would, as we have seen, be
+unavailing. But to appeal to the argument from Inconceivability in this
+case would _not_ be legitimate; for we are in possession of an abundant
+analogy to render the supposition in question, not only conceivable, but
+credible. In the words of Mr. Mill, "Apart from experience, and arguing on
+what is called reason, that is, on supposed self-evidence, the notion seems
+to be that no causes can give rise to products of a more precious or
+elevated kind than themselves. But this is at variance with the known
+analogies of nature. How vastly nobler and more precious, for instance, are
+the vegetables and animals than the soil and manure out of which, and by
+the properties of which, they are raised up! The tendency of all recent
+speculation is towards the opinion that the development of inferior orders
+of existence into superior, the substitution of greater elaboration, and
+higher organisation for lower, is the general rule of nature. Whether this
+is so or not, there are at least in nature a multitude of facts bearing
+that character, and this is sufficient for the argument."
+
+Sec. 19. We now come to the last of the arguments which, so far as I know,
+have ever been adduced in support of the assertion that there can be no
+other cause of our intelligence than another and superior Intelligence. The
+argument is chiefly remarkable for the very great prominence which was
+given to it by Sir W. Hamilton.
+
+This learned and able author says:--"The Deity is not an object of
+immediate contemplation; as existing and in himself, he is beyond our
+reach; we can know him only mediately through his works, and are only
+warranted in assuming his existence as a certain kind of cause necessary to
+account for a certain state of things, of whose reality our faculties are
+supposed to inform us. The affirmation of a God being thus a regressive
+inference from the existence of a special class of effects to the existence
+of a special character of cause, it is evident that the whole argument
+hinges on the fact,--Does a state of things really exist such as is only
+possible through the agency of a Divine Cause? For if it can be shown that
+such a state of things does not really exist, then our inference to the
+kind of cause requisite to account for it is necessarily null.
+
+"This being understood, I now proceed to show you that the class of
+phaenomena which requires that kind of cause we denominate a Deity is
+exclusively given in the phaenomena of mind,--that the phaenomena of matter
+taken by themselves, (you will observe the qualification taken by
+themselves) so far from warranting any inference to the existence of a God,
+would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation.
+
+"If, in man, intelligence be a free power,--in so far as its liberty
+extends, intelligence must be independent of necessity and matter; and a
+power independent of matter necessarily implies the existence of an
+immaterial subject,--that is, a spirit. If, then, the original independence
+of intelligence on matter in the human constitution, in other words, if the
+spirituality of mind in man be supposed a datum of observation, in this
+datum is also given both the condition and the proof of a God. For we have
+only to infer, what analogy entitles us to do, that intelligence holds the
+same relative supremacy in the universe which it holds in us, and the first
+positive condition of a Deity is established in the establishment of the
+absolute priority of a free creative intelligence."[10]
+
+Sec. 20. Thus, according to Sir W. Hamilton, the whole question as to the
+being of a God depends upon that as to whether our "intelligence be a free
+power,"--or, as he elsewhere states it himself, "Theology is wholly
+dependent upon Psychology, for with the proof of the moral nature of man
+stands or falls the proof of the existence of a Deity." It will be observed
+that I am not at present engaged with the legitimacy of this author's
+decision upon the comparative merits of the different arguments in favour
+of Theism: I am merely showing the high opinion he entertained of the
+particular argument before us. He positively affirms that, unless the
+freedom of the human will be a matter of experience, Atheism is the sole
+alternative. Doubtless most well-informed readers will feel that the
+solitary basis thus provided for Theism is a very insecure one, while many
+such readers will at once conclude that if this is the only basis which
+reason can provide for Theism to stand upon, Theism is without any rational
+basis to stand upon at all. I have no hesitation in saying that the
+last-mentioned opinion is the one to which I myself subscribe, for I am
+quite unable to understand how any one at the present day, and with the
+most moderate powers of abstract thinking, can possibly bring himself to
+embrace the theory of Free-will. I may add that I cannot but believe that
+those who do embrace this theory with an honest conviction, must have
+failed to understand the issue to which modern thought has reduced the
+question. Here, however, is not the place to discuss this question. It will
+be sufficient for my purpose to show that even Sir W. Hamilton himself
+considered it a very difficult one; and although he thought upon the whole
+that the will must be free, he nevertheless allowed--nay, insisted--that he
+was unable to conceive how it could be so. Such inability in itself does
+not of course show the Free-will theory to be untrue; and I merely point
+out the circumstance that Hamilton allowed the supposed fact unthinkable,
+in order to show how very precarious, even in his eyes, the argument which
+we are considering must have appeared. Let us then, for this purpose,
+contemplate his attitude with regard to it a little more closely. He says,
+"It would have been better to show articulately that Liberty and Necessity
+are both incomprehensible, as beyond the limits of legitimate thought; but
+that though the Free-agency of Man cannot be speculatively proved, so
+neither can it be speculatively disproved; while we may claim for it as a
+fact of real actuality, though of inconceivable possibility, the testimony
+of consciousness, that we are morally free, as we are morally accountable
+for our actions. In this manner the whole question of free- and bond-will
+is in theory abolished, leaving, however, practically our Liberty, and all
+the moral instincts of Man entire."[11]
+
+From this passage it is clear that Sir W. Hamilton regarded these two
+counter-theories as of precisely equivalent value in everything save "the
+testimony of consciousness;" or, as he elsewhere states it, "as equally
+unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided, schemes are thus
+theoretically balanced. But, practically, our consciousness of the moral
+law ... gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the
+doctrine of fate."
+
+But the whole question concerning the freedom of the will has now come to
+be as to whether or not consciousness _does_ give its verdict on the side
+of freedom. Supposing we grant that "we are warranted to rely on a
+deliverance of consciousness, when that deliverance is _that_ a thing is,
+although we may be unable to think _how_ it can be,"[12] in this case the
+question still remains, whether our opponents have rightly interpreted the
+deliverance of their consciousness. I, for one, am quite persuaded that I
+never perform any action without some appropriate motive, or set of
+motives, having induced me to perform it. However, I am not discussing this
+question, and I have merely made the above quotations for the purpose of
+showing that Sir W. Hamilton appears to identify the _theory_ of Free-will
+with the _fact_ that we possess a moral sense. He argues throughout as
+though the theory he advocates were the only one that can explain a given
+"fact of real actuality." But no one with whom we have to deal questions
+the fact of our having a moral sense; and to identify this "deliverance of
+consciousness" with belief in the theory that volitions are uncaused, is,
+or would now be, merely to abandon the only questions in dispute.
+
+It is very instructive, from this point of view, to observe the dilemma
+into which Hamilton found himself driven by this identification of genuine
+fact with spurious theory. He believed that the fact of man possessing an
+ethical faculty could only be explained by the theory that man's will was
+not determined by motives; for otherwise man could not be the author of his
+own actions. But when he considered the matter in its other aspect, he
+found that his theory of Free-will was as little compatible with moral
+responsibility as was the opposing theory of "Bond-will;" for not only did
+he candidly confess that he could not conceive of will as acting without
+motives, but he further allowed the unquestionable truth "that, though
+inconceivable, a motiveless volition would, if conceived, be conceived as
+morally worthless."[13] I say this is very instructive, because it shows
+that in Hamilton's view each theory was alike irreconcilable with "the
+deliverance of consciousness," and that he only chose the one in preference
+to the other, because, although not any more conceivable a solution, it
+seemed to him a more possible one.[14]
+
+Sec. 21. Such, then, is the speculative basis on which, according to Sir W.
+Hamilton, our belief in a Deity can alone be grounded.
+
+Those who at the present day are still confused enough in their notions
+regarding the Free-will question to suppose that any further rational
+question remains, may here be left to ruminate over this _bolus_, and to
+draw from it such nourishment as they can in support of their belief in a
+God; but to those who can see as plainly as daylight that the doctrine of
+Determinism not only harmonises with all the facts of observation, but
+alone affords a possible condition for, and a satisfactory explanation of,
+the existence of our ethical faculty,--to such persons the question will
+naturally arise:--"Although Hamilton was wrong in identifying a known fact
+with a false theory, yet may he not have been right in the deductions which
+he drew from the fact?" In other words, granting that his theory of
+Free-will was wrong, does not his argument from the existence of a moral
+sense in man to the existence of a moral Governor of the Universe remain as
+intact as ever? Now, it is quite true that whatever degree of cogency the
+argument from the presence of the moral sense may at any time have had,
+this degree remains unaffected by the explosion of erroneous theories to
+account for such presence. We have, therefore, still to face the fact that
+the moral sense of man undoubtedly exists.
+
+Sec. 22. The question we have to determine is, What evidence have we to show
+that the moral part of man was created in the image of God; and if there is
+any such evidence, what counter-existence is there to show that the moral
+existence of man may be due to natural causes? In deciding this question,
+just as in deciding any other question of a purely scientific character, we
+must be guided in our examination by the Law of Parcimony; we must not
+assume the agency of supernatural causes if we can discover the agency of
+natural causes; neither must we merge the supposed mystery directly into
+the highest mystery, until we are quite sure that it does not admit of
+being proximately explained by the action of proximate influences.
+
+Now, whether or not Mr. Darwin's theory as to the origin and development of
+the moral sense be considered satisfactory, there can, I think, be very
+little doubt in any impartial mind which duly considers the subject, that
+in _some way or other_ the moral sense has been evolved. The body of
+scientific evidence which has now been collected in favour of the general
+theory of evolution is simply overwhelming; and in the presence of so large
+an analogy, it would require a vast amount of contradictory evidence to
+remove the presumption that human conscience, like everything else, has
+been evolved. Now, for my own part, I am quite unable to distinguish any
+such evidence, while, on the other hand, in support of the _a priori_
+presumption that conscience has been evolved, I cannot conceal from myself
+that there is a large amount of _a posteriori_ confirmation. I am quite
+unable to distinguish anything in my sense of right and wrong which I
+cannot easily conceive to have been brought about during the evolution of
+my intelligence from lower forms of psychical life. On the contrary,
+everything that I can find in my sense of right and wrong is precisely what
+I should expect to find on the supposition of this sense having been
+moulded by the progressive requirements of social development. Read in the
+light of evolution, Conscience, in its every detail, is deductively
+explained.
+
+And, as though there were not sufficient evidence of this kind to justify
+the conclusion drawn from the theory of evolution, the doctrine of
+utilitarianism--separately conceived and separately worked out on
+altogether independent grounds--the doctrine of utilitarianism comes in
+with irresistible force to confirm that _a priori_ conclusion by the widest
+and most unexceptionable of inductions.[15]
+
+In the supernatural interpretation of the facts, the whole stress of the
+argument comes upon the character of conscience as a _spontaneously
+admonishing influence which acts independently of our own volition_. For it
+is from this character alone that the inference can arise that conscience
+is the delegate of the will of another. Thus, to render the whole argument
+in the singularly beautiful words of Dr. Newman:--"If, as is the case, we
+feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened at transgressing the voice
+of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible,
+before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing
+wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us
+on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity
+of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one
+receiving praise from a father,--we certainly have within us the image of
+some person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find
+our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in
+whose anger we waste away. These feelings in us are such as require for
+their exciting cause an intelligent being; we are not affectionate towards
+a stone, nor do we feel shame before a horse or a dog; we have no remorse
+or compunction in breaking mere human law. Yet so it is; conscience emits
+all these painful emotions, confusion, foreboding, self-condemnation; and,
+on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a
+resignation, and a hope which there is no sensible, no earthly object to
+elicit. 'The wicked flees when no one pursueth;' then why does he flee?
+whence his terror? Who is it that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the
+hidden chambers of his heart? If the cause of these emotions does not
+belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is
+directed must be supernatural and divine; and thus the phenomena of
+conscience as a dictate avail to impress the imagination with the picture
+of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing,
+retributive."[16]
+
+Now I have quoted this passage because it seems to me to convey in a
+concise form the whole of the argument from Conscience. But how tremendous
+are the inferences which are drawn from the facts! As the first step in our
+criticism, it is necessary to point out that two very different orders of
+feelings are here treated by Dr. Newman. There is first the pure or
+uncompounded ethical feelings, which spring directly from the moral sense
+alone, and which all men experience in varying degrees. And next there are
+what we may term the _ethico-theological_ feelings, which can only spring
+from a blending of the moral sense with a belief in a personal God, or
+other supernatural agents. The former class of feelings, or the
+uncompounded ethical class, have exclusive reference to the moral
+obligations that subsist between ourselves and other human beings, or
+sentient organisms. The latter class of feelings, or the ethico-theological
+class, have reference to the moral obligations that are believed to subsist
+between ourselves and the Deity, or other supernatural beings. Now, in
+order not to lose sight of this all-important distinction, I shall
+criticise Dr. Newman's rendering of the ordinary argument from Conscience
+in each of these two points of views separately. To begin, then, with the
+uncompounded ethical feelings.
+
+Such emotions as attend the operation of conscience in those who follow its
+light alone without any theories as to its supernatural origin, are all of
+the character of _reasonable_ or _explicable_ emotions. Granting that
+fellow-feeling has been for the benefit of the race, and therefore that it
+has been developed by natural causes, certainly there is nothing
+_mysterious_ in the emotions that attend the violating or the following of
+the dictates of conscience. For conscience is, by this naturalistic
+supposition, nothing more than an organised body of certain psychological
+elements, which, by long inheritance, have come to inform us, by way of
+intuitive feeling, how we should act for the interests of society; so that,
+if this hypothesis is correct, there cannot be anything more mysterious or
+supernatural in the working of conscience than there is in the working of
+any of our other faculties. That the disagreeable feeling of
+_self-reproach_, as distinguished from _religious_ feeling, should follow
+upon a violation of such an organized body of psychological elements,
+cannot be thought surprising, if it is remembered that one of these
+elements is natural fellow-feeling, and the others the elements which lead
+us to know directly that we have violated the interests of other persons.
+And as regards the mere fact that the working of conscience is independent
+of the will, surely this is not more than we find, in varying degrees, to
+be true of all our emotions; and conscience, according to the evolution
+theory, has its root in the emotions. Hence, it is no more an argument to
+say that the irrepressible character of conscience refers us to a God of
+morality, than it would be to say that the sometimes resistless force of
+the ludicrous refers us to a god of laughter. Love, again, is an emotion
+which cannot be subdued by volition, and in its tendency to persist bears
+just such a striking resemblance to the feelings of morality as we should
+expect to find on the supposition of the former having played an important
+part in the genesis of the latter. The _dictating_ character of conscience,
+therefore, is clearly in itself of no avail as pointing to a superhuman
+Dictator. Thus, for example, to take Dr. Newman's own illustration, why
+should we feel such tearful, broken-hearted sorrow on intentionally or
+carelessly hurting a mother? We see no shadow of a reason for resorting to
+any supernatural hypothesis to explain the fact--love between mother and
+offspring being an essential condition to the existence of higher animals.
+Yet this is a simple case of truly conscientious feeling, where the thought
+of any _personal_ cause of conscience _need_ not be entertained, and is
+certainly not necessary to explain the effects. And similarly with _all_
+cases of conscientious feeling, _except in cases where it refers directly
+to its supposed author_. But these latter cases, or the ethico-theological
+class of feelings, are in no way surprising. If the moral sense has had a
+natural genesis in the actual relations between man and man, as soon as an
+ideal "image" of "a holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive" God is
+firmly believed to have an objective existence, as a matter of course moral
+feelings must become transferred to the relations which are believed to
+obtain between ourselves and this most holy God. Indeed, it is these very
+feelings which, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, must be
+concluded, in accordance with the law of parcimony, to have _generated_
+this idea of God as "holy, just," and good. And the mere fact that, when
+the complex system of religious belief has once been built up, conscience
+is strongly wrought upon by that belief and its accompanying emotions, is
+surely a fact the very reverse of mysterious. Suppose, for the sake of
+argument, that the moral sense has been evolved from the social feelings,
+and should we not certainly expect that, when the belief in a moral and
+all-seeing God is superadded, conscience should be distracted at the
+thought of offending him, and experience a "soothing, satisfactory delight"
+in the belief that we are pleasing him? And as to the argument, "Why does
+the wicked flee when none pursueth? whence his terror?" the question admits
+of only too easy an answer. Indeed, the form into which the question is
+thrown would almost seem--were it not written by Dr. Newman--to imply a
+sarcastic reference to the power of superstition. "Who is it that," not
+only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the mediaeval sorcerer, or the
+frightened child, "sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of
+his heart?" Who but the "image" of his own thought? "If the cause of these
+emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his
+perception is directed must be supernatural and divine." Assuredly; but
+what an inference from what an assumption! Whether or not the moral sense
+has been developed by natural causes, "these emotions" of terror at the
+thought of offending beings "supernatural and divine" are not of such
+unique occurrence "in the visible world" as to give Dr. Newman the monopoly
+of his particular "Object." With a deeper meaning, therefore, than he
+intends may we repeat, "The phenomena of conscience as a dictate _avail_ to
+impress the _imagination_ with the _picture_ of a Supreme Governor." But
+criticism here is positively painful. Let it be enough to say that those of
+us who do not already believe in any such particular "Object"--be it ghost,
+shape, demon, or deity--are strangers, utter and complete, to any such
+supernatural pursuers. The fact, therefore, of these various religious
+emotions being associated with conscience in the minds of theists, can in
+itself be no proof of Theism, seeing that it is the theory of Theism which
+itself _engenders_ these emotions; those who do not believe in this theory
+experiencing none of these feelings of personal dread, responsibility to an
+unknown God, and the feelings of doing injury to, or of receiving praise
+from, a parent. To such of us the violation of conscience is its own
+punishment, as the pursuit of virtue is its own reward. For we know that
+not more certainly than fire will burn, any violation of the deeply-rooted
+feelings of our humanity will leave a gaping wound which even time may not
+always heal. And when it is shown us that our natural dread of fire is due
+to a supernatural cause, we may be prepared to entertain the argument that
+our natural dread of sin, as distinguished from our dread of God, is
+likewise due to such a cause. But until this can be done we must, as
+reasonable men, _whose minds have been trained in the school of nature_,
+forbear to allow that the one fact is of any greater cogency than the
+other, so far as the question of a supernatural cause of either is
+concerned. For, as we have already seen, the law of parcimony forbids us to
+ascribe "the phenomena of conscience as a dictate" to a supernatural cause,
+until the science of psychology shall have proved that they cannot have
+been due to natural causes. But, as we have also seen, the science of
+psychology is now beginning, as quick and thoroughly as can be expected, to
+prove the very converse; so that the probability is now overwhelming that
+our moral sense, like all our other faculties, has been evolved. Therefore,
+while the burden of proof really lies on the side of Theism--or with those
+who account for the natural phenomena of conscience by the hypothesis of a
+supernatural origin--this burden is now being rapidly discharged by the
+opposite side. That is to say, while the proofs which are now beginning to
+substantiate the naturalistic hypothesis are all in full accord with the
+ordinary lines of scientific explanations, the vague and feeble reflections
+of those who still maintain that Conscience is evidence of Deity, are all
+such as run counter to the very truisms of scientific method.
+
+In the face of all the facts, therefore, I find it impossible to recognise
+as valid any inference which is drawn from the existence of our moral sense
+to the existence of a God; although, of course, all inferences drawn from
+the existence of our moral sense to the _character_ of a God already
+believed to exist remain unaffected by the foregoing considerations.[17]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
+
+Sec. 23. The argument from Design, as presented by Mill, is merely a
+resuscitation of it as presented by Paley. True it is that the logical
+penetration of the former enabled him to perceive that the latter had "put
+the case much too strongly;" although, even here, he has failed to see
+wherein Paley's error consisted. He says:--"If I found a watch on an
+apparently desolate island, I should indeed infer that it had been left
+there by a human being; but the inference would not be from the marks of
+design, but because I already know by direct experience that watches are
+made by men." Now I submit that this misses the whole point of Paley's
+meaning; for it is evident that there would be no argument at all unless
+this author be understood to say what he clearly enough expresses, viz.,
+that the evidence of design supposed to be afforded by the watch is
+supposed to be afforded by examination of its mechanism only, and not by
+any previous knowledge as to how that particular mechanism called a watch
+is made. Paley, I take it, only chose a watch for his example because he
+knew that no reader would dispute the fact that watches are constructed by
+design: except for the purpose of pointing out that mechanism is in some
+cases admitted to be due to intelligence, for all the other purposes of his
+argument he might as well have chosen for his illustration any case of
+mechanism occurring in nature. What the real fallacy in Paley's argument
+is, is another question, and this I shall now endeavour to answer; for, as
+Mill's argument is clearly the same in kind as that of Paley and his
+numberless followers, in examining the one I am also examining the other.
+
+Sec. 24. In nature, then, we see innumerable examples of apparent design: are
+these of equal value in testifying to the presence of a designing
+intelligence as are similar examples of human contrivance, and if not, why
+not? The answer to the first of these questions is patent. If such examples
+were of the same value in the one case as they are in the other, the
+existence of a Deity would be, as Paley appears to have thought it was,
+demonstrated by the fact. A brief and yet satisfactory answer to the second
+question is not so easy, and we may best approach it by assuming the
+existence of a Deity. If, then, there is a God, it by no means follows that
+every apparent contrivance in nature is an actual contrivance, in the same
+sense as is any human contrivance. The eye of a vertebrated animal, for
+instance, exhibits as much apparent design as does a watch; but no one--at
+the present day, at least--will undertake to affirm that the evidence of
+divine thought furnished by one example is as conclusive as is the evidence
+of human thought furnished by the other--and this even assuming a Deity to
+exist. Why is this? The reason, I think, is, that we know by our personal
+experience what are our own relations to the material world, and to the
+laws which preside over the action of physical forces; while we can have no
+corresponding knowledge of the relations subsisting between the Deity and
+these same objects of our own experience. Hence, to suppose that the Deity
+constructed the eye by any such process of thought as we know that men
+construct watches, is to make an assumption not only incapable of proof,
+but destitute of any assignable degree of likelihood. Take an example. The
+relation in which a bee stands to the external world is to a large extent a
+matter of observation, and, therefore, no one imagines that the formation
+of its scientifically-constructed cells is due to any profound study on the
+bee's part. Whatever the origin of the cell-making instinct may have been,
+its nature is certainly not the same as it would have been in man,
+supposing him to have had occasion to construct honeycombs. It may be said
+that the requisite calculations have been made for the bees by the Deity;
+but, even if this assumption were true, it would be nothing to the point,
+which is merely that even within the limits of the animal kingdom the
+relations of intelligence to the external world are so diverse, that the
+same results may be accomplished by totally different intellectual
+processes. And as this example is parallel to the case on which we are
+engaged in everything save the _observability_ of the relations involved,
+it supplies us with the exact measure of the probability we are trying to
+estimate. Hence it is evident that so long as we remain ignorant of the
+element essential to the argument from design in its Paleyerian form--viz.,
+knowledge or presumption of the relations subsisting between an
+hypothetical Deity and his creation--so long must that argument remain, not
+only unassignably weak, but incapable of being strengthened by any number
+of examples similar in kind.
+
+Sec. 25. To put the case in another way. The root fallacy in Paley's argument
+consisted in reasoning from a particular to an universal. Because he knew
+that design was the cause of adaptation in some cases, and because the
+phenomena of life exhibited more instances of adaptation than any other
+class of phenomena in nature, he pointed to these phenomena as affording an
+exceptional kind of proof of the presence in nature of intelligent agency.
+Yet, if it is admitted--and of this, even in Paley's days, there was a
+strong analogical presumption--that the phenomena of life are throughout
+their history as much subject to law as are any other phenomena
+whatsoever,--that the method of the divine government, supposing such to
+exist, is the same here as elsewhere; then nothing can be clearer than that
+any amount of observable adaptation of means to ends within this class of
+phenomena cannot afford any different kind of evidence of _design_ than is
+afforded by any other class of phenomena whatsoever. Either we know the
+relations of the Deity to his creation, or we do not. If we do, then we
+must know whether or not _every_ physical change which occurs in accordance
+with law--_i.e._, every change occurring within experience, and so, until
+contrary evidence is produced, presumably every change occurring beyond
+experience--was separately planned by the Deity. If we do not, then we have
+no more reason to suppose that any one set of physical changes rather than
+another has been separately planned by him, unless we could point (as Paley
+virtually pointed) to one particular set of changes and assert, These are
+not subject to the same method of divine government which we observe
+elsewhere, or, in other words, to law. If it is retorted that _in some way
+or other_ all these wonderful adaptations must ultimately have been due to
+intelligence, this is merely to shift the argument to a ground which we
+shall presently have to consider: all we are now engaged upon is to show
+that we have no right to found arguments on the assumed _mode_, _manner_,
+or _process_ by which the supposed intelligence is thought to have
+operated. We can here see, then, more clearly where Paley stumbled. He
+virtually assumed that the relations subsisting between the Deity and the
+universe were such, that the exceptional adaptations met with in the
+organised part of the latter cannot have been due to the same intellectual
+_processes_ as was the rest of the universe--or that, if they were, still
+they yielded better evidence of having been due to these processes than
+does the rest of the universe. And it is easy to perceive that his error
+arose from his pre-formed belief in special creation. So long as a man
+regards every living organism which he sees as the lineal descendant of a
+precisely similar organism originally struck out by the immediate fiat of
+Deity, so long is he justified in holding his axiom, "Contrivance must have
+had a contriver." For "adaptation" then becomes to our minds the synonym of
+"contrivance"--it being utterly inconceivable that the numberless
+adaptations found in any living organism could have resulted in any other
+way than by intelligent contrivance, at the time when this organism was in
+the first instance _suddenly_ introduced into its complex conditions of
+life. Still, as an argument, this is of course merely reasoning in a
+circle: we adopt a hypothesis which presupposes the existence of a Deity as
+the first step in the proof of his existence. I do not say that Paley
+committed this error expressly, but merely that if it had not been for his
+pre-formed conviction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he
+would probably not have written his "Natural Theology."
+
+Sec. 26. Thus let us take a case of his own choosing, and the one which is
+adduced by him as typical of "the application of the argument." "I know of
+no better method of introducing so large a subject than that of comparing a
+single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As
+far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same
+proof that the eye was made for vision as there is that the telescope was
+made for assisting it. They are both made upon the same principles, both
+being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays
+of light are regulated. I speak not of the origin of the laws themselves;
+but these laws being fixed, the construction in both cases is adapted to
+them. For instance: these laws require, in order to produce the same
+effect, that the rays of light, in passing through water into the eye,
+should be refracted by a more convex surface than when it passes out of air
+into the eye. Accordingly we find that the eye of a fish, in that part of
+it called the crystalline lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial
+animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there be than this
+difference?" But what, let us ask, is the proximate cause of this
+difference? 'The immediate volition of the Deity, manifested in special
+creation,' virtually answers Paley; while we of to-day are able to reply,
+'The agency of natural laws, to wit, inheritance, variation, survival of
+the fittest, and probably of other laws as yet not discovered.' Now, of
+course, according to the former of these two premises, there can be no more
+legitimate conclusion than that the difference in question is due to
+intelligent and special design; but, according to the other premise, it is
+equally clear that no conclusion can be more unwarranted; for, under the
+latter view, the greater rotundity of the crystalline lens in a fish's eye
+no more exhibits the presence of any special design than does the
+adaptation of a river to the bed which it has itself been the means of
+excavating. When, therefore, Paley goes on to ask:--"How is it possible,
+under circumstances of such close affinity, and under the operation of
+equal evidence, to exclude contrivance from the case of the eye, yet to
+acknowledge the proof of contrivance having been employed, as the plainest
+and clearest of all propositions, in the case of the telescope?" the answer
+is sufficiently obvious, namely, that the "evidence" in the two cases is
+_not_ "equal;"--any more than is the existence, say, of the Nile of equal
+value in point of evidence that it was designed for traffic, as is the
+existence of the Suez Canal that it was so designed. And the mere fact that
+the problem of achromatism was solved by "the mind of a sagacious optician
+inquiring how this matter was managed in the eye," no more proves that
+"this could not be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the
+optician the only effectual means of attaining that purpose," than would
+the fact, say, of the winnowing of corn having suggested the
+fanning-machine prove that air currents were designed for the purpose of
+eliminating chaff from grain. In short, the real substance of the argument
+from Design must eventually merge into that which Paley, in the
+above-quoted passage, expressly passes over--viz., "the origin of the laws
+themselves;" for so long as there is any reason to suppose that any
+apparent "adaptation" to a certain set of "fixed laws" is itself due to the
+influence of other "fixed laws," so long have we as little right to say
+that the latter set of fixed laws exhibit any better indications of
+intelligent adaptation to the former set, than the former do to that of the
+latter--the eye to light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive that Mill
+is entirely wrong when he says of Paley's argument, "It surpasses analogy
+exactly as induction surpasses it," because "the instances chosen are
+particular instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a
+real connection with an intelligent origin--the fact of conspiring to an
+end." Experience shows as this, but it shows us more besides; it shows us
+that there is no _necessary_ or _uniform_ connection between an
+"intelligent origin" and the fact of apparent "means conspiring to an
+[apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to compare this
+quotation just made from Mill, and the long train of reasoning that
+follows, with an admirable illustration in Mr. Wallace's "Natural
+Selection," he will be well rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr. Mill's
+reasoning so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for the
+respective dates of publication, one might have thought the latter had an
+express reference to the former.[18] True, Mr. Mill closes his argument
+with a brief allusion to the "principle of the survival of the fittest,"
+observing that "creative forethought is not absolutely the only link by
+which the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be connected
+with the fact of sight." I am surprised, however, that a man of Mr. Mill's
+penetration did not see that whatever view we may take as to "the adequacy
+of this principle (_i.e._, Natural Selection) to account for such truly
+admirable combinations as some of those in nature," the argument from
+_Design_ is not materially affected. So far as this argument is concerned,
+the issue is not Design _versus_ Natural Selection, but it is Design
+_versus_ Natural Law. By all means, "leaving this remarkable speculation
+(_i.e._, Mr. Darwin's) to whatever fate the progress of discovery may have
+in store for it," and it by no means follows that "in the present state of
+knowledge the adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability
+in favour of creation by intelligence." For whatever we may think of this
+special theory as to the _mode_, there can be no longer any reasonable
+doubt, "in the present state of our knowledge," as to the truth of the
+general theory of _Evolution_; and the latter, if accepted, is as
+destructive to the argument from _Design_ as would the former be if proved.
+In a word, it is the _fact_ and not the _method_ of Evolution which is
+subversive of Teleology in its Paleyerian form.
+
+Sec. 27. We have come then to this:--Apparent intellectual adaptations are
+perfectly valid indications of design, so long as their authorship is known
+to be confined to human intelligence; for then we know from experience what
+are our relations to these laws, and so in any given case can argue _a
+posteriori_ that such an adaptation to such a set of laws by such an
+intelligence can only have been due to such a process. But when we overstep
+the limits of experience, we are not entitled to argue anything _a priori_
+of any other intelligence in this respect, even supposing any such
+intelligence to exist. The analogy by which the unknown relations are
+inferred from the known is "infinitely precarious;" seeing that two of the
+analogous terms--to wit, the divine intelligence and the human--may differ
+to an immeasurable extent in their properties--nay, are supposed thus to
+differ, the one being supposed omniscient, omnipotent, &c., and the other
+not. And, as a final step, we may now see that the argument from Design, in
+its last resort, resolves itself into a _petitio principii_. For,
+ultimately, the only point which the analogical argument in question is
+adduced to prove is, that the relations subsisting between an Unknown Cause
+and certain physical forces are so far identical with the relations known
+to subsist between human intelligence and these same forces, that similar
+intellectual processes are required in the two cases to account for the
+production of similar effects--and hence that the Unknown Cause is
+intelligent. But it is evident that the analogy itself can have no
+existence, except upon the presupposition that these two sets of relations
+_are_ thus identical. The point which the analogy is adduced to prove is
+therefore postulated by the fact of its being adduced at all, and the whole
+argument resolves itself into a case of _petitio principii_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.
+
+Sec. 28. Turning now to an important error of Mr. Mill's in respect of
+omission, I firmly believe that all competent writers who have ever
+undertaken to support the argument from Design, have been moved to do so by
+their instinctive appreciation of the much more important argument, which
+Mill does not mention at all and which we now proceed to consider--the
+argument from General Laws. That is to say, I cannot think that any one
+competent writer ever seriously believed, had he taken time to analyse his
+beliefs, that the cogency of his argument lay in assuming any knowledge
+concerning the _process_ of divine thought; he must have really believed
+that it lay entirely in his observation of the _product_ of divine
+thought--or rather, let us say, of divine intelligence. Now this is the
+whole difference between the argument from Design and the argument from
+General Laws. The argument from Design says, There must be a God, because
+such and such an organic structure must have been due to such and such an
+intellectual _process_. The argument from General Laws says, There must be
+a God, because such and such an organic structure must _in some way or
+other have been ultimately due to_ intelligence. Nor does this argument end
+here. Not only must such and such an organic structure have been ultimately
+due to intelligence, but every such structure--nay, every phenomenon in the
+universe--must have been the same; for all phenomena are alike subject to
+the same method of sequence. The argument is thus a cumulative one; for as
+there is no single known exception to this universal mode of existence, the
+united effect of so vast a body of evidence is all but irresistible, and
+its tendency is clearly to point us to some _one_ explanatory cause. The
+scope of this argument is therefore co-extensive with the universe; it
+draws alike upon all phenomena with which experience is acquainted. For
+instance, it contains all the phenomena covered by the Design argument,
+just as a genus contains any one of its species; it being manifest, from
+what was said in the last section, that if the general doctrine of
+Evolution is accepted, the argument from Design must of necessity merge
+into that from General Laws. And this wide basis, we may be sure, must be
+the most legitimate one whereon to rest an argument in favour of Theism. If
+there is any such thing as such an argument at all, the most unassailable
+field for its display must be the universe as a whole, seeing that if we
+separate any one section of the universe from the rest, and suppose that we
+here discover a different kind of testimony to intelligence from that which
+we can discover elsewhere, we may from analogy be abundantly sure that on
+the confines of our division there must be second causes and general laws
+at work (whether discoverable or not), which are the immediate agents in
+the production of the observed results. Of course I do not deny that some
+classes of phenomena afford us more and better proofs of intellectual
+agency than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being more
+numerous, subtle, and complex; but it will be seen that this is a different
+interpretation of the evidence from that against which I am contending.
+Thus, if there are tokens of divine intention (as distinguished from
+design) to be met with in the eye,--if it is inconceivable that so "nice
+and intricate a structure" should exist without intelligence as its
+_ultimate_ cause; then the discovery of natural selection, or of any other
+law, as the _manner_ in which this intelligence wrought in no wise
+attenuates the proof as to the fact of an intelligent cause. On the
+contrary, it tends rather to confirm it; for, besides the evidence before
+existing, there is added that which arises from the conformity of the
+method to that which is observable in the rest of the universe.
+
+Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and others have said, I
+cannot but feel that the ubiquitous action of general laws is, of all facts
+supplied by experience, the most cogent in its bearing upon teleology. If
+perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does not indicate the
+existence of a presiding intelligence, it becomes a question whether any
+other kind of method--short of the intelligently miraculous--could possibly
+do so; seeing that the further the divine _modus operandi_ (supposing such
+to exist) were removed from absolute uniformity, the greater would be the
+room for our interpreting it as mere fortuity. But forasmuch as the
+progress of science has shown that within experience the method of the
+Supreme Causality is absolutely uniform, the hypothesis of fortuity is
+rendered irrational; and let us think of this Supreme Causality as we may,
+the fact remains that from it there emanates a directive influence of
+uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous magnitude and exact
+precision, worthy of our highest possible conceptions of Deity.
+
+Sec. 29. Had it been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I doubt not
+that I should have regarded the foregoing considerations as final: I should
+have concluded that there was an overwhelming balance of rational
+probability in favour of Theism; and I think I should also have insisted
+that this balance of rational probability would require to continue as it
+was till the end of time. I should have maintained, in some such words as
+the following, in which the Rev. Baden Powell conveys this argument:--"The
+very essence of the whole argument is the invariable preservation of the
+principle of _order_: not necessarily such as we can directly recognise,
+but the universal conviction of the unfailing subordination of everything
+to _some_ grand principles of _law_, however imperfectly apprehended in our
+partial conceptions, and the successive subordination of such laws to
+others of still higher generality, to an extent transcending our
+conceptions, and constituting the true chain of universal causation which
+culminates in the sublime conception of the COSMOS.
+
+"It is in immediate connection with this enlarged view of universal
+immutable natural order that I have regarded the narrow notions of those
+who obscure the sublime prospect by imagining so unworthy an idea as that
+of occasional interruptions in the physical economy of the world.
+
+"The only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden supernatural
+origination of new species of organised beings in remote geological epochs.
+It is in relation to the broad principle of law, if once rightly
+apprehended, that such inferences are seen to be wholly unwarranted by
+science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and inadmissible in
+philosophy; while, even in those instances properly understood, the real
+scientific conclusions of the invariable and indissoluble chain of
+causation stand vindicated in the sublime contemplations with which they
+are thus associated.
+
+"To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essential
+requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of this
+_one grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting the
+very idea of nature_;--which forms the vital essence of the whole of
+inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher inferences from
+the inductive study of natural causes which are the vindications of a
+supreme intelligence and a moral cause.
+
+"_The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the admission
+of this grand principle_. Those who are not prepared to embrace it in its
+full extent may probably not accept the conclusions; but they must be sent
+back to the school of inductive science, where alone it must be
+independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with the mind of the
+student in the first instance.
+
+"On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and general
+results of inductive science,... we recognise the powers of intellect fitly
+employed in the study of nature,... pre-eminently leading us to perceive
+_in nature_, and in the invariable and universal constancy of its laws, the
+indications of universal, unchangeable, and recondite arrangement,
+dependence, and connection in reason....
+
+"We thus see the importance of taking a more enlarged view of the great
+argument of natural theology; and the necessity for so doing becomes the
+more apparent when we reflect on the injury to which these sublime
+inferences are exposed from the narrow and unworthy form in which the
+reasoning has been too often conducted....
+
+"The satisfactory view of the whole case can only be found in those more
+enlarged conceptions which are furnished by the grand contemplation of
+cosmical order and unity, and which do not refer to inferences from the
+_past_, but to proofs of the _ever-present_ mind and reason in nature.
+
+"If we read a book which it requires much thought and exercise of reason to
+understand, but which we find discloses more and more truth and reason as
+we proceed in the study, and contains clearly more than we can at present
+comprehend, then undeniably we properly say that thought and reason _exist
+in that book_ irrespectively of our minds, and equally so of any question
+as to its author or origin. Such a book confessedly exists, and is ever
+open to us in the natural world. Or, to put the case under a slightly
+different form:--When the astronomer, the physicist, the geologist, or the
+naturalist notes down a series of observed facts or measured dates, he is
+not an _author_ expressing his own ideas,--he is a mere _amanuensis_ taking
+down the dictations of nature: his observation book is the record of the
+thoughts of _another mind_: he has but set down literally what he himself
+does not understand, or only very imperfectly. On further examination, and
+after deep and anxious study, he perhaps begins to decipher the meaning, by
+perceiving some law which gives a signification to the facts; and the
+further he pursues the investigation up to any more comprehensive theory,
+the more fully he perceives that there is a higher reason, of which his own
+is but the humbler interpreter, and into whose depths he may penetrate
+continually further, to discover yet more profound and invariable order and
+system, always indicating still deeper and more hidden abysses yet
+unfathomed, but throughout which he is assured the same recondite and
+immutable arrangement ever prevails.
+
+"That which requires thought and reason to understand must be itself
+thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or express must
+be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained is but partial, then
+the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind and reason of the
+student. If the more it be studied the more vast and complex is the
+necessary connection in reason disclosed, then the more evident is the vast
+extent and compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested, and its
+reality, as _existing in the immutably connected order of objects
+examined_, independently of the mind of the investigator.
+
+"But considerations of this kind, just and transcendently important as they
+are in themselves, give us no aid in any inquiry into the _origin_ of the
+order of things thus investigated, or the _nature_ or other attributes of
+the mind evinced in them.
+
+"The real argument for universal _intelligence_, manifested in the
+universality of order and law in the material world, is very different from
+any attempt to give a form to our conceptions, even by the language of
+analogy, as to the _nature_ or _mode of existence_ or operation of that
+intelligence [_i.e._, as I have stated the case, the argument can only rest
+on a study of the _products_, as distinguished from the _processes_ of such
+intelligence]: and still more different from any extension of our inference
+from what _is_ to what _may have been_, from _present_ order to a supposed
+_origination_, first adjustment, or planning of that order.
+
+"By keeping these distinctions steadily in view, we appreciate properly
+both the limits and the extent and compass of what we may appropriately
+call COSMOTHEOLOGY."[19]
+
+I have quoted these passages at length, because they convey in a more
+forcible, guarded, and accurate manner than any others with which I am
+acquainted, the strictly rational standing of this great subject prior to
+the date at which the above-quoted passage was written. Therefore, as I
+have said, if it had been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I
+should certainly have rested in these "sublime conceptions" as in an
+argument supreme and irrefutable. I should have felt that the progress of
+physical knowledge could never exert any other influence on Theism than
+that of ever tending more and more to confirm that magnificent belief, by
+continuously expanding our human thoughts into progressively advancing
+conceptions, ever grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin of
+Things--the Mind of God. Such would have been my hope--such would have been
+my prayer. But now, how changed! Never in the history of man has so
+terrific a calamity befallen the race as that which all who look may now
+behold advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, resistless in might,
+uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and
+burying our highest life in mindless desolation. Science, whom erstwhile we
+thought a very Angel of God, pointing to that great barrier of Law, and
+proclaiming to the restless sea of changing doubt, "Hitherto shalt thou
+come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,"--even
+Science has now herself thrown down this trusted barrier; the flood-gates
+of infidelity are open, and Atheism overwhelming is upon us.
+
+Sec. 30. All and every law follows as a necessary consequence from the
+persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter.[20] That this
+must be so is evident if we consider that, were it not so, force could not
+be permanent nor matter constant. For instance, if action and reaction were
+not invariably equal and opposite, force would not be invariably
+persistent, seeing that in no case can the formula fail, unless some one or
+other of the forces concerned, or parts of them, disappear. And as with a
+simple law of this kind, so with every other natural law and
+inter-operation of laws, howsoever complex such inter-operation may be; for
+it is manifest that if in any case similar antecedents did not determine
+similar consequents, on one or other of these occasions some quantum of
+force, or of matter, or of both, must have disappeared--or, which is the
+same thing, the law of causation cannot have been constant. Every natural
+law, therefore, may be defined as the formula of a sequence, which must
+either ensue upon certain forces of a given intensity impinging upon
+certain given quantities, kinds, and forms of matter, or else, by not
+ensuing, prove that the force or the matter concerned were not of a
+permanent nature.
+
+Sec. 31. The argument, then, which was elaborated in Sec. 29, and which has so
+long and so generally received the popular sanction in the common-sense
+epitome, that in the last record there must be mind in external nature,
+since "that which it requires thought and reason to understand must itself
+be thought and reason,"--this argument, I say, must now for ever be
+abandoned by reasonable men. No doubt it would be easy to point to several
+speculative thinkers who have previously combated this argument,[21] and
+from this fact some readers will perhaps be inclined to judge, from a false
+analogy, that as the argument in question has withstood previous assaults,
+it need not necessarily succumb to the present one. Be it observed,
+however, that the present assault differs from all previous assaults, just
+as demonstration differs from speculation. What has hitherto been but mere
+guess and unwarrantable assertion has now become a matter of the greatest
+certainty. That the argument from General Laws is a futile argument, is no
+longer a matter of unverifiable opinion: it is as sure as is the most
+fundamental axiom of science. That the argument will long remain in
+illogical minds, I doubt not; but that it is from henceforth quite
+inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no question. For the sake,
+however, of impressing this fact still more strongly upon such readers as
+have been accustomed to rely upon this argument, and so find it difficult
+thus abruptly to reverse the whole current of their thoughts,--for the sake
+of such, I shall here add a few remarks with the view of facilitating the
+conception of an universal Order existing independently of Mind.
+
+Sec. 32. Interpreting the mazy nexus of phenomena only by the facts which
+science has revealed, and what conclusion are we driven to accept? Clearly,
+looking to what has been said in the last two sections, that from the time
+when the process of evolution first began,--from the time before the
+condensation of the nebula had showed any signs of commencing,--every
+subsequent change or event of evolution was _necessarily bound_ to ensue;
+else force and matter have not been persistent. How then, it will be asked,
+did the vast nexus of natural laws which is now observable ever begin or
+continue to be? In this way. When the first womb of things was pregnant
+with all the future, there would probably have been existent at any rate
+not more than one of the formulae which we now call natural laws. This one
+law, of course, would have been the law of gravitation. Here we may take
+our stand. It does not signify whether there ever was a time when
+gravitation was not,--_i.e._, if ever there was a time when matter, _as we
+now know it_, was not in existence;--for if there ever was such a time,
+there is no reason to doubt, but every reason to conclude, that the
+evolution of matter, as we now know it, was accomplished in accordance with
+law. Similarly, we are not concerned with the question as to how the law of
+gravitation came to be associated with matter; for it is overwhelmingly
+probable, from the extent of the analogy, that if our knowledge concerning
+molecular physics were sufficiently great, the existence of the law in
+question would be found to follow as a necessary deduction from the primary
+qualities of matter and force, just as we can now see that, when present,
+its peculiar quantitative action necessarily follows from the primary
+qualities of space.
+
+Starting, then, with these data,--matter, force, and the law of
+gravitation,--what must happen? We have the strongest scientific reason to
+believe that the matter of the solar system primordially existed in a
+highly diffused or nebulous form. By mutual gravitation, therefore, all the
+substance of the nebula must have begun to concentrate upon itself, or to
+condense. Now, from this point onwards, I wish it to be clearly understood
+that the mere consideration of the supposed facts not admitting of
+scientific proof, or of scientific explanation if true, in no wise affects
+the certainty of the doctrine which these facts are here adduced to
+establish. Fully granting that the alleged facts are not beyond dispute,
+and that, even if true, innumerable other unknown and unknowable facts must
+have been associated with them--fully admitting, in short, that our ideas
+concerning the genesis of the solar system are of the crudest and least
+trustworthy character; still, if it be admitted, what at the present day
+only ignorance or prejudice can deny, viz., that, as a whole, evolution has
+been the method of the universe; then it follows that the doctrine here
+contended for is as certainly true as it would be were we fully acquainted
+with every cause and every change which has acted and ensued throughout the
+whole process of the genesis of things.
+
+Now, bearing this caveat in mind, we have next to observe that when once
+the nebula began to condense, new relations among its constituent parts
+would, _for this reason_, begin to be established. "Given a rare and widely
+diffused mass of nebulous matter,... what are the successive changes that
+will take place? Mutual gravitation will approximate its atoms, but their
+approximation will be opposed by atomic repulsion, the overcoming of which
+implies the evolution of heat." That is to say, the condensation of the
+nebula as a whole of necessity implies at least the origination of these
+new material and dynamical relations among its constituent parts. "As fast
+as this heat partially escapes by radiation, further approximation will
+take place, attended by further evolution of heat, and so on continuously:
+the processes not occurring separately, as here described, but
+simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and with increasing activity." Hence the
+newly established relations continuously acquire new increments of
+intensity. But now observe a more important point. The previous essential
+conditions remaining unaltered--viz., the persistence of matter and force,
+as well as, or rather let us say and consequently, the law of
+gravitation--these conditions, I say, remaining constant, and the newly
+established relations would necessarily _of themselves_ give origin to
+_new_ laws. For whenever two given quantities of force and matter met in
+one of the novel relations, they would of necessity give rise to novel
+effects; and whenever, on any future occasion, similar quantities of force
+and matter again so met, precisely similar effects would of necessity
+require to occur: but the occurrence of similar effects under similar
+conditions is all that we mean by a natural law.
+
+Continuing, then, our quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer's terse and lucid
+exposition of the nebular theory, we find this doctrine virtually embodied
+in the next sentences:--"Eventually this slow movement of the atoms towards
+their common centre of gravity will bring about phenomena of another order.
+
+"Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, it will happen that,
+when the nebulous mass has reached a particular stage of condensation--when
+its internally situated atoms have approached to within certain distances,
+have generated a certain amount of heat, and are subject to a certain
+mutual pressure (the heat and pressure increasing as the aggregation
+progresses), some of them will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether
+the binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, which is
+possible, or whether they be of kinds simpler than any we know, which is
+more probable, matters not to the argument. It suffices that molecular
+combinations of some species will finally take place." We have, then, here
+a new and important change of relations. Matter, primordially uniform, has
+itself become heterogeneous; and in as many places as it has thus changed
+its state, it must, in virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto
+novel relations, and so, in many cases, to new laws.[22]
+
+It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this genesis of natural law
+any further: indeed, it would be quite impossible so to trace it for any
+considerable distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes of
+relations renders all speculation as to the actual processes quite useless.
+This fact, however, as before insisted, in no wise affects the only
+doctrine which I here enunciate--viz., that the self-generation of natural
+law is a necessary corollary from the persistence of matter and force. And
+that this must be so is now, I hope, sufficiently evident. Just as in the
+first dawn of things, when the proto-binary compounds of matter gave rise
+to new relations together with their appropriate laws, so throughout the
+whole process of evolution, as often as matter acquired a hitherto novel
+state, or in one of its old states entered into hitherto novel relations,
+so often would non-existent or even impossible laws become at once possible
+and necessary. And in this way I cannot see that there is any reason to
+stop until we arrive at all the marvellous complexity of things as they
+are. For aught that speculative reason can ever from henceforth show to the
+contrary, the evolution of all the diverse phenomena of inorganic nature,
+of life, and of mind, appears to be as necessary and as self-determined as
+is the being of that mysterious Something which is Everything,--the Entity
+we must all believe in, which without condition and beyond relation holds
+its existence in itself.
+
+Sec. 33. Does it still seem incredible that, notwithstanding it requires
+mental processes to interpret external nature, external nature may
+nevertheless be destitute of mind? Then let us look at the subject on its
+obverse aspect.
+
+According to the theory of evolution--which, be it always remembered, is no
+mere gratuitous supposition, but a genuine scientific theory--human
+intelligence, like everything else, has been evolved. Now in what does the
+evolution of intelligence consist? Any one acquainted with the writings of
+our great philosopher can have no hesitation in answering: Clearly and only
+in the establishment of more and more numerous and complex internal or
+psychological relations. In other words, the law of intelligence being
+"that the strengths of the inner cohesions between psychical states must be
+proportionate to the persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it
+follows that the development of intelligence is "secured by the one simple
+principle that experience of the outer relations _produces_ inner
+cohesions, and makes the inner cohesions strong in proportion as the outer
+relations are persistent." Now the question before us at present is merely
+this:--Must we not infer that these outer relations are regulated by mind,
+seeing that order is undoubtedly apparent among them, and that it requires
+mental processes on our part to interpret this order? The only legitimate
+answer to this question is, that these outer relations _may_ be regulated
+by mind, but that, in view of the evolution theory, we are certainly not
+entitled to infer that they _are_ so regulated, _merely_ because it
+requires mental processes on our part to interpret their orderly character.
+For if it is true that the human mind was itself evolved by these outer
+relations--ever continuously moulded into conformity with them as the prime
+condition of its existence--then its process of interpreting them is but
+reflecting (as it were) in consciousness these outer relations by which the
+inner ones were originally produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an
+objective macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable that
+this objective macrocosm is _of itself_ sufficient to evolve a subjective
+microcosm, I do not see any the faintest reason for the latter to conclude
+that a self-conscious intelligence is inherent in the former, merely
+because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those orderly
+objective relations by which its own corresponding subjective relations
+were originally produced. If it is said that it is impossible to conceive
+how, apart from mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever
+have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the ground of
+discussion to that which occupied us in the last section: all we are now
+engaged upon is,--Granting that the existence of such orderly relations is
+actual, whether with or without mind to account for them; and granting also
+that these relations are _of themselves_ sufficient to produce
+corresponding subjective relations; then the mere fact of our conscious
+intelligence being able to discover numerous and complex outer relations
+answering to those which they themselves have caused in our intelligence,
+does not warrant the latter in concluding that the causal connection
+between intelligence and non-intelligence has ever been reversed--that
+these outer relations in turn are caused by a similar conscious
+intelligence. How such a thing as a conscious intelligence is possible is
+another and wholly unanswerable question (though not more so than that as
+to the existence of force and matter, and would not be rendered less so by
+merging the fact in a hypothetical Deity); but granting, as we must, that
+such an entity does exist, and supposing it to have been evolved by natural
+causes, then it would appear incontestably to follow, that whether or not
+objective existence is presided over by objective mind, our subjective mind
+would _alike_ and _equally_ require to read in the facts of the external
+world an indication, whether true or false, of some such presiding agency.
+The subjective mind being, by the supposition, but the obverse aspect of
+the sum total of such among objective relations as have had a share in its
+production, when, as in observation and reflection, this obverse aspect is
+again inverted upon its die, it naturally fits more or less exactly into
+all the prints.
+
+Sec. 34. This last illustration, however, serves to introduce us to another
+point. The supposed evidence from which the existence of mind in nature is
+inferred does not always depend upon such minute correspondences between
+subjective method and objective method as the illustration suggests. Every
+natural theologian has experienced more or less difficulty in explaining
+the fact, that while there is a tolerably general similarity between the
+contrivances due to human thought and the apparent contrivances in nature
+which he regards as due to divine thought, the similarity is nevertheless
+_only_ general. For instance, if a man has occasion to devise any
+artificial appliance, he does so with the least possible cost of labour to
+himself, and with the least possible expenditure of material. Yet it is
+obvious that in nature as a whole no such economic considerations obtain.
+Doubtless by superficial minds this assertion will be met at first with an
+indignant denial: they have been accustomed to accumulate instances of this
+very principle of economy in nature; perhaps written about it in books, and
+illustrated it in lectures,--totally ignoring the fact that the instances
+of economy in nature bear no proportion at all to the instances of
+prodigality. Conceive of the force which is being quite uselessly expended
+by all the wind-currents which are at this moment blowing over the face of
+Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dissipated during the
+secular cooling of this single planet. Feebly try to think of what the sun
+is radiating into space. If it is retorted that we are incompetent to judge
+of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this is but to abandon the
+argument from economy whenever it is found untenable: we presume to be
+competent judges of almighty purposes so long as they appear to imitate our
+own; but so soon as there is any divergence observable, we change front. By
+thus selecting all the instances of economy in nature, and disregarding all
+the vastly greater instances of reckless waste, we are merely laying
+ourselves open to the charge of an unfair eclecticism. And this formal
+refutation of the argument from economy admits of being further justified
+in a strikingly substantial manner; for if all the examples of economy in
+nature that were ever observed, or admit being observed, were collected
+into one view, I undertake to affirm that, without exception, they would be
+found to marshal themselves in one great company--the subjects whose law is
+_survival of the fittest_. One question only will I here ask. Is it
+possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, after due
+consideration, to withstand the fact that the solitary exceptions to the
+universal prodigality so painfully conspicuous in nature are to be found
+where there is also to be found a full and adequate physical explanation of
+their occurrence?
+
+But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars wherein the
+modes and the means of the supposed divine intelligence differ from those
+of its human counterpart. Comparative anatomists can point to organic
+structures which are far from being theoretically perfect: even the mind of
+man in these cases, notwithstanding its confessed deficiencies in respect
+both of cognitive and cogitative powers, is competent to suggest
+improvements to an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all-wise! And
+what shall we say of the numerous cases in which the supposed purposes of
+this intelligence could have been attained by other and less roundabout
+means? In short, not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is admitted, even
+by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties of reconciling,
+even approximately, the supposed processes of divine thought with the known
+processes of human thought are quite insuperable. The fact is expressed by
+such writers in various ways,--_e.g._, that it would be presumptuous in man
+to expect complete conformity in all cases; that the counsels of God are
+past finding out; that his ways are not as our ways, and so on. Observing
+only, as before, that in thus ignoring adverse cases natural theologians
+are guilty of an unfair eclecticism, it is evident that all such
+expressions concede the fact, that even in those provinces of nature where
+the evidence of superhuman intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance
+of its apparent products to those of human intelligence consists in a
+general approximation of method rather than in any precise similarity of
+particulars: the likeness is generic rather than specific.
+
+Now this is exactly what we should expect to be the case, if the similarity
+in question be due to the cause which the present section endeavours to set
+forth. If all natural laws are self-evolved, and if human intelligence is
+but a subjective photograph of certain among their interrelations, it seems
+but natural that when this photograph compares itself with the whole
+external world from parts of which it was taken, its subjective lights and
+shadows should be found to correspond with some of the objective lights and
+shadows much more perfectly than with others. Still there would doubtless
+be sufficient general conformity to lead the thinking photograph to
+conclude that the great world of objective reality, instead of being the
+_cause_ of such conformity as exists, was itself the _effect_ of some
+common cause,--that it too was of the nature of a picture. Dropping the
+figure, if it is true that human intelligence has been evolved by natural
+law, then in view of all that has been said it must now, I think, be
+tolerably apparent, _that as by the hypothesis human intelligence has
+always been required to think and to act in conformity with law, human
+intelligence must at last be in danger of confusing or identifying the fact
+of action in conformity with law with the existence and the action of a
+self-conscious intelligence. Reading then in external nature innumerable
+examples of action in conformity with law, human intelligence falls back
+upon the unwarrantable identification, and out of the bare fact that law
+exists in nature concludes that beyond nature there is an Intelligent
+Lawgiver._
+
+Sec. 35. From what has been said in the last five sections, it manifestly
+follows that all the varied phenomena of the universe not only may, but
+must, depend upon the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
+matter.[23] Be it remembered that the object of the last three sections was
+merely to "_facilitate conception_" of the fact that it does not at all
+follow, because the phenomena of external nature admit of being
+intelligently inquired into, therefore they are due to an intelligent
+cause. The last three sections are hence in a manner parenthetical, and it
+is of comparatively little importance whether or not they have been
+successful in their object; for, from what went before, it is abundantly
+manifest that, whether or not the subjective side of the question admits of
+satisfactory elucidation, there can be no doubt that the objective side of
+it is as certain as are the fundamental axioms of science. It does not
+admit of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly true that all the
+exquisite beauty and melodious harmony of nature follow as necessarily and
+as inevitably from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
+matter, as it is certainly true that force is persistent, or that matter is
+extended and impenetrable. No doubt this generalisation is too vast to be
+adequately conceived, but there can be equally little doubt that it is
+necessarily true. If matter and force have been eternal, so far as human
+mind can soar it can discover no need of a superior mind to explain the
+varied phenomena of existence. Man has truly become in a new sense the
+measure of the universe, and in this the latest and most appalling of his
+soundings, indications are returned from the infinite voids of space and
+time by which he is surrounded, that his intelligence, with all its noble
+capacities for love and adoration, is yet alone--destitute of kith or kin
+in all this universe of being.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE LOGICAL STANDING OF THE QUESTION AS TO THE BEING OF A GOD.
+
+Sec. 36. But the discussion must not end here. Inexorable logic has forced us
+to conclude that, viewing the question as to the existence of a God only by
+the light which modern science has shed upon it, there no longer appears to
+be any semblance of an argument in its favour. Let us then turn upon
+science herself, and question her right to be our sole guide in this
+matter. Undoubtedly we have no alternative but to conclude that the
+hypothesis of mind in nature is now logically proved to be as certainly
+superfluous is the very basis of all science is certainly true. There can
+no longer be any more doubt that the existence of a God is wholly
+unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of the universe, than there is
+doubt that if I leave go of my pen it will fall upon the table. Nay, the
+doubt is even less than this, because while the knowledge that my pen will
+fall if I allow it to do so is founded chiefly upon empirical knowledge (I
+could not predict with _a priori_ certainty that it would so fall, for the
+pen might be in an electrical state, or subject to some set of unknown
+natural laws antagonistic to gravity), the knowledge that a Deity is
+superfluous as an explanation of anything, being grounded on the doctrine
+of the persistence of force, is grounded on an _a priori_ necessity of
+reason--_i.e._, if this fact were not so, our science, our thought, our
+very existence itself, would be scientifically impossible.
+
+But now, having thus stated the case as strongly as I am able, it remains
+to question how far the authority of science extends. Even our knowledge of
+the persistence of force and of the primary qualities of matter is but of
+relative significance. Deeper than the foundations of our experience,
+"deeper than demonstration--deeper even than definite cognition,--deep as
+the very nature of mind,"[24] are these the most ultimate of known truths;
+but where from this is our warrant for concluding with certainty that these
+known truths are everywhere and eternally true? It will be said that there
+is a strong analogical probability. Perhaps so, but of this next: I am not
+now speaking of probability; I am speaking of certainty; and unless we deny
+the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, we cannot but conclude that
+there is no absolute certainty in this case. As I deem this consideration
+one of great importance, I shall proceed to develop it at some length. It
+will be observed, then, that the consideration really amounts to
+this:--Although it must on all hands be admitted that the fact of the
+theistic hypothesis not being required to explain any of the phenomena of
+nature is a fact which has been demonstrated _scientifically_, nevertheless
+it must likewise on all hands be admitted that this fact has not, and
+cannot be, demonstrated _logically_. Or thus, although it is unquestionably
+true that so far as science can penetrate she cannot discern any
+speculative necessity for a God, it may nevertheless be true that if
+science could penetrate further she might discern some such necessity. Now
+the present discussion would clearly be incomplete if it neglected to
+define as carefully this the logical standing of our subject, as it has
+hitherto endeavoured to define its scientific standing. As a final step in
+our analysis, therefore, we must altogether quit the region of experience,
+and, ignoring even the very foundations of science and so all the most
+certain of relative truths, pass into the transcendental region of purely
+formal considerations. In this region theist and atheist must alike consent
+to forego all their individual predilections, and, after regarding the
+subject as it were in the abstract and by the light of pure logic alone,
+finally come to an agreement as to the transcendental probability of the
+question before them. Disregarding the actual probability which they
+severally feel to exist in relation to their own individual intelligences,
+they must apply themselves to ascertain the probability which exists in
+relation to those fundamental laws of thought which preside over the
+intelligence of our race. In fine, it will now, I hope, be understood that,
+as we have hitherto been endeavouring to determine, by deductions drawn
+from the very foundations of all possible science, the _relative_
+probability as to the existence of a God, so we shall next apply ourselves
+to the task of ascertaining the _absolute_ probability of such
+existence--or, more correctly, what is the strictly _formal_ probability of
+such existence when its possibility is contemplated in an absolute sense.
+
+Sec. 37. To begin then. In the last resort, the value of every probability is
+fixed by "ratiocination." In endeavouring, therefore, to fix the degree of
+strictly formal probability that is present in any given case, our method
+of procedure should be, first to ascertain the ultimate ratios on which the
+probability depends, and then to estimate the comparative value of these
+ratios. Now I think there can be no doubt that the value of any probability
+in this its last analysis is determined by the number, the importance, and
+the definiteness of the relations known, as compared with those of the
+relations unknown; and, consequently, that in all cases where the sum of
+the unknown relations is larger, or more important, or more indefinite than
+is the sum of the known relations, it is an essential principle that the
+value of the probability decreases in exact proportion to the decrease in
+the similarity between the two sets of relations, whether this decrease
+consists in the number, in the importance, or in the definiteness of the
+relations involved. This rule or canon is self-evident as soon as pointed
+out, and has been formulated by Professor Bain in his "Logic" when treating
+of Analogy, but not with sufficient precision; for, while recognising the
+elements of number and importance, he has overlooked that of definiteness.
+This element, however, is a very essential one--indeed the most essential
+of the three; for there are many analogical inferences in which either the
+character or the extent of the unknown relations is quite indefinite; and
+it is obvious that, whenever this is the case, the value of the analogy is
+proportionably diminished, and diminished in a much more material
+particular than it is when the diminution of value arises from a mere
+excess of the unknown relations over the known ones in respect of their
+number or of their importance. For it is evident that, in the latter case,
+however little value the analogy may possess, the exact degree of such
+value admits of being _determined_; while it is no less evident that, in
+the former case, we are precluded from estimating the value of the analogy
+at all, and this just in proportion to the indefiniteness of the unknown
+relations.
+
+Sec. 38. Now the particular instance with which we are concerned is somewhat
+peculiar. Notwithstanding we have the entire sphere of human experience
+from which to argue, we are still unable to gauge the strictly logical
+probability of any argument whatsoever; for the unknown relations in this
+case are so wholly indefinite, both as to their character and extent, that
+any attempt to institute a definite comparison between them and the known
+relations is felt at once to be absurd. The question discussed, being the
+most ultimate of all possible questions, must eventually contain in itself
+all that is to man unknown and unknowable; the whole orbit of human
+knowledge is here insufficient to obtain a parallax whereby to institute
+the required measurements.
+
+Sec. 39. I think it is desirable to insist upon this truth at somewhat greater
+length, and, for the sake of impressing it still more deeply, I shall
+present it in another form. No one can for a single moment deny that,
+beyond and around the sphere of the Knowable, there exists the unfathomable
+abyss of the Unknowable. I do not here use this latter word as embodying
+any theory: I merely wish it to state the undoubted fact, which all must
+admit, viz., that beneath all our possible explanations there lies a great
+Inexplicable. Now let us see what is the effect of making this necessary
+admission. In the first place, it clearly follows that, while our
+conceptions as to what the Unknowable contains may or may not represent the
+truth, it is certain that we can never discover whether or not they do.
+Further, it is impossible for us to determine even a definite _probability_
+as to the existence (much less the nature) of anything which we may suppose
+the Unknowable to contain. We may, of course, perceive that such and such a
+supposition is more _conceivable_ than such and such; but, as already
+indicated, the fact does not show that the one is in itself more definitely
+_probable_ than the other, unless it has been previously shown, either that
+the capacity of our conceptions is a _fully adequate measure_ of the
+Possible, or that the proportion between such capacity and the extent of
+the Possible is a proportion that can be _determined_. In either of these
+cases, the Conceivable would be a fair measure of the Possible: in the
+former case, an exact equivalent (_e.g._, in any instance of contradictory
+propositions, the most conceivable would _certainly_ be true); in the
+latter case, a measure any degree less than an exact equivalent--the degree
+depending upon the _then_ ascertainable disparity between the extent of the
+Possible and the extent of the Conceivable. Now the Unknowable (including
+of course the Inconceivable Existent) is a species of the Possible, and in
+its name carries the declaration that the disparity between its extent and
+the extent of the Conceivable (_i.e._, the other species of the Possible)
+is a disparity that cannot be determined. We are hence driven to the
+conclusion that the most apparently probable of all propositions, if
+predicated of anything within the Unknowable, may not in reality be a whit
+more so than is the most apparently improbable proposition which it is
+possible to make; for if it is admitted (as of course it must be) that we
+are necessarily precluded from comparing the extent of the Conceivable with
+that of the Unknowable, then it necessarily follows that in no case
+whatever are we competent to judge how far an _apparent_ probability
+relating to the latter province is an _actual_ probability. In other words,
+did we know the proportion subsisting between the Conceivable and the
+Unknowable in respect of relative extent and character, and so of inherent
+probabilities, we should then be able to estimate the actual value of any
+apparent probability relating to the latter province; but, as it is, our
+ability to make this estimate varies inversely as our inability to estimate
+our ignorance in this particular. And as our ignorance in this particular
+is total--_i.e._, since we cannot even approximately determine the
+proportion that subsists between the Conceivable and the Unknowable,--the
+result is that our ability to make the required estimate in any given case
+is absolutely _nil_.
+
+Sec. 40. I have purposely rendered this presentation in terms of the highest
+abstraction, partly to avoid the possibility of any one, whatever his
+theory of things may be, finding anything at which to object, and partly in
+order that my meaning may be understood to include all things which are
+beyond the range of possible knowledge. Most of all, therefore, must this
+presentation (if it contains anything of truth) apply to the question
+regarding the existence of Deity; for the _Ens Realissimum_ must of all
+things be furthest removed from the range of possible knowledge. Hence, if
+this presentation contains anything of truth--and of its rigidly accurate
+truth I think there can be no question--the assertion that the
+Self-existing Substance is a Personal and Intelligent Being, and the
+assertion that this Substance is an Impersonal and Non-Intelligent Being,
+are alike assertions wholly destitute of any assignable degree of logical
+probability, I say _assignable_ degree of logical probability, because that
+_some_ degree of such probability may exist I do not undertake to deny. All
+I assert is, that if we are here able to institute any such probability at
+all, we are unable logically to assign to it any determinate degree of
+value. Or, in other words, although we may establish some probability in a
+sense relative to ourselves, we are unable to know how far this probability
+is a probability in an absolute sense. Or again, the case is not as though
+we were altogether unacquainted with the Possible. Experience undoubtedly
+affords us some information regarding this, although, comparatively
+speaking, we are unable to know how much. Consequently, we must suppose
+that, in any given case, it is more likely that the Conceivable should be
+Possible than that the Inconceivable should be so, and that the Conceivably
+Probable should exist than that the Conceivably Improbable should do so: in
+neither case, however, can we know _what degree_ of such likelihood is
+present.
+
+Sec. 41. From the foregoing considerations, then, it would appear that the
+only attitude which in strict logic it is admissible to adopt towards the
+question concerning the being of a God is that of "suspended judgment."
+Formally speaking, it is alike illegitimate to affirm or to deny
+Intelligence as an attribute of the Ultimate. And here I would desire it to
+be observed, that this is the attitude which the majority of
+scientifically-trained philosophers actually have adopted with regard to
+this matter. I am not aware, however, that any one has yet endeavoured to
+formulate the justification of this attitude; and as I think there can be
+no doubt that the above presentation contains in a logical shape the whole
+of such justification, I cannot but think that some important ends will
+have been secured by it. For we are here in possession, not merely of a
+vague and general impression that the Ultimate is super-scientific, and so
+beyond the range of legitimate prediction; but we are also in possession of
+a logical formula whereby at once to vindicate the rationality of our
+opinion, and to measure the precise degree of its technical value.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.
+
+Sec. 42. Let us now proceed to examine the effect of the formal considerations
+which have been adduced in the last chapter on the scientific
+considerations which were dealt with in the previous chapters. In these
+previous chapters the proposition was clearly established that, just as
+certainly as the fundamental data of science are true, so certainly is it
+true that the theory of Theism in any shape is, scientifically considered,
+superfluous; for these chapters have clearly shown that, if there is a God,
+his existence, considered as a cause of things, is as certainly unnecessary
+as it is certainly true that force is persistent and that matter is
+indestructible. But after this proposition had been carefully justified, it
+remained to show that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge compelled
+us to carry our discussion into a region of yet higher abstraction. For
+although we observed that the essential qualities of matter and of force
+are the most ultimate data of human knowledge, and although, by showing how
+far the question of Theism depended on these data, we carried the
+discussion of that question to the utmost possible limits of scientific
+thought, it still devolved on us to contemplate the fact that even these
+the most ultimate data of science are only known to be of relative
+significance. And the bearing of this fact to the question of Theism was
+seen to be most important. For, without waiting to recapitulate the
+substance of a chapter so recently concluded, it will be remembered that
+its effect was to establish this position beyond all controversy--viz.,
+that when ideas which have been formed by our experience within the region
+of phenomenal actuality are projected into the region of ontological
+possibility, they become utterly worthless; seeing that we can never have
+any means whereby to test the actual value of whatever transcendental
+probabilities they may appear to establish. Therefore it is that even the
+most ultimate of relative truths with which, as we have seen, the question
+of Theism is so vitally associated, is almost without meaning when
+contemplated in an absolute sense. What, then, is the effect of these
+metaphysical considerations on the position of Theism as we have seen it to
+be left by the highest generalisations of physical science? Let us
+contemplate this question with the care which it deserves.
+
+In the first place, it is evident that the effect of these purely formal
+considerations is to render all reasonings on the subject of Theism equally
+illegitimate, unless it is constantly borne in mind that such reasonings
+can only be of relative signification. Thus, as a matter of pure logic,
+these considerations are destructive of all assignable validity of any such
+reasoning whatsoever. Still, even a strictly relative probability is, in
+some undefinable degree, of more value than no probability at all, as we
+have seen these same formal considerations to show (see Sec. 40); and,
+moreover, even were this not so, the human mind will never rest until it
+attains to the furthest probability which to its powers is accessible.
+Therefore, if we do not forget the merely relative nature of the
+considerations which are about to be adduced, by adducing them we may at
+the same time satisfy our own minds and abstain from violating the
+conditions of sound logic.
+
+The shape, then, to which the subject has now been reduced is simply
+this:--Seeing that the theory of Evolution in its largest sense has shown
+the theory of Theism to be superfluous in a scientific sense, does it not
+follow that the theory of Theism is thus shown to be superfluous in any
+sense? For it would seem from the discussion, so far as it has hitherto
+gone, that the only rational basis on which the theory of Theism can rest
+is a basis of teleology; and if, as has been clearly shown, the theory of
+evolution, by deducing the genesis of natural law from the primary data of
+science, irrevocably destroys this basis, does it not follow that the
+theory of evolution has likewise destroyed the theory which rested on that
+basis? Now I conclude, as stated at the close of Chapter IV., that the
+question here put must certainly be answered in the affirmative, so far as
+its scientific aspect is concerned. But when we consider the question in
+its purely logical aspect, as we have done in Chapter V., the case is
+otherwise. For although, so far as the utmost reach of scientific vision
+enables us to see, we can discern no evidence of Deity, it does not
+therefore follow that beyond the range of such vision Deity does not exist.
+Science indeed has proved that if there is a Divine Mind in nature, and if
+by the hypothesis such a Mind exerts any causative influence on the
+phenomena of nature, such influence is exerted beyond the sphere of
+experience. And this achievement of science, be it never forgotten, is an
+achievement of prodigious importance, effectually destroying, as it does,
+all vestiges of a scientific teleology. But be it now carefully observed,
+although all vestiges of a _scientific_ teleology are thus completely and
+permanently ruined, the formal considerations adduced in the last chapter
+supply the conditions for constructing what may be termed a _metaphysical_
+teleology. I use these terms advisedly, because I think they will serve to
+bring out with great clearness the condition to which our analysis of the
+teleological argument has now been reduced.
+
+Sec. 43. In the first place, let it be understood that I employ the terms
+"scientific" and "metaphysical" in the convenient sense in which they are
+employed by Mr. Lewes, viz., as respectively designating a theory that is
+verifiable and a theory that is not. Consequently, by the term "scientific
+teleology" I mean to denote a form of teleology which admits either of
+being proved or disproved, while by the term "metaphysical teleology" I
+mean to denote a form of teleology which does not admit either of being
+proved or of being disproved. Now, with these significations clearly
+understood, it will be seen that the forms of teleology which we have
+hitherto considered belong entirely to the scientific class. That the
+Paleyerian form of the argument did so is manifest, first because this
+argument itself treats the problem of Theism as a problem that is
+susceptible of scientific demonstration, and next because we have seen that
+the advance of science has proved this argument susceptible of scientific
+refutation. In other words, from the supposed axiom, "There cannot be
+apparent design without a designer," adaptations in nature become logically
+available as purely scientific evidence of an intelligent cause; and that
+Paley himself regarded them exclusively in this light is manifest, both
+from his own "statement of the argument," and from the character of the
+evidence by which he seeks to establish the argument when stated--witness
+the typical passage before quoted (Sec. 26). On the other hand, we have
+clearly seen that this Paleyerian system of natural theology has been
+effectually demolished by the scientific theory of natural selection--the
+fundamental axiom of the former having been shown by the latter to be
+scientifically untrue. Hence the term "scientific teleology" is without
+question applicable to the Paleyerian system.
+
+Nor is the case essentially different with the more refined form of the
+teleological argument which we have had to consider--the argument, namely,
+from General Laws. For here, likewise, we have clearly seen that the
+inference from the ubiquitous operation of General Laws to the existence of
+an omniscient Law-maker is quite as illegitimate as is the inference from
+apparent Design to the existence of a Supreme Designer. In other words,
+science, by establishing the doctrine of the persistence of force and the
+indestructibility of matter, has effectually disproved the hypothesis that
+the presence of Law in nature is of itself sufficient to prove the
+existence of an intelligent Law-giver.
+
+Thus it is that scientific teleology in any form is now and for ever
+obsolete. But not so with what I have termed metaphysical teleology. For as
+we have seen that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge precludes us
+from asserting, or even from inferring, that beyond the region of the
+Knowable Mind does not exist, it remains logically possible to institute a
+metaphysical hypothesis that beyond this region of the Knowable Mind does
+exist. There being a necessary absence of any positive information whereby
+to refute this metaphysical hypothesis, any one who chooses to adopt it is
+fully justified in doing so, provided only he remembers that the purely
+metaphysical quality whereby the hypothesis is ensured against disproof,
+likewise, and in the same degree, precludes it from the possibility of
+proof. He must remember that it is no longer open to him to point to any
+particular set of general laws and to assert, these proclaim Intelligence
+as their cause; for we have repeatedly seen that the known states of matter
+and force themselves afford sufficient explanation of the facts to which he
+points. And he must remember that the only reason why his hypothesis does
+not conflict with any of the truths known to science, is because he has
+been careful to rest that hypothesis upon a basis of purely formal
+considerations, which lie beyond even the most fundamental truths of which
+science is cognisant.
+
+Thus, for example, he may present his metaphysical theory of Theism in some
+such terms as these:--'Fully conceding what reason shows must be conceded,
+and there still remains this possible supposition--viz., that there is a
+presiding Mind in nature, which exerts its causative influence beyond the
+sphere of experience, thus rendering it impossible for us to obtain
+scientific evidence of its action. For such a Mind, exerting such an
+influence beyond experience, may direct affairs within experience by
+methods conceivable or inconceivable to us--producing, possibly,
+innumerable and highly varied results, which in turn may produce their
+effects within experience, their introduction being then, of course, in the
+ordinary way of natural law. For instance, there can be no question that by
+the intelligent creation or dissipation of energy, all the phenomena of
+cosmic evolution might have been directed, and, for aught that science can
+show to the contrary, thus only rendered possible. Hence there is at least
+one nameable way in which, even in accordance with observed facts, a
+Supreme Mind could be competent to direct the phenomena of observable
+nature. But we are not necessarily restricted to the limits of the nameable
+in this matter, so that it is of no argumentative importance whether or not
+this suggested method is the method which the supposed Mind actually
+adopts, seeing that there may still be other possible methods, which,
+nevertheless, we are unable to suggest.'
+
+Doubtless the hypothesis of Theism, as thus presented, will be deemed by
+many persons but of very slender probability. I am not, however, concerned
+with whatever character of probability it may be supposed to exhibit. I am
+merely engaged in carefully presenting the only hypothesis which can be
+presented, if the theory as to an Intelligent Author of nature is any
+longer to be maintained on grounds of a rational teleology. No doubt,
+scientifically considered, the hypothesis in question is purely gratuitous;
+for, so far as the light of science can penetrate, there is no need of any
+such hypothesis at all. Thus it may well seem, at first sight, that no
+hypothesis could well have less to recommend it; and, so far as the
+presentation has yet gone, it is therefore fully legitimate for an atheist
+to reply:--'All that this so-called metaphysical theory amounts to is a
+wholly gratuitous assumption. No doubt it is always difficult, and usually
+impossible, logically or unequivocally to prove a negative. If my adversary
+chose to imagine that nature is presided over by a demon with horns and
+hoofs, or by a dragon with claws and tail, I should be as unable to
+disprove this his supposed theory as I am now unable to disprove his actual
+theory. But in all cases reasonable men ought to be guided in their beliefs
+by such positive evidence as is available; and if, as in the present case,
+the alternative belief is wholly gratuitous--adopted not only without any
+evidence, but against all that great body of evidence which the sum-total
+of science supplies--surely we ought not to hesitate for one moment in the
+choice of our creed?'
+
+Now all this is quite sound in principle, provided only that the
+metaphysical theory of Theism _is_ wholly gratuitous, in the sense of being
+utterly destitute of evidential support. That it is destitute of all
+_scientific_ support, we have already and repeatedly seen; but the question
+remains as to whether it is similarly destitute of _metaphysical_ support.
+
+Sec. 44. To this question, then, let us next address ourselves. From the
+theistic pleading which we have just heard, it is abundantly manifest that
+the formal conditions of a metaphysical teleology are present: the question
+now before us is as to whether or not any actual evidence exists in favour
+of such a theory. In order to discuss this question, let us begin by
+allowing the theist to continue his pleading. 'You have shown me,' he may
+say, 'that a scientific or demonstrable system of teleology is no longer
+possible, and, therefore, as I have already conceded, I must take my stand
+on a metaphysical or non-demonstrable system. But I reflect that the latter
+term is a loose one, seeing that it embraces all possible degrees of
+evidence short of actual proof. The question, therefore, I conceive to be,
+What amount of evidence is there in favour of this metaphysical system of
+teleology? And this question I answer by the following considerations:--As
+general laws separately have all been shown to be the necessary outcome of
+the primary data of science, it certainly follows that general laws
+collectively must be the same--_i.e._, that the whole system of general
+laws must be, so far as the lights of our science can penetrate, the
+necessary outcome of the persistence of force and the indestructibility of
+matter. But you have also dearly shown me that these lights are of the
+feeblest conceivable character when they are brought to illuminate the
+final mystery of things. I therefore feel at liberty to assert, that if
+there is any one principle to be observed in the collective operation of
+general laws which cannot conceivably be explained by any cause other than
+that of intelligent guidance, I am still free to fall back on such a
+principle and to maintain--Although the collective operation of general
+laws follows as a necessary consequence from the primary data of science,
+this one principle which pervades their united action, and which cannot be
+conceivably explained by any hypothesis other than that of intelligent
+guidance, is a principle which still remains to be accounted for; and as it
+cannot conceivably be accounted for on grounds of physical science, I may
+legitimately account for it on grounds of metaphysical teleology. Now I
+cannot open my eyes without perceiving such a principle everywhere
+characterising the collective operation of general laws. Universally I
+behold in nature, order, beauty, harmony,--that is, a perfect _correlation_
+among general laws. But this ubiquitous correlation among general laws,
+considered as the cause of cosmic harmony, itself requires some explanatory
+cause such as the persistence of force and the indestructibility of matter
+cannot conceivably be made to supply. For unless we postulate some one
+integrating cause, the greater the number of general laws in nature, the
+less likelihood is there of such laws being so correlated as to produce
+harmony by their combined action. And forasmuch as the only cause that I am
+able to imagine as competent to produce such effects is that of intelligent
+guidance, I accept the metaphysical hypothesis that beyond the sphere of
+the Knowable there exists an Unknown God.[25]
+
+'If it is retorted that the above argument involves an absurd
+contradiction, in that while it sets out with an explicit avowal of the
+fact that the collective operation of general laws follows as a necessary
+consequence from the primary data of physical science, it nevertheless
+afterwards proceeds to explain an effect of such collective operation by a
+metaphysical hypothesis; I answer that it was expressly for the purpose of
+eliciting this retort that I threw my argument into the above form. For the
+position which I wish to establish is this, that fully accepting the
+logical cogency of the reasoning whereby the action of every law is deduced
+from the primary data of science, I wish to show that when this train of
+reasoning is followed to its ultimate term, it leads us into the presence
+of a fact for which it is inadequate to account. If, then, my contention be
+granted--viz., that to human faculties it is not conceivable how, in the
+absence of a directing intelligence, general laws could be so correlated as
+to produce universal harmony--then I have brought the matter to this
+issue:--Notwithstanding the scientific train of argument being complete in
+itself, it still leaves us in the presence of a fact which it cannot
+conceivably explain; and it is this unexplained residuum--this total
+product of the operation of general laws--that I appeal to as the logical
+justification for a system of metaphysical teleology--a system which offers
+the only conceivable explanation of this stupendous fact.
+
+'And here I may further observe, that the scientific train of reasoning is
+of the kind which embodies what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls "symbolic
+conceptions of the illegitimate order."[26] That is to say, we can see how
+such simple laws as that action and reaction are equal and opposite may
+have been self-evolved, and from this fact we go on generalising and
+generalising, until we land ourselves in wholly symbolic and--a paradox is
+here legitimate--inconceivable conceptions. Now the farther we travel into
+this region of unrealisable ideas, the less trustworthy is the report that
+we are able to bring back. The method is in a sense scientific; but when
+even scientific method is projected into a region of really
+super-scientific possibility, it ceases to have that character of undoubted
+certainty which it enjoys when dealing with verifiable subjects of inquiry.
+The demonstrations are formal, but they are not real.
+
+'Therefore, looking to this necessarily suspicious character of the
+scientific train of reasoning, and then observing that, even if accepted,
+it leaves the fact of cosmic harmony unexplained, I maintain, that whatever
+probability the phenomena of nature may in former times have been thought
+to establish in favour of the theory as to an intelligent Author of nature,
+that probability has been in no wise annihilated--nor apparently can it
+ever be annihilated--by the advance of science. And not only so, but I
+question whether this probability has been even seriously impaired by such
+advance, seeing that although this advance has revealed a speculative
+_raison d'etre_ of the mechanical precision of nature, it has at the same
+time shown the baffling complexity of nature; and therefore, in view of
+what has just been said, leaves the balance of probability concerning the
+existence of a God very much where it always was. For stay awhile to
+contemplate this astounding complexity of harmonious nature! Think of how
+much we already know of its innumerable laws and processes, and then think
+that this knowledge only serves to reveal, in a glimmering way, the huge
+immensity of the unknown. Try to picture the meshwork of contending rhythms
+which must have been before organic nature was built up, and then let us
+ask, Is it conceivable, is it credible, that all this can have been the
+work of blind fate? Must we not feel that had there not been intelligent
+agency at work somewhere, other and less terrifically intricate results
+would have ensued? And if we further try to symbolise in thought the
+unimaginable complexity of the material and dynamical changes in virtue of
+which that thought itself exists,--if we then extend our symbols to
+represent all the history of all the orderly changes which must have taken
+place to evolve human intelligence into what it is,--and if we still
+further extend our symbols to try if it be possible, even in the language
+of symbols, to express the number and the subtlety of those natural laws
+which now preside over the human will;--in the face of so vast an
+assumption as that all this has been self-evolved, I am content still to
+rest in the faith of my forefathers.'
+
+Sec. 45. Now I think it must be admitted that we have here a valid argument.
+That is to say, the considerations which we have just adduced must, I
+think, in fairness be allowed to have established this position:--That the
+system of metaphysical teleology for which we have supposed a candid theist
+to plead, is something more than a purely gratuitous system--that it does
+not belong to the same category of baseless imaginings as that to which the
+atheist at first sight, and in view of the scientific deductions alone,
+might be inclined to assign it. For we have seen that our supposed theist,
+while fully admitting the formal cogency of the scientific train of
+reasoning, is nevertheless able to point to a fact which, in his opinion,
+lies without that train of reasoning. For he declares that it is beyond his
+powers of conception to regard the complex harmony of nature otherwise than
+as a product of some one integrating cause; and that the only cause of
+which he is able to conceive as adequate to produce such an effect is that
+of a conscious Intelligence. Pointing, therefore, to this complex harmony
+of nature as to a fact which cannot to his mind be conceivably explained by
+any deductions from physical science, he feels that he is justified in
+explaining this fact by the aid of a metaphysical hypothesis. And in so
+doing he is in my opinion perfectly justified, at any rate to this
+extent--that his antagonist cannot fairly dispose of this metaphysical
+hypothesis as a purely gratuitous hypothesis. How far it is a probable
+hypothesis is another question, and to this question we shall now address
+ourselves.
+
+Sec. 46. If it is true that the deductions from physical science cannot be
+conceived to explain some among the observed facts of nature, and if it is
+true that these particular facts admit of being conceivably explained by
+the metaphysical hypothesis in question, then, beyond all controversy, this
+metaphysical hypothesis must be provisionally accepted. Let us then
+carefully examine the premises which are thus adduced to justify acceptance
+of this hypothesis as their conclusion.
+
+In the first place, it is not--cannot--be denied, even by a theist, that
+the deductions from physical science _do_ embrace the fact of cosmic
+harmony in their explanation, seeing that, as they explain the operation of
+general laws collectively, they must be regarded as also explaining every
+effect of such operation. And this, as we have seen, is a consideration to
+which our imaginary theist was not blind. How then did he meet it? He met
+it by the considerations--1st. That the scientific train of reasoning
+evolved this conclusion only by employing, in a wholly unrestricted manner,
+"symbolic conceptions of the illegitimate order;" and, 2d. That when the
+conclusion thus illegitimately evolved was directly confronted with the
+fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, he found it to be
+beyond the powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due to
+such a cause. Now, as already observed, I consider these strictures on the
+scientific train of reasoning to be thoroughly valid. There can be no
+question that the highly symbolic character of the conceptions which that
+train of reasoning is compelled to adopt, is a source of serious weakness
+to the conclusions which it ultimately evolves; while there can, I think,
+be equally little doubt that there does not live a human being who would
+venture honestly to affirm, that he can really conceive the fact of cosmic
+harmony as exclusively due to the causes which the scientific train of
+reasoning assigns. But freely conceding this much, and an atheist may
+reply, that although the objections of his antagonist against this symbolic
+method of reasoning are undoubtedly valid, yet, from the nature of the
+case, this is the only method of scientific reasoning which is available.
+If, therefore, he expresses his obligations to his antagonist for pointing
+out a source of weakness in this method of reasoning--a source of weakness,
+be it observed, which renders it impossible for him to estimate the actual,
+as distinguished from the apparent, probability of the conclusion
+attained--this is all that he can be expected to do: he cannot be expected
+to abandon the only scientific method of reasoning available, in favour of
+a metaphysical method which only escapes the charge of symbolism by leaping
+with a single bound from a known cause (human intelligence) to the
+inference of an unknowable cause (Divine Intelligence). For the atheist may
+well point out that, however objectionable his scientific method of
+reasoning may be on account of the symbolism which it involves, it must at
+any rate be preferable to the metaphysical method, in that its symbols
+throughout refer to known causes.[27] With regard, then, to this stricture
+on the scientific method of reasoning, I conclude that although the caveat
+which it contains should never be lost sight of by atheists, it is not of
+sufficient cogency to justify theists in abandoning a scientific in favour
+of a metaphysical mode of reasoning.
+
+How then does it fare with the other stricture, or the consideration that,
+"when the conclusion thus illegitimately[28] evolved is confronted with the
+fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, we find it to be
+beyond the powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due to
+such a cause"? The atheist may answer, in the first place, that a great
+deal here turns on the precise meaning which we assign to the word
+"conceive." For we have just seen that, by employing "symbolic
+conceptions," we _are_ able to frame what we may term a _formal_ conception
+of universal harmony as due to the persistence of force and the primary
+qualities of matter. That is to say, we have seen that such universal
+harmony as nature presents must be regarded as an effect of the collective
+operation of general laws; and we have previously arrived at a formal
+conception of general laws as singly and collectively the product of
+self-evolution. Consequently, the word "conceive," as used in the theistic
+argument, must be taken to mean our ability to frame what we may term a
+_material_ conception, or a representation in thought of the whole history
+of cosmic evolution, which representation shall be in some satisfactory
+degree intellectually realisable. Observing, then, this important
+difference between an inconceivability which arises from an impossibility
+of establishing relations in thought between certain _abstract_ or
+_symbolic_ conceptions, and an inconceivability which arises from a mere
+failure to realise in imagination the results which must follow among
+external relations if the symbolically conceivable combinations among them
+ever took place, an atheist may here argue as follows; and it does not
+appear that there is any legitimate escape from his reasonings.
+
+'I first consider the undoubted fact that the existence of a Supreme Mind
+in nature is, scientifically considered, unnecessary; and, therefore, that
+the only reason we require to entertain the supposition of any such
+existence at all is, that the complexity of nature being so great, we are
+unable adequately to conceive of its self-evolution--notwithstanding our
+reason tells us plainly that, given a self-existing universe of force and
+matter, and such self-evolution becomes abstractedly possible. I then
+reflect that this is a negative and not a positive ground of belief. If the
+hypothesis of self-evolution is true, we should _a priori_ expect that by
+the time evolution had advanced sufficiently far to admit of the production
+of a reasoning intelligence, the complexity of nature must be so great that
+the nascent reasoning powers would be completely baffled in their attempts
+to comprehend the various processes going on around them. This seems to be
+about the state of things which we now experience. Still, as reason
+advances more and more, we may expect, both from general _a priori_
+principles and from particular historical analogies, that more and more of
+the processes of nature will admit of being interpreted by reason, and that
+in proportion as our ability to _understand_ the frame and the constitution
+of things progresses, so our ability to _conceive_ of them as all naturally
+and necessarily evolved will likewise and concurrently progress. Thus, for
+example, how vast a number of the most intricate and delicate correlations
+in nature have been rendered at once intelligible and conceivably due to
+non-intelligent causes, by the discovery of a single principle in
+nature--the principle of natural selection.
+
+'In the adverse argument, conceivability is again made the unconditional
+test of truth, just as it was in the argument against the possibility of
+matter thinking. We reject the hypothesis of self-evolution, not because it
+is the more remote one, but simply because we experience a subjective
+incapacity adequately to frame the requisite generalisations in thought, or
+to frame them with as much clearness as we could wish. Yet our reason tells
+us as plainly as it tells us any general truth which is too large to be
+presented in detail, that there is nothing in the nature of things
+themselves, as far as we can see, antagonistic to the supposition of their
+having been self-evolved. Only on the ground, therefore, of our own
+intellectual deficiencies; only because as yet, by the self-evolutionary
+hypothesis, the inner order does not completely answer to the outer order;
+only because the number and complexity of subjective relations have not yet
+been able to rival those of the objective relations producing them; only on
+this ground do we refuse to assent to the obvious deductions of our
+reason.[29]
+
+'And here I may observe, further, that the presumption in favour of atheism
+which these deductions establish is considerably fortified by certain _a
+posteriori_ considerations which we cannot afford to overlook. In
+particular, I reflect that, as a matter of fact, the theistic theory is
+born of highly suspicious parentage,--that Fetichism, or the crudest form
+of the theory of personal agency in external nature, admits of being easily
+traced to the laws of a primitive psychology; that the step from this to
+Polytheism is easy; and that the step from this to Monotheism is necessary.
+If it is objected to this view that it does not follow that because some
+theories of personal agency have proved themselves false, therefore all
+such theories must be so--I answer, Unquestionably not; but the above
+considerations are not adduced in order to _negative_ the theistic theory:
+they are merely adduced to show that the human mind has hitherto
+undoubtedly exhibited an undue and a vicious tendency to interpret the
+objective processes of nature in terms of its own subjective processes; and
+as we can see quite well that the current theory of personal agency in
+nature, whether or not true, is a necessary outcome of intellectual
+evolution, I think that the fact of so abundant an historical analogy ought
+to be allowed to lend a certain degree of antecedent suspicion to this
+theory--although, of course, the suspicion is of a kind which would admit
+of immediate destruction before any satisfactory positive evidence in
+favour of the theory.[30]
+
+'But what is 'the satisfactory positive evidence' that is offered me?
+Nothing, save an alleged subjective incapacity on the part of my opponent
+adequately to conceive of the fact of cosmic harmony as due to physical
+causation alone. Now I have already commented on the weakness of his
+position; but as my opponent will doubtless resort to the consideration
+that inconceivability of an opposite is, after all, the best criterion of
+truth which at any given stage of intellectual evolution is available, I
+will now conclude my overthrow by pointing out that, even if we take the
+argument from teleology in its widest possible sense--the argument, I mean,
+from the general order and beauty of nature, as well as the gross
+constituent part of it from design--even taking this argument in its widest
+sense and upon its own ground (which ground, I presume, it is now
+sufficiently obvious _can_ only be that of the inconceivability of its
+negation), I will conclude my examination of this argument by showing that
+it is quite as inconceivable to predicate cosmic harmony an effect of
+Intelligence, as it is to predicate it an effect of Non-intelligence; and
+therefore that the argument from inconceivability admits of being turned
+with quite as terrible a force upon Theism as it can be made to exert upon
+Atheism.
+
+'"In metaphysical controversy, many of the propositions propounded and
+accepted as quite believable are absolutely inconceivable. There is a
+perpetual confusing of actual ideas with what are nothing but pseud-ideas.
+No distinction is made between propositions that contain real thoughts and
+propositions that are only the forms of thoughts. A thinkable proposition
+is one of which the _two terms can be brought together in consciousness
+under the relation said to exist between them_. But very often, when the
+subject of a proposition has been thought of as something known, and when
+the predicate of a proposition has been thought of as something known, and
+when the relation alleged between them has been thought of as a known
+relation, it is supposed that the proposition itself has been thought. The
+thinking separately of the elements of a proposition is mistaken for the
+thinking of them in the combination which the proposition affirms. And
+hence it continually happens that propositions which cannot be rendered
+into thought at all are supposed to be not only thought but believed. The
+proposition that Evolution is caused by Mind is one of this nature. The two
+terms are separately intelligible; but they can be regarded in the relation
+of effect and cause only so long as no attempt is made to put them together
+in this relation.
+
+'"The only thing which any one knows as Mind is the series of his own
+states of consciousness; and if he thinks of any mind other than his own,
+he can think of it only in terms derived from his own. If I am asked to
+frame a notion of Mind divested of all those structural traits under which
+alone I am conscious of mind in myself, I cannot do it. I know nothing of
+thought save as carried on in ideas originally traceable to the effects
+wrought by objects on me. A mental act is an unintelligible phrase if I am
+not to regard it as an act in which states of consciousness are severally
+known as like other states in the series that has gone by, and in which the
+relations between them are severally known as like past relations in the
+series. If, then, I have to conceive evolution as caused by an 'originating
+Mind,' I must conceive this Mind as having attributes akin to those of the
+only mind I know, and without which I cannot conceive mind at all.
+
+'"I will not dwell on the many incongruities hence resulting, by asking how
+the 'originating Mind' is to be thought of as having states produced by
+things objective to it, as discriminating among these states, and classing
+them as like and unlike; and as preferring one objective result to another.
+I will simply ask, What happens if we ascribe to the 'originating Mind' the
+character absolutely essential to the conception of mind, that it consists
+of a series of states of consciousness? Put a series of states of
+consciousness as cause and the evolving universe as effect, and then
+endeavour to see the last as flowing from the first. I find it possible to
+imagine in some dim way a series of states of consciousness serving as
+antecedent to any one of the movements I see going on; for my own states of
+consciousness are often indirectly the antecedents to such movements. But
+how if I attempt to think of such a series as antecedent to _all_ actions
+throughout the universe--to the motions of the multitudinous stars
+throughout space, to the revolutions of all their planets round them, to
+the gyrations of all these planets on their axes, to the infinitely
+multiplied physical processes going on in each of these suns and planets? I
+cannot think of a single series of states of consciousness as causing even
+the relatively small groups of actions going on over the earth's surface. I
+cannot think of it even as antecedent to all the various winds and the
+dissolving clouds they bear, to the currents of all the rivers, and the
+grinding actions of all the glaciers; still less can I think of it as
+antecedent to the infinity of processes simultaneously going on in all the
+plants that cover the globe, from scattered polar lichens to crowded
+tropical palms, and in all the millions of quadrupeds that roam among them,
+and the millions of millions of insects that buzz about them. Even a single
+small set of these multitudinous terrestrial changes I cannot conceive as
+antecedent a single series of states of consciousness--cannot, for
+instance, think of it as causing the hundred thousand breakers that are at
+this instant curling over on the shores of England. How, then, is it
+possible for me to conceive an 'originating Mind,' which I must represent
+to myself as a _single_ series of states of consciousness, working the
+infinitely multiplied sets of changes _simultaneously_ going on in worlds
+too numerous to count, dispersed throughout a space that baffles
+imagination?
+
+'"If, to account for this infinitude of physical changes everywhere going
+on, 'Mind must be conceived as there' 'under the guise of simple Dynamics,'
+then the reply is, that, to be so conceived, Mind must be divested of all
+attributes by which it is distinguished; and that, when thus divested of
+its distinguishing attributes, the conception disappears--the word Mind
+stands for a blank....
+
+'"Clearly, therefore, the proposition that an 'originating Mind' is the
+cause of evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long only as
+no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the alleged
+relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of _faith_ may be a
+defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should be so
+accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of _understanding_--as
+a statement making the order of the universe comprehensible--is a quite
+indefensible position."'[31]
+
+Sec. 47. We have now heard the pleading on both sides of the ultimate issue to
+which it is possible that the argument from teleology can ever be reduced.
+It therefore devolves on us very briefly to adjudicate upon the contending
+opinions. And this it is not difficult to do; for throughout the pleading
+on both sides I have been careful to exclude all arguments and
+considerations which are not logically valid. It is therefore impossible
+for me now to pass any criticisms on the pleading of either side which have
+not already been passed by the pleading of the other. But nevertheless, in
+my capacity of an impartial judge, I feel it desirable to conclude this
+chapter with a few general considerations.
+
+In the first place, I think that the theist's antecedent objection to a
+scientific mode of reasoning on the score of its symbolism, may be regarded
+as fairly balanced by the atheist's antecedent objection to a metaphysical
+mode of reasoning on the score of its postulating an unknowable cause. And
+it must be allowed that the force of this antecedent objection is
+considerably increased by the reflection that the _kind_ of unknowable
+cause which is thus postulated is that which the human mind has always
+shown an overweening tendency to postulate as a cause of natural phenomena.
+
+I think, therefore, that neither disputant has the right to regard the _a
+priori_ standing of his opponent's theory as much more suspicious than that
+of his own; for it is obvious that neither disputant has the means whereby
+to estimate the actual value of these antecedent objections.
+
+With regard, then, to the _a posteriori_ evidence in favour of the rival
+theories, I think that the final test of their validity--_i.e._, the
+inconceivability of their respective negations--fails equally in the case
+of both theories; for in the case of each theory any proposition which
+embodies it must itself contain an infinite, _i.e._, an
+inconceivable--term. Thus, whether we speak of an Infinite Mind as the
+cause of evolution, or of evolution as due to an infinite duration of
+physical processes, we are alike open to the charge of employing
+unthinkable propositions.
+
+Hence, two unthinkables are presented to our choice; one of which is an
+eternity of matter and of force,[32] and the other an Infinite Mind, so
+that in this respect again the two theories are tolerably parallel; and
+therefore, all that can be concluded with rigorous certainty upon the
+subject is, that neither theory has anything to gain us against the other
+from an appeal to the test of inconceivability.
+
+Yet we have seen that this is a test than which none can be more ultimate.
+What then shall we say is the final outcome of this discussion concerning
+the rational standing of the teleological argument? The answer, I think, to
+this question is, that in strict reasoning the teleological argument, in
+its every shape, is inadequate to form a basis of Theism; or, in other
+words, that the logical cogency of this argument is insufficient to justify
+a wholly impartial mind in accepting the theory of Theism on so insecure a
+foundation. Nevertheless, if the further question were directly put to me,
+'After having heard the pleading both for and against the most refined
+expression of the argument from teleology, with what degree of strictly
+rational probability do you accredit it?'--I should reply as follows:--'The
+question which you put I take to be a question which it is wholly
+impossible to answer, and this for the simple reason that the degree of
+even rational probability may here legitimately vary with the character of
+the mind which contemplates it.' This statement, no doubt, sounds
+paradoxical; but I think it is justified by the following considerations.
+When we say that one proposition is more conceivable than another, we may
+mean either of two very different things, and this quite apart from the
+distinction previously drawn between symbolic conceptions and realisable
+conceptions. For we may mean that one of the two propositions presents
+terms which cannot possibly be rendered into thought at all in the relation
+which the proposition alleges to subsist between them; or we may mean that
+one of the two propositions presents terms in a relation which is more
+congruous with the habitual tenor of our thoughts than does the other
+proposition. Thus, as an example of the former usage, we may say, It is
+more conceivable that two and two should make four than that two and two
+should make five; and, as an example of the latter usage, we may say, It is
+more conceivable that a man should be able to walk than that he should be
+able to fly. Now, for the sake of distinction, I shall call the first of
+these usages the test of _absolute_ inconceivability, and the second the
+test of _relative_ inconceivability. Doubtless, when the word
+"inconceivability" is used in the sense of relative inconceivability, it is
+incorrectly used, unless it is qualified in some way; because, if used
+without qualification, there is danger of its being confused with
+inconceivability in its absolute sense. Nevertheless, if used with some
+qualifying epithet, it becomes quite unexceptionable. For the process of
+conception being in all cases the process of establishing relations in
+thought, we may properly say, It is relatively more conceivable that a man
+should walk than that a man should fly, since it is _more easy_ to
+establish, the necessary relations in thought in the case of the former
+than in the case of the latter proposition. The only difference, then,
+between what I have called absolute inconceivability and what I have called
+relative inconceivability consists in this--that while the latter admits of
+_degrees_, the former does not.[33]
+
+With this distinction clearly understood, I may now proceed to observe that
+in everyday life we constantly apply the test of relative inconceivability
+as a test of truth. And in the vast majority of cases this test of relative
+inconceivability is, for all practical purposes, as valid a test of truth
+as is the test of absolute conceivability. For as every man is more or less
+in harmony with his environment, his habits of thought with regard to his
+environment are for the most part stereotyped correctly; so that the most
+ready and the most trustworthy gauge of probability that he has is an
+immediate appeal to consciousness as to whether he _feels_ the probability.
+Thus every man learns for himself to endow his own sense of probability
+with a certain undefined but massive weight of authority. Now it is this
+test of relative conceivability which all men apply in varying degrees to
+the question of Theism. For if, from education and organised habits of
+thought, the probability in this matter appears to a man to incline in a
+certain direction, when this probability is called in question, the whole
+body of this organised system of thought rises in opposition to the
+questioning, and being individually conscious of this strong feeling of
+subjective opposition, the man declares the sceptical propositions to be
+more inconceivable to him than are the counter-propositions. And in so
+saying he is, of course, perfectly right. Hence I conceive that the
+acceptance or the rejection of metaphysical teleology as probable will
+depend entirely upon individual habits of thought. The test of absolute
+inconceivability making equally for and against the doctrine of Theism,
+disputants are compelled to fall back on the test of relative
+inconceivability; and as the direction in which the more inconceivable
+proposition will here seem to lie will be determined by previous habits of
+thought, it follows that while to a theist metaphysical teleology will
+appear a probable argument, to an atheist it will appear an improbable one.
+Thus to a theist it will no doubt appear more conceivable that the Supreme
+Mind should be such that in some of its attributes it resembles the human
+mind, while in other of its attributes--among which he will place
+omnipresence, omnipotence, and directive agency--it transcends the human
+mind as greatly as the latter "transcends mechanical motion;" and therefore
+that although it is true, as a matter of logical terminology, that we ought
+to designate such an entity "Not mind" or "Blank," still, as a matter of
+psychology, we may come nearer to the truth by assimilating in thought this
+entity with the nearest analogies which experience supplies, than by
+assimilating it in thought with any other entity--such as force or
+matter--which are felt to be in all likelihood still more remote from it in
+nature. On the other hand, to an atheist it will no doubt appear more
+conceivable, because more simple, to accept the dogma of an eternal
+self-existence of something which we call force and matter, and with this
+dogma to accept the implication of a necessary self-evolution of cosmic
+harmony, than to resort to the additional and no less inconceivable
+supposition of a self-existing Agent which must be regarded both as Mind
+and as Not-mind at the same time. But in both cases, in whatever degree
+this test of relative inconceivability of a negative is held by the
+disputants to be valid in solving the problem of Theism, in that degree is
+each man entitled to his respective estimate of the probability in
+question. And thus we arrive at the judgment that the rational probability
+of Theism legitimately varies with the character of the mind which
+contemplates it. For, as the test of absolute inconceivability is equally
+annihilative in whichever direction it is applied, the test of relative
+inconceivability is the only one that remains; and as the formal conditions
+of a metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and
+the formal conditions of a physical explanation of cosmic harmony are no
+less undoubtedly present on the other hand, it follows that a theist and an
+atheist have an equal right to employ this test of relative
+inconceivability. And as there is no more ultimate court of appeal whereby
+to decide the question than the universe as a whole, each man has here an
+equal argumentative right to abide by the decision which that court awards
+_to him individually_--to accept whatever probability the sum-total of
+phenomena appears to present to his particular understanding. And it is
+needless to say that experience shows, even among well-informed and
+accurate reasoners, how large an allowance must thus be made for personal
+equations. To some men the facts of external nature seem to proclaim a God
+with clarion voice, while to other men the same facts bring no whisper of
+such a message. All, therefore, that a logician can here do is to remark,
+that the individuals in each class--provided they bear in mind the strictly
+_relative_ character of their belief--have a similar right to be regarded
+as holding a rational creed: the grounds of belief in this case logically
+vary with the natural disposition and the subsequent training of different
+minds.[34]
+
+It only remains to show that disputants on either side are apt to endow
+this test of relative inconceivability with far more than its real logical
+worth. Being accustomed to apply this test of truth in daily life, and
+there finding it a trustworthy test, most men are apt to forget that its
+value as a test must clearly diminish in proportion to the distance from
+experience at which it is applied. This, indeed, we saw to be the case even
+with the test of absolute inconceivability (see Chapter V.), but much more
+must it be the case with this test of relative inconceivability. For,
+without comment, it is manifest that our acquired sense of probability, as
+distinguished from our innate sense of possibility, with regard to any
+particular question of a transcendental nature, cannot be at all comparable
+with its value in the case of ordinary questions, with respect to which our
+sense of probability is being always rectified by external facts. Although,
+therefore, it is true that both those who reject and those who retain a
+belief in Theism on grounds of relative conceivability are equally entitled
+to be regarded as displaying a rational attitude of mind, in whatever
+degree either party considers their belief as of a higher validity than the
+grounds of psychology from which it takes its rise, in that degree must the
+members of that party be deemed irrational. In other words, not only must a
+man be careful not to confuse the test of relative inconceivability with
+that of absolute conceivability--not to suppose that his sense of
+probability in this matter is determined by an innate psychological
+inability to conceive a proposition, when in reality it is only determined
+by the difficulty of dissociating ideas which have long been habitually
+associated;--but he must also be careful to remember that the test of
+relative inconceivability in this matter is only valid as justifying a
+belief of the most diffident possible kind.
+
+And from this the practical deduction is--tolerance. Let no man think that
+he has any argumentative right to expect that the mere subjective habit or
+tone of his own mind should exert any influence on that of his fellow; but
+rather let him always remember that the only legitimate weapons of his
+intellectual warfare are those the _material_ of which is derived from the
+external world, and only the _form_ of which is due to the forging process
+of his own mind. And if in battle such weapons seem to be unduly blunted on
+the hardened armoury of traditional beliefs, or on the no less hardened
+armoury of confirmed scepticism, let him remember further that he must not
+too confidently infer that the fault does not lie in the character of his
+own weapons. To drop the figure, let none of us forget in how much need we
+all stand of this caution:--Knowing how greatly the value of arguments is
+affected, even to the most impartial among us, by the frame of mind in
+which we regard them, let all of us be jealously careful not to
+over-estimate the certainty that our frame or habit of mind is actually
+superior to that of our neighbour. And, in conclusion, it is surely
+needless to insist on the yet greater need there is for most of us to bear
+in mind this further caution:--Knowing with what great subjective
+opposition arguments are met when they conflict with our established modes
+of thought, let us all be jealously careful to guard the sanctuary of our
+judgment from the polluting tyranny of habit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.
+
+Sec. 48. Our analysis is now at an end, and a very few words will here suffice
+to convey an epitomised recollection of the numerous facts and conclusions
+which we have found it necessary to contemplate. We first disposed of the
+conspicuously absurd supposition that the origin of things, or the mystery
+of existence, admits of being explained by the theory of Theism in any
+further degree than by the theory of Atheism. Next it was shown that the
+argument "Our heart requires a God" is invalid, seeing that such a
+subjective necessity, even if made out, could not be sufficient to
+prove--or even to render probable--an objective existence. And with regard
+to the further argument that the fact of our theistic aspirations point to
+God as to their explanatory cause, it became necessary to observe that the
+argument could only be admissible after the possibility of the operation of
+natural causes had been excluded. Similarly the argument from the supposed
+intuitive necessity of individual thought was found to be untenable, first,
+because, even if the supposed necessity were a real one, it would only
+possess an individual applicability; and second, that, as a matter of fact,
+it is extremely improbable that the supposed necessity is a real necessity
+even for the individual who asserts it, while it is absolutely certain that
+it is not such to the vast majority of the race. The argument from the
+general consent of mankind, being so obviously fallacious both as to facts
+and principles, was passed over without comment; while the argument from a
+first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the argument
+that, as human volition is a cause in nature, therefore all causation is
+probably volitional in character, was shown to consist in a stretch of
+inference so outrageous that the argument had to be pronounced worthless.
+
+Proceeding next to examine the less superficial arguments in favour of
+Theism, it was first shown that the syllogism, All known minds are caused
+by an unknown mind; our mind is a known mind; therefore our mind is caused
+by an unknown mind,--is a syllogism that is inadmissible for two reasons.
+In the first place, "it does not account for mind (in the abstract) to
+refer it to a prior mind for its origin;" and therefore, although the
+hypothesis, if admitted, would be _an_ explanation of _known_ mind, it is
+useless as an argument for the existence of the unknown mind, the
+assumption of which forms the basis of that explanation. Again, in the next
+place, if it be said that mind is so far an entity _sui generis_ that it
+must be either self-existing or caused by another mind, there is no
+assignable warrant for the assertion. And this is the second objection to
+the above syllogism; for anything within the whole range of the possible
+may, for aught that we can tell, be competent to produce a self-conscious
+intelligence. Thus an objector to the above syllogism need not hold any
+theory of things at all; but even as opposed to the definite theory of
+materialism, the above syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to
+stand upon. We know that what we call matter and force are to all
+appearance eternal, while we have no corresponding evidence of a "mind that
+is even apparently eternal." Further, within experience mind is invariably
+associated with highly differentiated collocations of matter and
+distributions of force, and many facts go to prove, and none to negative,
+the conclusion that the grade of intelligence invariably depends upon, or
+at least is associated with, a corresponding grade of cerebral development.
+There is thus both a qualitative and a quantitative relation between
+intelligence and cerebral organisation. And if it is said that matter and
+motion cannot produce consciousness because it is inconceivable that they
+should, we have seen at some length that this is no conclusive
+consideration as applied to a subject of a confessedly transcendental
+nature, and that in the present case it is particularly inconclusive,
+because, as it is speculatively certain that the substance of mind must be
+unknowable, it seems _a priori_ probable that, whatever is the cause of the
+unknowable reality, this cause should be more difficult to render into
+thought in that relation than would some other hypothetical substance which
+is imagined as more akin to mind. And if it is said that the _more_
+conceivable cause is the _more_ probable cause, we have seen that it is in
+this case impossible to estimate the validity of the remark. Lastly, the
+statement that the cause must contain actually all that its effects can
+contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and contradicted by everyday
+experience; while the argument from the supposed freedom of the will and
+the existence of the moral sense was negatived both deductively by the
+theory of evolution, and inductively by the doctrine of utilitarianism. On
+the whole, then, with regard to the argument from the existence of the
+human mind, we were compelled to decide that it is destitute of any
+assignable weight, there being nothing more to lead to the conclusion that
+our mind has been caused by another mind, than to the conclusion that it
+has been caused by anything else whatsoever.
+
+With regard to the argument from Design, it was observed that Mill's
+presentation of it is merely a resuscitation of the argument as presented
+by Paley, Bell, and Chalmers. And indeed we saw that the first-named writer
+treated this whole subject with a feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising
+in him; for while he has failed to assign anything like due weight to the
+inductive evidence of organic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a
+supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. Moreover, he has failed
+signally in his _analysis_ of the Design argument, seeing that, in common
+with all previous writers, he failed to observe that it is utterly
+impossible for us to know the relations in which the supposed Designer
+stands to the Designed,--much less to argue from the fact that the Supreme
+Mind, even supposing it to exist, caused the observable products by any
+particular intellectual _process_. In other words, all advocates of the
+Design argument have failed to perceive that, even if we grant nature to be
+due to a creating Mind, still we have no shadow of a right to conclude that
+this Mind can only have exerted its creative power by means of such and
+such cogitative operations. How absurd, therefore, must it be to raise the
+supposed evidence of such cogitative operations into evidences of the
+existence of a creating Mind! If a theist retorts that it is, after all, of
+very little importance whether or not we are able to divine the _methods_
+of creation, so long as the _facts_ are there to attest that, _in some way
+or other_, the observable phenomena of nature must be due to Intelligence
+of some kind as their ultimate cause, then I am the first to endorse this
+remark. It has always appeared to me one of the most unaccountable things
+in the history of speculation that so many competent writers can have
+insisted upon _Design_ as an argument for Theism, when they must all have
+known perfectly well that they have no means of ascertaining the subjective
+psychology of that Supreme Mind whose existence the argument is adduced to
+demonstrate. The truth is, that the argument from teleology must, and can
+only, rest upon the observable _facts_ of nature, without reference to the
+intellectual _processes_ by which these facts may be supposed to have been
+accomplished. But, looking to the "present state of our knowledge," this is
+merely to change the teleological argument from its gross Paleyerian form,
+into the argument from the ubiquitous operation of general laws. And we saw
+that this transformation is now a rational necessity. How far the great
+principle of natural selection may have been instrumental in the evolution
+of organic forms, is not here, as Mill erroneously imagined, the question;
+the question is simply as to whether we are to accept the theory of special
+creation or the theory of organic evolution. And forasmuch as no competent
+judge at the present time can hesitate for one moment in answering this
+question, the argument from a proximate teleology must be regarded as no
+longer having any rational existence.
+
+How then does it fare with the last of the arguments--the argument from an
+ultimate teleology? Doubtless at first sight this argument seems a very
+powerful one, inasmuch as it is a generic argument, which embraces not only
+biological phenomena, but all the phenomena of the universe. But
+nevertheless we are constrained to acknowledge that its apparent power
+dwindles to nothing in view of the indisputable fact that, if force and
+matter have been eternal, all and every natural law must have resulted by
+way of necessary consequence. It will be remembered that I dwelt at
+considerable length and with much earnestness upon this truth, not only
+because of its enormous importance in its bearing upon our subject, but
+also because no one has hitherto considered it in that relation.
+
+The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of the conclusion that
+was liable to be formed upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all the
+possible arguments in favour of Theism. Having fully demonstrated that
+there is no shadow of a positive argument in support of the theistic
+theory, there arose the danger that some persons might erroneously conclude
+that for this reason the theistic theory must be untrue. It therefore
+became necessary to point out, that although, as far as we can see, nature
+does not require an Intelligent Cause to account for any of her phenomena,
+yet it is possible that, if we could see farther, we should see that nature
+could not be what she is unless she had owed her existence to an
+Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the probability there is that an
+Intelligent Cause is unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of nature,
+is only equal to the probability there is that the doctrine of the
+persistence of force is everywhere and eternally true.
+
+As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we altogether quitted the
+region of experience, and ignoring even the very foundations of science,
+and so all the most certain of relative truths, we carried the discussion
+into the transcendental region of purely formal considerations. And here we
+laid down the canon, "that the value of any probability, in its last
+analysis, is determined by the number, the importance, and the definiteness
+of the relations known, as compared with those of the relations unknown;"
+and, consequently, that in cases where the unknown relations are more
+numerous, more important, or more indefinite than are the known relations,
+the value of our inference varies inversely as the difference in these
+respects between the relations compared. From which canon it followed, that
+as the problem of Theism is the most ultimate of all problems, and so
+contains in its unknown relations all that is to man unknown and
+unknowable, these relations must be pronounced the most indefinite of all
+relations that it is possible for man to contemplate; and, consequently,
+that although we have here the entire range of experience from which to
+argue, we are unable to estimate the real value of any argument whatsoever.
+The unknown relations in our attempted induction being wholly indefinite,
+both in respect of their number and importance, as compared with the known
+relations, it is impossible for us to determine any definite probability
+either for or against the being of a God. Therefore, although it is true
+that, so far as human science can penetrate or human thought infer, we can
+perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no right on this account to
+conclude that there is no God. The probability, therefore, that nature is
+devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest kind if regarded
+scientifically--amounting, in fact, to a scientific demonstration,--is
+nevertheless wholly worthless if regarded logically. Notwithstanding it is
+as true as is the fundamental basis of all science and of all experience
+that, if there is a God, his existence, considered as a cause of the
+universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if there had
+never been a God, the universe could never have existed.
+
+Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively that, no matter how
+great the probability of Atheism might appear to be in a relative sense, we
+have no means of estimating such probability in an absolute sense. From
+which position there emerged the possibility of another argument in favour
+of Theism--or rather let us say, of a reappearance of the teleological
+argument in another form. For it may be said, seeing that these formal
+considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either for or against Deity in
+an absolute sense, while they do not exclude such reasoning in a relative
+sense, if there yet remain any theistic deductions which may properly be
+drawn from experience, these may now be adduced to balance the atheistic
+deductions from the persistence of force. For although the latter
+deductions have clearly shown the existence of Deity to be superfluous in a
+scientific sense, the formal considerations in question have no less
+clearly opened up beyond the sphere of science a possible _locus_ for the
+existence of Deity; so that if there are any facts supplied by experience
+for which the atheistic deductions appear insufficient to account, we are
+still free to account for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of
+Theism. And, it may be urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in
+the correlation of general laws in the production of cosmic harmony. It
+signifies nothing, the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the
+methods whereby the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony; nor
+does it signify that its operation must now be relegated to a
+super-scientific province. What does signify is that, taking a general view
+of nature, we find it impossible to conceive of the extent and variety of
+her harmonious processes as other than products of intelligent causation.
+Now this sublimated form of the teleological argument, it will be
+remembered, I denoted a metaphysical teleology, in order sharply to
+distinguish it from all previous forms of that argument, which, in
+contradistinction I denoted scientific teleologies. And the distinction, it
+will be remembered, consisted in this--that while all previous forms of
+teleology, by resting on a basis which was not beyond the possible reach of
+science, laid themselves open to the possibility of scientific refutation,
+the metaphysical system of teleology, by resting on a basis which is
+clearly beyond the possible reach of science, can never be susceptible of
+scientific refutation. And that this metaphysical system of teleology does
+rest on such a basis is indisputable; for while it accepts the most
+ultimate truths of which science can ever be cognisant--viz., the
+persistence of force and the consequently necessary genesis of natural
+law,--it nevertheless maintains that the necessity of regarding Mind as the
+ultimate cause of things is not on this account removed; and, therefore,
+that if science now requires the operation of a Supreme Mind to be posited
+in a super-scientific sphere, then in a super-scientific sphere it ought to
+be posited. No doubt this hypothesis at first sight seems gratuitous,
+seeing that, so far as science can penetrate, there is no need of any such
+hypothesis at all--cosmic harmony resulting as a physically necessary
+consequence from the combined action of natural laws, which in turn result
+as a physically necessary consequence of the persistence of force and the
+primary qualities of matter. But although it is thus indisputably true that
+metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered scientifically,
+it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if considered
+psychologically. In other words, if it is more conceivable that Mind should
+be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the persistence of force
+should be so, then it is not irrational to accept the more conceivable
+hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable one, provided that the
+choice is made with the diffidence which is required by the considerations
+adduced in Chapter V.
+
+I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology,
+although in a physical sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense
+legitimate. But as against the fundamental position on which alone this
+argument can rest--viz., the position that the fundamental postulate of
+Atheism is more _inconceivable_ than is the fundamental postulate of
+Theism--we have seen two important objections to lie.
+
+For, in the first place, the sense in which the word "inconceivable" is
+here used is that of the impossibility of framing _realisable_ relations in
+the thought; not that of the impossibility of framing _abstract_ relations
+in thought. In the same sense, though in a lower degree, it is true that
+the complexity of the human organisation and its functions is
+inconceivable; but in this sense the word "inconceivable" has much less
+weight in an argument than it has in its true sense. And, without waiting
+again to dispute (as we did in the case of the speculative standing of
+Materialism) how far even the genuine test of inconceivability ought to be
+allowed to make against an inference which there is a body of scientific
+evidence to substantiate, we went on to the second objection against this
+fundamental position of metaphysical teleology. This objection, it will be
+remembered, was, that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as
+an effect of Mind, as it is to conceive of it as an effect of mindless
+evolution. The argument from inconceivability, therefore, admits of being
+turned with quite as terrible an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be
+made to exert on Atheism.
+
+Hence this more refined form of teleology which we are considering, and
+which we saw to be the last of the possible arguments in favour of Theism,
+is met on its own ground by a very crushing opposition: by its metaphysical
+character it has escaped the opposition of physical science, only to
+encounter a new opposition in the region of pure psychology to which it
+fled. As a conclusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved on us to
+determine the relative magnitudes of these opposing forces. And in doing
+this we first observed that, if the supporters of metaphysical teleology
+objected _a priori_ to the method whereby the genesis of natural law was
+deduced from the datum of the persistence of force, in that this method
+involved an unrestricted use of illegitimate symbolic conceptions; then it
+is no less open to an atheist to object _a priori_ to the method whereby a
+directing Mind was inferred from the datum of cosmic harmony, in that this
+method involved the population of an unknowable cause,--and this of a
+character which the whole history of human thought has proved the human
+mind to exhibit an overweening tendency to postulate as the cause of
+natural phenomena. On these grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as
+their respective standing _a priori_ is concerned, both theories may be
+regarded as about equally suspicious. And similar with regard to their
+standing _a posteriori_; for as both theories require to embody at least
+one infinite term, they must each alike be pronounced absolutely
+inconceivable. But, finally, if the question were put to me which of the
+two theories I regarded as the more rational, I observed that this is a
+question which no one man can answer for another. For as the test of
+absolute inconceivability is equally destructive of both theories, if a man
+wishes to choose between them, his choice can only be determined by what I
+have designated relative inconceivability--_i.e._, in accordance with the
+verdict given by his individual sense of probability as determined by his
+previous habits of thought. And forasmuch as the test of relative
+inconceivability may be held in this matter legitimately to vary with the
+character of the mind which applies it, the strictly rational probability
+of the question to which it is applied varies in like manner. Or, otherwise
+presented, the only alternative for any man in this matter is either to
+discipline himself into an attitude of pure scepticism, and thus to refuse
+in thought to entertain either a probability or an improbability concerning
+the existence of a God; or else to incline in thought towards an
+affirmation or a negation of God, according as his previous habits of
+thought have rendered such an inclination more facile in the one direction
+than in the other. And although, under such circumstances, I should
+consider that man the more rational who carefully suspended his judgment, I
+conclude that if this course is departed from, neither the metaphysical
+teleologist nor the scientific atheist has any perceptible advantage over
+the other in respect of rationality. For as the formal conditions of a
+metaphysical teleology are undoubtedly present on the one hand, and the
+formal conditions of a speculative atheism are as undoubtedly present on
+the other, there is thus in both cases a logical vacuum supplied wherein
+the pendulum of thought is free to swing in whichever direction it may be
+made to swing by the momentum of preconceived ideas.
+
+Such is the outcome of our investigation, and considering the abstract
+nature of the subject, the immense divergence of opinion which at the
+present time is manifested with regard to it, as well as the confusing
+amount of good, bad, and indifferent literature on both sides of the
+controversy which is extant;--considering these things, I do not think that
+the result of our inquiry can be justly complained of on the score of its
+lacking precision. At a time like the present, when traditional beliefs
+respecting Theism are so generally accepted and so commonly concluded, as a
+matter of course, to have a large and valid basis of induction whereon to
+rest, I cannot but feel that a perusal of this short essay, by showing how
+very concise the scientific _status_ of the subject really is, will do more
+to settle the minds of most readers as to the exact standing at the present
+time of all the probabilities of the question, than could a perusal of all
+the rest of the literature upon this subject. And, looking to the present
+condition of speculative philosophy, I regard it as of the utmost
+importance to have clearly shown that the advance of science has now
+entitled us to assert, without the least hesitation, that the hypothesis of
+Mind in nature is as certainly superfluous to account for any of the
+phenomena of nature, as the scientific doctrine of the persistence of force
+and the indestructibility of matter is certainly true.
+
+On the other hand, if any one is inclined to complain that the logical
+aspect of the question has not proved itself so unequivocally definite as
+has the scientific, I must ask him to consider that, in any matter which
+does not admit of actual demonstration, some margin must of necessity be
+left for variations of individual opinion. And, if he bears this
+consideration in mind, I feel sure that he cannot properly complain of my
+not having done my utmost in this case to define as sharply as possible the
+character and the limits of this margin.
+
+Sec. 49. And now, in conclusion, I feel it is desirable to state that any
+antecedent bias with regard to Theism which I individually possess is
+unquestionably on the side of traditional beliefs. It is therefore with the
+utmost sorrow that I find myself compelled to accept the conclusions here
+worked out; and nothing would have induced me to publish them, save the
+strength of my conviction that it is the duty of every member of society to
+give his fellows the benefit of his labours for whatever they may he worth.
+Just as I am confident that truth must in the end be the most profitable
+for the race, so I am persuaded that every individual endeavour to attain
+it, provided only that such endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, ought
+without hesitation to be made the common property of all men, no matter in
+what direction the results of its promulgation may appear to tend. And so
+far as the ruination of individual happiness is concerned, no one can have
+a more lively perception than myself of the possibly disastrous tendency of
+my work. So far as I am individually concerned, the result of this analysis
+has been to show that, whether I regard the problem of Theism on the lower
+plane of strictly relative probability, or on the higher plane of purely
+formal considerations, it equally becomes my obvious duty to stifle all
+belief of the kind which I conceive to be the noblest, and to discipline my
+intellect with regard to this matter into an attitude of the purest
+scepticism. And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those
+who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the "new faith" is a desirable
+substitute for the waning splendour of "the old," I am not ashamed to
+confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost
+its soul of loveliness; and although from henceforth the precept to "work
+while it is day" will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the
+terribly intensified meaning of the words that "the night cometh when no
+man can work," yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the
+appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was
+mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it,--at such times
+I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my
+nature is susceptible. For whether it be due to my intelligence not being
+sufficiently advanced to meet the requirements of the age, or whether it be
+due to the memory of those sacred associations which to me at least were
+the sweetest that life has given, I cannot but feel that for me, and for
+others who think as I do, there is a dreadful truth in those words of
+Hamilton,--Philosophy having become a meditation, not merely of death, but
+of annihilation, the precept _know thyself_ has become transformed into the
+terrific oracle to Oedipus--
+
+  "Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+AND
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF A FALLACY IN LOCKE'S USE OF THE ARGUMENT AGAINST
+THE POSSIBILITY OF MATTER THINKING ON GROUNDS OF ITS BEING INCONCEIVABLE
+THAT IT SHOULD.
+
+Lest it should be thought that I am doing injustice to the views of this
+illustrious theist, I here quote his own words:--"We have the ideas of
+matter and thinking, but possibly shall never be able to know whether any
+mere material being thinks or no, it being impossible for us, by the
+contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation, to discover whether
+omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter fitly disposed a power
+to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter so disposed a
+thinking immaterial substance; it being, in respect of our notions, not
+much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that God can, if He
+pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that He should
+superadd to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know
+not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substance the Almighty
+has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any created being,
+but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the Creator. For I see no
+contradiction in it that the first eternal thinking being should, if he
+pleased, give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together
+as he thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though,
+as I think, I have proved, lib. iv., ch. 10 and 14, &c., it is no less than
+a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own nature
+void of sense and thought) should be that eternal first-thinking being.
+What certainty of knowledge can any one have that some perceptions, such
+as, _e.g._, pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves,
+after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as that they should be
+in an immaterial substance upon the motion of the parts of body? Body, as
+far as we can conceive, being able only to strike and affect body; and
+motion, according to the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce
+nothing but motion: so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain,
+or the idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond
+our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker. For
+since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which we can no way
+conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to conclude that He
+could not order them as well to be produced in a subject we cannot conceive
+capable of them, as well as in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of
+matter can any way operate upon? I say not this, that I would any way
+lessen the belief of the soul's immateriality, &c.... It is a point which
+seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge; and he who will
+give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark and intricate
+part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able to determine him
+fixedly for or against the soul's materiality. Since on which side soever
+he views it, either as an unextended substance or as a thinking extended
+matter, the difficulty to conceive either will, whilst either alone is in
+his thoughts, still drive him to the contrary side. An unfair way which
+some men take with themselves, who, because of the inconceivableness of
+something they find in one, throw themselves violently into the contrary
+hypothesis, though altogether as unintelligible to an unbiassed
+understanding."
+
+This passage, I do not hesitate to say, is one of the most remarkable in
+the whole range of philosophical literature, in respect of showing how even
+the strongest and most candid intellect may have its reasoning faculty
+impaired by the force of a preformed conviction. Here we have a mind of
+unsurpassed penetration and candour, which has left us side by side two
+parallel trains of reasoning. In the one, the object is to show that the
+author's preformed conviction as to the being of a God is justifiable on
+grounds of reason; in the other, the object is to show that, granting the
+existence of a God, and it is not impossible that he may have endowed
+matter with the faculty of thinking. Now, in the former train of reasoning,
+the whole proof rests entirely upon the fact that "it is impossible to
+conceive that ever bare incogitative matter should produce a thinking
+intelligent being." Clearly, if this proposition is true, it must destroy
+one or other of the trains of reasoning; for it is common to them both, and
+in one of them it is made the sole ground for concluding that matter cannot
+think, while in the other it is made compatible with the supposition that
+matter may think. This extraordinary inconsistency no doubt arose from the
+fact that the author was antecedently persuaded of the existence of an
+_Omnipotent_ Mind, and having been long accustomed in his intellectual
+symbols to regard it presumptuous in him to impose any limitations on this
+almighty power, when he asked himself whether it would be possible for this
+almighty power, if it so willed, to endow matter with the faculty of
+thinking, he argued that it might be possible, notwithstanding his being
+unable to conceive the possibility. But when he banished from his mind the
+idea of this personal and almighty power, and with that idea banished all
+its associations, he then felt that he had a right to argue more freely,
+and forthwith made his conceptive faculty a test of abstract possibility.
+Yet _the sum total of abstract possibility, in relation to him, must have
+been the same in the two cases_; so that in whichever of the two trains of
+reasoning his argument was sound, in the other it must certainly have been
+null.
+
+We may well feel amazed that so able a thinker can have fallen into so
+obvious an error, and afterwards have persisted in it through pages and
+pages of his work. It will be instructive, however, to those who rely upon
+Locke's exposition of the argument from Inconceivability to see how
+effectually he has himself destroyed it. For this purpose, therefore, I
+shall make some further quotations from the same train of reasoning. The
+statement of Locke's opinion that the Almighty could endow matter with the
+faculty of thinking if He so willed, called down some remonstrances and
+rebukes from the then Bishop of Worcester. Locke's reply was a very lengthy
+one, and from it the following extracts are taken. I merely request the
+reader throughout to substitute for the words God, Creator, Almighty,
+Omipotency, &c., the words _Summum genus_ of Possibility.
+
+"But it is further urged that we cannot conceive how matter can think. I
+grant it, but to argue from thence that God therefore cannot give to matter
+a faculty of thinking is to say God's omnipotency is limited to a narrow
+compass because man's understanding is so, and brings down God's infinite
+power to the size of our capacities....
+
+"If God can give no power to any parts of matter but what men can account
+for from the essence of matter in general; if all such qualities and
+properties must destroy the essence, or change the essential properties of
+matter, which are to our conceptions above it, and we cannot conceive to be
+the natural consequence of that essence; it is plain that the essence of
+matter is destroyed, and its essential properties changed, in most of the
+sensible parts of this our system. For it is visible that all the planets
+have revolutions about certain remote centres, which I would have any one
+explain or make conceivable by the bare essence, or natural powers
+depending on the essence of matter in general, without something added to
+that essence which we cannot conceive; for the moving of matter in a
+crooked line, or the attraction of matter by matter, is all that can be
+said in the case; either of which it is above our reach to derive from the
+essence of matter or body in general, though one of these two must
+unavoidably be allowed to be superadded, in this instance, to the essence
+of matter in general. The omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the
+making of the world, and His ways are not the less excellent because they
+are past finding out....
+
+"In all such cases, the superinducement of greater perfections and nobler
+qualities destroys nothing of the essence or perfections that were there
+before, unless there can be showed a manifest repugnancy between them; but
+all the proof offered for that is only that we cannot conceive how matter,
+without such superadded perfections, can produce such effects; which is, in
+truth, no more than to say matter in general, or every part of matter, as
+matter, has them not, but is no reason to prove that God, if He pleases,
+cannot superadd them to some parts of matter, unless it can be proved to be
+a contradiction that God should give to some parts of matter qualities and
+perfections which matter in general has not, though we cannot conceive how
+matter is invested with them, or how it operates by virtue of those new
+endowments; nor is it to be wondered that we cannot, whilst we limit all
+its operations to those qualities it had before, and would explain them by
+the known properties of matter in general, without any such induced
+perfections. For if this be a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to
+be because we cannot conceive the manner how it comes to be, I shall desire
+them who use it to stick to this rule, and see what work it will make both
+in divinity as well as philosophy, and whether they can advance anything
+more in favour of scepticism.
+
+"For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and
+self-motion bestowed by omnipotent power in some parts of matter: the
+objection to this is, I cannot conceive how matter should think. What is
+the consequence? Ergo, God cannot give it a power to think. Let this stand
+for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same.
+
+"You cannot conceive how matter can attract matter at any distance, much
+less at the distance of 1,000,000 miles; ergo, God cannot give it such a
+power: you cannot conceive how matter should feel or move itself, or affect
+any material being, or be moved by it; ergo, God cannot give it such
+powers: which is in effect to deny gravity, and the revolution of the
+planets about the sun; to make brutes mere machines, without sense or
+spontaneous motion; and to allow man neither sense nor voluntary motion.
+
+"Let us apply this rule one degree farther. You cannot conceive how an
+extended solid substance should think, therefore God cannot make it think:
+can you conceive how your own soul or any substance thinks? You find,
+indeed, that you do think, and so do I; but I want to be told how the
+action of thinking is performed: this, I confess, is beyond my conception;
+and I would be glad any one who conceives it would explain it to me.
+
+"God, I find, has given me this faculty; and since I cannot but be
+convinced of His power in this instance, which, though I every moment
+experience in myself, yet I cannot conceive the manner of, what would it be
+less than an insolent absurdity to deny His power in other like cases, only
+for this reason, because I cannot conceive the manner how?...
+
+"That Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be solid and not solid at the
+same time, I think with due reverence [diffidence?[35]] we may say; but
+that a solid substance may not have qualities, perfections, and powers,
+which have no natural or visibly necessary connection with solidity and
+extension, is too much for us (who are but of yesterday, and know nothing)
+to be positive in.
+
+"If God cannot join things together by connections inconceivable to us, we
+must deny even the consistency and being of matter itself; since every
+particle of it having some bulk, has its parts connected by ways
+inconceivable to us. So that all the difficulties that are raised against
+the thinking of matter, from our ignorance or narrow conceptions, stand not
+at all in the way of the power of God, if He pleases to ordain it so; nor
+prove anything against His having actually endowed some parcels of matter,
+so disposed as He thinks fit, with a faculty of thinking, till it can he
+shown that it contains a contradiction to suppose it.
+
+"Though to me sensation be comprehended under thinking in general, in the
+foregoing discourse I have spoke of sense in brutes as distinct from
+thinking; because your lordship, as I remember, speaks of sense in brutes.
+But here I take liberty to observe, that if your lordship allows brutes to
+have sensation, it will follow, either that God can and doth give to some
+parcels of matter a power of perception and thinking, or that all animals
+have immaterial, and consequently, according to your lordship, immortal
+souls, as well as men; and to say that fleas and mites, &c., have immortal
+souls as well as men, will possibly be looked on as going a great way to
+serve an hypothesis....
+
+"It is true, I say, 'That bodies operate by impulse, and nothing else,' and
+so I thought when I writ it, and can yet conceive no other way of their
+operation. But I am since convinced, by the judicious Mr. Newton's
+incomparable book, that it is too bold a presumption to limit God's power
+in this point by my narrow conceptions. The gravitation of matter towards
+matter, by way unconceivable to me, is not only a demonstration that God
+can, if He pleases, put into bodies powers and ways of operation above what
+can be derived from our idea of body, or can be explained by what we know
+of matter, but also an unquestionable and everywhere visible instance that
+He has done so. And therefore, in the next edition of my book, I will take
+care to have that passage rectified....
+
+"As to self-consciousness, your lordship asks, 'What is there like
+self-consciousness in matter?' Nothing at all in matter as matter. But that
+God cannot bestow on some parcels of matter a power of thinking, and with
+it self-consciousness, will never be proved by asking how is it possible to
+apprehend that mere body should perceive that it doth perceive? The
+weakness of our apprehension I grant in the case: I confess as much as you
+please, that we cannot conceive how an unsolid created substance thinks;
+but this weakness of our apprehension reaches not the power of God, whose
+weakness is stronger than anything in man."
+
+Lastly, Locke turns upon his opponent the power of the _odium theologicum_.
+
+"Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is that
+should keep the parts of a material soul together after it is separated
+from the body, yet it will be always as easy to give an account of it as to
+give an account what it is that shall keep together a material and
+immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an
+account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken the
+credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity; and I
+persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in
+this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point much weakened
+by that difficulty.... But you will say, you speak only of the soul; and
+your words are, that it is no easy matter to give an account how the soul
+should be capable of immortality unless it be a material substance. I grant
+it, but crave leave to say, that there is not any one of these difficulties
+that are or can be raised about the manner how a material soul can be
+immortal, which do not as well reach the immortality of the body....
+
+"But your lordship, as I guess from your following words, would argue that
+a material substance cannot be a free agent; whereby I suppose you only
+mean that you cannot see or conceive how a solid substance should begin,
+stop, or change its own motion. To which give me leave to answer, that when
+you can make it conceivable how any created, finite, dependent substance
+can move itself, I suppose you will find it no harder for God to bestow
+this power on a solid than an unsolid created substance.... But though you
+cannot see how any created substance, solid or not solid, can be a free
+agent (pardon me, my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship please to
+explain it of either, and show the manner how either of them can of itself
+move itself or anything else), yet I do not think you will so far deny men
+to be free agents, from the difficulty there is to see how they are free
+agents, as to doubt whether there be foundation enough for the day of
+judgment."
+
+Let us now, for the sake of contrast, turn to some passages which occur in
+the other train of reasoning.
+
+"If we suppose only matter and motion first or eternal, thought can never
+begin to be. For it is impossible to conceive that matter, either with or
+without motion, could have originally in and from itself sense, perception,
+and knowledge; as is evident from hence, that then sense, perception, and
+knowledge must be a property eternally inseparable from matter and every
+particle of it." There is a double fallacy here. In the first place,
+conceivability is made the unconditional test of possibility; and, in the
+next place, it is asserted that unless every particle of matter can think,
+no collocation of such particles can possibly do so. This latter fallacy is
+further insisted upon thus:--"If they will not allow matter as matter, that
+is, every particle of matter, to be as well cogitative as extended, they
+will have as hard a task to make out to their own reasons a cogitative
+being out of incogitative particles, as an extended being out of unextended
+parts, if I may so speak.... Every particle of matter, as matter, is
+capable of all the same figures and motions of any other, and I challenge
+any one in his thoughts to add anything else to one above another." Now, as
+we have seen, Locke himself has shown in his other trains of argument that
+this challenge is thoroughly futile as a refutation of possibilities; but
+the point to which I now wish to draw attention is this--It does not follow
+because certain and highly complex collocations of material particles may
+be supposed capable of thinking, that therefore every particle of matter
+must be regarded as having this attribute. We have innumerable analogies in
+nature of a certain collocation of matter and force producing certain
+results which another somewhat similar collocation could not produce: in
+such cases we do not assume that all the resulting attributes of the one
+collocation must be presented also by the other--still less that these
+resulting attributes must belong to the primary qualities of matter and
+force. Hence, it is not fair to assume that thought must either be inherent
+in every particle of matter, or else not producible by any possible
+collocation of such particles, unless it has previously been shown that so
+to produce it by any possible collocation is in the nature of things
+impossible. But no one could refute this fallacy better than Locke himself
+has done in some of the passages already quoted from his other train of
+reasoning.
+
+But to continue the quotation:--"If, therefore, it be evident that
+something necessarily must exist from eternity, it is also as evident that
+that something must necessarily be a cogitative being; for it is as
+impossible [_inconceivable_] that incogitative matter should produce a
+cogitative being, as that nothing, or the negation of all being, should
+produce a positive being or matter." Again,--"For unthinking particles of
+matter, however put together, can have [_can be taught to have_] nothing
+thereby added to them, but a new relation of position, which it is
+impossible [_inconceivable_] should give thought and knowledge to them."
+
+It is unnecessary to multiply these quotations, for, in effect, they would
+all be merely repetitions of one another. It is enough to have seen that
+this able author undertakes to demonstrate the existence of a God, and that
+his whole demonstration resolves itself into the unwarrantable inference,
+that as we are unable to conceive how thought can be a property of matter,
+therefore a property of matter thought cannot be. That such an erroneous
+inference should occur in any writings of so old a date as those of Locke
+is not in itself surprising. What is surprising is the fact, that in the
+same writings, and in the course of the same discussion, the fallacy of
+this very inference is repeatedly pointed out and insisted upon in a great
+variety of ways; and it has been chiefly for the sake of showing the
+pernicious influence which preformed opinion may exert--viz., even to
+blinding the eyes of one of the most clear-sighted and thoughtful men that
+ever lived to a glaring contradiction repeated over and over again in the
+course of a few pages,--it has been chiefly for this reason that I have
+extended this Appendix to so great a length. I shall now conclude it by
+quoting some sentences which occur on the very next page after that from
+which the last quoted sentences were taken. Our author here again returns
+to his defence of the omnipotency of God; and as he now again thus
+personifies the sum total of possibility, his mind abruptly reverts to all
+its other class of associations. In this case the transition is
+particularly interesting, not only on account of its suddenness, but also
+because the correlations contemplated happen to be exactly the same in the
+two cases--viz., matter as the cause of mind, and mind as the cause of
+matter. Remember that on the last page this great philosopher supposed he
+had demonstrated the abstract impossibility of matter being the cause of
+mind on the ground of a causal connection being inconceivable, let us now
+observe what he says upon this page regarding the abstract possibility of
+mind being the cause of matter. "Nay, possibly, if we would emancipate
+ourselves from vulgar notions, and raise our thoughts as far as they would
+reach to a closer contemplation of things, we might be able to aim at some
+dim and seeming conception how matter might at first be made and begin to
+exist by the power of that eternal first being.... But you will say, Is it
+not impossible to admit of the making anything out of nothing, since we
+cannot possibly conceive it? I answer--No; because it is not reasonable to
+deny the power of an infinite being [this phrase, in the absence of
+hypothesis, _i.e._, in Locke's other train of reasoning, is of course
+equivalent to the sum-total of possibility] because we cannot comprehend
+its operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground, because we
+cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production. We cannot conceive
+how anything but impulse of body can move body; and yet that is not a
+reason sufficient to make us deny it possible, against the constant
+experience we have of it in ourselves, in all our voluntary motions, which
+are produced in us only by the free action or thought of our minds, and are
+not, nor can be, the effects of the impulse or determination of the blind
+matter in or upon our own bodies; for then it could not be in our power or
+choice to alter it. For example, my right hand writes, whilst my left hand
+is still: what causes rest in one and motion in the other? Nothing but my
+will, a thought in my mind; my thought only changing, the right hand rests,
+and the left hands moves. This is matter of fact, which cannot be denied:
+explain this and make it intelligible, and then the next step will be to
+understand creation."[36]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I.
+
+COSMIC THEISM.[37]
+
+Mr. Herbert Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable is a doctrine of so much
+speculative importance, that it behoves all students of philosophy to have
+clear views respecting its character and implications. Mr. Spencer has
+himself so fully explained the character of this doctrine, that no
+attentive reader can fail to understand it; but concerning those of its
+implications which may be termed theological--as distinguished from
+religious--Mr. Spencer is silent. Within the last two or three years,
+however, there has appeared a valuable work by an able exponent of the new
+philosophy; and in this work the writer, adopting his master's teaching of
+the Unknowable, proceeds to develop it into a definite system of what may
+be termed scientific theology. And not only so, but he assures the world
+that this system of scientific theology is the highest, the purest, and the
+most ennobling form of religion that mankind has ever been privileged to
+know in the past, or, from the nature of the case, can ever be destined to
+know in the future. It is a system, we are told, wherein the most
+fundamental truths of Theism are taught as necessary deductions from the
+highest truths of Science; it is a system wherein no single doctrine
+appeals for its acceptance to any principle of blind or credulous faith,
+but wherein every doctrine can be fully justified by the searching light of
+reason; it is a system wherein the noblest of our aspirations and the most
+sublime of our emotions are able to find an object far more worthy and much
+more glorious than has ever been supplied to them by any of the older forms
+of Theism; and it is a system, therefore, in which, with a greatly enlarged
+and intensified meaning, we may worship God, and all that is within us
+bless His holy name. Assuredly a proclamation such as this, emanating from
+the most authoritative expounders of modern thought, as the highest and the
+greatest result to which a rigorous philosophic synthesis has led, is a
+proclamation which cannot fail to arrest our most serious attention. Nay,
+may it not do more than this? May it not appeal to hearts which long have
+ceased to worship? May it not once more revive a hope--long banished,
+perhaps, but still the dearest which our poor natures have
+experienced--that somewhere, sometime, or in some way, it may yet be
+possible to feel that God is not far from any one of us? For to those who
+have known the anguish of a shattered faith, it will not seem so childish
+that our hearts should beat the quicker when we once more hear a voice
+announcing to a world of superstitious idolaters--"Whom ye ignorantly
+worship, Him declare I unto you." But if, when we have listened to the glad
+tidings of the new gospel, we find that the preacher, though apparently in
+earnest, is not worthy to be heard again on this matter; and if, as we turn
+away, our eyes grow dim with the memory of a vanished dream, surely we may
+feel that the preacher is deserving of our blame for obtruding thus upon
+the most sacred of our sorrows.
+
+Mr. John Fiske is, as is well known, an author who unites in himself the
+qualities of a well-read student of philosophy, a clear and accurate
+thinker, a thorough master of the principles which in his recent work he
+undertakes to explain and to extend, and a writer gifted in a remarkable
+degree with the power of lucid exposition. Such being the intellectual
+calibre of the man who elaborates this new system of scientific theology, I
+confess that, on first seeing his work, I experienced a faint hope that, in
+the higher departments of the Philosophy of Evolution as conceived by Mr.
+Spencer and elaborated by his disciple, there might be found some rational
+justification for an attenuated form of Theism. But on examination I find
+that the bread which these fathers have offered us turns out to be a stone;
+and thinking that it is desirable to warn other of the children--whether of
+the family Philosophical or Theological--against swallowing on trust a
+morsel so injurious, I shall endeavour to point out what I conceive to be
+the true nature of "Cosmic Theism."
+
+Starting from the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge, Mr. Fiske,
+following Mr. Spencer, proceeds to show how the doctrine implies that there
+must be a mode of Being to which human knowledge is non-relative. Or, in
+other words, he shows that the postulation of phenomena necessitates the
+further postulation of noumena of which phenomena are the manifestations.
+Now what may we affirm of noumena without departing from a scientific or
+objective mode of philosophising? We may affirm at least this much of
+noumena, that they constitute a mode of existence which need not
+necessarily vanish were our consciousness to perish; and, therefore, that
+they now stand out of necessary relation to our consciousness. Or, in other
+words, so far as human consciousness is concerned, noumena must be regarded
+as absolute. "But now, what do we mean by this affirmation of absolute
+reality independent of the conditions of the process of knowing? Do we mean
+to ... affirm, in language savouring strongly of scholasticism, that
+beneath the phenomena which we call subjective there is an occult
+substratum Mind, and beneath the phenomena which we call objective there is
+an occult substratum Matter? Our conclusion cannot be stated in any such
+form.... Our conclusion is simply this, that no theory of phenomena,
+external or internal, can be framed without postulating an Absolute
+Existence of which phenomena are the manifestations. And now let us
+carefully note what follows. We cannot identify this Absolute Existence
+with Mind, since what we know as Mind is a series of phenomenal
+manifestations.... Nor can we identify this Absolute Existence with Matter,
+since what we know as Matter is a series of phenomenal manifestations....
+Absolute Existence, therefore,--the Reality which persists independently of
+us, and of which Mind and Matter are the phenomenal manifestations,--cannot
+be identified either with Mind or with Matter. Thus is Materialism included
+in the same condemnation with Idealism.... See then how far we have
+travelled from the scholastic theory of occult substrata underlying each
+group of phenomena. These substrata were but the ghosts of the phenomena
+themselves; behind the tree or the mountain a sort of phantom tree or
+mountain, which persists after the body of perception has gone away with
+the departure of the percipient mind. Clearly this is no scientific
+interpretation of the facts, but is rather a specimen of naive barbaric
+thought surviving in metaphysics. The tree or mountain being groups of
+phenomena, what we assert as persisting independently of the percipient
+mind is a something which we are unable to condition either as tree or as
+mountain.
+
+"And now we come down to the very bottom of the problem. Since we do
+postulate Absolute Existence, and do not postulate a particular occult
+substance underlying each group of phenomena, are we to be understood as
+implying that there is a single Being of which all phenomena, internal and
+external to consciousness, are manifestations? Such must seem to be the
+inevitable conclusion, since we are able to carry on thinking at all only
+under the relations of Difference and No-difference.... It may seem that,
+since we cannot attribute to the Absolute Reality any relations of
+Difference, we must positively ascribe to it No-difference. Or, what is the
+same thing, in refusing to predicate multiplicity of it, do we not
+virtually predicate of it unity? We do, simply because we cannot think
+without so doing."[38]
+
+A single Absolute Reality being thus posited, our author proceeds, towards
+the close of his work, to argue that as this Reality cannot be conceived as
+limited either in space or time, it constitutes a Being which corresponds
+with our essential conception of Deity. True it is devoid of certain
+accessory attributes, such as personality, intelligence, and volition; but
+for this very reason, it is insisted, the theistic ideal as thus presented
+is a purer, and therefore a better, ideal than has ever been presented
+before. Nay, it is the highest possible form of this ideal, as the
+following considerations will show. In what has consisted that continuous
+purification of Theism which the history of thought shows to have been
+effected, from the grossest form of belief in supernatural agency as
+exhibited in Fetichism, through its more refined form as exhibited in
+Polytheism, to its still more refined form as exhibited in Monotheism? In
+nothing but in a continuous process of what Mr. Fiske calls
+"deanthropomorphisation." Consequently, must we not conclude that when we
+carry this process yet one step further, and divest our conception of Deity
+of all the yet lingering remnants of anthropomorphism which occur in the
+current conceptions of Deity, we are but still further purifying that
+conception? Assuredly, the attributes of personality, intelligence, and so
+forth, are only known as attributes of Humanity, and therefore to ascribe
+them to Deity is but to foster, in a more refined form, the anthropomorphic
+teachings of previous religions. But if we carefully refuse to limit Deity
+by the ascription of any human attributes whatever, and if the only
+attributes which we do ascribe are such as on grounds of pure reason alone
+we are compelled to ascribe, must we not conclude that the form of Theism
+which results is the purest and the most refined form in which it is
+possible for Theism to exist? "From the anthropomorphic point of view it
+will quite naturally be urged in objection, that this apparently desirable
+result is reached through the degradation of Deity from an 'intelligent
+personality' to a 'blind force,' and is therefore in reality an undesirable
+and perhaps quasi-atheistic result."[39] But the question which really
+presents itself is, "theologically phrased, whether the creature is to be
+taken as a measure of the Creator. Scientifically phrased, the question is
+whether the highest form of Being as yet suggested to one petty race of
+creatures by its ephemeral experience of what is going on in one tiny
+corner of the universe, is necessarily to be taken as the equivalent of
+that absolutely highest form of Being in which all the possibilities of
+existence are alike comprehended."[40] Therefore, in conclusion, "whether
+or not it is true that, within the bounds of the phenomenal universe the
+highest type of existence is that which we know as humanity, the conclusion
+is in every way forced upon us that, quite independently of limiting
+conditions in space or time, there is a form of Being which can neither be
+assimilated to humanity nor to any lower type of existence. We have no
+alternative, therefore, but to regard it as higher than humanity, even 'as
+the heavens are higher than the earth,' and except for the intellectual
+arrogance which the arguments of theologians show lurking beneath their
+expressions of humility, there is no reason why this admission should not
+be made unreservedly, without the anthropomorphic qualifications by which
+its effect is commonly nullified. The time is surely coming when the
+slowness of men in accepting such a conclusion will be marvelled at, and
+when the very inadequacy of human language to express Divinity will be
+regarded as a reason for a deeper faith and more solemn adoration."[41]
+
+I have now sufficiently detailed the leading principles of Cosmic Theism to
+render a clear and just conception of those fundamental parts of the system
+which I am about to criticise; but it is needless to say that, for all
+minor details of this system, I must refer those who may not already have
+perused them to Mr. Fiske's somewhat elaborate essays. In now beginning my
+criticisms, it may be well to state at the outset, that they are to be
+restricted to the philosophical aspect of the subject. With matters of
+sentiment I do not intend to deal,--partly because to do so would be unduly
+to extend this essay, and partly also because I believe that, so far as the
+acceptance or the rejection of Cosmic Theism is to be determined by
+sentiment, much, if not all, will depend on individual habits of thought.
+For whether or not Cosmic Theism is to be regarded as a religion adapted to
+the needs of any individual man, will depend on what these needs are felt
+to be by that man himself: we cannot assert magisterially that this
+religion must be adapted to his needs because we have found it to be
+adapted to our own. And if it is retorted that, human nature being
+everywhere the same, a form of religion that is adapted to one man must on
+this account be adapted to another, I reply that it is not so. For if a man
+who is what Mr. Fiske calls an "Anthropomorphic Theist" finds from
+experience that his system of religion--say Christianity--creates and
+sustains a class of emotions and general habits of thought which he feels
+to be the highest and the best of which he is capable, it is useless for a
+"Cosmic Theist" to offer such a man another system of religion, in which
+the conditions essential to the existence of these particular emotions and
+habits of thought are manifestly absent. For such a man cannot but feel
+that the proffered substitution would be tantamount, if accepted, to an
+utter destruction of all that he regards as essentially religious. He will
+tell us that he finds it perfectly easy to understand and to appreciate
+those feelings of vague awe and "worship of the silent kind" which the
+Cosmic Theist declares to be fostered by Cosmic Theism; but he will also
+tell us that those feelings, which he has experienced with equal vividness
+under his own system of Anthropomorphic Theism, are to him but as
+non-religious dross compared with the unspeakable felicity of holding
+definite commune with the Almighty and Most Merciful, or of rendering
+worship that is a glad hosanna--a fearless shout of joy. On the other hand,
+I believe that it is possible for philosophic habits of thought so to
+discipline the mind that the feelings of vague awe and silent worship in
+the presence of an appalling Mystery become more deep and steady than a
+theist proper can well believe. It is therefore impossible that either
+party can fully appreciate those sentiments of the other which they have
+never fully experienced themselves; for even in those cases where an
+anthropomorphic theist has been compelled to abandon his creed, as the
+change must take place in mature life, his tone of mind has been determined
+before it does take place; and therefore in sentiment, though not in faith,
+he is more or less of a theist for the rest of his life: the only effect of
+the change is to create a troubled interference between his desires and his
+beliefs.
+
+However, I do not intend to develop this branch of the subject further than
+thus to point out, in a general way, that religion-mongers as a class are
+apt to show too little regard for the sentiments, as distinguished from the
+beliefs, of those to whom they offer their wares. But although I do not
+intend to constitute myself a champion of theology by pointing out the
+defects of Cosmic Theism in the aspect which it presents to current modes
+of thought, there is one such defect which I must here dwell upon, because
+we shall afterwards have occasion to refer to it. A theologian may very
+naturally make this objection to Cosmic Theism as presented by Mr.
+Fiske--viz., that the argument on which this philosopher throughout relies
+as a self-evident demonstration that the new system of Theism is a further
+and a final improvement on all the previous systems of Theism, is a
+fallacious argument. As we have already seen, this argument is, that as the
+progress in the purification of Theism has throughout consisted in a
+process of "deanthropomorphisation," therefore the terminal phase in this
+process, which Cosmic Theism introduces, must be still in the direction of
+that progress. But to this argument a theologian may not unreasonably
+object, that this terminal phase differs from all the previous phases in
+one all-important feature--viz., in effecting a _total abolition_ of the
+anthropomorphic element. Before, therefore, it can be shown that this
+terminal phase is a further development of _Theism_, it must he shown that
+Theism still remains Theism after this hitherto characteristic element has
+been removed. If it is true, as Mr. Fiske very properly insists, that all
+the various forms of belief in God have thus far had this as a common
+factor, that they ascribed to God the attributes of Man; it becomes a
+question whether we may properly abstract this hitherto invariable factor
+of a belief, and still call that belief by the same name. Or, to put the
+matter in another light, as cosmists maintain that Theism, in all the
+phases of its development, has been the product of a probably erroneous
+theory of personal agency in nature, when this theory is expressly
+discarded--as it is by the doctrine of the Unknowable--is it
+philosophically legitimate for cosmists to render their theory of things in
+terms which belong to the totally different theory which they discard? No
+doubt it is true that the progressive refinement of Theism has throughout
+consisted in a progressive discarding of anthropomorphic qualities; but
+this fact does not touch the consideration that, when we proceed to strip
+off the last remnants of these qualities, we are committing an act which
+differs _toto coelo_ from all the previous acts which are cited as
+precedents; for by this terminal act we are not, as heretofore, _refining_
+the theory of Theism--we are completely _transforming_ it by removing an
+element which, both genetically and historically, would seem to constitute
+the very essence of Theism.
+
+Or the case may be presented in yet another light. The only use of terms,
+whether in daily talk or in philosophical disquisition, is that of
+designating certain things or attributes to which by general custom we
+agree to affix them; so that if anyone applies a term to some thing or
+attribute which general custom does not warrant him in so applying, he is
+merely laying himself open to the charge of abusing that term. Now apply
+these elementary principles to the case before us. We have but to think of
+the disgust with which the vast majority of living persons would regard the
+sense in which Mr. Fiske uses the term "Theism," to perceive how intimate
+is the association of that term with the idea of a Personal God. Such
+persons will feel strongly that, by this final act of purification, Mr.
+Fiske has simply purified the Deity altogether out of existence. And I
+scarcely think it is here competent to reply that all previous acts of
+purification were at first similarly regarded as destructive, because it is
+evident that none of these previous acts affected, as this one does, the
+central core of Theism. And, lastly, if it should be still further
+objected, that by declaring the theory of Personal Agency the central core
+of Theism, I am begging the question as to the appropriateness of Mr.
+Fiske's use of the word "Theism,"--seeing he appears to regard the
+essential meaning of this word to be that of a postulation of merely Causal
+Agency,--I answer, More of this anon; but meanwhile let it be observed that
+any charge of question-begging lies rather at the door of Mr. Fiske, in
+that he assumes, without any expressed justification, that the essence of
+Theism _does_ consist in such a postulation and in nothing more. And as he
+unquestionably has against him the present world of theists no less than
+the history of Theism in the past, I do not see how he is to meet this
+charge except by confessing to an abuse of the term in question.
+
+I will now proceed to examine the structure of Cosmic Theism. We are all, I
+suppose, at one in allowing that there are only three "verbally
+intelligible" theories of the universe,--viz., that it is self-existent, or
+that it is self-created, or that it has been created by some other and
+external Being. It is usual to call the first of these theories Atheism,
+the second Pantheism, and the third Theism. Now as there are here three
+distinct nameable theories, it is necessary, if the term "Cosmic Theism" is
+to be justified as an appropriate term, that the particular theory which it
+designates should be shown to be in its essence theistic--_i.e._, that the
+theory should present those distinguishing features in virtue of which
+Theism differs from Atheism on the one hand, and from Pantheism on the
+other. Now what are these features? The postulate of an Eternal
+Self-existing Something is common to Theism and to Atheism. Here Atheism
+ends. Theism, however, is generally said to assume Personality,
+Intelligence, and Creative Power as attributes of the single self-existing
+substance. Lastly, Pantheism assumes the Something now existing to have
+been self-created. To which, then, of these distinct theories is Cosmic
+Theism most nearly allied? For the purpose of answering this question, I
+shall render that theory in terms of a formula which Mr. Fiske presents as
+a full and complete statement of the theory:--"_There exists a_ POWER, _to
+which no limit in space or time is conceivable, of which all phenomena, as
+presented in consciousness, are manifestations, but which we can only know
+through these manifestations._" But although the word "Power" is here so
+strongly emphasised, we are elsewhere told that it is not to be regarded as
+having more than a strictly relative or symbolic meaning; so that, in point
+of fact, some more neutral word, such as "Something," "Being," or
+"Substance," ought in strictness to be here substituted for the word
+"Power." Well, if this is done, we have the postulation of a Being which is
+self-existing, infinite, and eternal--relatively, at all events, to our
+powers of conception. Thus far, therefore, it would seem that we are still
+on the common standing-ground of Atheism, Pantheism, and Theism; for as it
+is not, so far as I can see, incumbent on Pantheism to affirm that "thought
+is a measure of things," the _apparent_ or _relative_ eternity which the
+Primal Something must be supposed to present may not be _actual_ or
+_absolute_ eternity. Nevertheless, as Mr. Fiske, by predicating Divinity of
+the Primal Something, implicitly attributes to it the quality of an
+_eternal_ self-existence, I infer that Cosmic Theism may be concluded at
+this point to part company with Pantheism. There remain, then, Theism and
+Atheism.
+
+Now undoubtedly, at first sight, Cosmic Theism appears to differ from
+Atheism in one all-important particular. For we have seen that, by means of
+a subtle though perfectly logical argument, Cosmic Philosophy has evolved
+this conclusion--that all phenomena as presented in consciousness are
+manifestations of a not improbable Single Self-existing Power, of whose
+existence these manifestations alone can make us cognisant. From which it
+apparently follows, that this hypothetical Power must be regarded as
+existing out of necessary relation to the phenomenal universe; that it is,
+therefore, beyond question "Absolute Being;" and that, as such, we are
+entitled to call it Deity. But in the train of reasoning of which this is a
+very condensed epitome, it is evident that the legitimacy of denominating
+this Absolute Being Deity, must depend on the exact meaning which we attach
+to the word "Absolute"--and this, be it observed, quite apart from the
+question, before touched upon, as to whether Personality and Intelligence
+are not to be considered as attributes essential to Deity. In what sense,
+then, is the word "Absolute" used? It is used in this sense. As from the
+relativity of knowledge we cannot know things in themselves, but only
+symbolical representations of such things, therefore things in themselves
+are absolute to consciousness: but analysis shows that we cannot
+conceivably predicate Difference among things in themselves, so that we are
+at liberty, with due diffidence, to predicate of them No-difference: hence
+the noumena of the schoolmen admit of being collected into a _summum genus_
+of noumenal existence; and since, before their colligation noumena were
+severally absolute, after their colligation they become collectively
+absolute: therefore it is legitimate to designate this sum-total of
+noumenal existence, "Absolute Being." Now there is clearly no exception to
+be taken to the formal accuracy of this reasoning; the only question is as
+to whether the "Absolute Being" which it evolves is absolute in the sense
+required by Theism. I confess that to me this Being appears to be absolute
+in a widely different sense from that in which Deity must be regarded as
+absolute. For this Being is thus seen to be absolute in no other sense than
+as holding--to quote from Mr. Fiske--"existence independent of the
+conditions of the process of knowing." In other words, it is absolute only
+as standing out of necessary relation to _human consciousness_. But Theism
+requires, as an essential feature, that Deity should be absolute as
+standing out of necessary relation to _all else_. Before, therefore, the
+Absolute Being of Cosmism can be shown, by the reasoning adopted, to
+deserve, even in part, the appellation of Deity, it must be shown that
+there is no other mode of Being in existence save our own subjective
+consciousness and the Absolute Reality which becomes objective to it
+through the world of phenomena. But any attempt to establish this position
+would involve a disregard of the doctrine that knowledge is relative; and
+to do this, it is needless to say, would be to destroy the basis of the
+argument whereby the Absolute Being of Cosmism was posited.
+
+Or, to state this part of the criticism in other words, as the first step
+in justifying the predication of Deity, it must be shown that the Being of
+which the predication is made is absolute, and this not merely as
+independent of human consciousness, but as independent of the whole
+noumenal universe--Deity itself alone excepted. That is, the Being of which
+Deity is predicated must be Unconditioned. Hence it is incumbent on Cosmic
+Theism to prove, either that the Causal Agent which it denominates Deity is
+itself the whole noumenal universe, or that it created the rest of a
+noumenal universe; else there is nothing to show that this Causal Agent was
+not itself created--seeing that, even if we assume the existence of a God,
+there is nothing to indicate that the Causal Agent of Cosmism is that God.
+
+It would appear therefore from this, that whatever else the Cosmist's
+theory of things may be, it certainly is not Theism; and I think that
+closer inspection will tend to confirm this judgment. To this then let us
+proceed.
+
+Mr. Fiske is very hard on the atheists, and so will probably repudiate with
+scorn any insinuations to the effect that his theory of things is
+"quasi-atheistic." Nevertheless, it seems to me that he is very unjust to
+the atheists, in that while he spares no pains to "purify" and "refine" the
+theory of the theists, so as at last to leave nothing but what he regards
+as the distilled essence of Theism behind; he habitually leaves the theory
+of the atheists as he finds it, without making any attempt either to
+"purify" it by removing its weak and unnecessary ingredients, or to
+"refine" it by adding such sublimated ingredients as modern speculation has
+supplied. Thus, while he despises the atheists of the eighteenth century
+for their irrationality in believing in the self-existence of a
+_phenomenal_ universe, and reviles them for their irreligion in denying
+that "the religious sentiment needed satisfaction;" he does not wait to
+inquire whether, in its essential substance, the theory of these men is not
+the one that has proved itself best able to withstand the grinding action
+of more recent thought. But let us in fairness ask, What was the essential
+substance of that theory? Apparently it was the bare statement of the
+unthinkable fact that Something Is. It therefore seems to me useless in Mr.
+Fiske to lay so much stress on the fact that this Something was originally
+identified by atheists with the phenomenal universe. It seems useless to do
+this, because such identification is clearly no part of the _essence_ of
+Atheism, which, as just stated, I take to consist in the single dogma of
+self-existence as itself sufficient to constitute a theory of things. And,
+if so, it is a matter of scarcely any moment, as regards that theory,
+whether we are _immediately_ cognisant of that which is self-existent, or
+only become so through the world of phenomena--the vital point of the
+theory being, that Self-existence, _wherever posited_, is itself the only
+admissible explanation of phenomena. Or, in other words, it does not seem
+that there is anything in the atheistic theory, as such, which is
+incompatible with the doctrine of the Relativity of Knowledge; so that
+whatever cogency there may be in the train of reasoning whereby a single
+Causal Agent is deduced from that doctrine, it would seem that an atheist
+has as much right to the benefit of this reasoning as a theist; and there
+is thus no more apparent reason why this single Causal Agent should be
+appropriated as the God of Theism, than that it should be appropriated as
+the Self-existing X of Atheism. Indeed, there seems to be less reason. For
+an atheist of to-day may very properly argue:--'So far from beholding
+anything divine in this Single Being absolute to human consciousness, it is
+just precisely the form of Being which my theory postulates as the
+Self-existing All. In order to constitute such a Being God, it must be
+shown, as we have already seen, to be something more than a merely Causal
+Agent which is absolute in the grotesquely restricted sense of being
+independent of 'one petty race of creatures with an ephemeral experience of
+what is going on in one tiny corner of the universe;' it must be shown to
+be something more than absolute even in the wholly unrestricted sense of
+being Unconditioned; it must be shown to possess such other attributes as
+are distinctive of Deity. For I maintain that even Unconditioned Being,
+_merely as such_, would only then have a right to the name of God when it
+has been shown that the theory of Theism has a right to monopolise the
+doctrine of Relativity.'
+
+In thus endeavouring to "purify" the theory of Atheism, by divesting it of
+all superfluous accessories, and laying bare what I conceive to be its
+essential substance; it may be well to state that, even apart from their
+irreligious character, I have no sympathy with the atheists of the past
+century. I mean, that these men do not seem to me to deserve any credit for
+advanced powers of speculation merely because they adopted a theory of
+things which in its essential features now promises to be the most
+enduring. For it is evident that the strength of this theory now lies in
+its _simplicity_,--in its undertaking to explain, so far as explanation is
+possible, the sum-total of phenomena by the single postulate of
+self-existence. But it seems to me that in the last century there were no
+sufficient data for rendering such a theory of things a rational theory;
+for so long as the quality of self-existence was supposed to reside in
+phenomena themselves, the very simplicity of the theory, as expressed in
+words, must have seemed to render it inapplicable as a reasonable theory of
+things. The astounding variety, complexity, and harmony which are
+everywhere so conspicuous in the world of phenomena must have seemed to
+necessitate as an explanation some one integrating cause; and it is
+impossible that in the eighteenth century any such integrating cause can
+have been conceivable other than Intelligence. Therefore I think, with Mr.
+Fiske, that the atheists of the eighteenth century were irrational in
+applying their single postulate of self-existence as alone a sufficient
+explanation of things. But of course the aspect of the case is now
+completely changed, when we regard it in all the flood of light which has
+been shed on it by recent science, physical and speculative. For the
+demonstration of the fact that energy is indestructible, coupled with the
+corollary that every so-called natural law is a physically necessary
+consequence of that fact, clearly supply us with a completely novel datum
+as the ultimate source of experience--and a datum, moreover, which is as
+different as can well be imagined from the ever-changing, ever-fleeting,
+world of phenomena. We have, therefore, but to apply the postulate of
+self-existence to this single ultimate datum, and we have a theory of
+things as rational as the Atheism of the last century was irrational.
+Nevertheless, that this theory is more akin to the Atheism of the last
+century than to any other theory of that time, is, I think, unquestionable;
+for while we retain the central doctrine of self-existence as alone a
+scientifically admissible, or non-gratuitous, explanation of things, we
+only change the original theory by transferring the application of this
+doctrine from the world of manifestations to that which causes the
+manifestations: we do not resort to any of the _additional_ doctrines
+whereby the other theories of the universe were distinguished from the
+theory of Atheism in its original form. However, as by our recognition of
+the relativity of knowledge we are precluded from dogmatically denying any
+theory of the universe that may be proposed, it would clearly be erroneous
+to identify the doctrine of the Unknowable with the theory of Atheism: all
+we can say is, that, so far as speculative thought can soar, the permanent
+self-existence of an inconceivable Something, which manifests itself to
+consciousness as force and matter, constitutes the only datum that can be
+shown to be required for the purposes of a rational ontology.
+
+To sum up. In the theory which Mr. Fiske calls Cosmic Theism, while I am
+able to discern the elements which I think may properly be regarded as
+common to Theism and to Atheism, I am not able to discern any single
+element that is specifically distinctive of Theism. Still I am far from
+concluding that the theory in question is the theory of Atheism. All I wish
+to insist upon is this--that as the Absolute Being of Cosmism presents no
+other qualities than such as are required by the renovated theory of
+Atheism, its postulation supplies a basis, not for Theism, but for
+Non-theism: a man with such a postulate ought in strictness to abstain from
+either affirming or denying the existence of God. And this, I may observe,
+appears to be the position which Mr. Spencer himself has adopted as the
+only logical outcome of his doctrine of the Unknowable--a position which,
+in my opinion, it is most undesirable to obscure by endeavouring to give it
+a quasi-theistic interpretation. I may further observe, that we here seem
+to have a philosophical justification of the theological sentiment
+previously alluded to--the sentiment, namely, that by his attempt at a
+final purification of Theism, Mr. Fiske has destroyed those essential
+features of the theory in virtue of which alone it exists as Theism. For
+seeing it is impossible, from the relativity of knowledge, that the
+Absolute Being of Cosmism can ever be shown absolute in the sense required
+by Theism, and, even if it could, that it would still be but the
+Unconditioned Being of Atheism; it follows that if this Absolute Being is
+to be shown even in part to deserve the appellation of Deity, it must be
+shown to possess the only remaining attributes which are distinctive of
+Deity--to wit, personality and intelligence. But forasmuch as the final act
+of purifying the conception of Deity consists, according to Mr. Fiske, in
+expressly removing these particular attributes from the object of that
+conception, does it not follow that the conception which remains is, as I
+have said, not theistic, but non-theistic?
+
+Here my criticism might properly have ended, were it not that Mr. Fiske,
+after having divested the Deity of all his psychical attributes, forthwith
+proceeds to show how it may be dimly possible to reinvest him with
+attributes that are "quasi-psychical." Mr. Fiske is, of course, far too
+subtle a thinker not to see that his previous argument from relativity
+precludes him from assigning much weight to the ontological speculations in
+which he here indulges, seeing that in whatever degree the relativity of
+knowledge renders legitimate the non-ascription to Deity of known psychical
+attributes, in some such degree at least must it render illegitimate the
+ascription to Deity of unknown psychical attributes. But in the part of his
+work in which he treats of the quasi-psychical attributes, Mr. Fiske is
+merely engaged in showing that the speculative standing of the
+"materialists" is inferior to that of the "spiritualists;" so that, as this
+is a subject distinct from Theism, he is not open to the charge of
+inconsistency. Well, feeble as these speculations undoubtedly are in the
+support which they render to Theism, it nevertheless seems desirable to
+consider them before closing this review. The speculations in question are
+quoted from Mr. Spencer, and are as follows:--
+
+"Mind, as known to the possessor of it, is a circumscribed aggregate of
+activities; and the cohesion of these activities, one with another,
+throughout the aggregate, compels the postulation of a something of which
+they are the activities. But the same experiences which make him aware of
+this coherent aggregate of mental activities, simultaneously make him aware
+of activities that are not included in it--outlying activities which become
+known by their effects on this aggregate, but which are experimentally
+proved to be not coherent with it, and to be coherent with one another
+(_First Principles_, Sec.Sec. 43, 44). As, by the definition of them, these
+external activities cannot be brought within the aggregate of activities
+distinguished as those of Mind, they must for ever remain to him nothing
+more than the unknown correlatives of their effects on this aggregate; and
+can be thought of only in terms furnished by this aggregate. Hence, if he
+regards his conceptions of these activities lying beyond Mind as
+constituting knowledge of them, he is deluding himself: he is but
+representing these activities in terms of Mind, and can never do otherwise.
+Eventually he is obliged to admit that his ideas of Matter and Motion,
+merely symbolic of unknowable realities, are complex states of
+consciousness built out of units of feeling. But if, after admitting this,
+he persists in asking whether units of feeling are of the same nature as
+the units of force distinguished as external, or whether the units of force
+distinguished as external are of the same nature as units of feeling; then
+the reply, still substantially the same, is that we may go further towards
+conceiving units of external force to be identical with units of feeling,
+than we can towards conceiving units of feeling to be identical with units
+of external force. Clearly, if units of external force are regarded as
+absolutely unknown and unknowable, then to translate units of feeling into
+them is to translate the known into the unknown, which is absurd. And if
+they are what they are supposed to be by those who identify them with their
+symbols, then the difficulty of translating units of feeling into them is
+insurmountable: if Force as it objectively exists is absolutely alien in
+nature from that which exists subjectively as Feeling, then the
+transformation of Force into Feeling is unthinkable. Either way, therefore,
+it is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of outer existence.
+But if, on the other hand, units of Force as they exist objectively are
+essentially the same in nature with those manifested subjectively as units
+of Feeling, then a conceivable hypothesis remains open. Every element of
+that aggregate of activities constituting a consciousness is known as
+belonging to consciousness only by its cohesion with the rest. Beyond the
+limits of this coherent aggregate of activities exist activities quite
+independent of it, and which cannot be brought into it. We may imagine,
+then, that by their exclusion from the circumscribed activities
+constituting consciousness, these outer activities, though of the same
+intrinsic nature, become antithetically opposed in aspect. Being
+disconnected from consciousness, or cut off by its limits, they are thereby
+rendered foreign to it. Not being incorporated with its activities, or
+linked with these as they are with one another, consciousness cannot, as it
+were, run through them; and so they come to be figured as unconscious--are
+symbolised as having the nature called material, as opposed to that called
+spiritual. While, however, it thus seems an imaginable possibility that
+units of external Force may be identical in nature with units of the force
+known as Feeling, yet we cannot by so representing them get any nearer to a
+comprehension of external Force. For, as already shown, supposing all forms
+of Mind to be composed of homogeneous units of feeling variously
+aggregated, the resolution of them into such units leaves us as unable as
+before to think of the substance of Mind as it exists in such units; and
+thus, even could we really figure to ourselves all units of external Force
+as being essentially like units of the force known as Feeling, and as so
+constituting a universal sentiency, we should be as far as ever from
+forming a conception of that which is universally sentient."[42]
+
+Now while I agree with Mr. Fiske that we have here "the most subtle
+conclusion now within the ken of the scientific speculator, reached without
+any disregard of the canons prescribed by the doctrine of relativity," I
+would like to point out to minds less clear-sighted than his, that this
+same "doctrine of relativity" effectually debars us from using this
+"conclusion" as an argument of any assignable value in favour of Theism.
+For the value of conceivability as a test of truth, on which this
+conclusion is founded, is here vitiated by the consideration that,
+_whatever_ the nature of Force-units may be, we can clearly perceive it to
+be a subjective necessity of the case that they should admit of being more
+easily conceived by us to be of the nature of Feeling-units than to be of
+any other nature. For as units of Feeling are the only entities of which we
+are, or can be, conscious, they are the entities into which units of Force
+must be, so to speak, subjectively translated before we can cognise their
+existence at all. Therefore, _whatever_ the real nature of Force-units may
+be, ultimate analysis must show that it is more conceivable to identify
+them in thought with the only units of which we are cognisant, than it is
+to think of them as units of which we are not cognisant, and concerning
+which, therefore, conception is necessarily impossible. Or thus, the only
+alternative with respect to the classifying of Force-units lies between
+refusing to classify them at all, or classifying them with the only
+ultimate units with which we are acquainted. But this restriction, for
+aught that can ever be shown to the contrary, arises only from the
+subjective conditions of our own consciousness; there is nothing to
+indicate that, in objective reality, units of Force are in any wise akin to
+units of Feeling. Conceivability, therefore, as a test of truth, is in this
+particular case of no assignable degree of value; for as the entities to
+which it is applied are respectively the highest known abstractions of
+subjective and objective existence, the test of conceivability is
+neutralised by directly encountering the inconceivable relation that
+subsists between subject and object. I think, therefore, it is evident that
+these ontological speculations present no sufficient warrant for an
+inference, even of the slenderest kind, that the Absolute Being of Cosmism
+possesses attributes of a nature quasi-psychical; and, if so, it follows
+that these speculations are incompetent to form the basis of a theory
+which, even by the greatest stretch of courtesy, can in any legitimate
+sense be termed quasi-theistic.[43]
+
+On the whole, then, I conclude that the term "Cosmic Theism" is not an
+appropriate term whereby to denote the theory of things set forth in
+"Cosmic Philosophy;" and that it would therefore be more judicious to leave
+the doctrine of the Unknowable as Mr. Spencer has left it--that is, without
+theological implications of any kind. But in now taking leave of this
+subject, I should like it to be understood that the only reason why I have
+ventured thus to take exception to a part of Mr. Fiske's work is because I
+regret that a treatise which displays so much of literary excellence and
+philosophic power should lend itself to promoting what I regard as mistaken
+views concerning the ontological tendencies of recent thought, and this
+with no other apparent motive than that of unworthily retaining in the new
+philosophy a religious term the distinctive connotations of which are
+considered by that philosophy to have become obsolete.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+II.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAY IN REPLY TO A RECENT WORK ON THEISM.[44]
+
+On perusing my main essay several years after its completion, it occurred
+to me that another very effectual way of demonstrating the immense
+difference between the nature of all previous attacks upon the teleological
+argument and the nature of the present attack, would be briefly to review
+the reasonable objections to which all the previous attacks were open. Very
+opportunely a work on Theism has just been published which states these
+objections with great lucidity, and answers them with much ability. The
+work to which I allude is by the Rev. Professor Flint, and as it is
+characterised by temperate candour in tone and logical care in exposition,
+I felt on reading it that the work was particularly well suited for
+displaying the enormous change in the speculative standing of Theism which
+the foregoing considerations must be rationally deemed to have effected. I
+therefore determined on throwing my supplementary essay, which I had
+previously intended to write, into the form of a criticism on Professor
+Flint's treatise, and I adopted this course the more willingly because
+there are several other points dwelt upon in that treatise which it seems
+desirable for me to consider in the present one, although, for the sake of
+conciseness, I abstained from discussing them in my previous essay. With
+these two objects in view, therefore, I undertook the following
+criticism.[45]
+
+In the first place, it is needful to protest against an argument which our
+author adopts on the authority of Professor Clark Maxwell. The argument is
+now a well-known one, and is thus stated by Professor Maxwell in his
+presidential address before the British Association for the Advancement of
+Science, 1870:--"None of the processes of nature, since the time when
+nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of
+any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of
+the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any
+of the causes which we call natural. On the other hand, the exact quality
+of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it, as Sir John
+Herschel has well said, the essential character of a manufactured article,
+and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. Thus we have
+been led along a strictly scientific path, very near to the point at which
+science must stop. Not that science is debarred from studying the external
+mechanism of a molecule which she cannot take to pieces, any more than from
+investigating an organism which she cannot put together. But in tracing
+back the history of matter, science is arrested when she assures herself,
+on the one hand, that the molecule has been made, and, on the other, that
+it has not been made by any of the processes we call natural."
+
+Now it is obvious that we have here no real argument, since it is obvious
+that science can never be in a position to assert that atoms, the very
+existence of which is hypothetical, were never "made by any of the
+processes we call natural." The mere fact that in the universe, as we now
+know it, the evolution of material atoms is not observed to be taking place
+"by any of the processes we call natural," cannot possibly be taken as
+proof, or even as presumption, that there ever was a time when the material
+atoms now in existence were created by a supernatural cause. The fact
+cannot be taken to justify any such inference for the following reasons. In
+the first place, assuming the atomic theory to be true, and there is
+nothing in the argument to show that the now-existing atoms are not
+self-existing atoms, endowed with their peculiar and severally distinctive
+properties from all eternity. Doubtless the argument is, that as there
+appear to be some sixty or more elementary atoms constituting the raw
+material of the observable universe, it is incredible that they can all
+have owed their correlated properties to any cause other than that of a
+designing and manufacturing intelligence. But, in the next place--and here
+comes the demolishing force of the criticism--science is not in a position
+to assert that these sixty or more elementary atoms are in any real sense
+of the term elementary. The mere fact that chemistry is as yet in too
+undeveloped a condition to pronounce whether or not all the forms of matter
+known to her are modifications of some smaller number of elements, or even
+of a single element, cannot possibly be taken as a warrant for so huge an
+inference as that there are really more than sixty elements all endowed
+with absolutely distinctive properties by a supernatural cause. Now this
+consideration, which arises immediately from the doctrine of the relativity
+of knowledge, is alone amply sufficient to destroy the present argument.
+But we must not on this account lose sight of the fact that, even to our
+strictly relative science in its present embryonic condition, we are not
+without decided indications, not only that the so-called elements are
+probably for the most part compounds, but even that matter as a whole is
+one substance, which is itself probably but some modification of energy.
+Indeed, the whole tendency of recent scientific speculation is towards the
+view that the universe consists of some one substance, which, whether
+self-existing or created, is diverse only in its relation to ignorance. And
+if this view is correct, how obvious is the inference which I have
+elaborated in Sec. 32, that all the diverse forms of matter, as we know them,
+were probably evolved by natural causes. So obvious, indeed, is this
+inference, that to resort to any supernatural hypothesis to explain the
+diverse properties of the various chemical elements appears to me a most
+glaring violation of the law of parcimony--as much more glaring, for
+instance, than the violation of this law by Paley, as the number and
+variety of organic species are greater than the number and variety of
+chemical species. And if it was illegitimate in Paley to use a mere absence
+of knowledge as to how the transmutation of apparently fixed species of
+animals was effected as equivalent to the possession of knowledge that such
+transmutation had not been effected, how much more illegitimate must it be
+to commit a similar sin against logic in the case of the chemical elements,
+where our classification is confessedly beset with numberless difficulties,
+and when we begin to discern that in all probability it is a classification
+essentially artificial. Lastly, the mere fact that the transmutation of
+chemical species and the evolution of chemical "atoms" are processes which
+we do not now observe as occurring in nature, is surely a consideration of
+a far more feeble kind than it is even in the case of biological species
+and biological evolution; seeing that nature's laboratory must be now so
+inconceivably different from what it was during the condensation of the
+nebula. What an atrocious piece of arrogance, therefore, it is to assert
+that "none of the processes of nature, _since the time when nature began_,
+have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule!"
+No one can entertain a higher respect for Professor Clark Maxwell than I
+do; but a single sentence of such a kind as this cannot leave two opinions
+in any impartial mind concerning his competency to deal with such subjects.
+
+I am therefore sorry to see this absurd argument approvingly incorporated
+in Professor Flint's work. He says, "I believe that no reply to these words
+of Professor Clark Maxwell is possible from any one who holds the ordinary
+view of scientific men as to the ultimate constitution of matter. They must
+suppose every atom, every molecule, to be of such a nature, to be so
+related to others and to the universe generally, that things may be such as
+we see them to be; but this their fitness to be built up into the structure
+of the universe is a proof that they have been made fit, and since natural
+forces could not have acted on them while not yet existent, a supernatural
+power must have created them, and created them with a view to their
+manifold uses." Here the inference so confidently drawn would have been a
+weak one even were we not able to see that the doctrine of natural
+evolution probably applies to inorganic nature no less than to organic. For
+the inference is drawn from considerations of a character so transcendental
+and so remote from science, that unless we wish to be deceived by a merely
+verbal argument, we must feel that the possibilities of error in the
+inference are so numerous and indefinite, that the inference itself is
+well-nigh worthless as a basis of belief. But when we add that in Chapter
+IV. of the foregoing essay it has been shown to be within the legitimate
+scope of scientific reasoning to conclude that material atoms have been
+progressively evolved _pari passu_ with the natural laws of chemical
+combination, it is evident that any force which the present argument could
+ever have had must now be pronounced as neutralised. Natural causes have
+been shown, so far as scientific inference can extend, as not improbably
+sufficient to produce the observed effects; and therefore we are no longer
+free to invoke the hypothetical action of any supernatural cause.
+
+The same observations apply to Professor Flint's theistic argument drawn
+from recent scientific speculations as to the vortex-ring construction of
+matter. If these speculations are sound, their only influence on Theism
+would be that of supplying a scientific demonstration of the substantial
+identity of Force and Matter, and so of supplying a still more valid basis
+for the theory as to the natural genesis of matter from a single primordial
+substance, in the manner sketched out in Chapter IV. For the argument
+adduced by Professor Flint, that as the manner in which the vorticial
+motion of a ring is originated has not as yet been suggested, therefore its
+origination must have been due to a "Divine impulse," is an argument which
+again uses the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its possession. We are
+in the presence of a very novel and highly abstruse theory, or rather
+hypothesis, in physics, which was originally suggested by, and has hitherto
+been mainly indebted to, empirical experiments as distinguished from
+mathematical calculations; and from the mere fact that, in the case of such
+a hypothesis, mathematicians have not as yet been able to determine the
+physical conditions required to originate vorticial motion, we are expected
+to infer that no such conditions can ever have existed, and therefore that
+every such vortex system, if it exists, is a miracle!
+
+And substantially the same criticism applies to the argument which
+Professor Flint adduces--the argument also on which Professors Balfour and
+Tait lay so much stress in their work on the _Unseen Universe_--the
+argument, namely, as to the non-eternal character of heat. The calculations
+on which this argument depends would only be valid as sustaining this
+argument if they were based upon a knowledge of the universe _as a whole_;
+and therefore, as before, the absence of requisite knowledge must not be
+used as equivalent to its possession.
+
+These, however, are the weakest parts of Professor Flint's work. I
+therefore gladly turn to those parts which are exceedingly cogent as
+written from his standpoint, but which, in view of the strictures on the
+teleological argument that I have adduced in Chapters IV. and VI., I submit
+to be now wholly valueless.
+
+"How could matter of itself produce order, even if it were self-existent
+and eternal? It is far more unreasonable to believe that the atoms or
+constituents of matter produced of themselves, without the action of a
+Supreme Mind, this wonderful universe, than that the letters of the English
+alphabet produced the plays of Shakespeare, without the slightest
+assistance from the human mind known by that famous name. These atoms
+might, perhaps, now and then, here and there, at great distances and long
+intervals, produce by a chance contact some curious collocation or
+compound; but never could they produce order or organisation on an
+extensive scale, or of a durable character, unless ordered, arranged, and
+adjusted in ways of which intelligence alone can be the ultimate
+explanation. To believe that these fortuitous and indirected movements
+could originate the universe, and all the harmonies and utilities and
+beauties which abound in it, evinces a credulity far more extravagant than
+has ever been displayed by the most superstitious of religionists. Yet no
+consistent materialist can refuse to accept this colossal chance
+hypothesis. All the explanations of the order of the universe which
+materialists, from Democritus and Epicurus to Diderot and Lange, have
+devised, rest on the assumption that the elements of matter, being eternal,
+must pass through infinite combinations, and that one of these must be our
+present world--a special collocation among the countless millions of
+collocations, past and future. Throw the letters of the Greek alphabet, it
+has been said, an infinite number of times, and you must produce the
+'Iliad' and all the Greek books. The theory of probabilities, I need hardly
+say, requires us to believe nothing so absurd.... But what is the 'Iliad'
+to the hymn of creation and the drama of providence?" &c.
+
+Now this I conceive to have been a fully valid argument at the time it was
+published, and indeed the most convincing of all the arguments in favour of
+Theism. But, as already so frequently pointed out, the considerations
+adduced in Chapter IV. of the present work are utterly destructive of this
+argument. For this argument assumes, rightly enough, that the only
+alternative we have in choosing our hypothesis concerning the final
+explanation of things is either to regard that explanation as Intelligence
+or as Fortuity. This, I say, was a legitimate argument a few months ago,
+because up to that time no one had shown that strictly natural causes, as
+distinguished from chances, could conceivably be able to produce a cosmos;
+and although the several previous writers to whom Professor Flint
+alludes--and he might have alluded to others in this
+connection--entertained a dim anticipation of the fact that natural causes
+might alone be sufficient to produce the observed universe, still these dim
+anticipations were worthless as _arguments_ so long as it remained
+impossible to suggest any natural _principle_ whereby such a result could
+have been conceivably effected by such causes. But it is evident that
+Professor Flint's time-honoured argument is now completely overthrown,
+unless it can be proved that there is some radical error in the reasoning
+whereby I have endeavoured to show that natural causes not only _may_, but
+_must_, have produced existing order. The overthrow is complete, because
+the very groundwork of the argument in question is knocked away; a third
+possibility, of the nature of a necessity, is introduced, and therefore the
+alternative is no longer between Intelligence and Fortuity, but between
+Intelligence and Natural Causation. Whereas the overwhelming strength of
+the argument from Order has hitherto consisted in the supposition of
+Intelligence as the one and only conceivable cause of the integration of
+things, my exposition in Chapter IV. has shown that such integration must
+have been due, at all events in a relative or proximate sense, to a
+strictly physical cause--the persistence of force and the consequent
+self-evolution of natural law. And the question as to whether or not
+Intelligence may not have been the absolute or ultimate cause is manifestly
+a question altogether alien to the argument from Order; for if existing
+order admits of being accounted for, in a relative or proximate sense, by
+merely physical causes, the argument from a relative or proximate order is
+not at liberty to infer or to assume the existence of any higher or more
+ultimate cause. Although, therefore, in Chapter V., I have been careful to
+point out that the fact of existing order having been due to proximate or
+natural causes does not actually _disprove_ the possible existence of an
+ultimate and supernatural cause, still it must be carefully observed that
+this _negative_ fact cannot possibly justify any _positive_ inference to
+the existence of such a cause.
+
+Thus, upon the whole, it may be said, without danger of reasonable dispute,
+that as the argument from Order has hitherto derived its immense weight
+entirely from the fact that Intelligence appeared to be the one and only
+cause sufficient to produce the observed integration of the cosmos, this
+immense weight has now been completely counterpoised by the demonstration
+that other causes of a strictly physical kind must have been instrumental,
+if not themselves alone sufficient, to produce this integration, So that,
+just as in the case of Astronomy the demonstration of the one natural
+principle of gravity was sufficient to classify under one physical
+explanation several observed facts which many persons had previously
+attributed to supernatural causes; and just as in the more complex science
+of Geology the demonstration of the one principle of uniformitarianism was
+sufficient to explain, without the aid of supernaturalism, a still greater
+number of facts; and, lastly, just as in the case of the still more complex
+science of Biology the demonstration of the one principle of natural
+selection was sufficient to marshal under one scientific, or natural,
+hypothesis an almost incalculable number of facts which were previously
+explained by the metaphysical hypothesis of supernatural design; so in the
+science which includes all other sciences, and which we may term the
+science of Cosmology, I assert with confidence that in the one principle of
+the persistence of force we have a demonstrably harmonising principle,
+whereby all the facts within our experience admit of being collocated under
+one natural explanation, without there being the smallest reason to
+attribute these facts to any supernatural cause.
+
+But perhaps the immense change which these considerations must logically be
+regarded as having produced in the speculative standing of the argument
+from teleology will be better appreciated if I continue to quote from
+Professor Flint's very forcible and thoroughly logical exposition of the
+previous standing of this argument. He says:--
+
+"To ascribe the origination of order to _law_ is a manifest evasion of the
+real problem. Law is order. Law is the very thing to be explained. The
+question is--Has law a reason, or is it without a reason? The unperverted
+human mind cannot believe it to be without a reason."
+
+I do not know where a more terse and accurate statement of the case could
+be found; and to my mind the question so lucidly put admits of the direct
+answer--Law clearly has a reason of a purely physical kind. And therefore I
+submit that the following quotation which Professor Flint makes from
+Professor Jevons, logical as it was when written, must now be regarded as
+embodying an argument which is obsolete.
+
+"As an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in unlimited space in an
+unlimited number of modes of distribution, there must, even granting matter
+to have had all its laws from eternity, have been at some moment in time,
+out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible, that one choice
+and distribution which yielded the fair and orderly universe that now
+exists. Only out of rational choice can order have come."
+
+But clearly the alternative is now no longer one between chance and choice.
+If natural laws arise by way of necessary consequence from the persistence
+of a single self-existing substance, it becomes a matter of scientific
+(though not of logical) demonstration that "the fair and orderly universe
+that now exists" is the one and only universe that, in the nature of
+things, _can_ exist. But to continue this interesting passage from Dr.
+Flint's work--interesting not only because it sets forth the previous
+standing of this subject with so much clearness, but also because the work
+is of such very recent publication.
+
+"The most common mode, perhaps, of evading the problem which order presents
+to reason is the indication of the process by which the order has been
+realised. From Democritus to the latest Darwinian there have been men who
+supposed they had completely explained away the evidences of design in
+nature when they had described the physical antecedents of the arrangements
+appealed to as evidences. Aristotle showed the absurdity of this
+supposition more than 2200 years ago."
+
+Now this is a perfectly valid criticism on all such previous non-theistical
+arguments as were drawn from an "indication of the process by which the
+order has been realised;" for in all these previous arguments there was an
+absence of any physical explanation of the _ultimate_ cause of the process
+contemplated, and so long as this ultimate cause remained obscure, although
+the evidence of design might by these arguments have been excluded from
+particular processes, the evidence of design could not be similarly
+excluded from the ultimate cause of these processes. Thus, for instance, it
+is doubtless illogical, as Professor Flint points out, in any Darwinian to
+argue that because his theory of natural selection supplies him with a
+natural explanation of the process whereby organisms have been adapted to
+their surroundings, therefore this process need not itself have been
+designed. That is to say, in general terms, as insisted upon in the
+foregoing essay, the discovery of a natural law or orderly process cannot
+of itself justify the inference that this law or method of orderly
+procedure is not itself a product of supernatural Intelligence; but, on the
+contrary, the very existence of such orderly processes, considered only in
+relation to their products, must properly be regarded as evidence of the
+best possible kind in favour of supernatural Intelligence, _provided that
+no natural cause can be suggested as adequate to explain the origin of
+these processes_. But this is precisely what the persistence of force,
+considered as a natural cause, must be pronounced as necessarily competent
+to achieve; for we can clearly see that all these processes obviously must
+and actually do derive their origin from this one causative principle. And
+whether or not behind this one causative principle of natural law there
+exists a still more ultimate cause in the form of a supernatural
+Intelligence, this is a question altogether foreign to any argument from
+teleology, seeing that teleology, in so far as it is _teleology_, can only
+rest upon the observed facts of the cosmos; and if these facts admit of
+being explained by the action of a single causative principle inherent in
+the cosmos itself, teleology is not free to assume the action of any
+causative principle of a more ultimate character. Still, as I have
+repeatedly insisted, these considerations do not entitle us dogmatically to
+deny the existence of some such more ultimate principle; all that these
+considerations do is to remove any rational argument from teleological
+sources that any such more ultimate principle exists. Therefore I am, of
+course, quite at one with Professor Flint when he says Professor Huxley
+"admits that the most thoroughgoing evolutionist must at least assume 'a
+primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe
+are the consequences,' and 'is thereby at the mercy of the theologist, who
+can defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not
+intended to involve the phenomena of the universe.' Granting this much, he
+is logically bound to grant more. If the entire evolution of the universe
+may have been intended, the several stages of its evolution may have been
+intended, and they may have been intended for their own sakes as well as
+for the sake of the collective evolution or its final result." Now that
+such _may have been_ the case, I have been careful to insist in Chapter V.;
+all I am now concerned with is to show that, in view of the considerations
+adduced in Chapter IV., there is no longer any evidence to prove, or even
+to indicate, that such _has been_ the case. And with reference to this
+opportune quotation from Professor Huxley I may remark, that the
+"thoroughgoing evolutionist" is now no longer "at the mercy of the
+theologian" to any further extent than that of not being able to disprove a
+purely metaphysical hypothesis, which is as certainly superfluous, in any
+scientific sense, as the fundamental data of science are certainly true.
+
+It may seem almost unnecessary to extend this postscript by pursuing
+further the criticism on Professor Flint's exposition in the light of "a
+single new reason ... for the denial of design" which he challenges; but
+there are nevertheless one or two other points which it seems desirable to
+consider. Professor Flint writes:--
+
+"M. Comte imagines that he has shown the inference from design, from the
+order and stability of the solar system, to be unwarranted, when he has
+pointed out the physical conditions through which that order and stability
+are secured, and the process by which they have been obtained.... Now the
+assertion that the peculiarities which make the solar system stable and the
+earth habitable have flowed naturally and necessarily from the simple
+mutual gravity of the several parts of nebulous matter is one which greatly
+requires proof, but which has never received it. In saying this, we do not
+challenge the proof of the nebular theory itself. That theory may or may
+not be true. We are quite willing to suppose it true--to grant that it has
+been scientifically established. What we maintain is, that even if we admit
+unreservedly that the earth and the whole system to which it belongs once
+existed in a nebulous state, from which they were gradually evolved into
+their present condition conformably to physical laws, we are in no degree
+entitled to infer from the admission the conclusion which Comte and others
+have drawn. The man who fancies that the nebular theory implies that the
+law of gravitation, or any other physical law, has of itself determined the
+course of cosmical evolution, so that there is no need for believing in the
+existence and operation of a divine mind, proves merely that he is not
+exempt from reasoning very illogically. The solar system could only have
+been evolved out of its nebulous state into that which it now presents if
+the nebula possessed a certain size, mass, form, and constitution, if it
+was neither too fluid nor too tenacious--if its atoms were all numbered,
+its elements all weighed, its constituents all disposed in due relation to
+one another; that is to say, only if the nebula was in reality as much a
+system of order, which Intelligence alone could account for, as the worlds
+which have been developed from it. The origin of the nebula thus presents
+itself to reason as a problem which demands solution no less than the
+origin of the planets. All the properties and laws of the nebula require to
+be accounted for. What origin are we to give them? It must be either reason
+or unreason. We may go back as far as we please, but, at every step and
+stage of the regress we must find ourselves confronted with the same
+question, the same alternative--intelligent purpose or colossal chance."
+
+Now, so far as Comte is here guilty of the fallacy I have already dwelt
+upon of building a destructive argument upon a demonstration of mere
+orderly processes in nature, as distinguished from a demonstration of the
+natural cause of these processes, it is not for me to defend him. All we
+can say with regard to him in this connection is, that, having a sort of
+scientific presentiment that if the knowledge of his day were sufficiently
+advanced it would prove destructive of supernaturalism in the higher and
+more abstruse provinces of physical speculation, as it had previously
+proved in the lower and less abstruse of these provinces, Comte allowed his
+inferences to outrun their legitimate basis. Being necessarily ignorant of
+the one generating cause of orderly processes in nature, he improperly
+allowed himself to found conclusions on the basis of these processes alone,
+which could only be properly founded on the basis of their cause. But
+freely granting this much to Professor Flint, and the rest of his remarks
+in this connection will be found, in view of the altered standing of this
+subject, to be open to amendment. For, in the first place, no one need now
+resort to the illogical supposition that "the law of gravitation or any
+other physical law has of itself determined the course of cosmical
+evolution." What we may argue, and what must be conceded to us, is, that
+the common substratum of all physical laws was at one time sufficient to
+produce the simplest physical laws, and that throughout the whole course of
+evolution this common substratum has always been sufficient to produce the
+more complex laws in the ascending series of their ever-increasing number
+and variety. And hence it becomes obvious that the "origin of the nebula"
+presents a difficulty neither greater nor less than "the origin of the
+planets," since, "if we may go back as far as we please," we can entertain
+no _scientific_ doubt that we should come to a time, prior even to the
+nebula, when the substance of the solar system existed merely as
+such--_i.e._, in an almost or in a wholly undifferentiated form, the
+product, no doubt, of endless cycles of previous evolutions and
+dissolutions of formal differentiations. Therefore, although it is
+undoubtedly true that "the solar system could only have been evolved out of
+its nebulous state into that which it now presents if the nebula possessed"
+those particular attributes which were necessity to the evolution of such a
+product, this consideration is clearly deprived of all its force from our
+present point of view. For unless it can be shown that there is some
+independent reason for believing these particular attributes--which must
+have been of a more and more simple a character the further we recede in
+time--to have been miraculously imposed, the analogy is overwhelming that
+they all progressively arose _by way of natural law_. And if so, the
+universe which has been thus produced is the only universe in this
+particular point of space and time which could have been thus produced.
+That it is an _orderly_ universe we have seen _ad nauseam_ to be no
+argument in favour of its having been a _designed_ universe, so long as the
+cause of its order--general laws--can be seen to admit of a natural
+explanation.
+
+Thus there is clearly nothing to be gained on the side of teleology by
+going back to the dim and dismal birth of the nebula; for no "thoroughgoing
+evolutionist" would for one moment entertain the supposition that natural
+law in the simplest phases of its development partook any more of a
+miraculous character than it does in its more recent and vastly more
+complex phases. The absence of knowledge must not be used as equivalent to
+its presence; and if analogy can be held to justify any inference
+whatsoever, surely we may conclude with confidence that if existing general
+laws admit of being conceivably attributed to a natural genesis, the
+primordial laws of a condensing nebula must have been the same.
+
+There is another passage in Professor Flint's work to which it seems
+desirable to refer. It begins thus: "There is the law of heredity: like
+produces like. But why is there such a law? Why does like produce like?...
+Physical science cannot answer these questions; but that is no reason why
+they should not both be asked and answered. I can conceive of no other
+intelligent answer being given to them than that there is a God of wisdom,
+who designed that the world should be for all ages the abode of life," &c.
+
+Now here we have in another form that same vicious tendency to take refuge
+in the more obscure cases of physical causation as proofs of supernatural
+design--the obscurity in this case arising from the _complexity_ of the
+causes and work, as in the former case it arose from their _remoteness_ in
+time. But in both cases the same answer is patent, viz., that although
+"physical science cannot answer these questions" by pointing out the
+precise sequence of causes and effects, physical science is nevertheless
+quite as certain that this precise sequence arises in its last resort from
+the persistence of force, as she would be were she able to trace the whole
+process. And therefore, in view of the considerations set forth in Chapter
+IV. of this work, it is no longer open to Professor Flint or to any other
+writer logically to assert--"I can conceive of no other intelligent answer
+being given to" such questions "than that there is a God of wisdom."
+
+The same answer awaits this author's further disquisition on other
+biological laws, so it is needless to make any further quotations in this
+connection. But there is one other principle embodied in some of these
+passages which it seems undesirable to overlook. It is said, for instance,
+"Natural selection might have had no materials, or altogether insufficient
+materials, to work with, or the circumstances might have been such that the
+lowest organisms were the best endowed for the struggle for life. If the
+earth were covered with water, fish would survive and higher creatures
+would perish."
+
+Now the principle here embodied--viz., that had the conditions of evolution
+been other than they were, the results would have been different--is, of
+course, true; but clearly, on the view that _all_ natural laws spring from
+the persistence of force, no other conditions than those which actually
+occurred, or are now occurring, could ever have occurred,--the whole course
+of evolution must have been, in all its phases and in all its processes, an
+unconditional necessity. But if it is said, How fortunate that the outcome,
+being unconditionally necessary, has happened to be so good as it is; I
+answer that the remark is legitimate enough if it is not intended to convey
+an implication that the general quality of the outcome points to beneficent
+design as to its cause. Such an implication would not be legitimate,
+because, in the first place, we have no means of knowing in how many cases,
+whether in planets, stars, or systems, the course of evolution has failed
+to produce life and mind--the one known case of this earth, whether or not
+it is the one success out of millions of abortions, being of necessity the
+only known case. In how vastly greater a number of cases the course of
+evolution may have been, so to speak, deflected by some even slight, though
+strictly necessary, cause from producing self-conscious intelligence, it is
+impossible to conjecture. But this consideration, be it observed, is not
+here adduced in order to _disprove_ the assertion that telluric evolution
+has been effected by Intelligence; it is merely adduced to prove that such
+an assertion cannot rest on the single known result of telluric evolution,
+so long as an infinite number of the results of evolution elsewhere remain
+unknown.
+
+And now, lastly, it must be observed that even in the one case with which
+we are acquainted, the net product of evolution is not such as can of
+itself point us to _beneficent_ design. Professor Flint, indeed, in common
+with theologians generally, argues that it does. I will therefore briefly
+criticise his remarks on this subject, believing, as I do, that they form a
+very admirable illustration of what I conceive to be a general
+principle--viz., that minds which already believe in the existence of a
+Deity are, as a rule, not in a position to view this question of
+beneficence in nature in a perfectly impartial manner. For if the existence
+of a Deity is presupposed, a mind with any particle of that most noble
+quality--reverence--will naturally hesitate to draw conclusions that
+partake of the nature of blasphemy; and therefore, unconsciously perhaps to
+themselves, they endeavour in various ways to evade the evidence which, if
+honestly and impartially considered, can scarcely fail to negative the
+argument from beneficence in the universe.
+
+Professor Flint argues that the "law of over-production," and the
+consequent struggle for existence, being "the reason why the world is so
+wonderfully rich in the most varied forms of life," is "a means to an end
+worthy of Divine Wisdom." "Although involving privation, pain, and
+conflict, its final result is order and beauty. All the perfections of
+sentient creatures are represented as due to it. Through it the lion has
+gained its strength, the deer its speed, and the dog its sagacity. The
+inference seems natural that these perfections were designed to be attained
+by it; that this state of struggle was ordained for the sake of the
+advantages which it is actually seen to produce. The suffering which the
+conflict involves may indicate that God has made even animals for some
+higher end than happiness--that he cares for animal perfection as well as
+for animal enjoyment; but it affords no reason for denying that the ends
+which the conflict actually serves it was intended to serve."
+
+Now, whatever may be thought of such an argument as an attempted
+justification of beneficent design already on independent ground believed
+to exist, it is manifestly no argument at all as establishing any
+presumption in favour of such design, unless it could be shown that the
+Deity is so far limited in his power of adapting means to ends that the
+particular method adopted in this case was the best, all things considered,
+that he was able to adopt. For supposing the Deity to be, what Professor
+Flint maintains that he is--viz., omnipotent--and there can be no inference
+more transparent than that such wholesale suffering, for whatever ends
+designed, exhibits an incalculably greater deficiency of beneficence in the
+divine character than that which we know in any, the very worst, of human
+characters. For let us pause for one moment to think of what suffering in
+nature means. Some hundreds of millions of years ago some millions of
+millions of animals must be supposed to have been sentient. Since that time
+till the present, there must have been millions and millions of generations
+of millions of millions of individuals. And throughout all this period of
+incalculable duration, this inconceivable host of sentient organisms have
+been in a state of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the
+outcome, we find that more than half of the species which have survived the
+ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient
+forms of life feasting on higher and sentient forms; we find teeth and
+talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers moulded for
+torment--everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, and sickness, with oozing
+blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that
+dimly close in deaths of brutal torture! Is it said that there are
+compensating enjoyments? I care not to strike the balance; the enjoyments I
+plainly perceive to be as physically necessary as the pains, and this
+whether or not evolution is due to design. Therefore all I am concerned
+with is to show, that if such a state of things is due to "omnipotent
+design," the omnipotent designer must be concluded, so far as reason can
+infer, to be non-beneficent. And this it is not difficult to show. When I
+see a rabbit panting in the iron jaws of a spring-trap, I abhor the
+devilish nature of the being who, with full powers of realising what pain
+means, can deliberately employ his noble faculties of invention in
+contriving a thing so hideously cruel. But if I could believe that there is
+a being who, with yet higher faculties of thought and knowledge, and with
+an unlimited choice of means to secure his ends, has contrived untold
+thousands of mechanisms no less diabolical than a spring-trap; I should
+call that being a fiend, were all the world besides to call him God. Am I
+told that this is arrogance? It is nothing of the kind; it is plain
+morality, and to say otherwise would be to hide our eyes from murder
+because we dread the Murderer. Am I told that I am not competent to judge
+the purposes of the Almighty? I answer that if these are _purposes_, I _am_
+able to judge of them so far as I can see; and if I am expected to judge of
+his purposes when they appear to be beneficent, I am in consistency obliged
+also to judge of them when they appear to be malevolent. And it can be no
+possible extenuation of the latter to point to the "final result" as "order
+and beauty," so long as the means adopted by the "_Omnipotent_ Designer"
+are known to have been so revolting. All that we could legitimately assert
+in this case would be, that so far as observation can extend, "he cares for
+animal perfection" _to the exclusion of_ "animal enjoyment," and even to
+the _total disregard_ of animal suffering. But to assert this would merely
+be to deny beneficence as an attribute of God.
+
+The dilemma, therefore, which Epicurus has stated with great lucidity, and
+which Professor Flint quotes, appears to me so obvious as scarcely to
+require statement. The dilemma is, that, looking to the facts of organic
+nature, theists must abandon their belief, either in the divine
+omnipotence, or in the divine beneficence. And yet, such is the warping
+effect of preformed beliefs on the mind, that even so candid a writer as
+Professor Flint can thus write of this most obvious truth:--
+
+"The late Mr. John Stuart Mill, for no better reason than that nature
+sometimes drowns men and burns them, and that childbirth is a painful
+process, maintained that God could not possibly be infinite. I shall not
+say what I think of the shallowness and self-conceit displayed by such an
+argument. What it proves is not the finiteness of God, but the littleness
+of man. The mind of man never shows itself so small as when it tries to
+measure the attributes and limit the greatness of its Creator."
+
+But the argument--or rather the truism--in question is an attempt to do
+neither the one nor the other; it simply asserts the patent fact that, if
+God is omnipotent, and so had an unlimited choice of means whereby to
+accomplish the ends of "animal perfection," "animal enjoyment," and the
+rest; then the fact of his having chosen to adopt the means which he has
+adopted is a fact which is wholly incompatible with his beneficence. And on
+the other hand, if he is beneficent, the fact of his having adopted these
+means in order that the sum of ultimate enjoyment might exceed the sum of
+concomitant pain, is a fact which is wholly incompatible with his
+omnipotence. To a man who already believes, on independent grounds, in an
+omnipotent and beneficent Deity, it is no doubt possible to avoid facing
+this dilemma, and to rest content with the assumption that, in a sense
+beyond the reach of human reason, or even of human conception, the two
+horns of this dilemma must be united in some transcendental reconciliation;
+but if a man undertakes to reason on the subject at all, as he must and
+ought when the question is as to the _existence_ of such a Deity, then
+clearly he has no alternative but to allow that the dilemma is a hopeless
+one. With inverted meaning, therefore, may we quote Professor Flint's words
+against himself:--"The mind of man never shows itself so small as when it
+tries to measure the attributes ... of its Creator;" for certainly, if
+Professor Flint's usually candid mind has had a Creator, it nowhere
+displays the "littleness" of prejudice in so marked a degree as it does
+when "measuring his attributes."
+
+Thus in a subsequent chapter he deals at greater length with this
+difficulty of the apparent failure of beneficence in nature, arguing, in
+effect, that as pain and suffering "serve many good ends" in the way of
+warning animals of danger to life, &c., therefore we ought to conclude
+that, if we could see farther, we should see pain and suffering to be
+unmitigated good, or nearly so. Now this argument, as I have previously
+said, may possibly be admissible as between Christians or others who
+_already_ believe in the existence and in the beneficence of God; but it is
+only the blindest prejudice which can fail to perceive that the argument is
+quite without relevancy when the question is as to the _evidences_ of such
+existence and the _evidences_ of such character. For where the _fact_ of
+such an existence and character is the question in dispute, it clearly can
+be no argument to state its bare assumption by saying that if we knew more
+of nature we should find the relative preponderance of good over evil to be
+immeasurably greater than that which we now perceive. The platform of
+argument on which the question of "Theism" must be discussed is that of the
+observable Cosmos; and if, as Dr. Flint is constrained to admit, there is a
+fearful spectacle of misery presented by this Cosmos, it becomes mere
+question-begging to gloss over this aspect of the subject by any vague
+assumption that the misery must have some unobservable ends of so
+transcendentally beneficent a nature, that were they known they would
+justify the means. Indeed, this kind of discussion seems to me worse than
+useless for the purposes which the Professor has in view; for it only
+serves by contrast to throw out into stronger relief the natural and the
+unstrained character of the adverse interpretation of the facts. According
+to this adverse interpretation, sentiency has been evolved by natural
+selection to secure the benefits which are pointed out by Professor Flint;
+and therefore the fact of this, its cause, having been a _mindless_ cause,
+clearly implies that the _restriction_ of pain and suffering cannot be an
+active principle, or a _vera causa_, as between species and species, though
+it must be such within the limits of the same organism, and to a lesser
+extent within the limits of the same species. And this is just what we find
+to be the case. Therefore, without the need of resorting to wholly
+arbitrary assumptions concerning transcendental reconciliations between
+apparently needless suffering and a supposed almighty beneficence, the
+non-theistic hypothesis is saved by merely opening our eyes to the
+observable facts around us, and there seeing that pain and misery, alike in
+the benefits which they bring and in the frightful excesses which they
+manifest, play just that part in nature which this hypothesis would lead us
+to expect.
+
+Therefore, to sum up these considerations on physical suffering, the case
+between a theist and a sceptic as to the question of divine beneficence is
+seen to be a case of extreme simplicity. The theist believes in such
+beneficence by purposely concealing from his mind all adverse
+evidence--feeling, on the one side, that to entertain the doubt to which
+this evidence points would be to hold dalliance with blasphemy, and, on the
+other side, that the subject is of so transcendental a nature that, in view
+of so great a risk, it is better to avoid impartial reasoning upon it. A
+sceptic, on the other hand, is under no such obligation to preconceived
+ideas, and is therefore free to draw unbiassed inferences as to the
+character of God, if he exists, to the extent which such character is
+indicated by the sphere of observable nature. And, as I have said, when the
+subject is so viewed, the inference is unavoidable that, so far as human
+reason can penetrate, God, if he exists, must either be non-infinite in his
+resources, or non-beneficent in his designs. Therefore it is evident that
+when the _being_ of God, as distinguished from his _character_, is the
+subject in dispute, Theism can gain nothing by an appeal to evidences of
+_beneficent_ designs. If such evidences were unequivocal, then indeed the
+argument which they would establish to an intelligent cause of nature would
+be almost irresistible; for the fact of the external world being in harmony
+with the moral nature of man would be unaccountable except on the
+supposition of both having derived their origin from a common _moral_
+source; and morality implies intelligence. But as it is, all the so-called
+evidence of divine beneficence in nature is, without any exception of a
+kind that is worthless as proving _design_; for all the facts admit of
+being explained equally well on the supposition of their having been due to
+purely physical processes, acting through the various biological laws which
+we are now only beginning to understand. And further than this, so far are
+these facts from proving the existence of a moral cause, that, in view of
+the alternative just stated, they even ground a positive argument to its
+negation. For, as we have seen, all these facts are just of such a kind as
+we should expect to be the facts, on the supposition of their having been
+due to natural causes--_i.e._, causes which could have had no moral
+solicitude for animal happiness as such. Let us now, in conclusion, dwell
+on this antithesis at somewhat greater length.
+
+If natural selection has played any large share in the process of organic
+evolution, it is evident that animal enjoyment, being an important factor
+in this natural cause, must always have been furthered _to the extent in
+which it was necessary for the adaptation of organisms to their
+environment_ that it should. And such we invariably find to be the limits
+within which animal enjoyments _are_ confined. On the other hand, so long
+as the adaptations in question are not complete, so long must more or less
+of suffering be entailed--the capacity for suffering, as for enjoyment,
+being no doubt itself a product of natural selection. But as all specific
+types are perpetually struggling together, it is manifest that the
+competition must prevent any considerable number of types from becoming so
+far adapted to their environment of other types as to become exempt from
+suffering as a result of this competition. There being no one integrating
+cause of an intelligent or moral nature to supply the conditions of
+happiness to each organic type without the misery of this competition, such
+happiness as animals have is derived from the heavy expenditure of pain
+suffered by themselves and by their ancestry.
+
+Thus, whether we look to animal pleasures or to animal pains, the result is
+alike just what we should expect to find on the supposition of these
+pleasures and pains having been due to necessary and physical, as
+distinguished from intelligent and moral, antecedents; for how different is
+that which is from that which might have been! Not only might beneficent
+selection have eliminated the countless species of parasites which now
+destroy the health and happiness of all the higher organisms; not only
+might survival of the fittest, in a moral sense, have determined that
+rapacious and carnivorous animals should yield their places in the world to
+harmless and gentle ones; not only might life have been without sickness
+and death without pain;--but how might the exigences and the welfare of
+species have been consulted by the structures and the habits of one
+another! But no! Amid all the millions of mechanisms and habits in organic
+nature, all of which are so beautifully adapted to the needs of the species
+presenting them, there is _no single instance_ of any mechanism or habit
+occurring in one species for the exclusive benefit of another
+species--although, as we should expect on the non-theistic theory, there
+are some comparatively few cases of a mechanism or a habit which is of
+benefit to its possessor being also utilised by other species. Yet, on the
+beneficent-design theory, it is impossible to understand why, when all
+mechanisms and habits in the same species are invariably correlated for the
+benefit of that species, there should never be any such correlation between
+mechanisms and habits of different species. For how magnificent, how
+sublime a display of supreme beneficence would nature have afforded if all
+her sentient animals had been so inter-related as to minister to each
+other's happiness! Organic species might then have been likened to a
+countless multitude of voices, all singing to their Creator in one
+harmonious psalm of praise. But, as it is, we see no vestige of such
+correlation; every species is for itself, and for itself alone--an outcome
+of the always and everywhere fiercely raging struggle for life.
+
+So much, then, for the case of _physical_ evil; but Dr. Flint also treats
+of the case of _moral_ evil. Let us see what this well-equipped writer can
+make of this old problem in the present year of grace. He says--"But it
+will be objected, could not God have made moral creatures who would be
+certain always to choose what is right, always to acquiesce in His holy
+will?... Well, far be it from me to deny that God could have originated a
+sinless moral system.... But if questioned as to why He has not done
+better, I feel no shame in confessing my ignorance. It seems to me that
+when you have resolved the problem of the origin of moral evil into the
+question, Why has God not originated a moral universe in which the lowest
+moral being would be as excellent as the archangels are? you have at once
+shown it to be _speculatively incapable of solution_ [italics mine], and
+practically without importance[!]. The question is one which would
+obviously give rise to another, Why has God not created only moral beings
+as much superior to the archangels as they are superior to the lowest
+Australian aborigines? But no complete answer can be given to a question
+which may be followed by a series of similar questions to which there is no
+end. We have, besides, neither the facts nor the faculties to answer such
+questions."[46]
+
+Now I confess that this argument presents to my mind more of subtlety than
+sense. I had previously imagined that the archangels were supposed to enjoy
+a condition of moral existence which might fairly be thought to remove them
+from any association with that of the Australian aborigines. But as this
+question is one that belongs to Divinity, I am here quite prepared to bow
+to Professor Flint's authority--hoping, however, that he is prepared to
+take the responsibility should the archangels ever care to accuse me of
+calumny. But, as a logician, I must be permitted to observe, that if I ask,
+Why am I not better than I am? it is no answer to tell me, Because the
+archangels are not better than they are. For aught that I know to the
+contrary, the archangels may be morally _perfect_--as an authority in such
+matters has told us that even "just men" may become,--and therefore, for
+aught that I know to the contrary, Professor Flint's regress of moral
+degrees _ad infinitum_, may be an ontological absurdity. But granting, for
+the sake of argument, that archangels fall infinitely short of moral
+perfection, and I should only be able to see in the fact a hopeless
+aggravation of my previous difficulty. If it is hard to reconcile the
+supreme goodness of God with the moral turpitude of man, much more would it
+be hard to do so if his very angels are depraved. Therefore, if the
+reasonable question which I originally put "may be followed by a series of
+similar questions to which there is no end," the goodness of God must
+simply be pronounced a delusion. For the question which I originally put
+was no mere flimsy question of a stupidly unreal description. My own moral
+depravity is a matter of painful certainty to me, and I want to know why,
+if there is a God of infinite power and goodness, he should have made me
+thus. And in answer I am told that my question is "practically without
+importance," because there may be an endless series of beings who, in their
+several degrees, are in a similar predicament to myself. Perhaps they are;
+but if so, the moral evil with which I am directly acquainted is made all
+the blacker by the fact that it is thus but a drop in an infinite ocean of
+moral imperfection. When, therefore, Professor Flint goes on to say, "We
+ought to be content if we can show that what God has done is wise and
+right, and not perplex ourselves as to why He has not done an infinity of
+other things," I answer, Most certainly; but _can_ we show that what God
+has done is wise and right? Unquestionably not. That what he has done _may_
+be wise and right, could we see his whole scheme of things, no careful
+thinker will deny; but to suppose it can be _shown_ that he has done this,
+is an instance of purblind fanaticism which is most startling in a work on
+_Theism_. "The best world, _we may be assured_, that our fancies can feign,
+would in reality be far inferior to the world God has made, whatever
+imperfections we may think we see in it." Are we leading a sermon on the
+datum "God is love"? No; but a work on the questions, Is there a God? and,
+if so, Is he a God of love? And yet the work is written by a man who
+evidently tries to argue fairly. What shall we say of the despotism of
+preformed beliefs? May we not say at least this much--that those who
+endeavour to reconcile their theories of divine goodness with the facts of
+human evil might well appropriate to themselves the words above quoted, "We
+have neither the facts nor the faculties to answer such questions"? For the
+"facts" indeed are absent, and the "faculties" of impartial thought must be
+absent also, if this obvious truth cannot be seen--that "these questions"
+only derive their "speculatively unanswerable" character from the rational
+falsity of the manner by which it is sought to answer them. The "facts" of
+our moral nature, so far as honest reason can perceive, belie the
+hypothesis of Theism; and although the "faculties" of man may be forced by
+prejudice into an acceptance of contradictory propositions, the truth is
+obvious that only by the hypothesis of Evolution can that old-tied knot be
+cut--the Origin of Evil. The form of Theism for which Dr. Flint is arguing
+is the current form, viz., that there is a God who combines in himself the
+attributes of _infinite_ power and _perfect_ goodness--a God at once
+_omnipotent_ and _wholly_ moral. But, in view of the fact that moral evil
+exists in man, the proposition that God is omnipotent and the proposition
+that he is wholly moral become contradictory; and therefore the fact of
+moral evil can only be met, either by abandoning one or other of these
+propositions, or by altogether rejecting the hypothesis of Theism.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+III.
+
+THE SPECULATIVE STANDING OF MATERIALISM.
+
+As a continuation of my criticism on Mr. Fiske's views, I think it is
+desirable to add a few words concerning the speculative annihilation with
+which he supposes Mr. Spencer's doctrines to have visited Materialism. Of
+course it is a self-evident truism that the doctrine of Relativity is
+destructive of Materialism, if by Materialism we mean a theory which
+ignores that doctrine. In other words, the doctrine of Relativity, if
+accepted, clearly excludes the doctrine that Matter, _as known
+phenomenally_, is at all likely to be a true representative of whatever
+_thing-in-itself_ it may be that constitutes Mind. But this position is
+fully established by the doctrine of Relativity alone, and is therefore not
+in the least affected, either by way of confirmation or otherwise, by Mr.
+Spencer's extended doctrine of the Unknowable--it being only because the
+latter doctrine presupposes the doctrine of Relativity that it is exclusive
+of Materialism in the sense which has just been stated. So far, therefore,
+Mr. Spencer's writings cannot be held to have any special bearing on the
+doctrine of Materialism. Such a special bearing is only exerted by these
+writings when they proceed to show that "it seems an imaginable possibility
+that units of external force may be identical in nature with the units of
+the force known as feeling." Let us then ascertain how far it is true that
+the argument already quoted, and which leads to this conclusion, is utterly
+destructive of Materialism.
+
+In the first place, I may observe that this argument differs in several
+instructive particulars from the anti-materialistic argument of Locke,
+which we have already had occasion to consider. For while Locke erroneously
+imagined that the test of inconceivability is of equivalent value
+_wherever_ it is applied, save only where it conflicts with preconceived
+ideas on the subject of Theism (see Appendix A.), Spencer, of course, is
+much too careful a thinker to fall into so obvious a fallacy. But again, it
+is curious to observe that in the anti-materialistic argument of Spencer
+the test of inconceivability is used in a manner the precise opposite of
+that in which it is used in the anti-materialistic argument of Locke. For
+while the ground of Locke's argument is that Materialism must be untrue
+because it is inconceivable that Matter (and Force) should be of a
+psychical nature; the ground of Spencer's argument is that what we know as
+Force (and Matter) may _not_ inconceivably be of a psychical nature. For my
+own part, I think that Spencer's argument is, psychologically speaking, the
+more valid of the two; but nevertheless I think that, logically speaking,
+it is likewise invalid to a perceptibly great, and to a further indefinite,
+degree. For the argument sets out with the reflection that we can only know
+Matter and Force as symbols of consciousness, while we know consciousness
+directly, and therefore that we can go further in conceivably translating
+Matter and Force into terms of Mind than _vice versa_. And this is true,
+but it does not therefore follow that the truth is more likely to lie in
+the direction that thought can most easily travel. For although I am at one
+with Mr. Spencer, whom Mr. Fiske follows, in regarding his test of
+truth--viz., inconceivability of a negation--as the most _ultimate_ test
+within our reach, I cannot agree with him that in this particular case it
+is the most _trustworthy_ test within our reach. I cannot do so because the
+reflection is forced upon me that, "as the terms which are contemplated in
+this particular case are respectively the highest abstractions of objective
+and of subjective existence, the test of truth in question is neutralised
+by directly encountering the inconceivable relation that exists between
+subject and object." Or, in other words, as before stated, "_whatever_ the
+cause of Mind may be, we can clearly perceive it to be a subjective
+necessity of the case that, in ultimate analysis, we should find it more
+easy to conceive of this cause as resembling Mind--the only entity of which
+we are directly conscious--than to conceive of it as any other entity of
+which we are only indirectly conscious." When, therefore, Mr. Spencer
+argues that "it is impossible to interpret inner existence in terms of
+outer existence," while it is not so impossible to interpret outer
+existence in terms of inner existence, the fact is merely what we should in
+any case expect _a priori_ to be the fact, and therefore as a fact it is
+not a very surprising discovery _a posteriori_. So that when Mr. Fiske
+proceeds to make this fact the basis of his argument, that because we can
+more conceivably regard objective existence as like in kind to subjective
+existence than conversely, therefore we should conclude that there is a
+corresponding probability in favour of the more conceivable proposition, I
+demur to his argument. For, fully accepting the fact on which the argument
+rests, and it seems to me, in view of what I have said, that the latter
+assigns an altogether disproportionate value to the test of
+inconceivability in this case. Far from endowing this test with so great an
+authority in this case, I should regard it not only as perceptibly of very
+small validity, but, as I have said, invalid to a degree which we have no
+means of ascertaining. If it be asked, What other gauge of probability can
+we have in this matter other than such a direct appeal to consciousness? I
+answer, that this appeal being here _a priori_ invalid, we are left to fall
+back upon the formal probability which is established by an application of
+scientific canons to objective phenomena. (See footnote in Sec. 14.) For, be
+it carefully observed, Mr. Spencer, and his disciple Mr. Fiske, are not
+idealists. Were this the case, of course the test of an immediate appeal to
+consciousness would be to them the only test available. But, on the
+contrary, as all the world knows, Mr. Spencer asserts the existence of an
+unknown Reality, of which all phenomena are the manifestations.
+Consequently, what we call Force and Matter are, according to this
+doctrine, phenomenal manifestations of this objective Reality. That is to
+say, for aught that we can know, Force and Matter may be anything within
+the whole range of the possible; and the only limitation that can be
+assigned to them is, that they are modes of existence which are independent
+of, or objective to, our individual consciousness, but which are uniformly
+translated into consciousness as Force and Matter. Now it does not signify
+one iota for the purposes of Materialism whether these our symbolical
+representations of Force and Matter are accurate or inaccurate
+representations of their corresponding realities,--unless, of course, some
+_independent_ reason could be shown for supposing that in their reality
+they resemble Mind. Call Force _x_ and Matter _y_, and so long as we are
+agreed that _x_ and _y_ are _objective realities which are uniformly
+translated into consciousness as Force and Matter_, the materialistic
+deductions remain unaffected by this mere change in our terminology; these
+essential facts are allowed to remain substantially as before, namely, that
+there is an external something or external somethings--Matter and Force, or
+_x_ and _y_--which themselves display no observable tokens of
+consciousness, but which are invariably associated with consciousness in a
+highly distinctive manner.
+
+I dwell at length upon this subject, because although Mr. Spencer himself
+does not appear to attach much weight to his argument, Mr. Fiske, as we
+have seen, elevates it into a basis for "Cosmic Theism." Yet so far is this
+argument from "ruling out," as Mr. Fiske asserts, the essential doctrine of
+Materialism--_i.e._, the doctrine that what we know as Mind is an effect of
+certain collocations and distributions of _what we know_ as Matter and
+Force--that the argument might be employed with almost the same degree of
+effect, or absence of effect, to disprove any instance of recognised
+causation. Thus, for example, the doctrine of Materialism is no more "ruled
+out" by the reflection that what we cognise as cerebral matter is only
+cognised relatively, than would the doctrine of chemical equivalents be
+"ruled out" by the parallel reflection that what we cognise as chemical
+elements are only cognised relatively. I say advisedly, "with _almost_ the
+same degree of effect," because, to be strictly accurate, we ought not
+altogether to ignore the indefinitely slender presumption which Mr.
+Spencer's subjective test of inconceivability establishes on the side of
+Spiritualism, as against the objective evidence of causation on the side of
+Materialism. As this is an important subject, I will be a little more
+explicit. We are agreed that Force and Matter are entities external to
+consciousness, of which we can possess only symbolical knowledge.
+Therefore, as we have said, Force and Matter may be anything within the
+whole range of the possible. But we know that Mind is a possible entity,
+while we have no certain knowledge of any other possible entity. Hence we
+are justified in saying, It is possible that Force and Matter may be
+identical with the only entity which we know as certainly possible; but
+forasmuch as we do not know the sum of possible entities, we have no means
+of calculating the chances there are that what we know as Force and Matter
+are identical in nature with Mind. Still, that there is _a_ chance we
+cannot dispute; all we can assert is, that we are unable to determine its
+value, and that it would be a mistake to suppose we can do so, even in the
+lowest degree, by Mr. Spencer's test of inconceivability. Nevertheless, the
+fact that there is such a chance renders it in some indeterminate degree
+more probable that what we know as Force and Matter are identical with what
+we know as Mind, than that what we know as oxygen and hydrogen are
+identical with what we know as water. So that to this extent the essential
+doctrine of Materialism is "ruled out" in a further degree by the
+philosophy of the Unknowable than is the chemical doctrine of equivalents.
+But, of course, this indefinite possibility of what we know as Force and
+Matter being identical with what we know as Mind does not neutralise, in
+any determinable degree, the considerations whereby Materialism in its
+present shape infers that what we know as Force and Matter are probably
+distinct from what we know as Mind.
+
+But I see no reason why Materialism should be restricted to this "its
+present shape." Even if we admit to the fullest extent the validity of Mr.
+Spencer's argument, and conclude with Professor Clifford as a matter of
+probability that "the universe consists entirely of Mind-stuff," I do not
+see that the admission would affect Materialism in any essential respect.
+For here again the admission would amount to little else, so far as
+Materialism is directly concerned, than a change of terminology: instead of
+calling objective existence "Matter," we call it "Mind-stuff." I say "to
+_little_ else," because no doubt in one particular there is here some
+change introduced in the speculative standing of the subject. So long as
+Matter and Mind, _x_ and _y_, are held to be antithetically opposed in
+substance, so long must Materialism suppose that a connection of
+_causality_ subsists between the two, such that the former substance is
+_produced_ in some unaccountable way by the latter. But when Matter and
+Mind, _x_ and _y_, are supposed to be identical in substance, the need for
+any additional supposition as to a causal connection is excluded. But
+unless we hold, what seems to me an uncalled-for opinion, that the
+essential feature of Materialism consists in a postulation of a causal
+connection between _x_ and _y_, it would appear that the only effect of
+supposing _x_ and _y_ to be really but one substance _z_, must be that of
+_strengthening_ the essential doctrine of Materialism--the doctrine,
+namely, that conscious intellectual existence is _necessarily_ associated
+with that form of existence which we know phenomenally as Matter and
+Motion. If it is true that a "a moving molecule of inorganic matter does
+not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a small piece of
+Mind-stuff," then assuredly the central position of Materialism is shown to
+be impregnable. For while it remains as true as ever that mind and
+consciousness can only emerge when what we know phenomenally as "Matter
+takes the complex form of a living brain," we have abolished the necessity
+for assuming even a causal connection between the substance of what we know
+phenomenally as Matter and the substance of what we know phenomenally as
+Mind: we have found that, in the last resort, the phenomenal connection
+between what we know as Matter and what we know as Mind is actually even
+more intimate than a connection of causality; we have found that it is a
+substantial identity.
+
+To sum up this discussion. We have considered the bearing of modern
+speculation on the doctrine of Materialism in three successive stages of
+argument. First, we had to consider the bearing on Materialism of the
+simple doctrine of Relativity. Here we saw that Materialism was only
+affected to the extent of being compelled to allow that what we know as
+Matter and Motion are not known as they are in themselves. But we also saw
+that, as the inscrutable realities are uniformly translated into
+consciousness as Matter and Motion, it still remains as true as ever that
+_what we know_ as Matter and Motion may be the causes of what we know as
+Mind. Even, therefore, if the supposition of causality is taken to be an
+essential feature of Materialism, Materialism would be in no wise affected
+by substituting for the words Matter and Motion the symbols _x_ and _y_.
+
+The second of the three stages consisted in showing that Mr. Spencer's
+argument as to the possible identity of Force and Feeling is not in itself
+sufficient to overthrow the doctrine that what we know as Matter and Motion
+may be the cause of what we know as Mind. For the mere fact of its being
+more _conceivable_ that units of Force should resemble units of Feeling
+than conversely, is no warrant for concluding that in reality any
+corresponding probability obtains. The test of conceivability, although the
+most ultimate test that is available, is here rendered vague and valueless
+by the _a priori_ consideration that _whatever_ the cause of Mind may be
+(if it has a cause), we must find it more easy to conceive of this cause as
+resembling Mind than to conceive of it as resembling any other entity of
+which we are only conscious indirectly.
+
+Lastly, in the third place, we saw that even if Mr. Spencer's argument were
+fully subscribed to, and Mind in its substantial essence were conceded to
+be causeless, the central position of Materialism would still remain
+unaffected. For Mr. Spencer does not suppose that his "units of Force" are
+themselves endowed with consciousness, any more than Professor Clifford
+supposes his "moving molecules of inorganic matter" to be thus endowed. So
+that the only change which these possibilities, even if conceded to be
+actualities, produce in the speculative standing of Materialism, is to show
+that the raw material of consciousness, instead of requiring to be _caused_
+by other substances--Matter and Force, _x_ and _y_,--occurs ready made as
+those substances. But the essential feature of Materialism remains
+untouched--namely, that what we know as Mind is dependent (whether by way
+of causality or not is immaterial) on highly complex forms of _what we
+know_ as Matter, in association with highly peculiar distributions of _what
+we know_ as Force.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+IV.
+
+THE FINAL MYSTERY OF THINGS.
+
+Some physicists are inclined to dispute the fundamental proposition in
+which the whole of Mr. Spencer's system of philosophy may be said to
+rest--the proposition, namely, that the fact of the "persistence of force"
+constitutes the ultimate basis of science. For my own part, I cannot but
+believe that any disagreement on this matter only arises from some want of
+mutual understanding; and, therefore, in order to anticipate any criticisms
+to which the present work may be open on this score, I append this
+explanatory note.
+
+I readily grant that the term "persistence of force" is not a happy one,
+seeing that the word "force," as used by physicists, does not at the
+present time convey the full meaning which Mr. Spencer desires it to
+convey. But I think that any impartial physicist will be prepared to admit
+that, in the present state of his science, we are entitled to conclude that
+energy of position is merely the result of energy of motion; or, in other
+words, that potential energy is merely an expression of the fact that the
+universe, as a whole, is replete with actual energy, whose essential
+characteristic is that it is indestructible. And this may be concluded
+without committing ourselves to any particular theory as to the physical
+explanation of gravity; all we need assert is, that in some way or other
+gravity is the result of ubiquitous energy. And this, it seems to me, we
+must assert, or else conclude that gravity can never admit of a physical
+explanation. For all that we mean by a physical explanation is the proved
+establishment of an equation between two quantities of energy; so that if
+energy of position does not admit of being interpreted in terms of energy
+of motion, we must conclude that it does not admit of being interpreted at
+all--at least not in any physical sense.
+
+Throughout the foregoing essays, therefore, I have assumed that all forms
+of energy are but relatively varying expressions of the same fact--the
+fact, namely, which Mr. Spencer means to express when he says that force is
+persistent. And it seems to me almost needless to show that this fact is
+really the basis of all science. For unless this fact is assumed as a
+postulate, not only would scientific inquiry become impossible, but all
+experience would become chaotic. The physicist could not prosecute his
+researches unless he presupposed that the forces which he measures are of a
+permanent nature, any more than could the chemist prosecute his researches
+unless he presupposed that the materials which he estimates by energy-units
+are likewise of a permanent nature. And similarly with all the other
+sciences, as well as with every judgment in our daily experience. If,
+therefore, any one should be hypercritical enough to dispute the position
+that the doctrine of the conservation of energy constitutes the "ultimate
+datum" of science, I think it will be enough to observe that if this is
+_not_ the "ultimate datum" of science, science can have no "ultimate datum"
+at all. For any datum more ultimate than permanent existence is manifestly
+impossible, while any such datum as non-permanent existence would clearly
+render science impossible. Even, therefore, if such hypercriticism had a
+valid basis of apparently adverse fact whereon to stand, I should feel
+myself justified in neglecting it on _a priori_ grounds; but the only basis
+on which such hypercriticism can rest is, not the knowledge of any adverse
+facts, but the ignorance of certain facts which we must either conclude to
+be facts or else conclude that science can have no ultimate datum whereon
+to rest. In the foregoing essays, therefore, I have not scrupled to
+maintain that the ultimate datum of science is destructive of teleology as
+a scientific argument for Theism; because, unless we deny the possibility
+of any such ultimate datum, and so land ourselves in hopeless scepticism,
+we must conclude that there can be no datum more ultimate than
+this--Permanent Existence; and this is just the datum which we have seen to
+be destructive of teleology as a scientific argument for Theism.
+
+It may be well to point out that from this ultimate datum of science--or
+rather, let us say, of experience--there follows a deductive explanation of
+the law of causation. For this law, when stripped of all the metaphysical
+corruptions with which it has been so cumbersomely clothed, simply means
+that a given collocation of antecedents unconditionally produces a certain
+consequent. But this fact, otherwise stated, amounts to nothing more than a
+re-statement of the ultimate datum of experience--the fact that energy is
+indestructible. For if this latter fact be granted, it is obvious that the
+so-called law of causation follows as a deductive necessity--or rather, as
+I have said, that this law becomes but another way of expressing the same
+fact. This is obvious if we reflect that the only means we have of
+ascertaining that energy is _not_ destructible, is by observing that
+similar antecedents _do_ invariably determine similar consequents. It is as
+a vast induction from all those particular cases of sequence-changes which
+collectively we call causation that we conclude energy to be
+indestructible. And, obversely, having concluded energy to be
+indestructible, we can plainly see that in any particular cases of its
+manifestation in sequence-phenomena, the unconditional resemblance between
+effects due to similar causes which is formulated by the law of causation
+is merely the direct expression of the fact which we had previously
+concluded. It seems to me, therefore, that the old-standing question
+concerning the nature of causation ought now properly to be considered as
+obsolete. Doubtless there will long remain a sort of hereditary tendency in
+metaphysical minds to look upon cause-connection as "a mysterious tie"
+between antecedent and consequent; but henceforth there is no need for
+scientific minds to regard this "tie" as "mysterious" in any other sense
+than the existence of energy is "mysterious." To state the law of causation
+is merely to state the fact that energy is indestructible.
+
+And from this there also arises at once the explanation and the
+justification of our belief in the uniformity of nature. If energy is, in
+its relation to us, ubiquitous and persistent, it clearly follows that in
+all its manifestations which collectively we call nature, similar preceding
+manifestations must always determine similar succeeding manifestations; for
+otherwise the energy concerned would require on one or on both of the
+occasions, either to have become augmented by creation, or dissipated by
+annihilation. Thus our belief in the uniformity of nature, as in the
+validity of the law of causation, is merely an expression of our belief in
+the ubiquitous and indestructible character of energy.
+
+Such being the case, we may fairly conclude that all these old-standing
+"mysteries" are now merged in the one mystery of existence. And deeper than
+this it is manifestly impossible that they can be merged; for it is
+manifestly impossible that Existence in the abstract can ever admit of what
+we call explanation. Hence we can clearly see that, in a scientific sense,
+there must always remain a final mystery of things. But although we can
+thus see that, from the very meaning of what we call explanation, it
+follows that at the base of all our explanations there must lie a great
+Inexplicable, I think that the mystery of Existence in the abstract may be
+rendered less appalling if we reflect that, as opposed to Existence, there
+is only one logical alternative--Non-existence. Supposing, then, our
+physical explanations to have reached their highest limits by resolving all
+modes of Existence into one mode--force, matter, life, and mind, being
+shown but different manifestations of the same Infinite Existence--the
+final mystery of things would then become resolved into the simple
+question, Why is there Existence?--Why is there not Nothing?
+
+Let us then first ask, What is "Nothing"? Is it a mere word, which presents
+no meaning as corresponding to any objective reality, or has the word a
+meaning notwithstanding its being an inconceivable one? Or, otherwise
+phrased, is Nothing possible or impossible? Now, although in ordinary
+conversation it is generally taken for granted that Nothing is possible,
+there is certainly no more ground for this supposition than there is for
+its converse--viz., that Nothing is merely a word which signifies the
+negation of possibility. For analysis will show that the choice between
+these two counter-suppositions can only be made in the presence of
+knowledge which is necessarily absent--the knowledge whether the universe
+of Existence is finite or infinite. If the universe as a whole is finite,
+the word Nothing would stand as a symbol to denote an unthinkable blank of
+which a finite universe is the content. And forasmuch as Something and
+Nothing would then become actual, as distinguished from nominal
+correlatives, we could have no guarantee that, in an absolute or
+transcendental sense, it may not be possible, although it is inconceivable,
+for Something to become Nothing or Nothing Something. Hence, if Existence
+is finite, No-existence becomes possible; and the doctrine of the
+indestructibility of Existence becomes, for aught that we can tell, of a
+merely relative signification. But, on the other hand, if Existence is
+infinite, No-existence becomes impossible; and the doctrine of the
+indestructibility of Existence becomes, in a logical sense, of an absolute
+signification. For it is manifest that if the universe of Existence is
+without end in space and time, the possibility of No-existence is of
+necessity excluded, and the word "Nothing" thus becomes a mere negation of
+possibility.[47]
+
+Thus, if it be conceded that the universe as a whole is infinite both in
+space and time, the concession amounts to an abolition of the final mystery
+of things. For all that we mean by a mystery is something that requires an
+explanation, and the whole of the final mystery of things is therefore
+embodied in the question, "Why is there Existence?--Why is there not
+Nothing?" But if the universe of Existence be conceded infinite, this
+question is sufficiently met by the answer, "Because Existence is, and
+Nothing is not." If it is retorted, But this is no real answer; I reply, It
+is as real as the question. For to ask, Why is there Existence? is, upon
+the supposition which has been conceded, equivalent to asking, Why is the
+possible possible? And if such questions cannot be answered, it is scarcely
+right to say that on this account they embody a mystery; because the
+questions are really not rational questions, and therefore the fact of
+their not admitting of any rational answer cannot be held to show that the
+questions embody any rational mystery. That there _is_ a rational mystery,
+in the sense of there being something which can never be _explained_, I do
+not dispute; all I assert is, that this mystery is inexplicable, only
+_because there is nothing to explain_; the mystery being ultimate, to ask
+for an explanation of that which, being ultimate, requires no explanation,
+is irrational. Or, to state the case in another way, if it is asked, Why is
+there not Nothing? it is a sufficient answer, on supposition of the
+universe being infinite, to say, Because Nothing is nothing; it is merely a
+word which presents no meaning, and which, so far as anything can be
+conceived to the contrary, never can present any meaning.
+
+The above discussion has proceeded on the supposition of Existence being
+infinite; but practically the same result would follow on the
+counter-supposition of Existence being finite. For although in this case,
+as we have seen, Non-entity would still be included within the range of
+possibility, it would still be no more conceivable as such than is Entity;
+and hence the question, Why is there not Nothing? would still be
+irrational, seeing that, even if the possibility which the question
+supposes were realised, it would in no wise tend to explain the mystery of
+Something. And even if it could, the final mystery would not be thus
+excluded; it would merely be transferred from the mystery of Existence to
+the mystery of Non-existence. Thus under every conceivable supposition we
+arrive at the same termination--viz., that in the last resort there must be
+a final mystery, which, as forming the basis of all possible explanations,
+cannot itself receive any explanation, and which therefore is really not,
+in any proper sense of the term, a mystery at all. It is merely a fact
+which itself requires no explanation, because it is a fact than which none
+can be more ultimate. So that even if we suppose this ultimate fact to be
+an Intelligent Being, it is clearly impossible that he should be able to
+_explain_ his own existence, since the possibility of any such explanation
+would imply that his existence could not be ultimate. In the sense,
+therefore, of not admitting of any explanation, his existence would require
+to be a mystery to himself, rendering it impossible for him to state
+anything further with regard to it than this--"I am that I am."
+
+I do not doubt that this way of looking at the subject will be deemed
+unsatisfactory at first sight, because it seems to be, as it were, a merely
+logical way of cheating our intelligence out of an intuitively felt
+justification for its own curiosity in this matter. But the fault really
+lies in this intuitive feeling of justification not being itself
+justifiable. For this particular question, it will be observed, differs
+from all other possible questions with which the mind has to deal. All
+other questions being questions concerning manifestations of existence
+presupposed as existing, it is perfectly legitimate to seek for an
+explanation of one series of manifestations in another--_i.e._, to refer a
+less known group to a group better known. But the case is manifestly quite
+otherwise when, having merged one group of manifestations into another
+group, and this into another for an indefinite number of stages, we
+suddenly make a leap to the last possible stage and ask, "Into what group
+are we to merge the basis of all our previous groups, and of all groups
+which can possibly be formed in the future? How are we to classify that
+which contains all possible classes? Where are we to look for an
+explanation of Existence?" When thus clearly stated, the question, is, as I
+have said, manifestly irrational; but the point with which I am now
+concerned is this--When in plain reason the question is _seen_ to be
+irrational, why in intuitive sentiment should it not be _felt_ to be so?
+The answer, I think, is, that the interrogative faculty being usually
+occupied with questions which admit of rational answers, we acquire a sort
+of intellectual habit of presupposing every wherefore to have a therefore,
+and thus, when eventually we arrive at the last of all possible wherefores,
+which itself supplies the basis of all possible therefores, we fail at
+first to recognise the exceptional character of our position. We fail at
+first to perceive that, from the very nature of this particular case, our
+wherefore is deprived of the rational meaning which it had in all the
+previous cases, where the possibility of a corresponding therefore was
+presupposed. And failing fully to perceive this truth, our organised habit
+of expecting an answer to our question asserts itself, and we experience
+the same sense of intellectual unrest in the presence of this wholly
+meaningless and absurd question, as we experience in the presence of
+questions significant and rational.
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Notes
+
+[1] The above was written before Mr. Mill's essay on Theism was published.
+Lest, therefore, my refutation may be deemed too curt, I supplement it with
+Mr. Mill's remarks upon the same subject. "It may still be maintained that
+the feelings of morality make the existence of God eminently desirable. No
+doubt they do, and that is the great reason why we find that good men and
+women cling to the belief, and are pained by its being questioned. But,
+surely, it is not legitimate to assume that, in the order of the universe,
+whatever is desirable is true. Optimism, even when a God is already
+believed in, is a thorny doctrine to maintain, and had to be taken by
+Leibnitz in the limited sense, that the universe being made by a good
+being, is the best universe possible, not the best absolutely: that the
+Divine power, in short, was not equal to making it more free from
+imperfections than it is. But optimism, prior to belief in a God, and as
+the ground of that belief, seems one of the oddest of all speculative
+delusions. Nothing, however, I believe, contributes more to keep up the
+belief in the general mind of humanity than the feeling of its
+desirableness, which, when clothed, as it very often is, in the form of an
+argument, is a _naive_ expression of the tendency of the human mind to
+believe whatever is agreeable to it. Positive value the argument of course
+has none." For Mill's remarks on the version of the argument dealt with in
+Sec. 5, see his "Three Essays," p. 204.
+
+[2] The words "or not conceivable," are here used in the sense of "not
+relatively conceivable," as explained in Chap. vi.
+
+[3] For the full discussion from which the above is an extract, see _System
+of Logic_, vol. i. pp. 409-426 (8th ed.). But, substituting "psychical" for
+"volitional," see also, for some mitigation of the severity of the above
+statement, the closing paragraphs of my supplementary essay on "Cosmic
+Theism."
+
+[4] Essay on Understanding--Existence of God.
+
+[5] Locke, _loc. cit._
+
+[6] See Appendix A.
+
+[7] Viz., the constant association within experience of mind with certain
+highly peculiar material forms; the constant proportion which is found to
+subsist between the quantity of cerebral matter and the degree of
+intellectual capacity--a proportion which may be clearly traced throughout
+the ascending series of vertebrated animals, and which is very generally
+manifested in individuals of the human species; the effects of cerebral
+anaemia, anaesthetics, stimulants, narcotic poisons, and lesions of cerebral
+substance. There can, in short, be no question that the whole series of
+observable facts bearing upon the subject are precisely such as they ought
+to be upon supposition of the materialistic theory being true; while,
+contrariwise, there is a total absence of any known facts tending to
+negative that theory. At the same time it must be carefully noted, that the
+observed facts (and any additional number of the like kind) do not
+logically warrant us in concluding that mental states are necessarily
+_dependent_ upon material changes. Nevertheless, it must also be noted,
+that, in the absence of positive proof of causation, it is certainly in
+accordance with scientific procedure, to yield our provisional assent to an
+hypothesis which undoubtedly connects a large order of constant
+_accompaniments_, rather than to an hypothesis which is confessedly framed
+to meet but a single one of the facts.
+
+Professor Clifford, in a lecture on "Body and Mind" which he delivered at
+St. George's Hall, and afterwards published in the _Fortnightly Review_,
+argues against the existence of God on the ground that, as Mind is always
+associated with Matter within experience, there arises a presumption
+against Mind existing anywhere without being thus associated, so that
+unless we can trace in the disposition of the heavenly bodies some
+resemblance to the conformation of cerebral structure, we are to conclude
+that there is a considerable balance of probability in favour of Atheism.
+Now, as this argument--if we rid it of the grotesque allusion to the
+heavenly bodies--is one that is frequently met with, it seems desirable in
+this place briefly to analyse it. First of all, then, the validity of the
+argument depends upon the probability there is that the constant associated
+of Mind with Matter within experience is due to a _causal_ connection; for
+if the association in question is merely an _association_ and nothing more,
+the origin of known mind is as far from being explained as it would be were
+Mind never known as associated with Matter. But, in the next place,
+supposing the constant association in question to be due to a causal
+connection, it by no means follows that because Mind is due to Matter
+within experience, therefore Mind cannot exist in any other mode beyond
+experience.
+
+Doubtless, from analogy, there is a presumption against the hypothesis that
+the same entity should exist in more than one mode at the same time; but
+clearly in this case we are quite unable to estimate the value of this
+presumption. Consequently, even assuming a causal connection between Matter
+and Human Mind, if there is any, the slightest, indications supplied by any
+other facts of experience pointing to the existence of a Divine Mind, such
+indications should be allowed as much argumentative weight as they would
+have had in the absence of the presumption we are considering. Hence
+Professor Clifford's conclusion cannot be regarded as valid until all the
+other arguments in favour of Theism have been separately refuted. Doubtless
+Professor Clifford will be the first to recognise the cogency of this
+criticism--if indeed it has not already occurred to him; for as I know that
+he is much too clear a thinker not to perceive the validity of these
+considerations, I am willing to believe that the substance of them was
+omitted from his essay merely for the sake of brevity; but, for the sake of
+less thoughtful persons, I have deemed it desirable to state thus clearly
+that the problem of Theism cannot be solved on grounds of Materialism
+alone. [This note was written before I had the advantage of Professor
+Clifford's acquaintance, but now I leave it, as I leave all other parts of
+this essay--viz., as it was originally written.--1878.]
+
+[8] To avoid burdening the text, I have omitted another criticism which may
+be made on Locke's argument. "Triangle" is a word by which we designate a
+certain figure, one of the properties of which is that the sum of its
+angles is equal to two right angles. In other words, any figure which does
+not exhibit this property is not that figure which we designate a triangle.
+Hence, when Locke says he cannot conceive of a triangle which does not
+present this property, it may be answered that his inability arises merely
+from the fact that any figure which fails to present this property is not a
+figure to which the term "triangle" can apply. Thus viewed, however, the
+illustration would obviously be absurd, for the same reason that the
+question of the clown is absurd, "Can you think of a horse that is just
+like a cow?" What Locke evidently means is, that we cannot conceive of any
+geometrical figure which presents all the other properties of a triangle
+without also presenting the property in question. Now, even admitting, with
+Locke, that it is as inconceivable that the entity known to us as Matter
+should possess the property of causing thought as it is that the figure
+which we term a triangle should posses the property of containing more than
+two right angles, still it remains, for the purposes of Locke's supposed
+theistic demonstration, to prove that it is an inconceivable for the entity
+which we call Mind _not_ to be due to another Mind, as it is for a triangle
+_not_ to contain, other than two right angles. But, further, even if it
+were possible to prove this, the demonstration would make as much against
+Theism as in favour of it; for if, as the illustration of the triangle
+implies, we restrict the meaning of the word "Mind" to an entity one of
+whose essential qualities is that it should be caused by another Mind, the
+words "Supreme and Uncaused Mind" involve a contradiction in terms, just as
+much as would the words "A square triangle having four right angles." It
+would, therefore, seem that if we adhere to Locke's argument, and pursue it
+to its conclusion, the only logical outcome would be this:--Seeing that by
+the word "Mind," I expressly connote the quality of derivation from a prior
+Mind, as a quality belonging no less essentially to Mind than the quality
+of presenting two right angles belongs to a triangle; therefore, whatever
+other attributes I ascribe to the First Cause, I must clearly exclude the
+attribute Mind; and hence, whatever else such a Cause may be, it follows
+from my argument that it certainly is--Not Mind.
+
+[9] Hamilton.
+
+[10] Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. pp. 25-31.
+
+[11] Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. p. 542.
+
+[12] _Loc. cit._, p. 543.
+
+[13] Appendix to Discussions, pp. 614, 165.
+
+[14] Mill, in the lengthy chapter which he devotes to the freedom of the
+will in his Examination, does not notice this point.
+
+[15] If more evidence can be wanted, it is supplied in some suggestive
+facts of Psychology. For example, "From our earliest childhood, the idea of
+doing wrong (that is, of doing what is forbidden, or what is injurious to
+others) and the idea of punishment are presented to the mind together, and
+the intense character of the impressions causes the association between
+them to attain the highest degree of closeness and intimacy. Is it strange,
+or unlike the usual processes of the human mind, that in these
+circumstances we should retain the feeling and forget the reason on which
+it is grounded? But why do I speak of forgetting? In most cases the reason
+has never, in our early education, been presented to the mind. The only
+ideas presented have been those of wrong and punishment, and an inseparable
+association has been created between these directly, without the help of
+any intervening idea. This is quite enough to make the spontaneous feelings
+of mankind regard punishment and a wrong-doer as naturally fitted to each
+other--as a conjunction appropriate in itself, independently of any
+consequences," &c.--Mill, Examination of Hamilton, p. 599.
+
+[16] Grammar of Assent, pp. 106, 107.
+
+[17] Throughout these considerations I have confined myself to the
+_positive_ side of the subject. My argument being of the nature of a
+criticism on the erroneous inferences which are drawn from the _good_
+qualities of our moral nature, I thought it desirable, for the sake of
+clearness, not to burden that argument by the additional one as to the
+source of the _evil_ qualities of that nature. This additional argument,
+however, will be found briefly stated at the close of my supplementary
+essay on Professor Flint's "Theism." On reading that additional argument, I
+think that any candid and unbiassed mind must conclude that, alike in what
+it is _not_ as well as in what it _is_, our moral nature points to a
+natural genesis, as distinguished from a supernatural cause.
+
+[18] The illustration to which I refer is that of the watershed of a
+country being precisely adapted to draining purposes. The rivers just fit
+their own particular beds: the latter occupy the lowest grounds, and get
+broader and deeper as they advance; pebbles, gravel, and sand all occupy
+the best teleological situations, &c., &c.
+
+[19] "Order of Nature," by the Rev. Baden Powell, M.A., F.R.S., &c., 1859,
+pp. 228-241.
+
+[20] I think it desirable to state that I perceived this great truth before
+I was aware that it had been perceived also by Mr. Spencer. His statement
+of it now occurs in the short chapter of _First Principles_ entitled
+"Relations between Forces." So far as I an able to ascertain, no one has
+hitherto considered this important doctrine in its immediate relation to
+the question of Theism.
+
+In using the term "persistence of force," I am aware that I am using a term
+which is not unopen to criticism. But as Mr. Spencer's writings have
+brought this term into such general use among speculative thinkers, it
+seemed to me undesirable to modify it. Questions of mere terminology are
+without any importance in a discussion of this kind, provided that the
+terms are universally understood to mean what they are intended to mean;
+and I think that the signification which Mr. Spencer attaches to his term,
+"persistence of force," is sufficiently precise. Therefore, adopting his
+usage, whenever throughout the following pages I speak of force as
+persisting, what I intend to be understood is, that there is a
+something--call it force, or energy, or _x_--which, so far as experience or
+imagination can extend, is, in its relation to us, ubiquitous and
+illimitable; or, in other words, that it universally presents the property
+of permanence. (See, for a more detailed explanation, supplementary essay,
+"On the Final Mystery of Things.")
+
+[21] Hamilton may here be especially noticed, because he went so far as to
+maintain that the phenomena of the external world, taken by themselves,
+would ground a valid argument to the negation of God. Although I cannot but
+think that this position was a conspicuously irrational one for any
+competent thinker to occupy before the scientific doctrine of the
+correlation of the forces had been enunciated, nevertheless I cannot lose
+the opportunity of alluding to this remarkable feature in Sir William
+Hamilton's philosophy, showing as it does that same prophetic forestalling
+of the results which have since followed from the discovery of the
+conservation of energy, as was shown by his no less remarkable theory of
+causation. (See supplementary essay "On the Final Mystery of Things.")
+
+[22] Mr. N. Lockyer's work is now supplying important evidence on these
+points.--1878.
+
+[23] It will of course be observed that if matter and force are identical,
+the unification is complete.
+
+[24] Herbert Spencer.
+
+[25] It may here be observed that the above discussion would not be
+affected by the view of Professor Clifford and others, that natural law is
+to be regarded as having a subjective rather than an objective
+signification--that what we call a natural law is merely an arbitrary
+selection made by ourselves of certain among natural processes. The
+discussion would not be affected by this view, because the argument is
+really based upon the existence of a cosmos as distinguished from a chaos;
+and therefore it would be rather an intensification of the argument than
+otherwise to point out that, for the maintenance of a cosmos, natural laws,
+as conceived by us, would be inadequate. And this seems a fitting place to
+make the almost superfluous remark, that throughout this present essay I
+have used the words "Natural Law," "Supreme Law-giver," &c., in an
+apparently unguarded sense, merely in order to avoid needless obscurity.
+Fully sensible as I am of the misleading nature of the analogy which these
+words embody, I have yet adopted them for the sake of perspicuity--being
+careful, however, never to allow the false analogy which they express to
+enter into an argument on either side of the question. Thus, even where it
+is said that the existence of Natural Law points to the existence of a
+Supreme Law-maker, the argument might equally well be phrased: The
+existence of an orderly cosmos points to the existence of a disposing mind.
+
+[26] First Principles, pp. 27-29.
+
+[27] It may be here observed that this quality of indefiniteness on the
+part of such reasoning is merely a practical outcome of the theoretical
+considerations adduced in Chapter V. For as we there saw that the ratio
+between the known and the unknown is in this case wholly indefinite, it
+follows that any symbols derived from the region of the known--even though
+such symbols be the highest generalities which the latter region
+affords--must be wholly indefinite when projected into the region of the
+unknown. Or rather let us say, that as the region of the unknown is but a
+progressive continuation of the region of the known, the determinate value
+of symbols of thought varies inversely as the distance--or, not improbably,
+as the square of the distance--from the sphere of the known at which they
+are applied.
+
+[28] _i.e._, illegitimate in a _relative_ sense. The conclusion is
+legitimate enough in a _formal_ sense, and as establishing a probability of
+some _unassignable_ degree of value. But it would be illegitimate if this
+quality of indefiniteness were disregarded, and the conclusion supposed to
+possess the same character of actual probability as it has of formal
+definition.
+
+[29] In order not to burden the text with details, I have presented these
+reflections in their most general terms. Thus, if it be granted that cosmic
+harmony results from the combined action of general laws, and that these
+laws are the necessary result of the primary qualities of force and matter,
+this the most general statement of the atheistic position includes all more
+special considerations as a genus includes its species; and therefore it
+would not signify, for the purposes of the atheistic argument, whether or
+not any such more special considerations are possible. Nevertheless, for
+the sake of completeness, I may here observe that we are not wholly without
+indications in nature of the physical causation whereby the effect of
+cosmic harmony is produced. The universal tendency of motion to become
+rhythmical--itself, as Mr. Spencer was the first to show, a necessary
+consequence of the persistence of force--is, so to speak, a conservative
+tendency: it sets a premium against natural cataclysms. But a more
+important consideration is this,--that during the evolution of natural law
+in the way suggested in Chapter IV., as every newly evolved law came into
+existence it must have been, as it were, grafted on the stock of all
+pre-existing natural laws, and so would not enter the cosmic system as an
+element of confusion, but rather as an element of further progress. For
+instance, when, with the origin of organic nature, the law of natural
+selection entered upon the cosmos, it was grafted upon the pre-existing
+stock of other natural laws, and so combined within them in unity. And a
+little thought will show that it was impossible that it should do
+otherwise; for it was impossible that natural selection could ever produce
+organisms which would ever be able by their existence to conflict with the
+pre-existing system of astronomic or geologic laws; seeing that organisms,
+being a product of later evolution than these laws, would either have to be
+adapted to them or perish. And hence the new law of natural selection,
+which consists in so adapting organisms to the pre-existing laws that they
+must either conform to them or die. Now, I have chosen the case of natural
+selection because, as alluded to in the text, it is the law of all others
+which is the most conspicuously effective in producing the harmonious
+complexity of nature. But the same kind of considerations may be seen to
+apply to most of the other general laws with which we are acquainted,
+particularly if we bear in mind that the general outcome of their united
+action as we observe it--the cosmic harmony on which so much stress is
+laid--is not _perfectly_ harmonious. Cataclysms--whether it be the capture
+of an insect, or the ruin of a star--although events of comparatively rare
+occurrence if at any given time we take into account the total number of
+insects or the total number of stars, are events which nevertheless do
+occasionally happen. And the fact that even cataclysms take place in
+accordance with so-called natural law, serves but to emphasise the
+consideration on which we are engaged--viz., that the total result of the
+combined action of general laws is not such as to produce perfect order.
+Lastly, if the answer is made that human ideas of perfect order may not
+correspond with the highest ideal of such order, I observe that to make
+such a answer is merely to abandon the subject of discussion; for if a
+theist rests his argument on the basis of our human conception of order, he
+is not free to maintain his argument and at the same time to abandon its
+basis at whatever point the latter may be shown untenable.
+
+[30] Since the above was written, the first volume of Mr. Spencer's
+"Sociology" has been published; and those who may not as yet have read the
+first half of that work are here strongly recommended to do so; for Mr.
+Spencer has there shown, in a more connected and conclusive manner than has
+ever been shown before, how strictly natural is the growth of all
+superstitions and religions--_i.e._, of all the theories of personal agency
+in nature.--1878.
+
+[31] Herbert Spencer's Essays, vol. iii. pp. 246-249 (1874).
+
+[32] This is the truly inconceivable element in the physical theory. As I
+have shown in the pleading on the side of Atheism, the supposed
+inconceivability of cosmic harmony being due to mindless forces, is not of
+such a kind as wholly refuses to be surmounted by symbolic conceptions of a
+sufficiently abstract character. But it is impossible, by the aid of any
+symbols, to gain a conception of an eternal existence. And I may here point
+out, that if Mind is said to be the cause of evolution, not only does the
+statement involve the inconceivable proposition that such a Mind must be
+infinite in respect to its powers of supervision, direction, &c.; but the
+statement also involves a necessary alternative between two additional
+inconceivable propositions--viz., either that such a Mind must have been
+eternal, or that it must have come into existence without a cause. In this
+respect, therefore, it would seem that the theory of Atheism has the
+advantage over that of Theism; for while the former theory is under the
+necessity of embodying only a single inconceivable term, the latter theory
+is under the necessity of embodying two such terms.
+
+[33] Mr. Herbert Spencer has treated of this subject in his memorable
+controversy with Mill on the "Universal Postulate" (see _Psychology_, Sec.
+427), and refuses to entertain the term "Inconceivable" as applicable to
+any propositions other than those wherein "the terms cannot, by any effort,
+be brought before consciousness in that relation which the proposition
+asserts between them." That is to say, he limits the term "Inconceivable"
+to that which is _absolutely_ inconceivable; and he then proceeds to affirm
+that all propositions "which admit of being framed in thought, but which
+are so much at variance with experience, in which its terms have habitually
+been otherwise united, that its terms cannot be put in the alleged relation
+without effort," ought properly to be termed "_incredible_" propositions.
+Now I cannot see that the class "Incredible propositions" is, as this
+definition asserts, identical with the class which I have termed
+"Relatively inconceivable" propositions. For example, it is a familiar
+observation that, on looking at the setting sun, we experience an almost,
+if not quite, insuperable difficulty in _conceiving_ the sun's apparent
+motion as due to our own actual motion, and yet we experience no difficulty
+in _believing_ it. Conversely, I entertain but little difficulty in
+_conceiving_--_i.e._, imagining--a shark with a mammalian heart, and yet it
+would require extremely strong evidence to make me _believe_ that such an
+animal exists. The truth appears to be that our language is deficient in
+terms whereby to distinguish between that which is wholly inconceivable
+from that which is with difficulty conceivable. This, it seems to me, was
+the principle reason of the dispute between Spencer and Mill above alluded
+to,--the former writer having always used the word "Inconceivable" in the
+sense of "Absolutely inconceivable," and the latter having apparently used
+it--in his _Logic_ and elsewhere--in both senses. I have endeavoured to
+remedy this defect in the language by introducing the qualifying words,
+"Absolutely" and "Relatively," which, although not appropriate words, are
+the best that I am able to supply. The conceptive faculty of the individual
+having been determined by the experience of the race, that which is
+inconceivable by the intelligence of the race may be said to be
+inconceivable to the intelligence of the individual in an _absolute_ sense;
+no effort on his part can enable him to surmount the organically imposed
+conditions of his conceptive faculty. But that which is inconceivable
+merely to one individual or generation, while it is not inconceivable to
+the intelligence of the race, may properly be said to be inconceivable to
+the intelligence of that individual or generation only in a _relative_
+sense; apart from the special condition to which the individual
+intelligence has been subjected, there is nothing in the conditions of
+human intelligence as such to prevent the thing from being conceived.
+[While this work has been passing through the press, I have found that Mr.
+G. H. Lewes has already employed the above terms in precisely the same
+sense as that which is above explained.--1878.]
+
+[34] I should here like to have added some considerations on Sir W.
+Hamilton's remarks concerning the effect of training upon the mind in this
+connection; but, to avoid being tedious, I shall condense what I have to
+say into a few sentences. What Hamilton maintains is very true, viz., that
+the study of classics, moral and mental philosophy, &c., renders the mind
+more capable of believing in a God than does the study of physical science.
+The question, however, is, Which class of studies ought to be considered
+the more authoritative in this matter? I certainly cannot see what title
+classics, history, political economy, &c., have to be regarded at all; and
+although the mental and moral sciences have doubtless a better claim, still
+I think they must be largely subordinate to those sciences which deal with
+the whole domain of nature besides. Further, I should say that there is no
+very strong _affirmative_ influence created on the mind in this respect by
+any class of studies; and that the only reason why we so generally find
+Theism and classics, &c., united, is because we so seldom find classics,
+&c., and physical science united; the _negative_ influence of the latter,
+in the case of classical minds, being therefore generally absent.
+
+[35] The qualities named are only known in a relative sense, and therefore
+the apparent contradiction may be destitute of meaning in an absolute
+sense.
+
+[36] All the quotations in this Appendix have been taken from the chapter
+on "Our knowledge of the existence of a God," and from the early part of
+that on "The extent of human knowledge," together with the appended letter
+to the Bishop of Worcester.
+
+[37] A criticism of Mr. John Fiske's proposed system of theology as
+expounded in his work on "Cosmic Philosophy" (Macmillan & Co., 1874).
+
+[38] Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i. pp. 87-89.
+
+[39] Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 429, 430.
+
+[40] Ibid., p. 441.
+
+[41] Ibid., pp. 450, 451.
+
+[42] Principles of Psychology, vol. i. pp. 159-161.
+
+[43] We thus see that the question whether there may not be "something
+quasi-psychical in the constitution of things" is a question which does not
+affect the position of Theism as it has been left by a negation of the
+self-conscious personality of God. But as the speculations on which this
+question has been reared are in themselves of much philosophical interest,
+I may here observe that, in one form or another, they have been dimly
+floating in men's minds for a long time past. Thus, excepting the degree of
+certainty with which it is taught, we have in Mr. Spencer's words above
+quoted a reversion to the doctrine of Buddha; for, as "force is
+persistent," all that would happen on death, supposing the doctrine true,
+would be an escape of the "circumscribed aggregate" of units forming the
+individual consciousness into the unlimited abyss of similar units
+constituting the "Absolute Being" of the Cosmists, or the "Divine Essence"
+of the Buddhists. Again, the doctrine in a vague form pervades the
+philosophy of Spinoza, and is next clearly enunciated by Wundt. Lastly, in
+a recently published very remarkable essay "On the Nature of Things in
+Themselves," Professor Clifford arrives at a similar doctrine by a
+different route. The following is the conclusion to which he
+arrives:--"That element of which, as we have seen, even the simplest
+feeling is a complex, I shall call _Mind-stuff_. A moving molecule of
+inorganic matter does not possess mind or consciousness, but it possesses a
+small piece of mind-stuff. When molecules are so combined together as to
+form the film on the under side of a jellyfish, the elements of mind-stuff
+which go along with them are so combined as to form the faint beginnings of
+Sentience. When the molecules are so combined as to form the brain and
+nervous system of a vertebrate, the corresponding elements of mind-stuff
+are so combined as to form some kind of consciousness; that is to say,
+changes in the complex which take place at the same time get so linked
+together that the repetition of one implies the repetition of the other.
+When matters take the complex form of a living human brain, the
+corresponding mind-stuff takes the form of a human consciousness, having
+intelligence and volition." (Mind, January, 1878.)
+
+[44] Theism, by Robert Flint, D.D., LL.D., Professor of Divinity in the
+University of Edinburgh, &c.
+
+[45] Such being the objects in view, I have not thought it necessary to
+extend this criticism into anything resembling a review of Professor
+Flint's work as a whole; but, on the contrary, I have aimed rather at
+confining my observations to those parts of his treatise which embody the
+current arguments from teleology alone. I may here observe, however, in
+general terms, that I consider all his arguments to have been answered by
+anticipation in the foregoing examination of Theism. I may also here
+observe, that throughout the following essay I have used the word "design"
+in the sense in which it is used by Professor Flint himself. This sense is
+distinctly a different one from that which the word bears in the writings
+of the Paley, Bell, and Chalmers school. For while in the latter writings,
+as pointed out in Chapter III., the word bears its natural meaning of a
+certain _process of thought_, in Professor Flint's work it is used rather
+as expressive of a _product of intelligence_. In other words, "design," as
+used by Professor Flint, is synonymous with _intention_, irrespective of
+the particular psychological process by which the intention may have been
+put into effect.
+
+[46] Op. cit., pp. 255-257.
+
+[47] Let it be observed that there is a distinction between what I may call
+substantial and formal existence. Thus there is no doubt that flowers as
+flowers perish, or become non-existent; but the substances of which they
+were composed persist. And, in this connection, I may here point out that
+if the universe is infinite in space and time, the universe as a whole
+would present substantial existence as standing out of relation to space
+and time, whereas innumerable portions of the universe present only formal
+existences, because standing in relation both to space and time. Thus, for
+instance, the solar system, as a solar system, must have an end in time as
+it has a boundary in space; but as the substance of which it consists will
+not become extinguished by the extinction of the system, it may not now
+stand in any real relation to what we call space and time. I am inclined to
+think that it is upon the idea of non-existence in this formal sense that
+we construct a pseud-idea of non-existence in a substantial sense; but it
+is evident that if the universe as a whole is absolute, this pseud-idea
+must represent as impossibility. And from this it follows, that if
+existence is infinite in space and time, every _quantum_ of it with which
+our experience comes into relation must represent, as its essential
+quality, that quality which we find to be presented by the substance of
+things--the quality, that is, of persistence.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Candid Examination of Theism, by
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