Chapter 13

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."

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APPENDIX

AND

SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS.

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APPENDIX.

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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.