THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF T^ PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM BT BOEDEN P. BOWNE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY AUTHOR OF "metaphysics" " INTEODrCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY" ETC. NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1887 Copyright, 1887, by IIarper & Brothers. All rights reserved. BL aoo PREFACE. This work does not aim to say everytMng about theism. I liave rather sought to give an outhne of the essential argument which might serve as a text for teachers and as a somewhat critical survey of the subject for other readers. Kant pointed out that the ontological argu- ment properly proves notliing, and that the cos- mological and the design argument depend on the ontological. The argument, then, is not demonstrative, and rests finally on the assumed existence of a perfect being. In a different form I have maintained the same position ; but so far from concluding that theistic faith is baseless, I have sought to show that essentially the same postulate underlies our entire mental Ufe. There is an element of faith and vohtion latent in all our theorizing. Where we cannot prove, we beheve. "Where we cannot demon- strate, we choose sides. This element of faith iv PREFACE. cannot be escaped in any field of thought, and without it the mind is helpless and dumb. Oversight of this fact has led to boundless verb- al haggling and barren logic-chopping, in which it would be hard to say whether the affirmative or the negative be the more confused. Absurd demands for "proof" have been met with ab- surd " proofs." The argument has thus been transferred from the field of life and action, where it mainly belongs, to the arid wastes of formal logic, where it has fared scarcely better than the man who journeyed to Jericho from Jerusalem. The conclusion is that theism is the fundamental iDOstulate of our total life. It cannot, indeed, be demonstrated without assump- tion, but it cannot be denied without wi-ecking all our interests. This claun has been especially emphasized in considering the bearing of theism upon the prob- lem of knowledge. I have sought to show that our cognitive and speculative interests, as well as our moral and rehgious interests, are so bound up with theism as to stand or fall with it. If we say, then, that theism is strictly proved by nothing, we must also admit that it is imphcit in eveiytliing. Anti-theistic schemes are generally PREFACE. V in the instinctive stage of thought, where knowl- edge constitutes no problem and is taken for granted. In tliis stage any theory whatever may be held, however seK - destructive ; and when its suicidal imphcations are pointed out, the theorist falls back on unreasoned common- sense, and repudiates, not his own theory, which is the real offender, but the critic. He sets up natural selection as the determining principle of belief, and then repudiates the great catholic convictions of the race. He shows how the sur- vival of the fittest must bring thought and thing into accord, and then rejects the behefs which survive. He defines mind as an adjustment of inner relations to outer relations, and forthwith drifts off into nescience. He presents the Un- known Cause as the source of all beliefs, and then rules out most of them as invalid, and, at times, declares them all worthless. This pitia- ble compound of instinct and reflection, in which each destroys the other, has even been regarded as the final philosophy. Such performances are both saddening and wearisome. It seems clear that whoever will reason should regard the con- ditions of reason, and should not set up theories which undermine reason. But it will be a lonsj VI PREFACE. step in advance when this simple principle is recognized. Meanwhile the critic must possess his tired soul in patience when he sees suicidal theories parading as science and supreme wis- dom. The greater the dearth of thought, the greater the swarm of opinions. Yet there is some progress. Except in phi- losophy and theology, there is coming to he a de- cided conviction that no one has a right to an opinion who has not studied the subject. Off- hand decisions of unstudied questions receive very little consideration nowadays in the sci- ences. It is to be hoped that this mental seri- ousness may yet extend to philosophy and the- ology. At present it is not so. He would be a rare man indeed who could not settle questions in theology or Biblical criticism without previous study ; while the small men who could dispose of philosophy and philosoi^hers in one after- noon are legion. Meanwhile the irrelevance, the misunderstanding, the superficiality are so apparent that the student is unavoidably re- minded of our first parents, of whom it is said, They were naked and were not ashamed. That nature when driven out with a fork always comes running back is a discovery of PREFACE. vii ancient date. We have an excellent illustration of this law in the way in which language has avenged the attempt to discredit the teleological view of nature. Teleology has taken entire possession of the language of botany and bi- ology, especially when expounded in terms of evolution. Even plants do the most acute and far-sighted things to maintain their existence. They specialize themselves with a view to cross- fertilization and make nothing of changing spe- cies or genus to reach their ends. A supply is often regarded as fully explained when the need is pointed out ; and evolution itself is not infre- quently endowed with mental attributes. Such extraordinary mythology arises from the mental necessity for recognizing purpose in the world; and as it would not be good form to speak of a divine purpose, there is no shift but to attribute it to "Nature" or "Evolution " or " Law " or some other of the homemade divinities of the day. The atheistic gust of recent years has about blown over. Atheism is dead as a philosophy, and remains cliiefly as a disposition. But the origin and history of the late atheistic renas- cence are not without both interest and instruc- tion. The crude popular reahsm, joined with YjJJ^ PREFACE. the notion of necessity, fumislied excellent soil for an atheistic growth. Not a few atheists found a disproof of theism in the conservation of energy, and not a few theists felt that all depended on discrediting that doctrine. Both parties ahke agreed in the principle, the more law, the less God. This grotesque inversion of reason, together with the doctrine of evolu- tion in biology, brought about a state of tri- umph on the one side and of panic on the other which is unintelhgible now except to one versed in the philosophy of error, and which is seen to be equally baseless in both cases. The naive disportings of the speculators of that period are at once as charming and as embarrassing to the modest critic as the contemplation of a state of paradisaical innocence. Happily, there is an ad- vance towards clothing and a right mind. That terrible necessity which left no room for God has been recognized as only a shadow of the mind's own thi'owing. Even evolution, that monster of liideous mien, on the one hand, has been discovered not to be so potent a solvent of philosophical questions as was once fancied, and on the other, even some theists have plucked up courage enough, not only to endure, but also PREFACE. ix to embrace. Fundamental problems are seen to remain about what they always were in spite of the advent of the " New Philosophy." When that philosophy first appeared in the wilderness of the old philosophy and theology, announcing that the kingdom of science was at hand, high hopes were entertained by some, and gloomy forebodings by others, as to what the end would be. But as the attraction of novelty and denial wore off, it became clear that the "New Philoso- phy " could not hit it off with criticism any more happily than the old. To the apostles, this was both a revelation and a sore disappointment. They meant well and were gifted wiiters, but they were lacking in patient reflection. They took more heed to their speculative ways and became less enthusiastic but wiser men. Some proof of this is found in the fact that the British Association for the Advancement of Science has not favored us with a cosmological manifesto for the last dozen years. All parties have learned wisdom. Theists have gained breadth and cour- age. Anti-theists have found that the way of anti-theism is hard. The critic must allow that the theistic outlook was never more en- couraging. The only exception to this general X PREFACE. growth is in the case of the newspaper and mag- azine scientist — that well of omniscience nnde- filed. Here, as ever, one finds chiefly words and hearsay, an exploitation of what the writer does not know. Boeden P. Bowne. Boston, July, 1887. CONTENTS. CHAPTEB FAOB Introduction 1 I. Unity of the Wokld-Gkound 41 II. The World-Ground as Intelligent . . . . 62 III. The World-Ground as Personal 122 IV. The Metaphysical Attributes of the World- Ground 139 V. God and the World 171 VI. The World-Ground as Ethical 211 VII. Theism and Life 241 Conclusion 261 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. INTRODUCTION. § 1. Man is religious. However it came about, our race, at least as . soon as it emerged from brutisliness, possessed religious ideas and im- pulses. The earth is full of rehgion; and hfe and thought, art and literature, are moulded by it. Concerning this fact three questions may be asked. These concern respectively, (1) the source of rehgion, (2) the genesis and history of rehgion, and (3) the rational fomidation or warrant of reherion. The Source of Religion. § 2. To this question various answers are given. Some have been content to \aew religion as a de- vice of state and priest craft ; but this view has 1 2 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. long been obsolete. The impossibility of impos- ing purely adventitious and fictitious ideas upon the mind by external authority makes it neces- sary to look for the source of religion within the mind itself. Such source was found at a very early date in fear. Man being timid and help- less, feigns gods partly to help himself and part- ly as projections of his fears. This view, which finds full expression by Lucretius, has been ex- tended by Hume, who finds the source of re- ligious ideas m the personifying tendency of the mind. Man projects his own life into all his ob- jects, and thus surrounds himself with a world of invisible beings. Others have held that the idea of an invisible world first got afloat through dreams, trances, fits, etc., and once afloat, it took possession of the human mind in general, with the exception always of a few choice spirits of rare insight ; and from this unseemly origin the whole system of religious thought has been developed. Suggestions of this land are num- berless. They are mainly an extension of the sensational philosophy into the realm of re- ligion. As that philosophy seeks to reduce the rational factors of intellect to sensation, and eth- ical elements to non-ethical, so also it seeks to INTRODUCTION-. 3 reduce the religions nature to something non- rehgious. But in all of these attempts it suc- ceeds only by tacitly begging the question. If we take a mind whose full nature is expressed in the quality A, it will be forever impossible to develop anything but A out of it. In order to move at aU A must be more than A ; it must be A+X, or XA. That X contains the ground of the movement. A being whose nature is ex- hausted in sense objects can never transcend them. Everything must be to him what it seems. The stick must be a stick, not a fetich. The sun and moon must be lighted disks and not gods. To get such a being beyond the sense object to a rehgious object we must endow him with more than the A of sensation, or the B of animal fear. The cattle have both; but only some very hopeful evolutionists have discovered any traces of rehgion among them; and if it should turn out that these traces are not mis- leading, it would not prove that simple sensa- tions can become religious ideas, but that the animal mind is more and better than we have been accustomed to think. Another view has been suggested, that religious ideas are the product of reflective thought. This 4 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. view is disproved by experience. Man was re- ligious before lie became a philosopher. Specu- lative thought has had the function of criticis- ing and clarifying religious ideas, but never of originating them; and often they have been much more confidently held without its aid than with it. On this account many have viewed speculation in its religious efforts as a kind of inverted Jacob's ladder. Hence many have held that religious ideas are innate. This could only mean that the human mind is such as to develop rehgious sentiments and ideas under the stimulus of our total experi- ence ; and experience shows such difference of religious thought that the content of this re- hgious intuition could hardly be more than a vague apprehension of an invisible and super- natural existence. The phrase, innate ideas, has so many misleading connotations that it had better be avoided. In the same hue it has been suggested that the soul has a special organ or faculty for the re- ception of rehgious truth ; and the state of this faculty has even been made a ground for impor- tant theological distinctions. Sometimes it has been called faith, sometimes feeling, and some- LNTRODUCTION. 5 times the " God-consciousness." But psychology long ago discovered that nothing is explained by reference to a faculty ; since the faculty itself is always and only an abstraction from the facts for whose explanation it is invoked or invented. There is probably no question more utterly arid and barren than the search for the "faculty" from which rehgion springs. The conclusion is this : No external action can develop an empty mind which has no law, nature, or direction into anything. This would be to act upon the void. Hence it is hopeless to look for the source of rehgious ideas in external ex- perience alone. We must assume a germ of re- ligious impulse in the soul in order to make re- hgious development possible. But, on the other hand, this germ is not self-sufficient. It develops only under the stimulus of outer and inner ex- perience, and unless under the criticism and re- straint of intellect and conscience it develops into grotesque or terrible forms. The stimulus may be manifold. It may lie in our sense of depend- ence, in the needs of the intellect, in the de- mands and forebodings of conscience, in the cravings of the affections, in the words of rev- elation, and in some direct influence of Grod 6 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. upon the soul. WMcli of these it may be, or whether all of them enter into actual religious development, is a question for separate study. Tlie History of Religion. § 3. This question does not concern us. It is referred to (1) because it is a separate question, and (2) because there is a fancy that the truth of rehgion can be determined by studying its de- velopment either in the individual or in the his- tory of the raoe. But a httle reflection shows that the psychological genesis of an idea is not to be confounded with its philosophical worth. "Wlien the latter question is up the former is en- tirely irrelevant, unless it be shown that philo- sophical value is compatible with only one form of psychological genesis. This showing has never been attempted. Meanwhile the rational value of a proposition can be determined only by considermg its content and the reasons which are offered for it. The Grounds of Religion. § 4. But our present concern is with neither of the first two questions, but rather with the third, the rational foundation of religion, and more par- INTRODUCTION. 7 ticularly vath the rational foundation of the theistic idea, which is the central conception of rehgion. We set aside, therefore, all inquiry into the origin and development of rehgious ideas, and inquire rather whether they have any ra- tional warrant now that they are here. We take,* then, what we may call the theistic consciousness of the race as the text for a critical exegesis with the aim of fixing its content and philosophical worth. We do not aim at a philosophical deduc- tion or speculative construction of rehgion, nor yet at a genetic unfolding of religion; we aim only to analyze and understand the data of the religious consciousness. The outcome of this inquiry might conceiv- ably be threefold. The theistic idea might be found to be (1) contradictory or absurd, (2) an implication of the religious sentiment only, and without any significance for pure intellect, and (3) a demand of om^ entire nature, intellectual, moral, aesthetic, and rehgious. In the first case it would have to be abandoned. In the second it would be a fact of which no further account could be given, but which need not, on that ac- count, be rejected. In the last case theism would appear as the imphcation of aU our faculties, and 8 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISil. would have the warrant of tlie entire sonl. How this may be the course of oiir study must show. § 5. The function of the theistic idea in human thought as a whole is very complex. Fu^st, the- ism may be advanced as an hypothesis for the explanation of phenomena. As such it has no rehgious function at all, but solely a logical and metaphysical one. The question is considered under the law of the sufficient reason ; and the aim is to find an adequate explanation of phe- nomena, especially those of the external world. Most theistic argument has been carried on on this basis. The facts of the outer world have been appealed to, especially those which show adaptation and adjustment to ends; and the claim has been set up that only intelhgence could account for them. These facts have been sup- plemented with various metaphysical considera- tions concerning the absolute and the relative, the infinite and the finite, the necessary and the contingent, the self -moving and the moved ; and the work was done. How far this comes from satisfying the rehgious nature is evident. Second, theism may be held as the implication and satisfaction of our entire nature, intellectual, INTRODUCTION. 9 emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and religious. These elements reach out after Grocl so natui'ally and, when developed, ahnost so necessarily, that they have always constituted the chief actual grounds of theistic behef. Accordingly the human mind has always adjusted its conception of God with reference less to external nature than to its own internal needs and aspirations. It has gathered its ideals of truth and beauty and goodness, and united them into the thought of the one Per- fect Beinsc, the ideal of ideals, God over all and -r , blessed forever. A purely setiological contempla- tion of the world and life with the sole aim of find- ing an adequate cause according to the law of the sufficient reason would give us an altogether dif- ferent idea of God from that which we possess. Hence it has been a frequent claim, even among \ theologians, that arguments for theism are worth- ' less. They may jDroduce some assent but no hving conviction; and when they are strictly logical they reach only barren results which \ are religiously worthless. These sterihties are transformed into fruitfuhiess only by imphcitly falling back on the h^dng rehgious conscious- ness ; and this might as weU be done openly and at the start. 10 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. This claim is partly true and partly false. It is true that purely setiological arguments, hke that from design, are inadequate, but they may be good as far as they go. It is also true that pui-e- ly metaphysical arguments concerning the abso- lute, or unconditioned, do not bring us in sight of ]iYmg rehgious sentiment, but they have their value nevertheless. On the other hand, it is a grave oversight to suppose that such considera- tions alone can give the full rehgious conception of God. The actual grounds of theistic behef are manifold, being inteUectual, emotional, 88S- thetic, and ethical ; and no one can understand the history of the behef without taking aU of these into account. But here the very grave doubt meets us wheth- er most of these elements are proper grounds of behef, and whether theistic argument does not confessedly proceed by a much looser logic than ol^tains in our mental procedure elsewhere. This compels us to take a short survey of mental method in general. § 6. It is a traditional superstition of intellect that notliing is to be accepted which is not either seK-evident or demonstrated. The correspond- INTRODUCTION. H ing conception of method is this : Let lis first find some in\dncible fact or principle, something which cannot be doubted or denied without ab- surdity, and from this let us deduce by cogent logic whatever may be got out of it. ^Yhen we reach the end of our logic let us stop. In other words, admit nothing that can be doubted. Make no assmnptions, and take no step which is not compelled by rigorous logic. And, above all, let no feehng or sentiment or desire have any voice in determining behef . If we foUow this rule we shaU never be confounded, and knowledge will progi'ess. Opposed to this conception of method is an- other, as f oUows : Instead of doubting everything that can be doubted, let us rather doubt nothing until we are compelled to doubt. Let us assume that everything is what it reports itself until some reasons for doubt appear. In society we get on better by assuming that men are truthfid, and by doubting only for special reasons, than we should if we assumed that all men are hars, and beheved them only when compelled. So in aU investigation we make more progress if we as- sume the timthfulness of the universe and of our own nature than we should if we doubted both. 12 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISil. Sucli are the two metliocls. The former as- sumes eyeiything to be false until proved true ; the latter assumes everything to be true until proved false. All fruitful work proceeds upon the latter method; most speculative criticism and closet-philosophy proceed upon the former. Hence their perennial barrenness. § 7. The fii'st method seems the more rigorous, but it can be applied only to mathematics, which is purely a subjective science. ^Yhen we come to deal with reahty the method brings thought to a standstill. At the beginning of the modern era, Descartes pretended to doubt everything, and found only one unshakable fact — I think ; there- fore, I am. But from this he could deduce noth- ing. The bare fact, " I think," is philosopliical- ly insignificant. What I think, or how I think, whether rightly or wrongly, is the important matter. But from the bare " I think " Descartes could reach neither the world of things, nor the world of persons, nor the world of laws. The method was so rigorous as to leave thought "wdth- out an object. And in general, if we should begin by doubting everything that can be doubted, and by setthng all questions in advance, we should INTRODUCTION. 13 never get under way. There are questions in logical theory, in the theory of knowledge, and in metaphysics, which even yet are keenly de- bated. The sceptic and agnostic and ideahst are still abroad. § 8. If, then, man were only an abstract specu- lator, this method of doubting everything which cannot be demonstrated would condemn the mind to a barren subjectivity. But man is not only, or chiefly, an abstract speculator, he is also a living being, with practical interests and neces- sities, to which he must adjust himself in order to hve at all. It has been one of the perennial shortcomings of intellectuahsm that man has been considered solely as an intellect or under- standing; whereas, he is a great deal more. Man is wiU, conscience, emotion, aspiration ; and these are far more powerful factors than the logical intellect. Hence, in its practical unfold- ing the mind makes a great variety of practical postulates and assmnptions which are not log- ical deductions or speculative necessities, but a kind of modus vivendi with the universe. They represent the conditions of our fullest hf e ; and are at bottom expressions of our practical and 14 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. ideal interests or necessities. And these are reached as articulate principles, not by specula- tive construction, but by analysis of practical life. Life is richer and deeper than speculation, and contains implicitly the principles by which we hve. The law the logician lays down is this : Nothing may be beheved which is not proved. The law the mind actually follows is this : Whatever the mind demands for the satisfaction of its subjective interests and tendencies may be assumed as real in default of positive dis- proof. We propose to trace this principle in the realm of cognition as being the realm which is commonly supposed to be free from all sub- I jective elements. § 9. As cognitive beings we desire to know. But reahty as it is given to lis in immediate experience is not adapted to the needs of our inteUigence, and we proceed to work it over so as to make it amenable to our mental necessi- ties. This working over constitutes what we call theoretical science. To do it we tacitly as- sume that the vast collection of things and events fall into fixed classes, are subject to fixed laws, and are bound up into a rational system. INTRODUCTION. 15 We assume, further, the essential truthfulness of nature, so that the indications of all clearly de- termined facts can be trusted. We assume, once more, that nature is not only essentially compre- hensible, but that it is comprehensible by us ; so that what our nature calls for to make the facts intelhgible to us is necessary to the facts them- selves. For, after all, our explanation of facts always consists in saying that if we may assume certain facts we can understand the actual facts. Thus back of the real universe of experience we construct an ideal universe of the intellect, and we understand the former through the latter. In this way we reach two entirely different con- ceptions of things. One is furnished by the senses; the other is reached by thought. The former represents reahty as it reports itself ; the latter represents reahty as made over by the mind. And this is not all. For soon the ideal uni- verse passes for the real, while the real universe of experience is degraded into a phenomenon or appearance. Nothing is allowed to be what it reports itself. All the senses are flouted. The reports of the unsophisticated consciousness are derided. Numberless worlds are invented; a 16 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. whole family of ethers is generated; and the oddest things are said about eveiything, as if our aim were to give the lie direct to every sponta- neous conviction of common -sense. The doc- trines of astronomy, and the current theories of heat, hght, sound, and matter are examples. All of these things are, without exception, a series of ideal constructions by which we seek to in- terpret the reahty of experience and make it amenable to our intelligence. If now we ask for the source and warrant of this theoretic activity we must finally find it in the living interests of our cognitive nature. The facts themselves are indifferent alike to comj^re- hension and non-comprehension. But we seek to comprehend as a matter of course, and take for granted that we have a right to comprehend, that the universe is comprehensible, and that we are able to comprehend it. The assumptions we make are so natural that they even seem necessary truths at times ; but in fact they are primarily but projections upon reality of om.' mental nature and our subjective interests. That conception of a crystalhne system of law is purely a subjective ideal and is not known to be an objective fact. The comprehensible universe INTRODUCTION. 17 is as pure an assumption as tlie religious and moral universe. Moreover, the actual universe, that is the universe as given in experience, is not intelligible; it is that other assumed ideal universe, which we have put behind the real universe, which is intelhgible. From a strictly logical and critical standpoint the intelhgible universe is purely an idol of the human tribe ; nevertheless we insist upon its reahty because the admission of an essentially irrational and incogitable world violates our cognitive instincts, throws the mind back upon itself mthout an object and without meaning, and leaves it a prey to scepticism and despair. § 10. The existence of this assumptive element may be further shown by adopting a suggestion of Arthur Balfour in his "Defence of Philo- sophic Doubt," and constructing a refutation of science on the model of the famihar refutation of rehgion. We need only demand that the sci- entist prove his postulates and demonstrate his assumptions to put him in a sad phght. (1.) Let him settle with the philosophic sceptic. (2.) Let him rout the agnostic. (3.) Let him put the idealist to flight. (4.) Let him prove that a sys- IS PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. tern of law exists in objective fact. (5.) Let liim show that what he needs to comprehend the facts is necessary to the facts themselves. (6.) Let him clear up the difficulties in his own metaphysics. Action at a distance, the natiu'e of the ether, and the relations of matter and force would be good points to begin with. (7.) Let hun show that our desire to have the uni- verse comprehensible proves that it is so, or that our unmllingness to admit an irrational reahty is any argument against it. (8.) Let him re- member that the scientific interest which is so strong in him is very hmited indeed, so that it must seem like extreme arrogance on liis part to seek to impose the tenets of his little sect upon the universe as necessary laws of the same. When all these demands have been met there can be some talk about science, but not before. As long as the sceptic and agnostic are abroad there is no security that science is not sheer fiction. As long as the idealist is not silenced, it is doubtful whether even the objects of sci- ence exist. If the system of law is not proved to exist, the deductions from it are worthless. Until we i^rove that what we need to under- stand the facts is necessary to the facts them- INTRODUCTION". 19 selves, our theorizing may be only a projection upon tlie outer world of our mental nature, and in no way an apprehension of objective reality. As to the metaphysics of science, it is well known to contain difficulties equal to any in theology. So far from answering these ques- tions the average scientist has never heard of them, and yet they seem to concern the life of science itself. The truth is, we meet here the opposition of method to wliich we referred at the start. The critic affects to doubt whatever cannot be proved, while the scientist takes for granted what every one admits. § 11. The sum is this : The mind is not a dis- interested logic-machine, but a hving organism, with manifold interests and tendencies. These outline its development, and furnish the driving power. The implicit aim in mental develop- ment is to recognize these interests, and make room for them, so that each shall have its proper field and object. In this way a series of ideals arise in oiu' mental life. As cognitive, we as- sume that the universe is rational. Many of its elements are opaque, and utterly unmanageable, by us at present, but we assume spontaneously 20 PIIILOSOPnY OF THEISM. and unconsciously that at the centre all is order, and that there all is crystalline and transparent to intelligence. Thus there arises in our thought the conception of a system in which all is light, a system whose foundations are laid in har- mony, and whose structure is rational law, a system every part of which is produced and maintained and illumined by the majestic and eternal Reason. But this is only a cognitive ideal, to which experience yields but little sup- l)ort. But we hold fast the ideal and set aside the facts which make against it as something not yet comprehended. But we are moral beings also, and our moral interests must be recognized. Hence arises a moral ideal, which we join to the cognitive. The universe must be not only rational, but right- eous at its root. Here too we set aside the facts which make against our faith as something not yet understood. This is especially the case in deahng with the problem of evil. Here we are never content with finding a cause for the good and evil in experience; we insist upon an ex- planation which shall save the assumed good- ness at the heart of things. Finally, we are rehgious, and our entire nat- INTRODUCTION. 21 ure works together to construct the rehgious ideal. The intellect brings its ideal; and the conscience brings its ideal; and the affections bring their ideal ; and these, together with what- ever other thought of perfection we may have, are united into the thought of the one Perfect Being, the ideal of ideals, the supreme and com- plete, to whom heart, will, conscience, and intel- lect ahke may come and say, " Thy kingdom come ; thy will be done." Here, as in the pre- vious cases, we do not ignore the facts which make against the view, but we set them aside as things to be explained, but which must not in any way be allowed to weaken our faith. All of these ideals are, primarily, alike subjec- tive. They are x>roduced, indeed, under the stress of experience, but they are not transcripts of any possible experience. That transparent universe of the reason is as purely a mental product as that righteous universe of the con- science, or as the supreme perfection of rehgion. In each of these cases the mind appears with its subjective ideals, and demands that reality shall recognize them; and in all ahke reality recog- nizes them only imperfectly. To some extent the imiverse is intelligible. To some extent the 22 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. IDOwer not ourselves makes for rigliteousness. To some extent God is revealed. But in all these cases a purely logical and objective con- templation of the known facts would leave us in great uncertainty. The assured conviction we have rests upon no logical deduction from experience, but upon the optimistic assumiotion that the mind has a right to itself, and is at home in the universe. The mind will not con- sent to abandon its nature and resign itself to utter mental and moral confusion. This is, to be sure, an act of pure faith, but it is an act upon which our entire mental life depends. A purely speculative knowledge of reahty, which shall be strictly deductive and free from as- sumption, is impossible. This result is nothing novel. In principle it coincides with the claim of many of the scholas- tic theologians, that faith precedes knowledge. The faith-philosophy of Jacobi, the primacy of the practical reason in the Kantian system, and the "pectoral theology" of Schleiermacher are other illustrations of the same view. § 12. What, then, of scepticism ? Nothing. Specific scepticism, founded on specific reasons, INTRODUCTION". 23 is always respectable, and is but a case of ration- al criticism ; but professional scepticism, based on tlie bare possibility of doubting, is at once barren and contemptible. It is largely the out- come of mental indolence, and results in mental impotence. This impotent inability to reach a conclusion, so far from being a mark of mental acuteness, is distinctly pathologic. It is not ra- tional, but rather the abdication of reason. As such it is not amenable to reason. It may do indi^i-duals damage who are mentally debilitated, but in the development of the race it is of no importance. Universal scepticism is none; for being impartially distributed over the entire mind, it leaves everything just where it was before. Besides, such scepticism is never more than a pretence. But partial scepticism, on a foundation of universal scepticism, is pure arbi- trariness, and is at once irrational and unright- eous. To doubt such things as we personally dishke is caprice ; to doubt everything is false- hood and pretense. The fundamental interests of the mind have always secured their recognition. From the be- ginning the philosophic sceptics have raged and have imagined many bright, and more vain, 24: PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. things ; but the burden of their cry has always been, "You cannot prove that you have a right to do what you are doing." But this barren doubt has been ignored, practically by common sense, and theoretically by earnest thinkers, who, having once admitted that it is always abstract- ly possible, and having seen that it is eternally empty, imitate priest and Levite, and pass by on the other side. The mind is sure to conceive the universe so as to provide for its own inter- ests. So long as any fundamental interest is overlooked or ignored, there can be no peace. Sometimes the intellect has taken things too easy, and has satisfied itseK with simple and compendious explanations, which left no place for heart and conscience, and ran off into dry and barren atheisms and materiahsms. But be- fore long the rising tides of life and feehng compelled it to try again. On the other hand religion has often made the mistake of denying intellect and conscience then" full rights ; and forthwith they began their crusade for recogni- tion. Conscience alone has proved a sturdy dis- turber in theological systems, and one great source and spring of theological progress has been the need of finding a conception of God INTRODUCTION. 25 which the moral nature could accept. As the inner life has grown more complex in manifes- tation, and richer in content, the system of con- ceptions has progressed to correspond. It is by this contact with life and reality that thought grows, and not by a barren logic-chopping or verbal hagghng about proof. Thus science, eth- ics, and religion grow ; and the mind, in its in- creasing sense of self-possession and of harmony with the reahty of things, becomes more and more indifferent to the objections of the scep- tic, and works with ever-growing faith to build up the temple of science, of conscience, and of God. § 13. To adjust ourselves to the universe, and the universe to ourselves, so that each shall cor- respond to the other, we have said, is the im- phcit aim of mental development ; and the law which the mind implicitly follows is this : What- ever our total nature calls for may be assumed as real in default of positive disproof. This gives rise, we have seen, to a variety of practical postulates, which are born of life and not of speculation. What, now, is the function of logic with re- 26 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. garcl to these postulates. Plainly not to prove tliem, but to bring tliem and their implications out into clear consciousness, and to kee^D them from losing their way. These postulates them- selves are not primarily known as such, but ex- ist rather as imphcit tendencies than as clearly defined principles. In this state they readily miss their proper aim. Thus the scientific or cognitive consciousness is a comparatively re- cent development ; and its imphcations are very imperfectly understood. What is involved in the assumed possibihty of objectively vahd knowledge is a question rarely asked, and still more rarely answered. Hence, by the grace of ignorance, many a theory hves along in good and regular speculative standing which, if un- derstood, would be seen to destroy knowledge altogether. The farce in such cases is as if one should regard himself as the only existence, and should insist on proving it to his neighbors; but, thanks to logical dulness and flabbiness, it is not perceived. The ethical consciousness, in hke manner, is rarely in full possession of itseK, and consequently many ethical theories acquire currency, which, if developed into their conse- quences, would prove fatal to all ethics. The re- IXTRODUCTION. 27 ligious nature also is developed into self-posses- sion only by a long mental labor and experience extending over centuries. Left to itseK it may fail utterly of comprehending its OAvn implica- tions, and may even lose itself in irreligious as- sumptions. In all of these fields, therefore, there is need of a critical procedure which shall aim to secure consistency in the development of our postulates, and to adjust their mutual relations. If we assume a rational and righteous universe, we must make no assumptions incompatible therewith. In particular, such a critical pro- cedure is needed to restrain the fanaticism and insolence of the intellect. This faculty, unless restrained by criticism, tends to become impa- tient and overbearing. In its determination to have a theory it often ignores facts or distorts them. In this way rationalism has become a synonym for all that is most superficial and purblind in speculation. Here, then, is a field for logic; and here logic has its inahenable rights. And in this process of inner develop- ment, adjustment, and rectification, logic is equally the servant of cognition, of ethics, and of religion; wMle aU ahke are, fundamentally, the outgrowths and expressions of om' subjec- 28 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. tive needs and tendencies as evoked by our total experience. It would, then, be a complete misunderstand- ing of our aim to suppose that we are engaging in a polemic against logic and metaphysics. That they are not positively sufficient to give us the principles of practical hfe is clear, but they do not forbid us to make practical postu- lates, provided we recognize them in their prac- tical character, and do not proclaim them as demonstrated. But nothing can warrant us in contradicting logic and metaphysics, and no such contradiction can escape final destruction. The lack of proof may be atoned for by practical necessity, but disproof can never be ignored or set aside by any sentiment. Such a difficulty arises in the field of the logical understanding, and there only can it be met. The failure to distinguish the lack of proof from disproof has led to many unwise utterances on the part of some religious teachers. They have proclaimed an independence of both logic and metaphysics, and a complete indifference to their conclusions. Sometimes they have even proclaimed a contra- diction between speculation and rehgion, appar- ently to show the strength of their own faith. INTRODUCTION. 29 Such a view must lead either to complete spec- ulative scepticism, or to a civil war among the faculties of the soul; and in either case the result would not he rehgiously desirahle. In other words a mental inventory reveals several classes of propositions : First, some which we must heheve ; second, some which we must not beheve ; and third, some which we may heheve or assume. Wliatever conflicts with the first two classes must he abandoned, and sooner or later will be. It is only in the third class that our interests or desires can have any vote ; but this class contains most of what is valuable in life and conduct. Let us further admit, or rather affirm, that the necessity of passing over difficulties, and taking so much for granted, is not the ideal order of hfe. The cognitive ideal no doubt in- volves the speculative solution of all problems, so that our entire thought-system may be per- fectly transparent to intelligence. But this ideal is unattainable at present, owing to our hmita- tions. In every department our knowledge is patchwork, and rests on assumption. And, since this is so, it is well to recognize it in order that we may not delude ourselves with a false show 30 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. of logical rigor, or do injustice to the demands of practical life. § 14. These facts in the natural history of be- Hef must be borne in mind if we would under- stand our mental procedure and development. They explain how it is that we have many be- hef s which are not held because we have proved them, but which we try to prove because we hold them. They also explain the barrenness of purely logical criticism. Fm'ther, they throw hght on the pecuhar variations of behef to which all are subject. Since the roots of behef often lie in the sub-logical realm of emotion, sentiment, aspiration, our conviction will vary as the tides of life and feehng rise and fall. A quickening of conscience, a kindling of affection, the loss of a friend, may do more for conviction than volumes of speculation. Further, it is plain that all thought of strict demonstration must be given up. Demonstra- tion is necessarily confined to the subjective and logical relations of ideas, and can never attach to reahty without some element of assumption. But this is as true for physical science as it is for rehgion. And, in any case, there is no such INTRODUCTION. 31 tiling as an objective and self-sufficient demon- stration. Truth, as such, is not dependent on demonstration, but exists eternally in its own right. Demonstration is only a makeshift for helping ignorance to insight. It is a stimulus to the mind of the learner to think in certain ways which shah lead him, at last, to see the truth iDroposed. But such demonstration is con- ditioned not only by the nature of the stimulus, but also and especially by the development of the mind to which it is addressed. And when we come to an argument in which the whole nature is addi^essed, the argu.ment must seem weak or strong according as the nature is feebly, or fully, developed. The moral argument for theism cannot seem strong to one without a conscience. The argument from cognitive in- terests will be empty when there is no cognitive interest. Little souls find very httle that calls for explanation or that excites siu"prise ; and they are satisfied with a correspondingly small view of life and existence. In such a case we cannot hope for universal agreement. We can only proclaim the faith that is in us, and the reasons for it, in the hope that reahty may not utterly reject it, and that the faith in question 32 rniLosopiiY of theism. may not be without some response in other minds and hearts. Faith and unfaith ahke can do no more ; and the survival of the fittest must decide between them. This renunciation of demonstration has been distasteful to many, but needlessly. In any case it has to be made. We cannot make an argu- ment a demonstration by calling it such ; and, besides, the force of an argument in no way de- pends on its name, but on its logic. But the chief ground of trouble seems to he in a psycho- logical oversight. If a proposition is not dem- onstrated, then it is at best only probable, and, if probable, then uncertain. Hence, to renounce demonstration is to hand the subject over to uncertainty, and who can hve on uncertainties ? The next thing is to call God a "perhaps," and the shortcomings of natm^al theology stand re- vealed. But such utterances tacitly assume that belief is always the product of logic. But life abounds in practical certainties for which no very cogent reasons can be given, but which are nevertheless the foundation of daily hfe. Our practical trust in the uniformity of nature, in one another, in the affection of friends, in the senses, etc., are examples. Numberless logical INTRODUCTION. 33 objections could be raised which reduce all of these to matters of probability; but none of these things move us. The things which we hold, or rather which hold us, with deepest con- viction are, not the certainties of logic, but of hfe. § 15. Theistic discussion has been largely con- fined to the one question of the divine intelli- gence. The narrowness of such a view and its sure failure to reach a properly rehgious con- ception are already apparent. This hmitation of the argument has several grounds ; (1.) The question of intelhgence is basal ; and everything else stands or falls with it. Hence, the question between theism and atheism has been generally conceived as a question between intelhgence and non-intelhgence as the ground of the universe. (2.) This question can be debated largely on the basis of objective facts. It seems, therefore, to involve fewer subjective elements, such as appeals to conscience and feehng, and hence it furnishes more common ground for the dispu- tants than the other arguments. (3.) The argument has seemed rehgiously ade- 3 34 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. quate, because the theist has generally had the Christian conception of God in his mind; and hence when some degree of skill and contrivance was shown in the world about us, this concep- tion, together with the ideal tendency of the soul, at once came in to expand this poor result into the ideal rehgious form. § 16. But, in spite of the previous strictures, most of our time will be devoted to discussing the question of intelligence versus non-inteUi- gence. The idea of God may be treated from a double standpoint, metaphysical and religious. In the former, God appears as the principle of knowing and explanation. In the latter, he is the implication of the rehgious consciousness, or that without which that consciousness would fall into discord with itseK. The former view does not attain to any distinctly rehgious con- ception, but it furnishes elements which must enter into every rehgious conception. Hence, in any study of the subject, it can never be needless, though it may be incomplete. Op- posing errors are traditional here. On the one hand, mere reasoning has been made all-suffi- cient, and a very dry and barren rationahsm has INTRODUCTION, 35 been the result. On the other hand, feehng has been made supreme, and the just claims of in- tellect have been ignored. This has often gone to the extent of basing religion on speculative scepticism; but though the lion and the lamb have been induced to lie together for a while, it has always ended in the hon's making way with the lamb. On a subject of such importance we cannot have too many allies. It does not weak- en the argument from feehng and aspu-ation to show that the pure intellect also demands and implies God. Our prehminary work will deal chiefly with the intellectual aspects of the ques- tion, though we reserve the right to appeal to the emotional nature upon occasion. From the side of pm-e intellect, also, the the- istic question can take on two forms. We can seek to show (1) that the order of the world cannot be understood without intelhgence as its cause, and (2) that reason itseK falls into discord and despair without God. In the former case God appears as a necessary hypothesis for the understanding of the facts; in the latter case God appears as a necessary imphcation of the rational hfe. Of course such an aim imphes that the laws of thought are objectively vahd ; 36 ruiLosoPUY of theism. that over against the subjective necessities of thought are corresponding objective necessities of being; but this assumption underUes the whole system of objective knowledge, and is not pecuhar to theism. The only rational aim must be to show that the mind being as it is, and experience being as it is, the beUef in Grod is a necessary implication of both. If this aim should be attained, then every one would have to decide for himself whether to accept his nature with its imphcations and indications, or to abandon it arbitrarily and capriciously. If, however, any one does choose the part of the irrationahst, it is hoped that he will consistent- ly retire into silence, and not mortify earnest thinkers by the assumption of superior insight, nor weary them by his dreary and monotonous outcry. § 17. Finally, a word of a pedagogical character must be allowed. Owing to certain instinctive prejudices of common-sense, theism is often un- fairly dealt with. In particular it is often tac- itly assumed that matter and force, and with them atheism, have the field, and must be al- lowed to remain in possession until they are INTRODUCTION. 37 driven off. Thus theism is branded as an hy- pothesis, and is called upon to prove a negative ; while atheism is supposed to express the fact of experience, and to need no further iDroof. Hence the failure of theism to demonstrate its position is oddly enough regarded as establishing atheism. Every one acquainted with atheistic treatises mil recognize that their chief force has been in picking flaws in the theistic argu- ment. There has been comparatively httle effort to show any positive sufficiency of atheism to give any rational account of the facts. Such a position is infantile in the extreme ; it properly belongs to the palaeontological period of speculation. The nature of reahty is a thought- problem ; and our thought of reahty is the so- lution of that fjroblem. "VYhether we think of it as one or many, material or immaterial, the theory is equally speculative in each case; its value must be decided by its adequacy to the facts. If theism is an hypothesis, atheism is no less so. If theism is a theory or speculation, atheism is equally so. The candid mind must seek to judge between them. This can be done only as we put both views alongside of the facts and of each other, and choose the simpler and 38 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISIT. more rational. No theory can be judged by its ability to make grimaces at opposing views, but only by its own positive adequacy to the facts. The theistic theory, with all its difficulties, must be put alongside of the atheistic theory with all its difficulties. When this is done the theist will have httle cause to blush for his creduhty, or to be ashamed of his faith. Another common error must be noted. ^Yhen we come to the deepest questions of thought we always come upon impenetrable mystery. We have to affirm facts whose possibihty we cannot construe. We have to make admissions which we cannot further deduce nor compre- hend. In unclear and untaught minds this is often made a stumbhng- block; and the fancy gets abroad that theism is an especially difficult doctrine. In truth, all science and all thought are full of what has been called hmit-notions ; that is, notions which the facts force upon us, and which are perfectly clear from the side of the facts, but w^hich from the farther side are lost in difficulty and mystery. They express an ultimate affirmation along a given hne of thought, and can never be grasped from the far- ther side. When taken out of their relations, INTRODUCTION. 39 or wlien we seek to compreliend them witliout remembering the law of their formation, noth- ing is easier than to make them seem contradic- tory or absurd. But theism must not be held responsible for all the difficulties of metaphysics; and in particular we must be careful in escaping one difficulty that we do not fall into a greater. The notion of an eternal i3erson, an unbegun consciousness, is at least no more difficult than the alternative notion of eternal matter and un- begun motion. It is not the mark of a high grade of intelligence to take offence at the dif- ficulties of a given view, and end by adopting another still more obnoxious to criticism. We do not propose, then, to prove the divine existence, but rather to x>ropose a solution of the problem which the world and life force upon us. We have no expectation of clearing up all the puzzles of metaphysics. We simply hope to show that without a theistic faith we must stand as dumb and helpless before the deeper questions of thought and life as a Papuan or Patagonian before an echpse. CHAPTER I. THE UNITY OF THE WOKLD-GEOUND. § 18. Kant has grouped tlie leading theistic arguments into tkree : ontological, cosmological, and pliysico-theological, and has made each the subject of a special criticism. In this, along with much that is incisive and final, there is also much that is arbitrary and verbal. His discus- sion, as a whole, is somewhat antiquated, and is conducted throughout on Kantian principles. The argument from design fails to reach the full idea of God ; and the notion of a necessary and perfect being upon which the other argu- ments depend is a subjective ideal of the reason. His criticism rests on two pillars : (1) the tra- ditional prejudice of intellectuahsm that dem- onstration is necessary to belief, and (2) the Kantian principle that the forms and ideals of the reason have no objective significance. Both of these views are outgrown. Nowadays only belated minds expect demonstration in any de- 42 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. partment of objective knowledge. It is evident, also, that all thinking, and hence all knowing, must be conditioned by our mental nature. In no way can the mind get outside of itself and grasp things otherwise than through the con- ceptions which its nature allows it to form. But tliis necessary subjectivity of all knowledge is compatible with the view that there is a har- mony between the nature of thought and the nature of things. Such harmony cannot, indeed, be demonstrated; but no one can help practi- cally assuming it to some extent. It is dreary and profitless labor, therefore, to dwell upon the subjectivity of knowledge. The mind has always insisted on attributing objective vahdity or uni- versahty to some of its subjective factors ; and fruitful criticism must be restricted to inquiring which subjective elements have objective value. No one has insisted more strongly than Kant on the necessity of theism as an implication of reason; but the exigencies of his system led him to deny this fact any further significance. § 19. Since in discussing the question our aim must be to produce conviction, it is important (1) to find some admitted fact or principle as a THE UXITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 43 point of departure, and (2) not to attempt to do too mncli at once. Such a point is not fur- nished by either the ontological or the design argument. The ontological argument in its common form rests on the notion of the perfect being. But the idea of the perfect necessarily includes the idea of existence, and would be a contradiction without it. Hence it has been concluded that the perfect exists. But there is not a shadow of cogency in this reasoning. It only points out that the idea of the perfect must include the idea of existence ; but there is nothing to show that the self-consistent idea represents an objective reahty. Hence Descartes sought to supplement the argument by showing that only the perfect can be the source of the idea. In fact the argument is nothing but the expres- sion of the aesthetic and ethical conviction that the true, the beautiful, and the good, which alone have value in the n.niverse, cannot be foreign to the universe. The mind will not consent to abandon its ideals. The ontological argument owes aU its force to this immediate faith in the ideal. Its technical expression is due to the deshe to give this faith a demonstrative logical 4:4: PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. form. The result is to weaken rather than strengthen it. The teleological or design argument is based upon the purpose -hke adaj^tatioiis vfhich are found, especially in the organic world. This has always been a favorite with the Anglo- Saxon mind ; and Kant mentions it with great respect. Whatever its logical faults and specu- lative shortcomings, it is better adapted to con- vince common-sense than the more speculative arguments. Still, when taken strictly, it is open to so many critical objections, and the af&rmed design in nature is so much in dispute, that, in the present state of thought, it does not offer the best starting-point for the discussion. Thus the great mass of natural products look more like effects than purposes. In the various dis- position of natural agents, of land and water, of mountain and plain, etc., there may be purpose ; but to observation they seem to be simple facts from which certain results follow. Again, in the relation of the organic and the inorganic, there may be purpose ; but the fact of observation is that the latter is usable by the former, not that it was made for it. If the inteUigence of the world-ground were otherwise and elsewhere THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 45 demonstrated, there is much in the relation of these two worlds which would illustrate that intelhgence ; but there is not much that can be used as original proof. It is in the organic world that we find unambiguous marks of adap- tation ; but here, unfortunately, the most of the ends reahzed do not seem worth reahzing. They have no manifest value or reason, but are just such meaningless things as we should expect if an irrational power were at work. Had not our idea of God been otherwise determined, these things would prove less a help than an embarrassment. Again, allowing the existence of design in nature, this argument by no means justifies us in affirming a single cause of the world,. A polytheistic conception remains pos- sible; and, considering the antitheses of good and evil, of sense and nonsense in nature, such a view would accord only too well with experi- ence. Christianity has accustomed us to mono- theism, but in strict logic the design argument, on the basis of experience, would have difficulty in making it out. The argument seems suffi- cient because, in its common use, it is not a deduction of the theistic idea, but only an illus- tration of the theistic faith which we already 46 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. possess. It seems well, therefore, to look for some other starting - point ; and this must be sought in some form of the cosmological argu- ment. This argument has had a fixed aim rather than a constant form. The aim is to pass from the cosmos as a contingent and conditioned ex- istence to the affirmation of a necessary and unconditioned existence. The form of the ar- gument has been various. Sometimes the ar- gument has been from motion to an unmoved prime mover ; sometimes from secondary causes to an uncaused first cause ; sometimes from con- tingent existence to necessary existence, or from dependent existence to independent existence. In its traditional forms the argument is open to many objections. We shall do better, therefore, to change the form and to lower the aim. In- stead, then, of seeking to estabhsh the full rehg- ious conception of God at once, we content our- selves with the humbler aun of showing that the ground of all reality, or the fundamental reahty, or the world-ground, must be one and not many. §20. In this claim we are in harmony with the great majority of thinkers, both of ancient THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 47 and modern times. Even tlieistic and non-the- istic thinkers have agreed in rejecting a funda- mental pluralism in favor of a basal monism. The most pronounced non-theistic and atheistic . schemes of our time label themselves monism, although not always showing the clearest appre- ciation of what true monism means and requires. Even Kant, who will not allow any objective validity to knowledge, insists that monism is the deepest demand of the reason. But while there is agreement in the fact, there is much diversity in the modes of reaching it. And here it is that we need to find the best point of departure, and one which will command universal assent. Leibnitz and Lotze have found this in the fact of interaction. This fact, when unfolded, is seen to imply the unity of the world-ground. We shall do better, perhaps, to make the postulates of objective cognition our starting-point; but of these interaction is one of the chief. The view may be expounded as follows : AU investigation of the world of reahty rests upon certain postulates, and is absurd without them. These are interaction, law, and system. The first imphes that things mutually affect or 48 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. determine one another. Without this assump- tion any event would be an absolute and unre- lated beginning. The universe would fall asun- der into disconnected and uncaused units, and the individual consciousness would be shut up within itself. Again, it implies that all things interact; for if there were anything out of all relations of causation, it would be for us a fig- ment of the imagination. But interaction alone would not suffice ; for there might be irregular interaction. There is no law of reason which assures us that all be- ing and action must be absolutely determined. Such irregular action would meet the demands of causation, but not of cognition; hence we must next add the idea of uniformity, or that under the same circumstances the same thing will always occur. But this implies, further, a universal adjust- ment of everything to every other, such that for a given state of one there can be only a given state of the rest fixed both in kind and degree. Without this assumption unhke causes would have like effects, and Hke causes would have unhke effects, and there could be no thought of theoretical cognition. There must be, then, THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 49 interaction and law among things ; and these things cannot be and do what they choose, bnt all mnst be bound np in a common scheme ; that is, there mnst be system. These postulates command universal assent as the basis of all objective cognition. They are not doubted like the assumption of design, but are imphed in the very structure of knowl- edge. The specific nature of the laws and the system is, indeed, a problem for solution ; but the existence of rational law and system is im- phcitly assumed. Our starting-point, then, is the conception of things interacting according to law, and form- ing an intelligible system. The advantage, how- ever, hes in its general acceptance, and not in its being speculatively demonstrated. Critically considered, the universe, or nature, as system is an ideal of the cognitive nature as God is an ideal of the rehgious nature, while neither ad- mits of proper demonstration. But for one rea- son or another cognitive ideals are more easily accepted than religious ideals, and hence we start with the former, and proceed to develop their imphcations. 4 60 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. § 21. In a complete discussion of interaction many points would have to be dwelt upon wMcli we pass over here. Our present concern is to show that such a system of interacting members cannot be construed by thought without the assumption of a unitary being, which is the fundamental reahty of the system. How is a unitary system of interacting members possible? This is the problem. Only through a unitary being which posits and maintains them in their mutual relations. This is the solution. Spontaneous thought posits all its objects as real, and finds no reason for not thinking them mutually independent. They all seem to exist together in space, and no one seems to im- ply any other. In this stage of thought it is easy to beheve that things are mutually indif- ferent and independent, so that any one would continue to exist if aU the rest should faU away. But this fancy is banished by the rise of re- flective thought. Physical science has made us famihar with the relativity of all physical ex- istence. The elements have not their properties or forces absolutely and in themselves, but only in their relations or as members of the system. They are aU conditioned in their activities, and THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 51 hence conditioned in their being; for meta- physics shows that conditioned activity imphes conditioned being. In practice we get over the difficulty by treating of the laws of the ele- ments, which always imply relations and condi- tions. The ontological question is ignored. In this way we practically recognize the condi- tioned nature of things, while the spontaneous fancy of a self-sufficient being in all things hves along undistui'bed in the background of our thought. The attempts to explain interaction are man- ifold, but they aU fail as long as the things are left independent. Most attempts, indeed, are only figures of speech. Thus an influence is said to pass ; but this only describes the fact, for an influence is nothing which can exist apart from its subject. The physicists, again, speak of forces which play between things ; but this returns to the previous view. For forces are only abstractions from the activities of things, and hence cannot pass between things. The fact of observation is simply that mutual changes are observed among things. To explain these we say that things act upon or determine one another. To explain this fact we next posit 52 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. forces in tlie things; and this is either to re- name the problem or else to fall back into the notion of influence. Finally, some have sought to dispense with these forces, and explain all interaction as the result of impact, thinking that action at a distance is the great difficulty. This view limits the problem to the physical field, and is a double failure even there. First, the theory of impact cannot be carried through in physical science ; and second, action by impact is no more intelligible between inde- pendent things than action at a distance. The separation in space does not make the difficulty, but only enables the imagination to grasp it. But if things be independent, that is, be what they are without reference to anything else, there is no reason why one thing should in any way be affected by any other. Such beings, if in space, would be as indifferent when in the same point as when separated by the infinite void. The notion of interaction imphes that a thing is determined by others, and hence that it can- not be all that it is apart from all others. If all its activities and properties are conditioned, it implies that the thing cannot exist at all out THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 53 of its relations. Its existence is involved in its relations, and would vanish, with them. The notion of independence, on the other hand, im- phes that the thing is not determined by others, but has the ground of all its determinations in itseK. These two notions are distinct contra- dictions. No passage of influences or forces will avail to bridge the guK as long as the things are regarded as independent. There is no escape from denying either the independence or the in- teraction. Let us affirm the independence. Then we have the conception of an indefinite plurality of things, each of which is self -existent and seK- sufficient, but which perpetually changes, how- ever, in accordance with corresponding changes in every other. These mutual changes form, apparently, a system of interaction according to law; and yet it has no ground in the mutual relations of things, but smiply is. Applied to perception, it would imply that each mind de- velops its world of things and persons out of itself, and without any stimulus from reahty beyond itself. This view no one has ever ventured to hold. The developed mind will never consent to be- 64 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. lieve that absolute and essentially unrelated ex- istences can fit into and form a system. The harmony itself is a problem for wliich the mind insists on demanding a solution. The farthest thought can go in affirming the independence of these apparently interacting things is to make them mutually independent, while all alike de- pend on a higher reality, which is the ground both of their existence and of their harmony. This is the view of Liebnitz as expressed in his monadology and pre-estabhshed harmony. Con- cerning the truth of this view we need pro- nounce no opinion. It suffices to have shown that it must have recourse to a unitary world- ground. Let us next try the opposite view, that things do really interact or mutually determine one another. We have already seen that the popu- lar view, in which things exist in a hard and fast seK - identity and self - sufficiency, must be given up. All these things must be reduced to a relative and dependent existence. Where, then, is the absolute and independent existence ^ At first we are tempted to say that the system itself is that existence; but the system itseK, apart from its conditioned members, is nothing. THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 55 By hypothesis these members, A, B^ (7, etc., are the only ontological reahties ; and the system is only our conception of their relations. But we cannot rest in them, for A refers us to 5, and B to C, and we reach no resting-place. We cannot rest in the members taken singly, for each refers us to all the others. We cannot rest in the sum of the members, for a sum, as such, is only a mental product ; and we get no hint of what it is in reality which is able to add a series of dependent units in so potent a fashion as to bring out an independent sum. For the same reason we cannot rest in the system; for the system is only a conception. To rest in the system we must make it the ontological reality, and regard the members only as its imphcations or phases. Instead of constructing the system from the members as ontological units, we must rather construct the members from the system. Here Kant may tell us that we are pursuing a shadow of our own reason. We reply that the only question which can rationally be raised in this field is, How must we think about the fundamental reahty? And we hold that the mind cannot rest in the thought of a funda- mental plurahsm. Only two conceptions are 56 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. possible. We may tliink ot A, B, C, etc., as de- pendent on some one being, 3f, distinct from them wMch co-ordinates them and mediates their interaction. Or we may think of them, not as dependent on something outside of them, but on some one being in them which is their reahty, and of which they are in some sense but phases or modifications. Things, in the common use of the term, would have but derived or phenom- enal reality, and would have even this existence only in and through the one fundamental reality. The decision between these two views must be left for future study ; but both ahke compel the denial of the seK-sufficiency of things and the affirmation of a unitary world-ground. And to this being we give the name of infinite and ab- solute. This does not imply that it is the all, but only that it is the independent ground of the finite. No more does it imply that it is out of all relations, but only that it is out of all restrictive relations to anything beyond itseK, and is the independent source of the finite and all its relations. §22. The argument thus outlined is open to many scruples, but, I believe, to no valid objec- THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 57 tions. The scruples are largely born of onr general bondage to the senses. For one who supposes that the senses give hnmediate and final metaphysical insight the argument will have no force. But we have no desire to con- vince such a one. Even wisdom is justified only of her children. It is possible to come to any argument with so undeveloped a mental retina as to make vision impossible. But I am persuaded that, apart from these pathological cases, when we become familiar with the terms and their meaning, and also with the inner structure of reason, we shall see that the mind can rest in no other conclusion. We replace, then, the pluralism of spontaneous thought by a basal monism. Of course this view does not remove all difficulties, nor answer all questions. On the contrary, it leaves the mystery of being as dark and opaque as ever. Its only value hes in giving expression to the mind's demand for ultimate unity, and in re- moving the contradiction which hes in the as- sumption of interaction between independent things. But we cannot pretend to picture to ourselves the relations of the infinite and the finite, nor to construe the possibihty of the in- 58 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. finite. We come here to a necessity which meets ns everywhere when we touch the fron- tiers of knowledge — namely, the necessity of admitting facts which, while they must be rec- ognized and admitted, cannot he deduced or comprehended. Of the nature of the infinite as yet we know only that it is one, and metaphysics compels us to regard it also as active. But this is so far from being the complete idea of God that both atheism and pantheism might accept it. Still we have made some progress. We have reached a pomt to which the design argument alone could not bring us. It is plain that polytheism is untenable ; and that if any kind of theism is to be affirmed it must be monotheism. We at- tempt, now, some further determinations of our thought of this fundamental being. We hope, at least, to be allowed, if not comj)elled, to iden- tify the One of speculation with the God of re- hgion. But before passing to this inquiry a word must be devoted to a traditional verbahsm. Is this One, it will be asked, immanent or trans- cendent ? and we might even be instructed that thought can never transcend the universe. We THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. ' 59 might reply by asking for a definition of the terms. It would be absurd to take them spa- tially, as if immanent meant inside and trans- cendent outside ; a fancy, however, which seems to underlie not a few utterances on this subject. The One cannot be conceived as the sum of the many, nor as the stuff out of which the many are made, neither does it depend on the many ; but, conversely, the many depend on it. In this sense the One is transcendent. Again, the many are not spatially outside of the One, nor a pen- dulous appendage of the One; but the One is the ever-present power in and through which the many exist. In this sense the One is imma- nent. In any other sense the terms are words without any meaning. The alleged impossibihty of transcending the universe is another form of the same verbahsm. In the sense defined we must transcend it; in any other sense there is no need of transcending it. In modern thought substantiahty has been replaced or defined by causahty. A world-sub- stance, as distinguished from a world-cause, is a product of the imagination which vanishes before criticism. For the explanation of the system we need a cause which shaU not be 60 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. this, that, or the other thing, but an omnipresent agent by which all things exist. This agent may be called anything, first cause, absolute, in- finite, world-ground, or even universe, if only we keep the meaning in mind ; and the meaning is that power not ourselves, nor any other finite thing, by which all things exist. If we choose we may unite this agent and all its cosmic products into the one thought of the universe ; and we may then loudly proclaim the impossi- bility of transcending the universe ; but this procedure will hardly tend to clearness, as the term universe is generally restricted to mean the system of finite things and manifestations. Still, if any one finds pleasure in teaching that thought is hmited to the universe when the uni- verse is taken as the totality of being, it would be hard-hearted, indeed, to deny him this cheap satisfaction. Perhaps, however, this severity ought to be a httle mitigated, for there is a back-lying thought which may be hinted at by this antithesis of immanence and transcendence, although it is not expressed by it. This concerns the ques- tion whether the world -ground be fully ex- pressed and exhausted in the world, or whether, THE UNITY OF THE WORLD-GROUND. 61 apart from the real world, there are infinite possibihties in the nature of the fundamental reality. At bottom this question turns upon the freedom or necessity of the world-ground, and must be postponed for the present. CHAPTER II. THE WORLD-GEOUND AS INTELLIGENT. Many questions migM fitly be raised at this point, but we postpone tliem for the central question of theism — the intelhgence of the world-ground. We premise, however, a pair of principles from metaphysics. 1. This world-ground, by its independent po- sition, is the source of the finite and of all its determinations. Whether we view it as bhnd or seeing, necessitated or free, none the less must we hold that no finite thing has any ground of existence in itself, but that it owes its existence, nature, and history, entirely to the demands which the world-ground makes upon it. If not in the plan, then in the nature of this funda- mental reality we must seek the conditioning ground of things. 2. This world -ground is not to be regarded as stuff or raw material, but as cause or agent. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 63 The stuff -notion is a product of the imagination, and vanishes before criticism. The human mind has only two principles of causal explanation : (1) necessary or mechanical agency, which is driven from behind, and (2) seK - directing intelligent agency, which is led from before. Verbal phrases can be constructed to represent other principles, which are neither free nor necessary, neither bhnd nor seeing ; but there is no corresponding thought. The ques- tion then becomes. Which of the two principles mentioned offers the best ultimate explanation of the universe, man being included ? Here we might inquire into the relative meta- physical difficulty of the two conceptions. It is commonly supposed that the notion of a seK- directing agent has in it very grave, if not insu- perable, metaphysical difficulties ; but we should find this conception at least no more difficult than the opposite one of an all-embracing ne- cessity. In fact there is nothing positive in the latter notion, and the more we examine it the more elusive and unmanageable it becomes. But we shaU do weU to avoid these abysses of metaphysics for the present, and take a more familiar road. Q^ pniLOSopnY OF theism. The believer in self-directing, seK-possessing reason as the only acleqviate ground of things, offers various reasons for his faith. They are drawn from (1) the order and intelhgibility of the universe, (2) the myriad indications of design in things, (3) inteUigence in man, and (4) the overthrow of reason and cognition involved in any atheistic and necessitarian scheme. These reasons we now have to expound and consider. The Argitment from Order and InteTllgibility. § 24. This argument is drawn chiefly from the physical system. In the previous chapter we pointed out that all study of objective reahty assumes the fact of law and system, or a imi- versal adjustment of each to all in a common scheme of order. Here we next point out that all study assumes that this system is an intelli- gible or rational one. A rational cosmos is the imphcit assumption of objective cognition. But we have already pointed out, what psychology abundantly demonstrates, that we reach this system, not by a passive reception of ready- made knowledge, but by constructing from the data of experience a series of rational concep- tions, and objectifying them as real. The true THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 65 system is not immediately given in appearances ; our knowledge of it arises only as the mind works over the appearances, and projects the resulting conceptions under the form of space, time, substance, causality, and the other cate- gories of thought. But if the knowledge is to have any vahdity, the laws of thought must be laws of the universe itself. Things wliich are to be kno^\Ti must exist in intelhgible, that is rational, order and relations, and also in pro- found adjustment to the nature of the mind it- self. The problem of human knowledge, then, involves (1) a knowable, that is- a rational, uni- verse ; (2) a knowing human mind ; (3) the iden- tity of the categories of human thought with the principles of cosmic being; (4) such an adjustment of the outer to the inner that the mind, reacting according to its own nature against external stimulus, shall produce in itself thoughts which shall truly reproduce the objec- tive fact, and (5) an identity of rational nature in human beings. If human reason were many, and not one, there would be an end to thought. These implications are so involved in the very structure of knowledge that we take them for granted without thought of their significance; QQ PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. whereas they are the perennial wonder of ex- istence. If, then, knowledge be possible, we must de- clare that the world-ground proceeds according to thought -laws and principles, that it has es- tablished all things in rational relations, and balanced their interaction in quantitative and quahtative proportion, and measured this pro- portion by number. " God geometrizes," says Plato. " Number is the essence of reality," says Pythagoras. And to this agree all the conclu- sions of scientific thought. The heavens are crystallized mathematics. All the laws of force are numerical. The interchange of energy and chemical combination are equally so. Crystals are solid geometry. Many organic products show similar mathematical laws. Indeed, the claim is often made that science never reaches its final form until it becomes mathematical. But simple existence in space does not imply motion in mathematical relations, or existence in mathematical forms. Space is only the form- less ground of form, and is quite compatible with the irregular and amorphous. It is equally compatible with the absence of numerical law. The truly mathematical is the work of the spirit. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 67 Hence the wonder that mathematical principles should be so pervasive, that so many forms and processes in the system represent definite math- ematical conceptions, and that they should be so accurately weighed and measured by number. If the cosmos were a resting existence, we might possibly content ourselves by saying that things exist in such relations once for all, and that there is no going behind this fact. But the cosmos is no such rigid monotony of being ; it is, rather, a process according to intelhgible rules ; aud in this process the rational order is perpetually maintained or restored. The weigh- ing and measuring continually goes on. In each chemical change just so much of one element is combined with just so much of another. In each change of place the intensities of attrac- tion and repulsion are instantaneously adjusted to correspond. Apart from any question of de- sign, the simple fact of qualitative and quanti- tative adjustment of aU things, according to fixed law, is a fact of the utmost significance. The world -ground works at a multitude of points, or in multitude of things throughout the system, and works in each with exact reference to its activities in all the rest. The displace- 68 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. ment of an atom by a hair's-breadtli demands a corresponding readjustment in every other with- in the grip of gravitation. But all are in con- stant movement, and hence readjustment is con- tinuous and instantaneous. The single law of gravitation contains a problem of such dizzy vastness that our minds faint in the attempt to grasp it ; but when the other laws of force are added the complexity defies all understanding. In addition we might refer to the building proc- esses in organic forms, whereby countless struct- ures are constantly produced or maintained, and always with regard to the typical form in ques- tion. But there is no need to dwell upon this point. Here, then, is a problem, and we have only the two principles of intelhgence and non-intel- hgence, of self -directing reason and bhnd neces- sity, for its solution. The former is adequate, and is not far-fetched and violent. It assimilates the facts to our own experience, and offers the only ground of order of which that experience furnishes any suggestion. If we adopt this view all the facts become luminous and consequent. If we take the other view, then we have to assume a power which produces the intelligible THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 69 and rational, without being itself intelligent and rational. It works in all things, and in each with exact reference to all, yet without knowing anything of itself or of the rules it follows, or of the order it founds, or of the myi'iad products compact of seeming purpose which it incessant- ly produces and maintains. If we ask why it does tliis, we must answer, Because it must. If we ask how we know that it must, the answer must be. By hypothesis. But this reduces to saying that things are as they are because they must be. That is, the problem is abandoned altogether. The facts are referred to an opaque hypothetical necessity, and tliis turns out, upon inquiry, to be the problem itseK in another form. There is no proper explanation except in theism. § 25. Two causes serve to conceal the weak- ness of the atheistic explanation : 1. We fancy that we see causes, and especially that we see matter to be a real cause. Spmt, on the other hand, is a purely hypothetical cause, and is assumed only to explain that which the undoubted cause, matter, cannot account for. Hence theism is presented as maintaining a hy- 70 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. potlietical cause, God, against a real cause, mat- ter; and as matter is daily found to explain more and more, there is less and less need of God. Here, then, necessity and non-intelligence are manifestly united in most effective causation ; and who can set bounds to their possibilities '? This thought has been a leading factor in the atheistic renascence of recent years. The an- swer must be that it is an echo of an obsolete theory of knowledge. We know directly noth- ing of causes. We experience certain effects, which we refer to causes ; and the nature of the causes is learned by inference from the effects. Matter is not seen to cause anything; nor is spuit seen to cause anything. The cause of cosmic phenomena is hidden from observation ; and the only question possible is. How must we think of that cause? Our answer is equally speculative and metaphysical in every case. The theist, observing the law and order among the phenomena, refers them ultimately to a power which knows itseK and what it is doing. The atheist refers them to a power which knows nothing of itself or of what it is doing. 2. The second cause which conceals the weak- ness of this position is found in the notion of THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 71 law. The human mind is especially prone to hypostasize abstractions, and subject things to them. The reign of law is a phrase which has thus acquired a purely factitious significance. Law appears as something apart from things, which rules over them and determines all their doings. Thus the law of gravity is conceived of as something separate from things, and to which things are subject; and the mystery of gravitation is removed by calling it a law. The mistake is palpable. Laws have no thing -like existence, but are simply general expressions either of fact or of the rule according to which some agent proceeds. Things do not attract one another because the law of gravitation calls for it ; but they attract, and from a comparison of many cases we find that the intensity of this attraction varies according to a certain rule. But this rule does not found the fact ; it only expresses it. The same is true for all the other laws of nature. They neither found nor compel the facts, but simply express them. Yet, misled by our persistent tendency to mistake abstrac- tions for things, we first give a kind of substan- tive character to the laws, and then we carry them behind the things as pre-existent necessi- Y2 piiiLosornY of theism. ties, which explain everything, but which them- selves are in no more need of explanation than the seK-sufficient and eternal truths of the rea- son. The untaught mind tends to think under the form of necessity ; and this necessity, which is but the mind's own shadow, forthwith passes for an explanation. Thus we reach the gro- tesque inversion of reason which makes the very fact of rational order a ground for denying a controlling reason. In fact, however, the laws form a large part of the problem. When we have said that the world-ground co-ordinates things by fixed rules of quantity and quality, and with perfect adap- tation and numerical adjustment, we have but stated the problem, not solved it. That the ad- justment takes place with consciousness is not seen ; that it takes place by necessity is also not seen. Both the consciousness and the necessity are added to the observation. Change according to rule is all that is given. If we ask how this can be, we can only appeal either to intelligence or non- intelligence. Comte says that it is a mark of immaturity to raise this question ; but if we will raise it, theism is the only answer. The atheist he pronounces to be the most in- THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. ^3 consequent of theologians, since he raises theo- logical questions and rejects the only possible way of deahng with them. § 26. The only thing which could justify us in adopting non-intelhgence as the ground of the cosmic order, would he to show that the system, with all its laws and members, are ra- tional necessities, or implications of the basal reahty. The truths of mathematics are imph- cations of our intuitions of space and number ; and for these truths we ask no ground, they being able to stand alone. It is conceivable that in hke manner the cosmos, in all its features, should be shown to be an implication of the independent reahty which underhes all. This was once a dream of speculation, and the attempt was made to reahze it. Of course it failed. No reflection on the bare notion of in- dependent being gives any insight into the act- ual order. The basal distinction of matter and spuit we discover, not deduce. The modes of cosmic activity are of the same kind. Any of the cosmic laws, from gravitation on, might conceivably have been lacking or altogether dif- ferent. And, allowing the laws, their outcome 74 pniLOSOPnY of theism. might have been in all respects different. For the laws alone do not determine the result, but only when taken with the conditions under which they work. Had the conditions been dif- ferent, the same laws would have produced other results. But these conditions are all con- tmgent. No trace of necessity can be found in the cosmos or its laws. They are simply facts which we recognize without pretending to de- duce. Metaphysics might also try to show that this notion of necessity, when pushed to its re- sults, would cancel the unity of the basal One, and, instead of landing us on the sohd rock, would leave us in the abysses. But we rest the argument. Here is a power which works intel- hgibly and according to law, in which every- thing is adjusted to everything else vnth. nicest balance and adaptation, and in which this bal- ance is incessantly reproduced. The theist con- cludes that this power is intelligent, the atheist concludes that it is not. The theist holds that the rational and intelligible work point to rea- son and intelligence. The atheist concludes that the rational and intelligible work point to un- reason and non-intelligence. Between these two views each must decide for himseK. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. T5 In leaving this argument a single vulgar ob- jection must be warded off. It has been said that we cannot conceive that the cosmic proc- esses are carried on by intelligence. This is true enough if it means that we cannot picture the process in detail. We certainly cannot con- ceive how a mind could conduct the ceaseless and infinitely complex processes of nature with- out weariness or confusion. To conceive how it could do it we must ourselves be equal to the i task. But if it be hard to see how intelhgence could do it, it is at least equally so to see how non- intelhgence could do it. The alternative hes between the two, with the advantage always in favor of the former. For when we ascribe to the world-ground omnipotence and omniscience, we make at least a formal provision for the case. We can see that such a being would be adequate to the task, and we are under no obli- gation to tell how he would get on with it. That is liis own affair. But with the assertion of the world-ground as non-intelligent, we fail to make even this formal provision, and the facts remain opaque and unintelligible. Our total conclusion from the facts of order, law, and system is that if they are to be explained. 76 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. it can be only on a theistic basis. Atheism does not explain them, but only asserts that they are facts which are because they must be ; and we know that they must be by hypothesis. § 27. We have said that the world-ground must be intelhgent or non-intelligent. This has been disputed on the ground that intelhgence and non-intelligence do not form a complete disjunc- tion, so that there may be a third something higher than either, and transcendental to both. In our o^vn time, which has a craze for seK- sophistication, this claim has been paraded as something especially profound, and as vacating both theism and atheism. The true explanation of the cosmos is to be found in neither intelh- gence nor non-intelhgence, but in the inscrutable transcendental. This doctrine has a sweUing sound, but is empty of the shghtest substance. The speculative fancy has been unspeakably prolific in the production of words for its ex- pression, but they are purely logical sound and fury, signifying nothing. This transcendental X is not a thought, but a phrase. It exists sole- ly by the grace of language, which has the un- fortunate property of making it possible to talk THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT 77 long and learnedly without saying anything. To appeal to this X is not to explain, but to abandon explanation. Explanation must always be in intelligible terms; and as in our thought the intelhgent and the non-intelhgent comprise all existence, any true explanation must be in terms of one or the other. X Y Z may be a very .profound truth in the realm of the inscru- table, but in the reahn of intelligence it is only a meaningless group of letters. In one case, however, we can speak of some- thing higher than intelhgence. Our thought contains two elements ; a certain rational con- tent or insight, and a variety of processes by which this insight is reached. The former is the universal and objective element of thought, the latter may be formal and relative to us. If, now, by intelligence we mean our methods of procedure, the devices of our discursive reason, there may well be something higher than intel- hgence. Indeed, theism has always maintained that the Supreme Reason must be intuitive, in distinction from the discursiveness of human reason. The community and universahty of intelligence, or of reason, does not consist in methods or processes, but in the rational con- 78 PHiLOSornY of theism. tents. But this conception does not give us something above inteUigence, but only above the human hmitations of inteUigence. § 28. The argument from the order of the uni- verse sometimes takes a higher form in the claim that the intelligible universe not only de- mands intelligence as its cause, but is meaning- less and non-existent except in reference to in- telligence. This argument takes us into the depths of the theory of knowledge. The claim is made that the universe, as we conceive it, de- monstrably demands intelhgence as the condi- tion of its existence. As light or sound, in the psychological sense, has neither meaning nor existence apart from the sensibility, so the uni- verse itself is an absurdity and impossibility apart from conscious intelhgence. This argument does not commend itself to the natural man, nor even to the natural theist. Both alike are sure that the world of facts which they perceive is independent of their own inteUigence, and of their neighbors' intelligence. This world did not begin when they first be- came aware of it, nor did it grow with their growing knowledge, nor will it vanish with theu' THE WORLD-GROUND AS IXTELLIGEXT. ^C^ consciousness of it. This fact, which is admit- ted by all except some lively person who takes pleasure in airing conceits and paradoxes, is supposed by the natural man to show that the universe which exists apart from our intelli- gence exists apart from all intelhgence. The natural theist, of course, would insist that the universe began in intelligence, but he would also insist that it now exists external to all intelli- gence. The atheist would claim that the uni- verse is now, and always has been, external to intelhgence. Both ahke would be sure that the meaning of this externahty is sun -clear, and that its reality is seK-evident. The question thus raised opens out into the debate between crude realism and rational ideal- ism, and cannot be thoroughly discussed with- out a long metaphysical analysis of our funda- mental notions. This cannot be undertaken here. We borrow, however, from metaphysics the conviction that relations can exist only in and for intelligence. But the universe as we know it is essentially a vast system of relations under the various categories of the intellect; and such a universe would have neither mean- ing nor existence apart from intelhgence. It 80 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. does not avail against this conclusion to say that, besides the relations, there are real things in relations ; for these things themselves are de- fined and constituted by their relations, so that their existence apart from a constitutive intelh- gence becomes an absurdity. If, with Locke, we declare that relations are the work of the mind, and then attempt to find some unrelated reality in the object which can exist apart from mind, our quest is soon seen to be bootless and hopeless. In that case we should have to admit that the real in itself is imknowable, and that the real as known exists only in and for intelli- gence. But as this intelligence in and for which the universe exists is not ours, there must be a cosmic intelligence as its abiding condition, and in reference to which alone the affirmation of a universe has any meaning. But this argument is highly abstract, and can never find favor except in speculative circles. It is valuable as showing theism, or a cosmic inteUigenco, to be a necessary implication of the essential structure of thought and knowledge. From this standpoint atheism would appear as the crude misunderstanding of a mind not yet in full possession of itseK, but rather in hope- THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 81 less bondage to the senses and their spontane- ous prejudices. We return to a more famihar line of thought. The Argument from Design. The argument from order and intelligibility is cosmic ; it concerns the structure of the uni- verse in itseK, and in its relation to the know- ing mind. But the laws of the system bear no certain marks of purpose. If we ask how they can be, we are referred to intelligence as their explanation. If we ask what they are for, the answer must be that we do not clearly see that they are for anything. But this uncer- tainty vanishes when we come to the organic world. Here we find activity according to a plan, and results which are not merely prod- ucts, but which have all the marks of j^urpose. Here there are adjustments which look hke con- trivance, and combinations for manifest ends. These facts are the data of the design argument. These two arguments do not admit of sharp separation; and perhaps a perfect knowledge might find them one. Kant attempted to dis- tinguish between the teleology of the organism and the mere usableness of the inorganic world ; 6 82 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. but this distinction cannot be rigorously main- tained. Still, we find the most striking marks of design and contrivance in the organic world, and the reign of law, as such, does not imply purpose-like products. The reign of law is as absolute in the amorphous rock as in the crystal or in the hving form. It is as absolute in the baiTcn desert as in the fertile plain. But the results differ greatly in their power of suggest- ing intelligence. Finally, the argument from order has even been opposed to that from de- sign, many fancying that the existence of fixed laws excludes the possibility of specific and de- tailed purposes. We may, then, consider the ar- gument separately. What has just been said may be restated in another form. The system of objective experi- ence contains three factors which we are not at present able to connect by any logical deduction. The fii'st and fundamental one is what is called the necessary truths of reason, or the system of rational categories. These are vahd ahke for the world of thought and the world of reahty. They are the bond of union between the two, and found the possibility of knowledge. But there is no way of deducing the actual world THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. §3 from these categories of tlie reason. The second factor, the system of general laws, is indeed a specification under those categories, but is no necessary implication of them. And both the categories and the laws admit of manifold ap- phcations. The same set of laws could produce results altogether different from those of the actual system. Hence, neither the categories of the reason nor the general laws of the system explain the specific facts and combinations of the system. These, in turn, have to be admit- ted as opaque facts, or referred to purpose as << their final ground. This is the third factor necessary for a complete comprehension of the system. § 29. The design argument has had varying fortunes. Verbal inaccuracies of statement have made room for floods of verbal criticism ; and it has at times fallen into complete speculative disfavor. Nevertheless it wiU always be a great favorite with common-sense. Kant speaks of it with respect; and J. S. Mill regards it as the only theistic argument of any force whatever. It has been over and under estimated. It does not give us the full idea of God; but with the 84 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. practical mind it will always be the main argu- ment for the intelligence of the First Cause. In studying this argument the following points are to be noted : 1. The argument is not : Design proves a de- signer. Here is design. Hence these things have had a designer. This would, fonnally at least, beg the question ; for the very point is to know whether the minor premise be true. No one ever doubted that design imphes a designer ; but many have questioned whether the facts re- ferred to design really justify this reference. The argument rather runs : Here are facts which have such marks of design and contrivance that we cannot explain them without referring them to purpose. The point is to solve the problem contamed in the purpose -hke adaptations and combinations found in the system ; and the the- ist refers them to design or purpose as the only adequate solution. And whatever the verbal fail- ings of the exposition may have been, this has always been the real meaning of the argument. 2. The design argument need assume nothmg as to the way in which effects are produced. It claims only that adaptation in a complex prod- uct to an ideal end points to design somewhere. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 85 3. Design is never causal. It is only an ideal conception, and demands some efficient cause, or system of efficient causes, for its realization. If the stomach is not to digest itself, there must be some provision for protecting it against the gastric juice. If ice is not to sink and freeze out life, there must be some molecular structure which shall make its bulk greater than that of an equal weight of water. If, then, efficient causes were commissioned to realize design, or, rather, if an ideal conception were impressed upon a system of efficient causes, so that the lat- ter should work in accordance with the former, and realize the former, we should expect to see the products resulting with necessity from the nature of the agents at work. Watches pro- duced by seK-regulating machinery would point as certainly to intelligence as do watches pro- duced by hand. In such a case we should have mechanical necessity itself working as the ser- vant of purpose, and in forms prescribed by purpose. 4. Hence the study of efficient causes can never logically conflict with the belief in final causes. The former tells us how an effect has been brought about, and leaves us as free as 85 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. ever to believe that there was purpose in tlie doing. We can understand the grouping of effi- cient causes only by reference to final causes; and the final cause is realized only through the efficient cause. 5. Historically, the study of efficient causes has often tended to weaken the behef in final causes. This fact has several grounds : A. The design argument has been supposed to teach an external making, and not an immanent guiding. Human designs are external to the material on which they are impressed ; but this externality is in no way essential to the design. If the human maker, instead of adapting his plan to given material, could create his material outright and impress his plan upon its very be- ing, the design would be quite as real and quite as apparent as it is now. Under the influence of this fancy, the design argument has been much belabored. It has been called the carpenter theory — a phrase which, while missing the true nature of the ar- gument, does most happily reveal the wooden nature of the criticism. But the argument itself is quite compatible with immanent design, with design legislated into the constitution of things. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 87 SO that in their fixed order of unfolding they shall reahze a predetermined plan or purpose. B. The result of this blunder is a second, namely, the fancy that whatever can be ex- plained by physical laws and agents is thereby rescued from the control of mind. Not even Kant is free from this confusion. In the " Cri- tique of the Judgment" he suggests that the notion of purpose may have only a regulative value ; and that possibly everything may have a mechanical explanation. Here he falls into the confusion of making design a cause among causes, and seems to think that we must not know how effects are produced if we are to be- lieve them intended. Many have openly es- poused this notion. The discovery that the stomach does not digest itseK, because its walls secrete a fluid impervious to the gastric juice, has often been held to disprove the existence of purpose as the ground of the arrangement. This fancy, which recognizes purpose only where causation cannot be traced, had great influence in the late revival of atheism. Wherever natu- ral laws could be traced, purpose was ruled out. This view flrst assumes that design is a cause, and then attributes self-sufficiency to the ele- 88 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. ments and laws of nature. If we knew nature to be at once self-sufficient and unintelligent, we might insist that the realms of mind and of nature are mutually exclusive. But in fact the system of things represents no seK-sufficient ex- istence, but only the way in which the world- ground proceeds. Whether there be any pur- pose in the proceeding can be known only by studying the outcome. 6. The chief ground for distinguishing be- tween the system of law and specific design hes in what appears as the contrivances of nature. Here we have combinations of laws for the pro- duction of effects, which the laws taken singly do not involve. In organic forms especially we have a union of natural processes which, taken singly, would destroy the organism, but which together work for the maintenance of the whole. This class of facts has led many to think of de- sign as something interjected into, or superin- duced upon, a system essentially unrelated to it. But this fancy is reached by unlawful abstrac- tion. It is indeed conceivable that there should be a system in which the elementary physical and chemical process should go on without any purpose-like products ; but in the actual system THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 89 they are not thus resultless. When, then, we make the law into an abstract rule and separate it from its actual working and product, we merely analyze the complex reahty into several factors for the convenience of our understand- ing; but which we need not regard as in any way representing the constituent factors from which the reality was produced. But this ques- tion goes too deeply into the question of the formal, and the objective signification of logical method, to be discussed to advantage here. § 30. The positive argument for design begins by showing that many processes in nature are determined by ends. The aim of the eye is vision, that of the ear is hearing, that of the lungs is the oxygenation of the blood, that of the manifold generative mechanisms is the re- production of life. In all of these cases there is concurrence of many factors in a common result ; and this result, towards which they all tend, is viewed as the final cause of then' con- currence. Here, then, is action for an end. But an end, as such, cannot act except as a concep- tion in the consciousness of some agent which wills that end. The end, as result, is effect, 90 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. not cause. Hence activity for ends demands a preconceiving intelligence as its necessary im- plication or condition. Of course the standing answer to this argument is the claim that the apparent aims are not real ones ; that they re- sult from their antecedents by necessity and were never intended. Eyes were not made for seeing; but we have eyes, and see in conse- quence. The propagation of life was never pur- posed; but reproductive processes and mech- anisms exist, and life is propagated. This view, in this naked form, has always scandahzed the unsophisticated mind as a pettifogging affront to good sense. There is no need to adduce instances of ap- parent purpose. They may be found in endless profusion in the various w^orks on the subject. Besides, all admit that in the organic world the W'Orld - ground proceeds as if it had plans and purposes. The theistic conclusion is disputed on the following grounds : 1. The mechanism of nature explains the fact, and we need not go behind it. 2. The fact that the world-ground works as if it had plans does not prove that it has them. 3. There is no analogy between human activ- THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 91 ity and cosmic activity. We know tliat pui'pose rules in human action, but we have no experi- ence of world-making, and can conclude nothing concerning cosmic action. The distance is too great, and knowledge is too scant to allow any inference. All atheistic objections fall under some one of these heads. We consider them in their order. § 31. On the first point we observe that mech- anism, and systems of necessity in general, can never explain teleological problems. These can find a final explanation only in a seK-directing intelhgence. All other explanations are either tautologies, or they imphcitly abandon the prob- lem. We have already pointed out that the general laws of the system explain no si)ecific effect. Like the laws of motion, they apply to all cases, but account for none. The specific effect is always due to the pecuhar circum- stances under which the laws work. Hence, in order to explain the effect, we must account for not only the general laws, but also the special circumstances which form the arbitrary con- stants of the equation. But these cannot be 92 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. explained by any and every antecedent, but only by such, as contain implicitly tbe effect. In that case we do not explain the peculiar nature of the effect, but only remove it one step further back. By the law of the sufficient reason, when we pass from effects to causes, we have to at- tribute them, not to any and every cause, but to causes which implicitly contain all the mystery and pecuharity of the effects. Thus the prob- lem ever precedes us. We refer a to —a, and — a is referred to —2a, and so on to —na. If —na is given, then in the course of time a will appear; but at the farthest point, — nr/, we have a impHcitly and necessarily given. In such a system we reach no resting-place and no true explanation. A given fact, a, is because — a was ; and —a was because —2a went before; and so on in endless regress. But as all later orders and collocations were implicit in —na^ it follows that we deduce the present fact, a, from its an- tecedents by constructing our thought of those antecedents so as to contain the fact to be de- duced. Of course it does not follow that a was given as a, but only in those antecedents which must lead to it; so that whoever could have read the system at any point in the past would THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 93 have seen a as a necessary implication. In a system of necessity there can be no new de- partm^es, no interjection of new features, but only an unfolding of the necessary imphcations. If we make a cross-section of such a system at any point, we find everything given either actu- ally or potentially, and when an apparently new fact appears, it is not something chanced upon, but something which always must have been. In such a scheme we do not come to the thought of a beginning, but of a self-centred system, or world -order, which rolls on forever, infolding and unfolding all. This view might involve us in sundry very grave metaphysical difficulties, but we pass them over. The point to be noticed is that this view does not solve, but only post- pones, the teleological problem. If the facts themselves call for explanation, just as much do these hypothetical grounds demand it, for we have simply carried the facts in principle into them. But we conceal the fact from ourselves by casting the shadow of necessity over the whole, and this stifles further inquiry. Refer- ence has already been made to the grotesque inversion of reason which finds in the rational order a ground for denying a basal reason ; the 94: PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. same thing meets us here. We construct our thought of the cosmic mechanism by an inverted teleology. The mechanism is simply teleology read backwards. But the notion of necessity so bhnds us that the cosmic mechanism, which is but an incarnation of all cosmic products, is made the ground for denying purpose therein. One reason for our failure to see that a neces- sary system must always implicitly contain all that comes out of it, is our failure to see that definite and specific effects can have only defi- nite and specific causes. If anything could pro- duce everything, there would be an end of all reasoning; for this proceeds according to the principle of the sufficient reason. But we trace the outlines of our system to some state of ap- parent homogeneity, say a nebula; and then conclude that any vague and formless matter must develop into fixed and definite purpose-like products. In our regress we forget the definite outcome, and thus we seem to reach the indefi- nite and meaningless. Then in our progress we remember the definite outcome again, and this passes for a deduction. Hence the nebular the- oiy and that of natural selection have been often adduced as showing how, by a kind of THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 95 mechanical necessity in a system of trial and rejection, purpose must result from non- pur- posive action. But here we fail entu-ely to be true to the principle of the sufficient reason, and mistake indefiniteness for the senses for indefi- niteness for the reason. Indeed, there has al- ways been at this point a curious oscillation in atheistic reasoning between chance and necessi- ty. At times everything is absolutely deter- mined ; but when the design question is up, an element of indeterminateness appears. Some chaos, which contained nothing worth mention- ing, or some raw beginnings of existence, which were so low as to make no demand for an intel- hgent cause, begins to shuffle into the argument. Being so abject, it excites no question or sur- prise. Being indeterminate, it does not seem to beg the question against teleology by implic- itly assuming the problem ; and then, by waving the magic wand of necessity, together with a happy forgetfulness of the laws of mental pro- cedure, the nothing is transformed into an all- explaining something. We find the same fancy underlying the argument from the "conditions of existence," and the earher whim that, as in infinite time all possible combinations must be 96 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. exhausted, the actual order must be hit upon. The superficial and wooden nature of these no- tions need not be dwelt upon, as the very nature of scientific method has rendered them obsolete. They must be looked upon as survivals of a pe- riod when thought was groping bhndly without any knowledge of its own aims and methods. In a necessary system there is no possible be- yond the actual and its necessary imphcations. All else is the impossible. There never was, then, a period of indefiniteness out of which the present order emerged by a happy chance. This feature of all necessary systems vacates also the theistic argument from probabilities. If there ever had been a time when all was indefinite and undetermined, it is higlily improbable that any rational order would have been hit upon. But we cannot urge this against atheism, for atheism which understands itself recognizes no such period. The mechanical explanation of a fact, then, turns out to consist in assuming a cause or causes of such a kind, and in such relations, that they must produce that fact to the exclusion of every other. But such an explanation is a pure tautology, teleologically considered. It has to THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 97 frame the mechanism to fit the effects; and then the explanation of the effects is merely drawing ont what was put in. The theist's point is missed entirely. He does not ask how effects are produced. He beheves as well as the atheist that their efficient causes were adequate to their production. He contends only that an arrangement of efficient causes for the produc- tion of purpose-like effects points to mind and purpose as the ground of the arrangement. To this, which is the real point in dispute, there is only the well-worn answer that the arrangement is because it must be, and that there is no go- ing behind it. The argument from mechanism against teleology is simply a long irrelevance; for after we have referred everything to the mechanism, we find ourselves compelled to de- mand some unitary ground for the mechanism and its intelligible interaction. § 32. Throughout this argument against the- ism an assumption and an oversight are to be noticed. The assumption is that already re- ferred to, namely, that we directly know the proximate causes of phenomena, and know them to be material and unintelligent. As we know 7 98 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. the proximate causes, and find tlieni daily ex- plaining more and more, when we come to any new manifestation, instead of going outside of them for a cause apart, we need only enlarge our notion of these causes themselves. Be it far from us to tell what matter can or cannot do. How can we learn what it can do except by observing what it does? The illusion here is double. We assume (1) that we know causes in immediate perception, and (2) that their nat- ure is at once mysterious and known. Myste- rious, because we are going to determine it by studying what they do ; and known, because the term matter carries with it certain implications which exclude intelligence. Thus, in great hu- mility and self-renunciation, and with an air of extreme logical rigor, we build up a scheme of thought around a materialistic core, and fail to notice the transparent trick we are playing upon ourselves. This assumption that the causes of phenom- ena are immediately given we have seen to be false. Causes are not seen. Their nature is a matter of speculative inference. Again, we have seen that even if we should find the proximate cause in material elements, we cannot regard THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 99 them as independent, but must view them as dependent for all their laws and properties on an absolute world - ground. We cannot rest, then, in a system of things interacting according to mechanical laws, but must go behind the sys- tem to something which acts through it. The mechanical system is not ultimate and self-suf- ficient. It represents only the way in which the world-ground acts or determines things to act. If we ask why it thus acts, either we must regard it as a seK- directing intellect, and find the reason in purpose, or we must affirm some opaque necessity in the world-ground itseK, and say. It does what it does because it must. The oversight referred to is the failure to see that man and mind are a part and outcome of the universe. The speculator, in curious seK- forgetfulness, fixes his thought on the physical system and ignores himself. He assumes a monopoly of intellect in the universe, and for- gets that this rare and lonely endowment must still have its roots in the universe. The prob- lem then arises how to deduce the conscious from the unconscious, the inteUigent from the non-inteUigent, the purposive from the non-pur- posive, and freedom from necessity. But psy- 100 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. cliology sliows the hopelessness of such a task. This uisight has led to the modem device of a double-faced substance which, while stopping short of affirming an independent creative intel- ligence, does still insist upon intelligence as one of the original factors of the world-ground. The metaphysics of this view is somewhat open to suspicion, but it is correct in concluding that there is no way from non-inteUigence to intel- hgence. But if, on the other hand, we still insist on regarding the world-ground as mechanical, then we reach the same conclusion by a different road. For if everything is to be mechanically explained, then human life, thought, and action must be phases of the all-embracing necessity. But man can form pui'poses and determine him- seK accordingly. Hence it follows that in the department of human life, at least, the cosmic mechanism does form purposes and execute them. Here design actually appears as real and controlhng. Hence, by the necessity of including man, we are forced to admit that the cosmic mechanism is not incompatible with purpose. But if it act purposely in the human realm, there is no theoretical objection to admitting THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 101 that it acts purposely in the physical realm if the facts call for it. The only escape from this conclusion is to deny our consciousness that purpose rules at all in our mental hfe. But as long as this is allowed, the so-called cosmic mechanism must be viewed as one which can form plans and determine itself for their execu- tion ; that is, it must be what we mean by mind. The alternative, as we shall see, is to wreck knowledge in scepticism. § 33. The second general objection was, that the fact that the world-ground proceeds as if it had aims does not prove that it really has them. "We have in this objection a rehc of the ancient whim that atheism is sufficiently estabhshed by disputing theism. Let us allow that the fact that the world-ground proceeds as if it had pur- poses does not prove that it really has them ; it is still clear that this fact is even further from proving that it does not have them. To the general objection a first reply must be that all objective knowledge is based on an "as if." Not to refer to the scruples of idealism concerning the objects of perception, the whole of objective science is based on a certain truth 102 PHILOSOPHY OF THEIS5I. of appearances. We do not know that there is an ether, but only that optical phenomena look as if there were. We do not know that atoms exist, but only that material phenomena look as if they did. We do not know that the fire rocks were ever molten, but only that they look as if they had been. We do not know that the sedi- mentary rocks were ever deposited from water, but only that they look so. That the present land was once under the sea is not known, but only a behef resting on certain appearances. But none of these conclusions could stand a minute if the principle of this objection were aUowed. If the nature of things can produce the appearance of intelligence without its pres- ence, it ought to be able to mimic igneous and aqueous action without the aid of either fire or water. If the hypothetical necessity of the sys- tem is competent to bring organic matter into a hving form, it could certainly produce a fossil imitation at first hand ; or, better, if the nature of things includes the production of living f onns, it might also include the direct production of fossils. We cannot, then, conclude anything from fossil remains concerning the past history of our system; for this would be to conclude THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 103 from an " as if ;" and this is forbidden. If one should say, Well, how did they get there, any- how ? the answer would be that they are there because they must be there, and that no more can be said. If the questioner insisted, we should say that it is the height of absurdity to insist that things can be explained in only one way. Possibihties are infinite ; and of these we can conceive only one; but it must be viewed as infinitely improbable that our httle way of accounting for things is the way of the universe itself. It is, then, unspeakably rash to infer anything beyond what we see. It is curious that this argument should seem so profound, so judicious, so indicative of mental integrity when apphed to theistic problems, and so unsatisfac- tory elsewhere. Without waiting to solve this psychological and logical puzzle, we point out that the theistic "as if " is as good as the scien- tific " as if." We cannot reject the one and re- tain the other. § 34. But we are not yet clear of the "as if." In general we know what a force is only by observing what it does. This is especially the case vrith. mind, which is never seen in itself, but 104 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. only in its effects. And this is true not only of the divine mind, but of the human mind as well. A mistake which flows directly from our gen- eral bondage to the senses leads us to fancy that we see our neighbors' minds; and it has gen- erally been argued against theism that we see mind in man, but none in nature. This claim the rudiments of psychology dispel. We know that our fellow-beings have minds only because they act as if they had; that is, because their action shows order and purpose. In short, the argument for objective intelligence is the same whether for man, animals, or God. But no one will claim that the system of things shows less order and purpose than human action. If, then, we deny mind in nature because we have only an " as if " to reason from, we must deny it also in man; for an "as if" is all we have here. And yet we are wonderfully ready to find ob- jective intelligence, if only it is not referred to God. The scantiest marks prove the presence of intellect in man and brute, or in human and brute action; but nothing proves intelligence back of nature. The ground of this queer logic must be sought in a profound study of the phi- losophy of prejudice and confusion. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 105 The point just dwelt upon deserves further notice. The belief in personal co-existence has never been questioned by the extremest ideal- ists ; and we find it in full strength in our earli- est years. To explain this fact some have called it an instinct, while others have preferred the more distinguished title of an intuition. And there are the best of reasons why this belief should be made an absolute certainty in advance of all argument, and even against, it. The cer- tainty of personal co-existence constitutes the chief condition of a moral activity; and if it were in any way weakened, the most hideous results might follow. Nevertheless, the logical ground of the behef consists entirely in the fact that our neighbors act as if they were intelli- gent. And upon reflection one must confess that the activities from which we infer intelh- gence are not very strildng, but rather such as the organism might well execute of itseK. And in all of these cases, even in the use .of speech, if we should study the effect, which is always some form of physical movement, we should doubtless find a physical explanation. In the case of speech we should find no thought in the effect; that would be an addition of our own. 106 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. We have simply vibrating air, which can be traced to vibrating membranes, which in turn are set in motion by currents of air ; and these are forced along by the contraction of muscles producing a contraction of the thorax. If we care to pursue it further we soon lose ourselves in the mystery of nervous currents, and the sub- ject escapes us. Nowhere in the series do we come in sight of a mind. We have, to be sure, an outcome which happens to be intelligible ; but the atheist has instructed us that intelhgi- bihty in the outcome is far enough from proving an inteUigent cause. Besides, the outcome, so far as we can trace it, has a purely mechanical explanation, and need be referred to no mind. It would be a highly suspicious circumstance and a grave infraction of the law of continuity to conclude that a series which is physical as far as we can trace it, becomes something else where we cannot trace it. It has been customary to say that we know that watches are designed, but not that eyes are designed. This is a mis- take. In the case of a watchmaker we do not see the workman any more than in the case of the eye. We see only a physical organism in complex interaction with surrounding matter. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 107 and we see that the work goes on as if for an end; bnt we see nothing more. The hving, thinking workman is an inference from an "as if." But in nature, too, the work goes on as if for an end; and the "as-ifness" is at least as marked as in the former case. If, then, watches point to an unseen workman who knows what he is doing, nature also points to an unseen workman who knows what he is doing. Any doubt of the one must extend to the other. But if we may he practically sure of our neighbors' intelligence, and that because they act intelh- gently, we may be sure that the world-groimd is intelligent for the same reason. § 35. But we must go a step fm^ther. The last paragraph showed that the same argument which discredits mind in nature thi'ows equal doubt upon mind in man. But further reflec- tion shows that if there be no controlling mind in nature there can be no controlhng mind in man. For if the basal power is bhnd and nec- essary, all that depends upon it is necessitated also. In that case all unfolding is di'iven from behind, and nothing is led from before. Thought and feeling also come within this necessary un- 108 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. folding. As such they are products, not causes. The basal necessity controls them in every re- spect, yet without being in any sense determined by them. Thought as thought counts for noth- ing. The line of power is through the mechan- ical antecedents which condition thought, and not through the thought itself. Hence any fancy of self-control we may have must be dis- missed as delusive. Human life and history, then, express no mind or purpose, but only the process of the all-embracing necessity. Thought and pu.rpose may have been there as subjective states ; but they must be put outside of the dynamic sequence of events, and be made a kind of halo which, as a shadow, attends without af- fecting the cosmic movement. Indeed, so far from solving, thought rather complicates the problem. It offers no guidance, and is so much more to be accounted for. The basal necessity has not only to produce the physical movements and groupings which we mistakenly ascribe to inteUigence, but it has also to produce the illu- sion of conscious thought and seK-control. This extremely difficult and delicate task is escaped by denying the human mind outright ; and this is not difficult, as we affirm objective mind only TDE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 109 from the conviction that its guidance is neces- sary. When this conviction is lacking, there is no ground for affirming objective thought. The claim, then, that v^e know watches are designed, but do not know that eyes are de- signed, appears to be doubly untenable. First, we have the same proof that eyes are designed that we have that watches are designed; and second, if eyes are not designed, then watches are not designed. Both alike result from neces- sity, and if any thought attends the process, it does not affect it. The truth is, the design argument derives its force from the consciousness of our own free effort. We find that combinations for ends arise in our experience only as they first exist in con- ception, and are then made the norms of our action. And wherever we find combination ap- parently for ends, we at once supi)ly the pre- existent conception and the seK-determination which experience has shown to be its invariable condition. We have already seen that in a sys- tem of necessity, teleological questions can never be answered ; it is further plain that in such a system they could never logically arise. Such questions imply that things might have been 110 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. otherwise, and hence involve a denial of the complete determination of all existence. AYhen such determination is consciously affirmed, to ask why anything is as it is, is like asking why a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Spinoza is the only leading neces- sitarian who has clearly seen the opposition between necessity and teleology. Most neces- sitarians have oscillated between this insight and attempts at mechanical explanation which should satisfy the teleological craving. This in- consequence would seem to show that the cos- mic necessity itself is somewhat illogical. § 36. The third general objection, that the dif- ference between human action and cosmic action is too great to allow any conclusion from one to the other, is only a large way of saying nothing. Theism argues from intelhgible effects to an in- telligent cause. The rational and intelligible work is referred to intelhgence and reason. The suggestion that we have a knowledge in objec- tive human action which we do not have in cos- mic action is mistaken. The further demurrer that while intelligibihty in human action points to intelligence, intelligibihty in cosmic action THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. m does not point to intelligence, is an act of ca- price, not of reason. If it be further suggested that there may be untold transcendental possi- bilities any one of which might produce the ef- fects, this is only to return to the unreason of abandoning reason in order to revel in inarticu- late imaginings, none of which can be construct- ed in thought. As a result of all these considerations we hold that the design argument, when the unity of the world-ground is given, proves far more conclu- sively the existence of mind in nature than it does the existence of mind in man. The two stand or fall together. Argument from tJie Tlieory of Knowledge § 37. We have already dwelt upon the rational structure of the universe involved in the as- sumed possibility of knowledge, and also upon the impossibihty of comprehending this struct- ure without assuming it to be founded in a ra- tional being who is its author. We propose now to consider the bearings of atheism upon the problem of knowledge. No theory can be allowed to commit suicide ; and when a theory is shown to be suicidal it is 112 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. self -condemned. In particular no theory can be allowed wliicli would overturn reason itself. The trustworthiness of reason is the presuppo- sition of all speculation; and when a theory conflicts with this, it must he rejected. One could not accept it without admitting that all theories are doubtful, this one among the rest. This is the case with atheism, and with all sys- tems of necessity. § 38. Behef s can be viewed in two ways : as produced by causes, or as deduced from grounds. That is, behef s may be merely mental events due to certain psychological antecedents, and they may be logical convictions which rest on logical groimds. The distinction of rational from irrational behefs is that the former have grounds which justify them, while the latter are only effects in us, deposits of habit, prejudice, tradition, caprice, etc. They have their sufficient psychological causes, but have no justifying ra- tional gi'ounds. Now every system of necessity cancels this distinction. It gives us causes, but removes the grounds, of belief. The proof is as follows : In every mechanical doctrine of mind there THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. II3 are no mental acts, but only psychological oc- currences. Even the drawing of a conclusion is not an act of the mind, but an occurrence in the mind. The conclusion is not justified by its antecedent reasons, but is coerced by its psychological antecedents. If we deny the sub- stantiality of mind, the conclusion is only the mental symbol of a certain state of the physical mechanism. If we allow the mind to be real, but subject to necessity, then the conclusion is but the resultant of the preceding mental states. In both cases we must replace the free, seK- centred activity of reason by a physical or men- tal mechanism which determines all our ideas and their conjunctions. This determination takes on in consciousness the appearance of reflection, reasoning, concluding, etc., but these are only the illusive symbols in consciousness of a mechanical process below it. Nothing, then, depends on reason, but only on the physical or mental states ; and these, for aU we know, might become anything whatever with the result of changing the conclusion to any other whatever. But this view is the extreme of scepticism. Be- Hefs sink into effects; and one is as good as another while it lasts. The coming or going of 8 114 PHiLosornY of theism. a belief does not depend upon its rationality, but only on tbe relative strength of the corre- sponding antecedents. But this strength is a fact, not a truth. When a given element dis- places another in a chemical compound, it is not truer than that other, but stronger. So when a psychical element displaces another in a mental combination, not truth, but strength, is in question. On the plane of cause and effect, truth and error are meaningless distinctions. Proper rationahty is possible only to freedom ; and here truth and error first acquire signifi- cance. The rational mind must not be con- trolled by its states, but must control them. It must be able to stand apart from its ideas and test them. It must be able to resist the influ- ence of habit and association, and to undo the irrational conjunctions of custom. It must also be able to think twice, and to reserve its con- clusions until the inner order of reason has been reached. Unless it can do this, all beliefs sink into effects, and the distinction of rational and irrational, of truth and error, vanishes. We reach the same conclusion from another standpoint. No system of necessity has any standard of distinction between truth and error. THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT, 115 If all beliefs are not true, and as contradictory they cannot be, it follows that error is a fact. But how can error be admitted without cancel- hng truth ? On the one hand, we must admit that oiu" faculties are made for truth, and that we cannot by volition change truth. On the other, we cannot allow that we are shut up by necessity to error, as then our faculties would be essentially untrustworthy. This difficulty can be resolved only in the notion of freedom. If we have faculties which are truthful, but which may be carelessly used or wiKully mis- used, we can explain error without compro- mising truth ; but not otherwise. If truth and error be ahke necessary, there is no standard of truth left. If we make the majority the stand- ard, what shall assure us that the majority is right? And who knows that the majority wiU always hold the same views'? Opinions have changed in the past, why not in the future. There is no rational standard left, and no power .to use it if there were. We cannot determine our thoughts; they come and go as the inde- pendent necessity determines. If there were any reason left, the only conclusion it could draw would be that knowledge is utterly impossible. IIQ PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. and that its place must be swallowed up by an overwhelming scepticism. The bearing of this upon theism is plain. There can be no rationality, and hence no knowl- edge, upon any system of necessity. Atheism is such a system, and hence is suicidal. It must flout consciousness, discredit reason, and end by dragging the whole structure of thought and life down into hopeless ruin. Rationahty de- mands freedom in the finite knower ; and this, in turn, is incompatible with necessity in the world-ground. This freedom does not, indeed, imply the power on the part of the mind to coerce its conclusions, but only to rule itself according to preconceived standards. Pure ar- bitrariness and pure necessity are alike incom- patible with reason. There must be a law of reason in the mind with which vohtion cannot tamper; and there must also be the power to determine ourselves accordingly. Neither can dispense with the other. The law of reason in us does not compel obedience, else error would be impossible. Rationality is reached only as the mind accepts the law and determines itself accordmgly. We conclude, then, from the total argument THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 117 that if the trustworthiness of reason is to be maintained, it can be only on a tlieistic basis ; and since this trustworthiness is the presuppo- sition of all science and philosophy, we must say that God, as free and intelligent, is the pos- tulate of both science and philosophy. If these are possible, it can be only on a theistic basis. § 39. A not entirely irrelevant aside may be allowed on the two factors of freedom and ne- cessity. Complete determination is necessity, and overturns reason. Complete iudetermina- tion, if possible, would be pure chance, and would equally overturn reason. Freedom, there- fore, has to assume a certain element of uni- formity in order to acquire any value or mean- ing; and necessity has to assume a factor of freedom. Within the human mind, the element of uniformity is found in the mental nature and laws of thought and judgment ; and the element of freedom hes in our power to rule ourselves in accordance with those laws. To deny either element is fatal. In the cosmos these two fac- tors can be adjusted to the demands of thought only in the notion of a rational work depending upon a free intelhgence. The work is deter- lis PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. mined throughout accordmg to principles of reason, and thus admits of being rationally con- strued. But back of the work is the free work- er as its ground and cause. Mental imsteadiness is common at this pohit. The understanding can grasp only the determined, and hence it is tempted to posit everything as absolutely deter- mined. This lust of understanding must be overcome by the insight that freedom is a con- dition of the understanding itself, and that in a system of pure necessity nothing whatever can be understood. § 40. Thus far we have sous^ht to show that the facts of human intelhgence and of cosmic law and order demand intelligence in the world- ground as their only sufficient explanation. This line of argument may be brought to a close by assuming the theistic and atheistic hypoth- eses respectively, and inquiring how the facts illustrate and support them. This is a recog- nized form of logical procedure in deahng with hypotheses. We may either study the facts and deduce the hypothesis, or we may form the hy- pothesis and test it by the facts. In the former case all facts are ruled out which do not dis- THE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 119 tinctly demand the hypothesis; in the latter case all the facts are included which do not pos- itively oppose the hypothesis. The best result is reached by combining the two. By the first method the hypothesis acquires a positive sup- port, and by the second it may be greatly ex- tended. Let us suppose, then, that the universe is founded in intelligence. We find the facts agreeing thereto. There is a rational work, ac- cording to rational methods, for intelligible ends. To be sure our knowledge is limited, but, so far as we can understand, we find the marks of transcendent wisdom. In such a case it is not hard to beheve that a larger knowledge would make this more and more apparent ; just as we believe that a deeper insight would reveal the reign of law in realms apparently lawless. Let us next make the opposite assumption that the universe is founded in non-intelh- gence. Now nothing is what we should expect. We find an irrational power doing a rational work. An unconscious power produces con- sciousness. Non - intelligence produces intelli- gence. Necessity produces freedom. The non- purposive works apparently for purpose. The 120 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISIT. unexpected meets us at every turn. The facts appear in irreconcilable and growing hostility to the hypothesis. There is no need to pursue these considera- tions. It seems plain (1) that the belief in a free and intelhgent ground of things is as well founded as any objective belief whatever, and (2) that this belief is one which enters so inti- mately into our mental life that philosophy and science, and even rationality itseK stand or fall with it. On all these accounts we hold that the universe is founded in intelligence. The concep- tion of necessary mechanical agency as first and fundamental leads to no true insight, and ends in total mental collapse. SeK-directing rational agency is the only principle that gives any light, or that can be made basal without imme- diate seK-stultification. Atheism and necessity should be declared mental outlaws, and a per- petual rational injunction should be placed upon their appearance in the intellectual world. The dreary farce of appealing to reason in support of principles which destroy reason ought some- time to come to an end. If one should deny reason, and forever after held his peace, his posi- tion would be consistent ; but whoever will in- TEE WORLD-GROUND AS INTELLIGENT. 121 sist on appealing to reason should in self-respect and good faith debar himself from all theories which deny it. Failure to do so is a procedure on the level of a solipsist who, while pretending to doubt his neighbor's existence, should never- theless apply to him for arguments to prove that existence. Many bright and acute things might be said, but the farce would be apparent. CHAPTER III. THE WOKLD-GEOUND AS PEESONAL. § 41. The direct argument for the mtelhgence of the world-ground is conchisive; and unless counter-argument can be found the conclusion must be allowed to stand. But there is a very general agreement among speculators that such argument exists, and of such force withal as greatly to weaken, if not to overthrow, the the- istic conclusion. In particular the objection is made that personahty, and hence intelligence, cannot be attributed to an absolute and infinite being, as these notions are distinctly incompati- ble. Wliile, then, we are shut up on the one side to the belief in an intelligent, and hence personal, world-ground, we are shut out on the other by the contradictory character of the con- ception. This might be called the antinomy of the theistic argument. -to' § 42. Before proceeding to the argument an THE WORLD-GROUND AS PERSONAL. 123 attempt at mediation must be noticed. Many have held to the intelligence and rationahty of the world-ground who yet have denied its per- sonahty. This view has found expression in many poetical, or rather imaginative, utterances of pantheism. These have some attraction for the fancy, but most of them offer nothing to the intellect. Along with an astonishing fecundity of jjhrases there has been a still more astonish- ing barrenness of thought. Some have proposed to conceive the world- ground as a double-faced substance ; on the one side extension and form, and on the other side life and reason. These two sides constitute the reality of the outer and inner worlds respective- ly. This conception finds expression in Spinoza, and in many modem monistic systems. It is based upon the antiquated notion of substance as extended stuff, and upon the fictitious ab- straction of thought. No one has ever succeed- ed in forming any conception of what a double- faced substance might mean. The imagination, indeed, masters the problem at once. A thing is conceived with two sides, and one side is called thought ; but this performance is not finally satisfactory. Again the relation of the 124 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. two faces, the physical and the mental, is a problem which has not received its solution. If the two go along in complete independence, there is nothing in the physical world on the one hand to suggest thought ; and there is noth- ing in thought on the other hand to suggest the physical world. An outright denial of the latter would he the immediate result. In short, this doctrine must retreat into the affirmation of a transcendental something above thought and extension ; and this is only the well-known phrase to which there is no corresponding thought. Insight into the emptiness of the doctrine of a transcendental X, and into the impossibihty of founding the system in simple material exist- ence, has led many to give another form to their non-theistic views. The world-ground has been called i)ure will, unconscious intelligence, imper- sonal reason, impersonal spirit, universal life, etc. But these too are empty phrases, obtained by unlawful abstraction. For Schopenhauer the world-ground is pure will without intellect or personality. But pure will is nothing. "Will itseK, except as a function of a conscious and intelhgent spirit, has no meaning. When the TUE WORLD-GROUND AS PERSONAL. 125 conscious perception of ends and the conscious determination of self according to those ends are dropped, there is nothing remaining that de- serves to be called will. We may befog our- selves with words, but the conception of a bhnd and necessary force is all that remains. Unconscious intelligence is an oft-recurring notion in speculation. The anima mimdi of the Platonic physics and the plastic principle of Cudworth are examples. This conception has often found a place in theistic systems from a desire, first, to recognize something higher than corpuscular mechanics in the world of life, and, second, to free God from the onerous duty of ad- ministering the details of the universe. Hart- mann has extended this notion to the world- ground itself. Against atheism he affirms its intelligence ; against theism he maintains its unconsciousness. But in the phrase, unconscious intelligence, the adjective devours the noun in its attempt to agree with it, and the noun agrees so ill with the adjective as to destroy it alto- gether. Only one clear thought can be joined to this phrase, namely, that of bhnd forces, which are not intelligent at all, but which nev- ertheless work to produce intelhgible results. 126 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. The same is true of the phrase, impersonal rea- son. Reason itseK is a pure abstraction which is reahzed only in conscious spirits ; and when we abstract from these all that constitutes them conscious persons there is nothing intelligible left. By impersonal reason also we could only mean a blind force which is not reason, but which is adjusted to the production of rational results. In this sense any machine has imper- sonal reason. Instinct is the standing illustration of uncon- scious intelligence and impersonal reason; but it fails to illustrate. For if instinctive acts are not performed with purpose and consciousness, they are not outcomes of intelligence at all, but of a mechanical necessity which mimics intelli- gence. This necessity may he in the constitu- tion of the agent, or in its physical structure, or in the relations of both to surroundings ; but in any case there is no intelligence in play, unless it be the intelhgence of the Creator upon which the necessity itself depends. To a mind which has not developed enough to see that all think- ing must be in inteUigible terms, this must seem horribly dogmatic. Who can tell what the aw- ful Possible may contain ? Who, indeed ? But THE WORLD-GROUND AS PERSONAL. 127 all who are developed far enough to see that thought is impossible without meanings, know that our affair is not with the awful Possible, but with the much humbler problem of finding that conception of the world-ground which will make the universe most intelhgible to us. And for this sane state of mind, intelligence and rea- son are such only as they are guided by ends ; and a guidance by ends means nothing except as those ends are present in consciousness as ideal aims. Wlien this is not the case we have neither reason nor intelligence, but only neces- sary agency which may mimic rational activity. The meaning of the previous doctrines may be summed up in the notion of an impersonal spirit, which is the ground of all existence, and which comes to consciousness only in finite spirits. But this, too, is more easily said than understood. In fact it is simply atheism under another name. What the atheist calls persistent force or the fundamental reahty, is here called impersonal spirit; but the meaning is in both cases the same. Both alike understand by the terms that blind and necessary reahty which underlies all phenomena, and which, in its nec- essary on-going, brings to life and death. But 128 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. as the new phrase implies the old thing we need not consider it further. We conclude that if the world-ground be intelligent and rational, it must also be conscious and personal. § 43. The world-ground must be absolute and infinite, and these attributes are incompatible with consciousness and personality. In consid- ering this objection we first remark that person- ahty is not to be confounded with corporeahty, or with form of any sort. This confusion un- derlies the traditional criticism, dating back to Xenophanes, that speculating cattle would infer a God like themselves. Oxen, buffaloes, and even watches have been used to illustrate this profound objection. But if a speculative watch should conclude, not to springs, levers, and es- capements, but to intelligence in its maker, it would not seem to be very far astray. By per- sonahty, then, we mean only self-knowledge and seK-control. Where these are present we have personal being ; where they are absent the being is impersonal. Now that the ability to know itself and what it is doing should be denied to the ground and source of all power and knowl- edge, is a denial so amazing as to requhe the THE WORLD-GROUND AS PERSONAL. 129 best reasons to support it. It is really one of the most extraordinary inversions in specula- tion, and a striking example of the havoc which can be wrought by using words without attend- ing to their meaning. And first it is said that all consciousness in- volves the distinction of subject and object, and hence is impossible to an isolated and single being. It is, then, incompatible with both the infinity of the world-ground and with its single- ness. As infinite, it can have nothing beyond itseK, and as only it can have no object. But this claim mistakes a mental form for an onto- logical distinction. The object in all conscious- ness is always only om' presentations, and not something ontologically diverse from the mind itself. These presentations may stand for things, but consciousness extends only to the presenta- tions. In self-consciousness this is manifestly the case. Here consciousness is a consciousness of our states, thoughts, etc., as our own. The Infinite, then, need not have something other than himself as his object, but may find the ob- ject in his own acti^-ities, cosmic or otherwise. This fact contains the answer to another fonn of objection. The ego and non-ego are said to 9 130 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. be two correlative notions, neither of wMch has any meaning apart from the other. Hence the conception of the self can arise only as the conception of the not-self arises with it; and hence, again, self-consciousness is possible only for finite beings who are limited by a not-self. It is only with effort that one can beheve the first part of this claim to be seriously made. Two notions whose meaning consists in deny- ing each other are pure negations without any positive content. Thus, A is not-^, and B is not- J. ; and hence A is not-not-A, and B is not- not-B. We end where we began. To make any sense one of the notions must have a posi- tive meaning independent of the other. And in the case of ego and the non-ego, it is plain which is the positive notion. The ego is the immediately experienced self, and the non-ego is originally only the sum of mental presenta- tions, or that which the ego sets over against itseK in consciousness as its object. Seconda- rily, the non-ego comes to mean whatever is excluded from the conscious self. Each person sets all his objects, whether persons or things, over against himself, and they constitute the non-ego for him. By overlooking this ambigu- THE WORLD-GROUXD AS PERSONAL. 131 ity, some speculators have proved a ricli variety of truths. Idealism has been confounded by pointing out that consciousness demands an object as well as a subject, and the reahty of matter has been sohdly established. Conscious- ness demands a non-ego ; and is not matter pre- eminently a non-ego ! The further claim that the conception of self can arise only as the conception of a not-self accompanies it, is but a repetition of the pre- ceding objection concerning the ego and non- ego. Consciousness does involve the co-exist- ence of these conceptions as the form under which consciousness arises, but not as things ontologically diverse. The distinction of sub- ject and object, on which consciousness de- pends, is only a mental function, and not an ontological distinction. The possibiUty of per- sonahty or self -consciousness in no way depends on the existence of a substantial not-self, but only on the ability of the subject to grasp its states, thoughts, etc., as its own. It is, indeed, true that our consciousness begins, and that it is conditioned by the activity of something not ourselves; but it does not he in the notion of consciousness that it must begin, or that it must 132 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. be aroused from without. An eternal, unbegun seK is as possible as an eternal, unbegun not- self. Eternal consciousness is no more difficult than eternal unconsciousness ; and withal, if unconsciousness had ever been absolute there is no way of reaching consciousness. In addition, all the sceptical difficulties which attend that view crowd upon us. Hence to the question. What is the object of the Infinite's conscious- ness? the answer is, The Infinite himself, his thoughts, states, etc. To the question, When did this consciousness begin? the answer is. Never. To the question, On what does this consciousness depend? the answer is. On the Infinite's own power to know. § 44. On all these accounts we regard the ob- jections to the personaUty of the world-ground as resting on a very superficial psychology. So far as they are not verbal, they arise from taking the limitations of human consciousness as es- sential to consciousness in general. In fact we must reverse the common speculative dogma on this point, and declare that proper personahty is possible only to the Absolute. The very ob- jections urged against the personahty of the THE WORLD-GROUND 'AS PERSOXAL. I33 Absolute show the incompleteness of human personality. Thus it is said, truly enough, that we are conditioned by something not ourselves. The outer world is an important factor in our mental life. It controls us far more than we do it. But this is a hmitation of our personahty rather than its source. Our personality would be heightened rather than diminished, if we were self -determinant in this respect. Again, in our inner hfe we find similar hmitations. We cannot always control our ideas. They often seem to be occurrences in us rather than our own doing. The past vanishes beyond recall; and often in the present we are more passive than active. But these, also, are limitations of our personahty. We should be much more truly persons if we were absolutely determinant of all our states. But we have seen that all finite things have the ground of their existence, not in themselves, but in the Infinite, and that they owe their peculiar nature to their mutual relations and to the plan of the whole. Hence, in the finite consciousness, there will always be a foreign element, an external compulsion, a passivity as weU as activity, a dependence on something not ourselves, and a corresponding 134 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. subjection. Hence in us personality will always be incomplete. The absolute knowledge and self-possession which are necessary to perfect personality can be found only in the absolute and infinite being upon whom all things depend. In his pure seK-determination and perfect self- possession only do we find the conditions of complete personahty ; and of this our finite per- sonality can never be more than the feeblest and faintest image. § 45. In leaving this subject a word must be said about a series of objections from the ag- nostics. These hold that the world-ground is no object of thought whatever, and hence can- not be thought of as personal or impersonal, as intelhgent or non - intelligent. The reason is found in the mutual contradictions alleged to exist between the necessary attributes of the fundamental being. Thus we must regard it as self - centred, and hence absolute ; as unlimited by anything beyond itseK, and hence infinite, and as world-ground, that is, as first cause. But while we are shut up by thought to these ad- missions, we are equally shut out from them by their mutual contradiction. Thus the first THE WORLD-GROUND AS PERSONAL. 135 cause, as such, exists only in relation to the ef- fect. If it had no effect, it would not be cause. Hence the first cause is necessarily related to its effect ; and hence it cannot be absolute ; for the absolute exists out of all relations. The absolute cannot be a cause, and a cause cannot be absolute. Nor can we help ourselves by the idea of time, as if the world-ground first existed as absolute, and then became a cause ; for the other notion of the infinite bars our way. That which passes into new modes of existence either surpasses or sinks below itself, and in either case cannot be infinite, for the infinite must al- ways comprise all possible modes of existence. Hence we have in these necessary attributes a disheartening, and even sickening, contradiction which shatters all our pretended knowledge. If this argument had not passed for impor- tant, we should refer to it only with expressions of apology. In itself it is mainly a play on words. Etymologically the above meanings may be tortured out of the terms. The infinite may be taken as the quantitative all; the absolute may be taken as the unrelated; and then the conclusions follow. The infinite as quantitative aU must, of course, be all-embracing. Outside 136 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. of the all there can be nothing ; and if the all must comprehend all possible modes of exist- ence at all times, it cannot change; and the universe is brought to the rigid monotony of the Eleatics. It is equally easy to show that the absolute cannot be related when we define it as the unrelated. But all this wisdom dis- appears when we remember the philosophical meaning of the tenns. Both absolute and in- finite mean only the independent ground of things. Relative existence is that which ex- ists only in relation to other things. Both the ground and form of its existence are bound up in its relations. Such relations are restrictions, and imply dependence. But absoluteness denies this restriction and dependence. The absolute may exist in relations, provided those relations are freely posited by itself, and are not forced upon it from without. The infinite, again, is not the quantitative all. This " all " is purely a men- tal product which represents nothing apart from our thought. The world -ground is called infi- nite, because it is beheved to be the independent source of the finite and its limitations, yet with- out being bound by them except in the sense of logical consistency. But in this sense the no- THE WORLD-GROUND AS PERSONAL. 137 tions of the absolute and infinite are so far from incompatible that they mutually imply each other, or are but different aspects of the same thing. The infinite would not be infinite if it were not absolute ; and neither infinite nor ab- solute would be anything if it were not a cause. A final affectation must be mentioned. The claim has been set up that to attribute design of any kind to God is a hmitation. Tliis claim rests upon the fact that we often use design as equivalent to contrivance, and contrivance, in turn, has various meanmgs. It may be the equivalent of design, or the adaptation of parts ; and it may be a makeshift for avoiding difiicul- ties, or a combination of things or processes for doing indirectly what our power or skill could not directly accompHsh. Here, then, is a fine opportunity for critical acumen, and it has not been overlooked. We have but to take contri- vance as implying puzzle-headedness or inade- quacy to see that it cannot be affirmed of God. When, in addition, we discreetly overlook the fact that in theism it means only the rational connection of many factors with reference to an ideal end, unless the audience be too critical, we may at once proclaim the incompatibility of de- 138 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. sign with tlie absoluteness of the world-ground. Such an antinomy could not fail to prove a ver- itable metaphysical Medusa to theistic faith. The history of philosophy abounds in gro- tesque and whimsical misunderstandings; but of these none are more extraordinary than the artificial and gratuitous difficulties which have been raised over the question of the divine per- sonahty. CHAPTER IV. THE METAPHYSICAL ATTEIBUTES OP THE WOELD- GKOUND. § 46. OuE speculative conception of the world- ground begins to approximate to the religious conception of God. A great variety of influ- ences, instinctive, speculative, and ethical, have led the human mind to build up the conception of a personal and intelligent God ; and this view, when criticised, not only proves able to main- tain itseK, but also appears as a demand and imphcation of reason itseK. But the race has not contented itself with this bare affirmation, but, by an intellectual labor extending over cen- turies, it has sought to determine more closely the content of its theistic thought. These de- terminations fall into two classes, metaphysical and ethical. The former aim to tell what God is by virtue of his position as first cause, and the second relate to his character. Or the for- mer refer to the divine nature, the latter to the 140 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. divine will. Beyond this distinction, the various classifications of the divine attributes in which dogmatic theology abounds have no significance for either speculative or religious thought. We pass now to consider the leading metaphysical attributes as belonging to the world -gi'ound. The result will be to show a still closer approx- imation of rehgious and speculative thought. We begin also to use the terms, God and world- ground, as interchangeable. § 47. The unity of the world -ground is the first of these metaphysical attributes ; and the necessity of its affirmation is found in a study of interaction. But necessary as it is, its mean- ing is not always clearly gi-asped. We need, then, to inquire of metaphysics what is meant by the unity of being in general. In affirming unity of a thing the primal aim is to deny composition and di\dsibihty. A com- pound is not a thing, but an aggregate. The reahty is the component factors. The thought of a compound is impossible without the as- sumption of units ; and if these are compounds we must assume other units; and so on until we come to ultimate and uncompounded units. METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 141 These are the true realities. Hence, the divisi- ble is never a proper thing, but a sum or a crowd. When, then, we say that a thing is a unit, we mean first of all that it is not com- pounded, and does not admit of division. Hence the doctrine of the unity of the world-ground is first of all a denial of composition and divisibility. Unity has been taken to mean simphcity, or the opposite of complexity and variety. Her- bart especially has identified them, and has de- clared that unity of the subject is incompatible with plurahty of attributes. The same view has often appeared in treating of the divine unity. This has been conceived as pure sim- phcity ; and thus the divine being has been re- duced to a rigid and lifeless stare. This view brings thought to a standstill ; for the one, con- ceived as pure simphcity, leads to nothing and explains nothing. It contains no ground of dif- ferentiation and progress. So, then, there is a very general agreement that the unity of the world-ground must contain some provision for manifoldness and complexity. The history of thought shows a curious un- certainty at this point. On the one hand, there has been a universal demand for unity with 142 pniLOSornY of theism. a very general failure to reach it. Aiicl on the other hand, if the unity has been reached, there has been quite as general an inabihty to make any use of it. This is a necessary result of thinking only under mechanical conditions. In such thinking, when we begin with a plurality, we never escape it, for mechanical necessity cannot differentiate itseK. If we trace the plu- rality to some one being, we are forced to carry the plurality implicitly into the unity, as there is no way of mechanically deducing plurahty from unity. But in that case, though we confi- dently talk about unity, we are quite unable to tell in what the unity of such a being consists. If, on the other hand, we assume the unity, we are unable to take one step towards plurahty. The all-embracing unity refuses to differentiate or to move at all. This puzzle can be solved only by leaving the mechanical realm for that of free intellect. The free and conscious self is the only real unity of which we have any knowledge, and reflection shows that it is the only thing which can be a true unity. All other unities are formal, and have only a mental existence. But free intelli- gence, by its originating activity, can posit plu- METAPHYSICAL ATTKIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. I43 rality distinct from its own unity, and by its self- consciousness, can maintain its unity and identity over against the changing plurahty. Here the one is manifold without being many. Here unity gives birth to plurahty without de- stroying itself. Here the identical changes and yet abides. But this perennial wonder is possi- ble only on the plane of free and self-conscious intelhgence. For mechanical thinking the prob- lem admits only of verbal solutions. So much for the metaphysics of unity. Prob- ably, however, the thought most generally con- nected with the divine unity is not so much that God is one as that God is only. Hence the doctrine has been always monotheism, and not henotheism. The historic influences which have led to this monotheistic faith are manifold ; and its speculative necessity is stringent. The thought of many gods, each of which should live in a world by himself, or rather, in a universe of his own, is a pure fancy due to the abstracting and hypostasizing tendency of the mind. If they should meet and interact in a common universe they would necessarily become finite and con- ditioned beings in mutual interaction, and hence not independent and self -existent. The discus- 144 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. sion of the unity of the world-ground has shown that all things which are bound up in a scheme of mteraction must have their existence in some one being on which they depend. This being founds the system, and all that is in the system flows from it. But we are able to form general notions, and then to conceive an indefinite num- ber of members of the class. We do the same with the universe and the fundamental being. We form the notions, and then fancy that there may be other universes and other fundamental reahties. But plainly such fancies are mental fictions. The actual universe, whereby we mean the total system of the finite, must be refen^ed to the one world-ground. The imaginary sys- tems need nothing for their explanation beyond the somewhat unclear mind that forms them and mistakes them for reahties. If one should ask how we know that there may not be some- thing entirely independent of our system and totally unrelated to it, the answer would be that our business is with the actual universe, and does not include the disproof of chimeras. This only may be allowed. If by universe we mean the system of sense-perceptions in an ideahstic sense, the one world -ground may maintain a METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 145 series of such, systems. In this sense a number of vmiverses would be possible, but the unity and singleness of the fundamental reality would still be necessary. This fact has often been disregarded in spec- ulation. Not a few have been pleased to regard space, time, and God as mutually independent existences, or rather to make sjDace and time into pre-existent necessities to which God him- seK must submit. How these independent and unrelated existences could be brought into mu- tual relations is a problem left unsolved. The unity of the world-ground means, then, not only that it is uncompounded, indivisible, and without distinction of parts, but also that there is but one such fundamental existence. § 48. A second attribute is that of unchange- ability. This attribute has often been verbally interpreted with the result of reducing existence to a fixed rigidity from which all life and move- ment are excluded. The Eleatics made being one and changeless, and were then utterly una- ble to account for the world of plurahty and change. A similar mistake often appears in speculative theology. It has sometimes so em- 10 146 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM, pliasized the uncliangeability as to lose the hv- ing personal God altogether. This misconception has its main root in the crude metaphysics of spontaneous thought. This assumes that substance in general is change- less, and that change falls among the activities and properties. But a little reflection shows that an absolutely rigid substance cannot ex- plain the changing activities of the thing. For every change in the activity or the manifesta- tion, we must affirm a corresponding change in the thing itself. Changes among things must depend upon changes in things. What is true of all agents is true of God or the world-ground. God, as a rigid sameness of existence, would contain no explanation of the advancing cosmic movement, and would admit of no change in action and knowledge. In truth, as metaphysics shows, the changelessness of a being consists not in such an ontological rigidity or fixed mo- notony of being, but rather in the constancy and continuity of the law which rules its sev- eral states and changes. The unchangeability of God means only the constancy and continu- ity of the divine nature which exists through all the divine acts as their law and source. Meta- METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. I47 physics further shows that if we insist upon having some abiding and identical principle su- perior to change and constant in change, it can be found only in personality. And here it does not consist in any rigid core of being, but rather in the extraordinary power of seM-consciousness, whereby the being distinguishes itself from its states, and constitutes itself identical and abid- ing. Where this is lacking, there may be a con- tinuity of process, but nothing more. The un- changeability is purely formal, as w^hen a given note is constantly produced. But in truth a variety of things are gathered up in this attribute. Rehgious thought, as dis- tinct from theological thought, has generally meant something distinct from the metaphysi- cal formula. One aim has been to affirm the independence and eternity of God in opposition to the dependence and brevity of man. Again, the predicate has often been made to mean the ethical constancy of the divine activity, and to exclude all arbitrariness and caprice from the divine piu'poses. In this last sense the attri- bute passes from the metaphysical into the eth- ical realm, and eludes any metaphysical deduc- tion or justification. 148 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. § 49. A third attribute is that of omnipres- ence. By crude thought this is often under- stood as implying extension of the subject. Space is supposed to exist as infinite room, which is then filled out with a boundless bulk ; and this is omnipresence. This view is specu- latively untenable, and is incompatible with the unity of the world-ground. Nothing that exists extended in space can be a unit ; for in every such being it vnR always be possible to distin- guish different parts which are either actually separate or are held apart and together only by the forces in them. In the latter case the body disappears into an aggregate of different forces, and in both cases its unity disappears. No more can such a thing be omnipresent in space. It can only be present in space part for part, or volume for volume, and hence there is no proper omnipresence. Omnipresence is real only as the entire being is present at any and every point ; as the entire mind is present in each and all its thoughts. Speculatively, then, the doctrine of omnipres- ence must take another form, and one mainly negative. We are able to act directly upon only a few things. These are said to be present to METATEYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUXD. I49 US. In other cases we can act only thi'ough media. These are said to be absent. If the in- teraction were equally direct and immediate in all cases there would be no ground for the dis- tinction of present and absent. Thus space ap- pears to us as a limitation, although space is really but the form under which our dynamic hmitations appear. Omnipresence means a de- nial of these limitations. Immediate action means presence; immediate action which ex- tends to all things means omnipresence. God, or the world-ground, therefore, as immanent in all things, is omnipresent. If, then, he wills to act upon anything, he has not to cross any dis- tance, long or short, to reach it, and he is not compelled to use media; but his activity is rather immediately and completely present. Conversely, if the finite wishes to act upon God, say by prayer, neither the prayer nor the person need go wandering about to reach and find God ; for we hve and have our being in him ; and he is an ever-present power in us. Only in this sense, which denies that space is a limitation or barrier for God, is the doctrine of omnipresence tenable. This view is made all the more neces- sary from the claim of metaphysics that space 150 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. is no ontological reality, and lias only a mental existence. § 50. The attribute of eternity has a variety of meanings. The first and lowest is that of unbegun and endless duration of existence. If time be an ontological fact, the world -ground must be eternal in this sense, for void time could never have produced anything. There is, too, a certain SBsthetic value in the thought of endless duration which is not unworthy of the infinite. But in general, rehgious thinkers have been unmUing to identify the di\ine eternity with endless duration, but have rather sought to place it in opposition to all time as denoting an existence above and beyond all temporal lim- its and conditions. This is an attempt to con- ceive the divine relation to time likothe divine relation to space, as a superior and transcen- dental one. The common thought of the matter is that time exists as a boundless form, which God fills out with his dui'ation, just as in the common thought he fills out space with his extension; but this is metaphysically as untenable in one case as in the other. Metaphysics shows that METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 151 time itseK is but the form of change, and not an independent reahty upon which change de- pends and in which change occurs. Still this does not decide whether the world -ground is above the law of time; for the temporal form might still be a necessity of its existence. The shortest way out is to call the world- ground the unconditioned, and then to deduce from this attribute its superiority to all condi- tions, temporal or otherwise. But this notion of the unconditioned is a somewhat vague one, and cannot be used without scrutiny. Thought can positively affirm an imconditioned being only in the sense of a being wliich does not de- pend on other beings ; but such a being might still have profound internal limitations. The world-ground is, indeed, unconditioned by any- thing beyond itseK ; but it must be conditioned by its own nature in any case, and the question arises whether this conditioning involves tem- poral sequence in the infinite life itself. To say that it does would involve us in the gravest speculative difficulties. We should have to hold that the world-gi'ound is subject to a law of de- velopment, and comes only gi'adually to itself, or, rather, that there is some constitutional ne- 152 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. cessity in the world -ground which forbids it always to be in full possession of itseK. In fact we should have to hmit to the extent of this necessity that free and self-centred cause which reason demands as the only adequate world- ground. In consequence reason will always as- sume that the world-ground is strictly uncondi- tioned until some necessity is found for viewing it as conditioned. In this the mind is led on by its conception of the perfect, or by its need of ideal completeness. The result is not something which the mind can prove to be true, but which, in default of disproof, it is sure to assume. With this assumption we may view the rela- tion of the world -ground to time as follows: First, there are certain features in our relation to time which cannot be affirmed of the world- ground. Thus we are subject to slow develop- ment ; we come gradually to self-possession ; we grow old and pass away. This we express by saying that we are subject to temporal hmits and conditions. In none of these respects can the unconditioned world -ground be subject to time, but must rather be non-temporal. A be- ing which is in fuU possession of itseK so that it does not come to itself successively, but for- METArnYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 153 ever is what it wills to be, is not in time so far as itself is concerned. Such a being would have a changeless knowledge and a changeless life. It would be without memory and expectation, yet in the absolute enjoyment of itself. For such a being the present alone would exist ; its now would be eternal, and its name, I Am. For us the unconditioned world-ground, or God, is such a being; and he is not to be viewed as conditioned by time with regard to his own self- consciousness and self-possession. But only in the seK-centred and self -equivalent personahty can we transcend the conditions and the sphere of time. God in himseK, then, is not only the eternal or ever-enduring; he is also the non- temporal, or that which transcends temporal limits and conditions. But God is not merely the absolute person without a past and a future ; he is also the founder and conductor of the world -process. This fact brings God into a new relation to time. This process is a developing, changing one, and hence is essentially in time. Hence the divine activity thei'ein is essentially tempo- ral. But here too there is a certain timeless element. As knowing all the phases and pos- 154 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. sibilities of the process, the divine knowledge of the system may be viewed as without succes- sion, and hence as non- temporal. But as the chief agent in the process, and as ever adjusting his activity to the advancing process, both his activity and knowledge must be changing, and hence temporal. A changeless knowledge of an ideal is possible ; but a changeless knowledge of a changing thing is a contradiction. A knowl- edge of reahty must embrace it as it is ; and if reality changes the knowledge must change to correspond. Unchangeabihty and non-temporal- ity apply to God only in his relation to liimseK. They apply to his knowledge only as related to himself or to the ideal and the possible. Finally, metaphysics makes the suggestion which may have some value; that the present in time, hke the here in space, may be purely relative, and that there may be an all-embracing present as there is an all-embracing here. We find it utterly impossible to define the present except in relation to the real in experience. This reality does not occur in the present, but constitutes the present ; and hence the sugges- tion becomes possible that there may be a gi-asp of reahty which shall constitute it all present. METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 155 If this were allowed, the non-temporahty of the world-ground would offer no difficulty. § 51. This brings us to the attribute of omnis- cience. It is a possible conception that intelli- gence plays only a co-ordinate, if not secondaiy, part in the world-ground. Our own knowledge reaches to only a small part of what takes place within us, and the rest is shrouded in mystery. It is conceivable that, in hke manner, there should be in the world-ground a double reahn, one of which is hidden from the scrutiny and control of intelligence. But this supposition is so destitute of positive gi'ounds as to be quite gratuitous. If extended to cosmic action it would deprive us of the control of free intellect, which we have found necessary for understand- ing the cosmic order. Finally, it is at such war with the perfect ideal of the reason that it never has found acceptance with those who admit any intelligence in the world-ground at aU. Still it is well to recognize that this demand for perfect knowledge rests rather upon a subjective ideal than upon objective grounds. We proceed to inquire how far such knowledge is seK- con- sistent. 156 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. In interpreting omniscience, etymologizing lias too often taken the place of philosophizing, and speculators have sought to determine the con- tent of the idea by analyzing the word. But this process is delusive. No idea can be under- stood by studying the composition of the word, but only by reflecting upon the way in which the idea is reached. In the largest sense of the word, omniscience means a knowledge of all things and of all events, past, present, and fut- ure, necessary, and free ahke. But we cannot affirm that this is possible on the sole strength of etymology. We must rather inquire whether this stretching of omniscience is not as unten- able as the similar stretching of omnipotence when it is made to affirm the possibihty of the contradictory. All allow that the contradictory is impossible ; and hence we are not at hberty to include contradiction in our conception of the divine attributes. As omnipotence must be limited to the doable, so omniscience must be limited to the knowable. If, then, there be any- thing essentially unknowable, it must be beyond even omniscience. A preliminary scruple exists concerning the divine knowledge of those forms of finite expe- METAPnTSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 157 rience which cannot be ascribed to the Infinite. The totahty of physical experiences seems to belong only to the finite; how, then, can the Infinite comprehend them? The work of the understanding in these cases consists entirely in classifying and naming ; the thing itseK is real- ized only in immediate experience. But if we are not wiUing to ascribe these experiences, as of physical pains, to God, and are also unwiUing to deny him knowledge of the same, we must allow that there are modes of the divine know- ing which we cannot comprehend. The con- tents of a sense which we do not possess are utterly unknowable to us, and yet by hypothesis the Infinite comprehends the finite experience without participation therein. The mystery in- volved in this assumption has led to many sur- mises in both theology and philosophy. But the chief difficulty in omniscience con- cerns the foreknowledge of free choices. The past and jDresent may be conceived to he open to omniscience. The possible also may be fully known. The free creature can do nothing which was not foreseen as possible. Here, then, is a realm forever free from all enlargement and sm^prise. Here the parting of the ways begins. 158 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM, A free act by its nature is a new beginning, and hence is not represented by anything before its occurrence which must lead to it. Hence a free act, until performed, is only a possibility, and not a fact. But knowledge must grasp the fact as it is, and hence it is held the act can be fore- linown only as possible, and never as actual. Being only a possibility antecedently to its oc- currence, it must be known as such. On the other side it is held that, though only a possi- bility in itself, it may yet be known as one which mil surely be realized. The knowledge in this case does not compel the fact, but fore- sees it, and leaves the fact as free as if unfore- seen. Upon the possibihty of such foreknowledge opinions still differ. Some have asserted fore- knowledge and denied freedom ; others have as- serted freedom and denied foreknowledge ; and still others have affirmed both. Both of the former classes agree in viewing freedom and foreknowledge as incompatible, and differ only as to which member of the antithesis they reject. The difficulty in the last view is this : By definition a free act is an absolute beginning, METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUXD. 150 and as such is not represented by anything be- fore its occurrence. We trace it to a specific vohtion, and beyond that it has neither exist- ence nor representation. But knowledge of a future event always supposes present grounds of knowing ; and in the case of a free act there are no such grounds. Hence a foreknowledge of a free act is a knowledge without assignable grounds of knowing. On the assumption of a real time it is hard to find a way out of this difficulty. Indeed, there would be no way out unless we assume that Grod has modes of know- ing which are inscrutable to us. A foreknowl- edge of freedom cannot be proved to be a con- tradiction ; and on the other hand it cannot be construed in its possibility. The doctrine of the ideahty of time helps us by suggesting the possibility of an all-embracing present, or an eternal now, for God. In that case the problem vanishes with time its condition. § 52. The last attribute we consider is that of omnipotence. This predicate imphes what we have before assumed from metaphysics, that the world-ground is not a substance, but an agent ; not a stuff, but a cause; and the general aim IQQ PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. has been to affirm the absoluteness or nncondi- tionedness of the world-ground. Two tendencies appear in the common view of the matter. One is to view God as able to do the doable, but as hmited by some necessities which cannot be transcended. This view has not satisfied either religious feeling or specula- tive thought; and the result has been to sug- gest the opposite view, according to which God is lifted above all limits, and is able to do the impossible as weU as the possible. But if the former view seemed tame, the latter seems to be utter nonsense, and the death of reason itself. We have already pointed out that necessity has no positive meaning except as rational ne- cessity. The question then concerns the rela- tion of God to these necessities of reason, or, as they are often called, the eternal truths. Is he conditioned by them, or superior to them ? We shall need to move warily and with great cir- cumspection to escape falling a prey to the swarms of abstractions in which this realm abounds. § 53. In speaking of the unity of the world- ground we pointed out that it is incompatible METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 161 with any plurality of fundamental being. Hence it follows that truth and necessity themselves must in some way be founded in the world- ground. If we should assume a realm of truth to exist apart from being, it could have no effect in being unless we should further assume an in- teraction between it and being. But this would make truth a thing, and would compel the as- sumption of another being deeper than both truth and reahty to mediate their interaction. At this point we fall an easy prey to our own abstractions. A law of nature is never the an- tecedent, but the consequence of reahty. The real is first and only, and being what it is, its laws result as a consequence, or, rather, are but expressions of what the things are. Yet so easily do we mistake abstractions for things that, after we have gathered the laws from the things, we at once proceed to regard the things as the subjects, if not the products, of the laws they found. Then we speak of the reign of law ; and thus by a double abstraction law is made to appear as a real sovereign apart from and above things, and as the expression of some fathomless necessity. Of course, when reahty appears it has nothing to do but to fall into the 11 IQ2 PHILOSOrnY OF THEISM. forms which the sovereign laws prescribe. Thus the cause is made subject to its own effects, and reahty is explained as the result of its own con- sequences. The inverted nature of the thought is manifest. Natural laws are the consequences of reality, and never its grounds or anything apart from it. The same is true for truth. Rational truth, as distinct from truth of contingent fact, is never anything more than an expression of the necessary relations of ideas, or of the way in which reason universally proceeds As such it is nothing apart from the mind or antecedent to it, but is simply an expression of the mental nature. But we overlook this and abstract a set of principles which we call eternal truths, and erect into a series of fathomless necessities to which being can do nothing but submit. But the fictitious nature of this procedure is appar- ent. There is no reahn of truth apart from the world-ground ; and we must look in this being for the foundation of truth itself, and of all those principles whereby the distinctions of true and false, consistent and contradictory, possible and impossible, themselves exist. In a system in which these distinctions are already founded. METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 163 they would be valid for all new events, not, however, as abstract necessities, but as actual laws of a real system. It is partly oversight of this distinction which leads us to think that these principles precede reahty. They do, indeed, precede specific events and condition them, and hence we fancy that they precede reality in general. A further fancy completes the illusion. When one speaks of truth as valid even in the void, he fails to see that his conception of the void is only a concep- tion, and that he himself is present with all his ideas and laws of thought. And when along with his conception of the void he has other conceptions, and finds that the customary rela- tions between them continue to exist, he fancies that he has truly conceived the void and has found that the laws of thought would be vahd if all reality should vanish. But the illusion is patent. The whole art of finding what would be true in the void consists in asking what is now true for the thinking mind. The true void would be the undistinguishable nothing; and the ideal distinctions of truth and error would have no meaning, to say nothing of application. Hence we conclude that truth is not indepen- 164 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. dent of tlie world-ground, but is in some way founded therein and dependent thereon. § 54. This dependence may be conceived in two ways. Truth may be viewed as founded in the nature of the world-ground, or as a creat- ure of vohtion. The latter view has often ap- peared in theology, but is inconsistent with it- self. The statement that God is arbitrary with regard to truth, that he can make or unmake it, assumes that truth exists and has a meaning apart from the divine volition. For why should the loroduct of the creative act be called truth rather than error, unless it agree with certain fixed standards of truth with which error disa- grees ? Hence all such statements as that God can make the true false, or the possible impos- sible, imply that the standard of both exists in- dependently of volition ; and God is merely al- lowed to transfer objects back and forth across limits which are fixed in themselves. The inconsistency of the negative form of statement is equally manifest. In order that truth shall be unmade or broken, it must first exist as tnith. If any proposition which is to be broken v^ero not in itself true, there would METAPnTSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GKOUND. 1G5 be no truth to break. A proposition which is false cannot be made false, for it is false aheady. Hence, to make truth the creature of volition either denies truth altogether, or else it breaks down through its own seK-contradiction. But the aim of those who have held this view has never been to deny truth, but rather to exalt the absolute and unconditioned independence of God. So, then, we object to the statement either that God makes truth or that he recognizes it as something independent of himself. He is rather its som*ce and foundation; and it, in turn, is the fixed mode of his procedure. We may view rational principles as consequences or expressions of the divine nature, or as fun- damental laws of the divine activity. Both phrases have the same meaning. § 55. Many have objected to ascribing a nat- ure of any kind to God as the source of the divine manifestation. They have found in such a notion a hmitation, and have held that God, as absolute, must give himself his own nature. There must be nothing constitutional mth God, but all that he is must be a product of his ab- 1(56 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. solute will. In MmseK God has been styled "the abyss," "the silence," "the super-essen- tial," and many other verbal vacuities. This is due partly to a misunderstanding of the term, nature, and partly to an overstrained conception of absoluteness. We notice first the misunder- standing. "We finite beings are subject to development, and view our nature as the mysterious source of the movement. Again we inherit much, and we often sum up our inherited pecuharities as our nature. This nature too frequently appears as a limitation from which we would gladly es- cape. Thus a split arises in the soul. The free spirit has to struggle against a power wliich seems to be not of itself — an old man of the sea, or a body of death. In this sense a nature can- not be ascribed to an absolute being. Such a nature is essentially a hmitation, and can belong only to the conditioned and finite. But a nature in the sense of a fixed law of activity or mode of manifestation involves no such limitation. This is best seen in a concrete case. Thinking, we say, is governed by the laws of thought. But these laws are not anything either out of the mind or in the mind. We feel METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 167 them neither as an external yoke nor as an in- ternal limitation. The reason is that they are essentially only modes of thought-activity, and are reached as formal laws by abstraction from the process of thinking. The basal fact is a thought-activity, and reflection shovrs that this has certain forms. These are next erected into laws and imposed on the mind ; and then the fancy arises that they are hmitations and hin- derances to knowledge. In fact, however, they do not rule intellect, but only express what intel- lect is. Nor is the mind ever so conscious of itself as self -guiding and seK-controlled as when conducting a clear process of thought. It would be a strange proposition to free the mind and enlarge knowledge by annulhng the laws of thought. This brings us to the overstraining mentioned. To deny a nature to God in the sense just de- scribed would be to cancel his existence alto- gether. For whatever is must be something, must be an agent, and must have a definite law of action. Without this the thought vanishes, and only a mental vacuum remains. This may indeed be fiUed up with words, but it acquires no substance thereby. To regard this definite 168 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. law as a limitation is to make being itself a lim- itation. In that case we find true absoluteness only in pure indefiniteness and emptiness, and then there is no way back to definite existence again. Once in such a void, thought would re- main there. This overstraining of absoluteness defeats itself. It cancels the absolute as a real- ity, and leads to the attempt to construct both the universe and the Hving God out of nothing. But when we say that the natiu'e of a thing is a law, we must not think of the law as a thing in the thing, or even as ruhng the thing. The thing itself is all; and the law is only an ex- pression of what the thing is or of the way in which it proceeds. We come here to a fact to which we have re- feiTed before, namely, the impossibihty of dis- pensing with either necessity or freedom in a thought-system. To give freedom any signifi- cance it must be based on uniformity or fixity ; and to give this fixity any value it must be aUied with freedom. Unmixed necessity cancels reason. Pure arbitrariness cancels reason. It is only in the union of the two that the rational life is possible. METAPHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES OF WORLD-GROUND. 169 § 56. Has, then, the divine will notliing to do with the divine existence ? Does God find him- self given to himseK as an object, or is he, rather, his o^n cause ? The answer must be both yes and no. The question really assumes that God as knowing and wilhng, is subsequent to him- self as existing. Of course there is no temporal sequence, but only a logical one. God does not exist and then act, but exists only in and through his act. And this act, though not ar- bitrary, is also not necessary ; or though neces- sary, it is also free. Wliat this apparent contra- diction means is this : Freedom and necessity are contradictory only as formal ideas, and are not mutually exclusive as determinations of be- ing. Indeed, both ideas are at bottom abstrac- tions from opposite sides of personal existence. We find an element of uniformity and fixity in our hfe, and this gives us the only positive idea of necessity which we possess. We find also a certain element of self-determination, and this is our idea of freedom. Reahty, then, shows these formally opposite ideas united in actual existence, and reflection shows that both are necessary to rational existence. We have an illustration both of the meaning and of the pos- 170 THILOSOPHY OF THEISM. sibility in our own life. The laws of thouglit are inviolable in the nature of reason. Vohtion can do nothing with them in the way of over- throw. And yet, though absolute and secure from all reversal, they do not of themselves se- cure obedience. The human soul does not be- come a rational soul by virtue of the law of rea- son alone ; there is needed, in addition, an act of corresponding seK- determination by the free spirit. Hence, while there is a necessity in the soul, it becomes controlhng only through free- dom ; and we may say that every one must con- stitute himself a rational soul. How this can be is inconstruable, but none the less it is a fact. We come to our full existence only through our own act. What is true for ourselves in a lim- ited degree, we may regard as absolutely true for God. At every point the absolute will must be present to give meaning to the otherwise powerless necessities of the Divine Being. In this sense we may say, with Spinoza, that God is the cause of himseK. He incessantly con- stitutes himself the rational and absolute spirit. God is absolute will or absolute agent, forever determining himseK according to rational and eternal principles. CHAPTER V. GOD AND THE WOELD. Thus far we have considered mainly the attri- butes of God in himself ; we have now to con- sider his cosmical relations. Of course it is not our aim to tell how God produces the world, or how the world depends on him, but only to find what general thought we must form of their mutual relations. By the world, here, we mean all finite existence. Two general classes of views exist : theistic and pantheistic. Pan- theism makes the world either a part of God or a necessary consequence of the divine nat- ure. Theism holds that the world is a free act and creation by God. We consider pantheism first. § 57. The view that the world is a part of God is the common factor in all theories of emana- tion, ancient and modern. As the waves are a part of the ocean, or, better still, as each finite 172 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. space or time is a part of tlie one infinite space or time, so eacli finite tiling is a part or phase of tlie one infinite existence. In eacli of these views God is regarded as world-substance rath- er than first cause ; and this substance is con- ceived as a kind of plastic stuff or raw mate- rial wliich, hke clay, can be variously fashioned, and which is at least partly exhausted in its products. Sometimes the view is less coarse, and God is conceived as the background of the world, something as space is the infinite back- ground and possibility of the figures in it. Sometimes God is said to produce or emit the world from himself, or by a process of seK-di- remption to pass from his own unity into the plurality of cosmic existence. The finite, on the other hand, is a part, or mode, or emana- tion of the infinite, and shares in the infinite substance. Whether the world is eternal is not decided. Some will have it to be an eternal part and factor of God, while others think it as made out of God. All views of this class are products of the im- agination and result from the attempt to picture that which is essentially unpicturable. When we try to conceive the origin of the world we GOD AND THE WORLD. 173 are tempted to form the fancy of some back- lying plastic substance of wliich the world is made, and then the imagination is satisfied. Either we refer the world to some pre-existent stuff, or we regard it as pre-existing itself in some potential form. Then its production be- comes either the working over of a given stnff or a letting loose of potentiahties. Yiews of this class are as obnoxious to reason as they are dear to the irrational fancy. Meta- physics shows that reality is never a stuff, but an agent. Nor does an agent have any sub- stance in itself whereby it exists, but by virtue of its acti\aty it is able to assert itself as a de- termining factor in existence, and thus only does it acquire any claim to be considered real. To explain the universe we need not a substance, but an agent ; not substantiality, but causality. The latter expresses all the meaning of the former, and is free from misleading sense-impU- cations. Metaphysics further shows that every agent is a imit, uncompounded and indivisible. God, then, is not the infijiite stuff or substance, but the infinite cause or agent, one and indivisi- ble. From this point all the previous views of the relation of God to the world disappear of 174 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. themselves. He has no parts and is not a sum. Hence the world is no part of God, nor an em- anation from him, nor a sharer in the divine substance ; for all these views imply the divisi- bility of God and also his stuff -hko nature. His necessary unity forbids all attempts to identify him with the world, either totally or partially. If the finite be anything real, it must be viewed, not as produced from God, but as produced by God ; that is, as created. Only creation can rec- oncile the reality of the finite with the unity of the infinite. For the finite, if real, is an agent, and as such it cannot be made out of anything, but is posited by the infinite. Similar objections lie against all views which speak of the world as a mode of God. This phrase, in its common use, is alhed to the imagi- nation, and is based upon the notion of a pas- sive substance. The thought commonly joined with it is that each thing is a particular and separate part of the infinite, as each wave is not a phase of the entire sea, but only of the part comprised in the wave itself. But metaphysics further shows that the unity of being is com- patible with plurality of attributes only as each is an attribute of the whole thing. Any concep- GOD AND TEE WORLD. 175 tion of diverse states whicli are states of only a part of the thing would destroy its unity. The entire being must be present in each state ; and this cannot be so long as the notion of quan- tity is apphed to the problem. The only way in which a being can be conceived as entire in every mode, is by dropping all quantitative and spatial conceptions and viewing the being as an agent, and the modes as forms of its acti^dty. If, then, finite things are modes of the infinite, this can only mean that they are acts of the in- finite, or modes of agency. Another conception of this relation has been ventured, based on the relation of the universal to the particulars subsumed under it, and more especially on the relation of the universal reason to the individual mind. As reason is the same in all, and as no one can claim a monopoly of it, but only a participation in it, we may say that the universal reason is the reality, and that the finite mind exists only in and through it as one of its phases or manifestations. But this is only an echo of the scholastic realism. Class terms denote no possible existence, and have re- ahty only in the specific existences from which they are abstracted. X76 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. § 58. Two conceptions of the finite are logi- cally possible. First, we may regard it as only a mode of the divine activity and without any proper thinghood. Secondly, we may view it as a proper thing, not only as an act of God, but as a substantial product. The former conception is illustrated by the relation of thoughts to the mind. These are not modes of mind, but mental acts. They are not made out of anything, but the thinking mind gives them existence. At the same time, they are- not things in the mind, but exist only in and through the act which creates them. The decision between these views can l^e reached only as we find, in the finite, things which can know themselves as things. At first sight, indeed, things and substances appear to be given in immediate perception ; but psychol- ogy shows that the objects of perception are pri- marily never more than our own conceptions and representations which have been objectified under the forms of space and time, substance and attribute, cause and effect, etc. They repre- sent only the way in which the mind reacts against a series of incitements from without. Metaphysics further shows that the external GOD AND THE WORLD. 177 fact is totally unlike the appearance ; and when these considerations are followed out we reach the insight that true substantial existence, in dis- tinction from phenomenal existence, can be pred- icated only of persons. Only selfhood serves to mark off the finite from the infinite, and only the finite spirit attains to substantial otherness to the infinite. The impersonal finite has only such otherness as a thought or act has to its subject. This view does not commend itself to sponta- neous thought, and is questioned by many in the name of common-sense. The objections com- monly rest upon misapprehension. Our sense- experience puts us in connection with a system of things. Concerning this system, we may ask whether it depends on us, as the illusions of the madman depend on his distempered mind, or whether it is independent of us and our percep- tion. The common conception of idealism is that it affirms the former view. This is one of the chronic misconceptions for which, when once established, there seems to be no exorcism. No rational ideahst, however, has ever held such a view. He beheves, as much as any one, that the system of experience is no product of our own, 12 178 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. and that it exists for all. He only raises the question what this system may be in its essential nature. The reahst proposes the conception of a brute existence as expressing its ultimate nature ; but the ideahst has no difficulty in showing that such a conception is only the reahst's theory, and not a fact of immediate experience, and that this theory, moreover, is quite unable to do the work assigned it. And the realist himself is compelled to relax his theory when he comes to consider the relation of God and the world. Of course the imagination has no difficulty in construing this relation as a spatial one — as one of mutual inclusion and exclusion — but not much reflection is needed to show the impossi- bihty of such a view or the contradictions in- volved in it. The most striking advantages of the realistic view for the imagination become its chief embarrassments for reflective thought. But this question is aside from our theistic ar- gument. Tills remains the same whatever our attitude towards the reahstic controversy. § 59. In any case the spirit must be viewed as created. It is not made, for making imphes a pre -existent stuff. Creation means to posit GOD AND THE WORLD. 179 something in existence which before was not. Concerning it two consistent questions are pos- sible. (1.) Who is the agent? (2.) How is it possible? To the first question the answer is, God. To the second there is no rational answer. Besides these consistent questions, various in- consistent ones are asked, as, for instance : What is the world made " out of" ? The common an- swer is, out of nothing. Both question and an- swer are worthy of each other. Both are haunted by the notion of a pre-existent stuff, and, to com- plete the absurdity, the answer suggests nothing as that stuff ; as if by some process God fash- ioned the nothing into something. The old saw, from nothing nothing comes, is also played off against creation, but without effect. The truth therein is merely that nothing can ever produce, or be formed into anything. But theism does not teach that nothing produces something, but rather that God, the all-powerful, has caused the world to exist. No more does theism hold that God took a mass of nothing and made some- thing out of it, but rather that he caused a new existence to begin, and that, too, in such a way that he was no less after creation than before. God neither made the world from nothing as a 180 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. raw material, nor from himself ; both notions are absurd ; but he caused that to be which be- fore was not. Of course, we have no recipe for this process. Creation is a mystery; but any other view is a contradiction of thought itseK. Creation is the only conception which reconciles the unity of God with the existence of the finite. Perhaps, too, we need not be especially troubled at the mystery, as mystery is omnipresent ; and besides, creation is not our affair. Some speculators have sought relief from the mystery of creation in the claim that the world was not made from nothing, but from the potentialities of the divine nature. The only intelhgible meaning of this view is that the world existed as a conception in the di^dne thought before it became real. This conceptual existence constituted its potentiality, but this in no way shows how that which existed as conception was posited in reality. For the rest, the claim in question is only a form of words of learned sound but without meaning. § CO. The world depends upon a di\ane ac- tivity, and is not a mode of the infinite sub- stance. But this also admits of a double in- GOD AND THE WORLD. 181 terpretation. We may regard this activity as a necessary consequence of the divine nature, or as resting upon the divine will. The former view is held by all the higher forms of panthe- ism, and even some theists have held that God must create. This view also is double, accord- ing to our thought of being in general. In one view God exists as the all -conditioning sub- stance, and the world, as its necessary imphca- tion, co-exists eternally with it. Spinoza's doc- trine is the best expression of this view. But this conception compels us either to affirm that all things are eternal, or else to declare change to be an unaccountable illusion of the finite. This view, which might be called static panthe- ism, has generally been exchanged for another, which might be called dynamic pantheism. In the latter view the infinite is forever energizing according to certain laws, and producing thereby a great variety of products. But these laws are throughout expressions of its nature and admit of no change. The world-order is the di\dne nature, and, conversely, the divine nature is the world -order. Hence pantheists of this order have always been the stoutest opponents of miracles, for miracles imply a will apart from 1S2 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. and above nature. If the world-order were really the divine nature, then, of course, God could not depart from that order without denying liimself . This conviction is further strengthened by the natural tendency of the untaught mind to mis- take the uniformities of experience for necessi- ties of being; and thus the world-order is finally established as necessarily invariable, the mind not recognizing its own shadow. This is the \'iew which underhes all schemes of philosophic evolution, and a large part of cuiTcnt scientific speculation, or rather speculation on the sup- posed basis of scientific facts and principles. While static pantheism says. In the beginning was the eternal substance or the eternal reason CO -existing changelessly with all its implica- tions; dynamic pantheism says. In the begin- ning was force, necessary and persistent, and by its inherent necessity forever generating law and system. When this view is combined ^ath the impersonality and unconsciousness of the world -ground, it becomes identical with vulgar atheism. The world-ground is simply the unit- ary principle and basal reahty of the cosmos, and is exhausted in its cosmic manifestation. There is immanence without transcendence ; GOD AND THE WORLD. 183 and God and the world are but opposite names for the same thing. § 61. Static pantheism is an untenable ab- straction which, if allowed, would bring the universe to a standstill and load thought with illusion. It would give us a rigid and resting being from which all time and change would be excluded, and which could in no way be con- nected with our changing experience. If we should call that experience delusion, the delu- sion itself would be as unaccountable as the fact. On this rock the Eleatic philosophy was wrecked, and here, too, Spinoza's system went to pieces. The truth, then, in pantheism, if there be any, lies in dynamic pantheism. But even this view has but scanty value, and this value lies in its emj^hasis of law in opposition to a blind and reckless arbitrariness. For the rest, pantheism is unsatisfactory in all respects. First, it is ethically objectionable, because it leads to a complete determinism, both in God and man. All things happen by necessity, and nothing is the outcome of proper prevision and purpose. The vforld and all its details are de- termined from everlasting. There is no room 184 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. for freedom, hence none for purpose, and hence none for any rational distinction of good and evil. The view is also speculatively obnoxious in the following respects : 1. It is unclear. It prqvides only for the world -order and does not recognize its details. But the vforld- order, as a system of general laws, accounts for no specific fact whatever. We must reckon, then, not only the world-order to the divine nature, but also the cosmic details. And since these are incessantly shifting, the di- \'ine nature, which is their ground, must also be shifting, and hence a temporal thing. Thereby the infinite is degraded to a temporal existence and its absoluteness disappears; for only the self-determining can be absolute. 2. Self-determination being denied, we must find some ground for the changing activity of the infinite ; and this must be found in some mechanism in the infinite whereby its states interact and determine the outcome. This view carried out would cancel the unity of the in- finite altogether. We might continue to speak of unity, but we should be quite unable to tell in what that unity consisted. As we have al- GOD AXD THE WORLD. 185 ready pointed out, the free and conscious self is the only real unity of which we have any knowledge , and reflection shows that it is the only thing which can be a true unity. 3. We have seen that the alleged necessity of natural laws and products is purely hypotheti- cal. No reflection upon necessary truth shows the present order to be a necessary imphcation in any respect. 4. We have further seen that every system of necessity overturns reason itself. On all these grounds we hold that God is free in his relation to the world, and that the world, though conditioned by the divine nature, is no necessary product thereof, but rather rests upon the divine will. To carry the world into God is to carry time and evolution into God ; and the notion of an evolving, developing God does not commend itseK to speculative thought. Again, to carry the actual world into God with all its antitheses of good and evil, and its boundless wastes of insignificance and imperfection, would be to degrade the theistic idea to about the level of the Platonic demi- urge. Everything would be divine but God. In concluding that God is free in his relation 186 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. to the world, we abandon all hope of a specula- tive deduction of creation. Such hope has often been entertained, and numberless attempts have been made to realize it. Inasmuch as we con- clude from the world to God, we must be able to conclude from God to the world. Sometimes the matter has been made very easy by defining creation as essential to the divine nature ; and then the conclusion has been drawn that God without the world would be a contradiction. In addition to being failures, these attempts spring fi'om a speculative lust for understanding and construing, which fails to grasp the conditions of understanding. In this respect they are on a par with the infantile wisdom which asks. Who made God? § 62. The world, then, depends on the divine will. In estimating this result, care must be taken not to apply to the di\dne willing the limitations of the human. As in human con- sciousness there are many features which are not essential to consciousness, and which arise from our hmitations, so in human willing there are many features which are not essential to willing, and which result from our finiteness. GOD AND THE WORLD. 187 Since we get our objects of volition gradually and by experience, we tend to think of will as a momentary activity which comes into our life now and then, but which, for the most part, is quiescent. In this way we come to think of an act of will as having nothing to do with the maintenance of a fixed state, but only as pro- ducing a change; or if it should look to the preservation of a given state, it would only be as that state might be threatened by something ex- ternal. And so, finally, it comes to pass that we think of wiUing as something necessarily tem- poral or beginning. When, then, we speak of the world as depending on the divine will, the im- agination finds it difficult to grasp this thought without assuming an empty time before its origination. But these features of human willing are not to be transferred to God without inspection. To begin Tvdth, willing does not necessarily im- ply beginning. In studjdng the divine omnipo- tence we saw that Grod's will in reference to himself must be eternal ; that is, it is as un- begun as God, being but that fi'ee self-deter- mination whereby God is God. It is only in relation to the world that God's wiU can be 188 PUILOSOPHY OF THEISM. temporal; and here, too, there is an essential difference. We come only gradually to a knowl- edge of our aims; but this cannot be affirmed of God. We have seen that in his absolute self- knowledge and seK-possession God has neither past nor future. Hence the ideals of the di- vine will are also eternal in the di\'ine thought. The will to create, however, is differently re- garded. Some view it as an eternal predicate of God, and others view it as a temporal predi- cate. Still another distinction between our will and the creative will must be noticed. With us to will is not necessarily to fulfil; and thus we come to think that in addition to the will there must also be a special activity of realization. Some have carried this conception over to God, and have affirmed the will to create to be eter- nal, while the execution is temporal. But this view confounds intention with will, and for the rest, is false. This feature of our trilling is due altogether to our finiteness. Our willing, in fact, extends only to our mental states, and is not absolute even there. For the production of effects in the outer world we depend on some- thing not ourselves; and as this is not always GOD AND THE WORLD. 189 STibser\dent to us, we come to distinguish be- tween volition and realization. Again, we find that we cannot always control oui' thoughts, because they are partly due to external causes ; and in the struggle which thus arises we find additional ground for distinguishing the will and the realization. Finally, our control of the body is attended by many feehngs of strain and effort, and these we carry into the idea of ^Yi]l itself, where it by no means belongs. These feehngs are effects of muscular tension result- ing from our will, but they are no part of the will itself. None of these elements can be transferred to God. He is unconditioned by anything beyond himself. He is the absolutely seK-determining, and with him wilhng must be identical with realization. § 63. Two views, we said, are held of the will to create, some making it an eternal and others only a temporal predicate of God. Of these two "vdews the latter is the more easily realized by the imagination. By its affirmation of an empty time before the creative act, that act is made to appear more like an act than an eternal doing would be, and at the same time the view 190 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. marks off creation as an act of will more clearly from the opposite doctrine, which makes crea- tion a necessary consequence of the divine nat- ure. This, however, is only an aid to the im- agination. If the Creator be free, he is eternally free. He did not first exist and then become free, but his freedom is coexistent with him- self; and hence his free doing may coexist with himself. There is nothing in the notion of eternal creation which is incompatible with divine freedom or with the absolute dependence of the world on the divine will. The notion of a temporal creation has the disadvantage also of raising certain troublesome questions, such as, What was God doing in the eternity before creation ? or, ^Yhy did creation take place when it chd, and not at some other time ? We can- not fill up this time with a di\dne seK- evolu- tion, as if God were gradually coming to himself and getting ready to create, for this would can- cel his absoluteness and reduce him to a tem- poral being. Some of the more naive specu- lators have thought to fill up the time before creation by a series of pre^dous creations — a suggestion which shows more appreciation of the difficulty of the problem than of the re- GOD AND THE WORLD. 191 quired solution. It seems, then, that no reason for delay can be fomid in God, and certainly none can be found in time itseK, since one mo- ment of absolute time is like any other; and hence, finally, it seems that a temporal creation must be an act of pure arbitrariness. On all these accounts many theologians have declared for an eternal creation, and have further de- clared creation to mean not temporal origina- tion, but simply and only the dependence of the world on God. But, on the other hand, the notion of an eternal creation of the world is not without its difficulties, partly real and partly imaginary. To begin with the latter, it is said that the cos- mic process is a changing one, and hence tem- poral and hence begun. The answer is that change does not take place in time, but founds time, so that time is only the form of change. Hence temporality and change are identical. But temporality in tliis sense is simply a mode of existence, and its antithesis is not the un- begun but the changeless. Viewed as enduring, the changing process may be as eternal as its cause. This conception of time gives a somewhat 192 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. different aspect to the question. Metaphysics shows that time cannot be a proper ontological reahty, but is only the form of change in gen- eral. The cosmic process is not in time, but by its incessant change it produces the form of time. God, however, as the absolute person, is non- temporal and exists in absolute self-pos- session Avithout past or future. Hence time be- gan with the cosmic process, and the questions, What was God doing before creation? and Why did he create when he did? have no meaning. In his absolute self -related existence, God is timeless. Hence he did not create at a certain point of absolute time, but he created and thus gave both the world and time their existence. If, then, we view the world as begun, it is strictly absurd to ask when or at what mo- ment of the eternal flow of time did God create. There is no such flow ; and hence creation did not take place at any moment. In the begin- ning God created, for creation was the begin- ning even of time itself. § 64. Many attempts have been made to prove eternal creation to be a contradiction. These generally rest on the assumption of a real time, GOD AND THE WORLD. 193 and fall into contradiction with themselves. The claim is that the world must have had a beginning in time, while the arguments em- ployed prove with equal cogency that time itseK must have had a beginning. This is the case even with Kant, whose famous antinomy is no more efficient against the eternity of the world than it is against the eternity of time. But no one who admits an infinite past time can find any good reason for denying that something may always have been happening in it. Every believer in necessity must hold that something has always been going on ; and every theist must allow that something may always have been going on. There is no apriori reason in theism for denying that the cosmic process may be coeternal with God. The difficulties commonly urged depend on the contradiction said to inhere in the notion of an infinite elapsed time. But this arises from overlooking the sense in which past time is said to be infinite. This infinity means sim- ply that past time cannot be exhausted by any finite regress. Past time is infinite just as space in any direction is infinite. In the forjner case no regress will find a beginning, 13 194 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. just as in the latter case no progress will find an end. If, now, time were anything capable of real objective existence, its past infinity, in the sense described, would offer no difficulty to thought ; indeed, it would rather seem to be a necessary affirmation. Such difficulty as might arise would be due to confounding thought and imagination. The imagination cannot represent either space or time as unhmited, but thought cannot conceive either as limited. But with in- finite time and the eternal God as data, there seems to be no reason for denying the possi- bihty of a cosmic process extending throughout the infinite time. Some further objections are offered, based on the nature of number. Number is necessarily finite, and hence anything to which number apphes must be finite also. But number ap- phes to time as its measure, and hence time must be finite, and hence must have a begin- ning. Such argument, however, puzzles rather than convinces. To begin with, the necessary finiteness of number means only that any num- ber whatever admits of increase. But it is en- tirely compatible with this finitude that the number should not admit of exhaustion in any GOD AXD THE WORLD. 195 finite time. If we suppose time to be real and infinite, then in the past time a definite num- ber of units have passed away ; but that num- ber does not admit of expression in finite terms. It is constantly growing, to be sure, because time is constantly passing. In no other sense need it be finite. If it be said that the very nat- ure of a series demands a beginning, as there can be no second without a first, we need to consider whether such apphcation of number to the boundless continuum of time is not as relative to ourselves as its similar application to space. For our apprehension we have to set up axes of reference in both cases ; but we are not able to say that the fact itseK depends upon those devices by which we conceive it. The celestial horizon and equator do not make the motions and positions which they enable us to grasp and measure. The argument from number proves the finitude of space quite as cogently as that of time. But if we allow that time is infinite, and claim only that the cosmic process in time must be finite, w^e fall into a curious antinomy. On the one hand, it seems clear that the Eternal God may always have been doing something; but on the other hand, 196 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. owing to the potency of number, God must have waited for the past eternity to elapse before he could do anything. The truth is, we have here the opposition between time as thought and time as imagined, to which refer- ence has abeady been made. Oversight of this distinction vitiates not a few of the traditional arguments for a first cause. Our inability to represent an eternal process is taken for the proof of a beginning. But it is time to return from this long ex- cursion. Our view of time empties most of these questions of all significance. We need not concern ourselves with what God was do- ing in the long eternity before creation; for there was no such eternity. There was simply the self-existent, self-possessing, timeless God, whose name is I Am, and whose being is with- out temporal ebb and flow. Temporal terms have meaning only within the cosmic process itself, and are altogether empty when apphed to the absolute God. And within the cosmic process itself temporal relations are but the fonn under which we represent the unpictur- able dynamic relations among the things and phases of that process. GOD AND THE WORLD. 197 § 65. The conception of creation as a free act and not as a necessary evolution of the nat- ure of the world -ground, forbids all attempts to identify the world with God. But specula- tive thought has been prolific in attempts to understand the manner and motive of creation. A superficial type of speculation has sought to explain the manner by a great variety of cos- mogonies, some of which are still in fashion. None of these have either rehgious or specula- tive significance. They relate only to the trans- forming and combining of given material, and say nothing concerning its origination. For understanding the origin of the creative act, we have only the analogy of our own experi- ence, according to which we first form concep- tions and then reahze them. Hence the divine understanding has been distinguished from the divine will, and a kind of division of labor has been made between them. The understanding furnishes the conception of all possibihties, and from these the divine wisdom chooses the best for reahzation by the divine will. Many scru- ples have been raised concerning this distinc- tion, on the ground that in God knowing and wilhng must be identical; but tliis identity is 198 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. secured only by defining each term so as to include the other. In both cases, however, we have to leave out those features of our know- ing and wiUing which arise from our hmita- tions. In general the identification of know- ing and willing in God confounds synchronism with identity. In knowing which looks towards doing there is no assignable reason why the doing should be postponed, and thus we are led to ^dew them as contemporaneous. But know- ing and wiUing as mental functions remain as distinct as ever. Besides, God's knowledge ex- tends to the e\T-l as well as the good; does he therefore Vvdll the evil? Concerning the motive of creation pure spec- ulation can say nothing positive. It can only point out that if the divine absoluteness is to be maintained, this motive must not he in any lack or imperfection of the Creator. For posi- tive suggestion we must have recourse to our moral and religious nature ; and this refuses to be satisfied with any lower motive than ethi- cal love. This fact, together with the positive teachings of Christianity, has led to many at- tempts to deduce the system as an outcome of love; but the success has been very shght. We GOD AND THE WORLD. 199 are so little able to tell apriori what that love implies that we cannot even adjust a large part of actual experience to the conception of any kind of love, ethical or otherwise. It only re- mains that we believe in love as the source of creation and the essence of the divine nature, without being in any way able to fix its imph- cations. § 66. The world was produced by the divine will, but this does not determine its present re- lation to that will. Concerning this there are two extreme views and an indefinite number of intermediate ones. One extreme, deism, regards the world as needing only to be created, being able to exist thereafter entirely on its own account. The other extreme finds so Httle substantiahty in the world as to regard its continued existence as a perpetual creation. Between these extremes lie the views which, against deism, maintain an activity of conserva- tion distinct from that of creation, and which, on the other hand, refuse to identify creation and conservation. The deistic view sets up nature as an inde- pendent power with laws and rights of its own. 200 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. while God appears as an absentee and without any administrative occupation so far as nature is concerned. The impossibihty of this concep- tion has already appeared. No finite thing has any metaphysical rights of its own whereby it becomes an obstacle or barrier in any sense to God. Both laws and things exist or change solely because of the demands of the divine plan. If this calls for fixedness, they are fixed ; if it calls for change, they change. They have in themselves no ground of existence so as to be a limit for God; because they are nothing but the divine purpose flowing forth into reali- zation. If natural agents endure it is not be- cause of an inherent right to existence, but because the creative will constantly upholds them. If in the cosmic movement the same forces constantly appear working according to the same laws, this is not because of some eter- nal persistence of force and law, but because it lies in the divine plan to work in fixed forms and methods for the production of compound effects. In a word, the continuity of natural processes upon which physical science is based is admitted as a fact, but not as a fact which accounts for itself or which rests upon some GOD AND THE WORLD. 201 metapliysical necessity, but rather as a fact which depends at every moment upon the di- vine will, and which only expresses the con- sistency of the divine methods. As against deism, then, we hold that the world is no self- centred reahty, independent of God, but is simply the form in which divine purpose real- izes itself. It has no laws of its own which oppose a bar to the divine purpose, but all its laws and ongoings are but the expression of that purpose. In our deahng with nature we have to accommodate ourselves to its laws, but with God the purpose is original, the laws are its consequence. Hence the system of law is itseK absolutely sensitive to the di\dne purpose, so that what that purpose demands finds im- mediate expression and realization, not in spite of the system, but in and through the system. The view which identifies conservation with perpetual creation is manageable only when ap- pHed to the physical system. Here form and law are the only fixed elements we can find; and metaphysics makes it doubtful whether there can be others. In that case the physical order becomes simply a process which exists only in its perpetual ongoing. It has the iden- 202 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. tity of a musical note, and, like such a note, it exists only on condition of being incessantly and continuously reproduced. But we cannot apply this ^dew to the world of spirits without losing ourselves in utterly unmanageable diffi- culties. We seem, then, shut up to distinguish crea- tion from preservation. But the nature of this distinction eludes all apprehension. We are led here to affirm something whose nature and method are utterly opaque to our thought. On the one hand, we have a measure of seK-hood and self-control. This fact constitutes our claim to be considered reahties. On the other hand, we are forced to admit that our existence forever depends on some absolute existence. How these two facts coexist is perhaps the deejDest mystery of speculation. Possibly the ideality of time might serve to reheve the diffi- culty involved in distinguishing creation and preservation. § 67. If the physical system only were con- cerned, nothing more need be added about the relation of the world to God. He is its creator and conserver, and we should add noth- GOD AND THE WORLD. 203 ing ill calling him its ruler or governor. Even realism regards the world of things as receiving its law from God, and as unable in any way to depart from it. Such tilings need no govern- ment ; or, rather, government has no meaning when applied to them. We can speak of gov- ernment only where there are beings which by a certain independence threaten to withdraw themselves from the general plan wliich the ruler aims to realize. We find the proper sub- jects of a divine government only in finite spirits, as only these have that relative inde- pendence over against God which the idea of government demands. The notion of a divine government, then, imphes free spirits as its subjects. But free- dom in itself is a means only and not an end. Apart from some good which can be realized only by freedom, a free world is no better than a necessary one. Hence the notion of a world- government acquires rational meaning only as some supreme good exists which is to be the outcome of creation, and which, therefore, gives the law for all personal activity. A world-gov- ernment implies a world -goal which, in tm^n, imphes a world-law. A cosmic movement with- 204 PUILOSOPHY OF THEISM. out direction and aim could not be the outcome of a seK-respecting intelligence. What, then, is that great end which all free beings should serve? Nature shows us num- berless particular ends, but none of these have supreme worth, and most of them have no as- signable worth. So far as observation goes, the ends realized in nature are generally so insig- nificant that they seem to add nothing to the perfection of the world, and in many cases they even appear as blemishes. Observation discovers no supreme end. The cosmos as a whole does not seem to set very definitely in any direction, and presents a drifting movement rather than a fixed course. Nor can we find the aim of the cosmic movement in any de- velopment of the world-ground, as that would reduce it to a temporal existence. But if we insist on having a world -goal, we can find a sufficient one only in the moral realm. A com- munity of moral persons, obeying moral law and enjoying moral blessedness, is the only end which could excuse creation or make it worth while. Hence the notion of a moral govern- ment leads at once to the ethical realm, and miplies notions foreign to metaphysics. If one GOD AND THE WORLD. 205 lias not these notions there can be no ques- tion of snch a government, and theistic philoso- phy closes with considering the causal relation of God to the world. § 68. If we suppose the world of things to contain the reason of its existence within itself, there is no reason why the fixed order of ante- cedence and sequence should ever be departed from. In such a world any one state would be as good as any other, and new departures would have no significance. But a world of things which is to minister to a world of per- sons must not be thus rigid. It must be capa- ble of taking up new factors or of receiving impulses from without. Only on this condition can it become the servant of finite intelligence. The actual system is such a system. It is perpetually taking on new modifications which are not the results of the antecedent states of the system, but which have their source in human vohtion. This vohtion, however, breaks no laws, but reahzes itself through the laws. As soon as the vohtional impulse is given, the effect enters into the great web of law and is carried out by the same. 206 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM, This fact suggests a means of conceiving the method of the divine government. In a world of free beings there may be at times a de- parture from the ideal order of things, and to remedy this it may be necessary to meet it by changes in things which are not consequents of the antecedent states of the system. As the system is constantly taking on modifications which have their source in human volition, so it may be constantly taking on modifications which have their source in special divine voh- tion. In that case effects would be produced which the system in its accustomed movement would not reahze. Such effects involve no gen- eral suspension of natural laws, nor even a break of phenomenal continuity. They would arise apparently as the result of famihar natu- ral processes although really rooted in a special di\dne volition. This conception of miracle pro\ides for a divine government as distinct from the simple maintenance of a rigid order. Miracles as signs we have no call to discuss. This general conception of interpolated effects has been stoutly rejected. So far as this rejec- tion rests on atheistic assumptions, it does not exist for theism. So far as it proceeds from the- GOD AND THE WORLD. 207 ists, it generally depends on the deistic concep- tion of the relation of God and the world. God being an absentee, and the world being able to take care of itself, any modification appears as an " interference ;" and as interfering often de- notes a morally reprehensible procedm-e, there seems to be no help for rejecting the notion. In truth, the "interference" does no more vi- olence to the system than do the analogous interferences of human volition. It seems per- missible, then, to hold that what is possible with man may be possible with God. God, then, may be present in hmnan history, guid- ing the world, raising up leaders, giving direc- tion to pubhc thought, purifying the receptive and wilhng heart, answering prayer according to his wisdom, and scourging pubhc and private wickedness ; yet without in any way breaking through the fixed phenomenal order. But this only suggests a possibihty and a method of conceiving how the divine govern- ment may coexist Vvdth fixed laws. The reahty of the fact is another matter. If there be any reason for affii-ming it, speculation has no word of vahd objection. It is plain, however, that such interventions must be sought chiefly in 208 THILOSOPHY OF THEISM. the life of the spirit. Our freedom produces only slight modifications in the outer world and none in its laws. These need no change; and it is hard to see of what use such change would be if it were real. The modifying activity of God doubtless finds its chief field in the inner life, and here not in the way of using the spirit as a passive instrument, but rather by furnish- ing it with special incitements to activity which neither the outer world nor the mental mechan- ism provides. But even this directing activity takes place \vithout any apparent irruption from without and without destroying the apparent continuity of psychological law. § 69. The discussion of miracle has proceed- ed thus far on the reahstic conception of the cosmos. From my own metaphysical stand- point the question assumes a somewhat differ- ent form. In this view the cosmos contains two factors, elementary forms of action and laws for their combination. These laws are fixed ; but the f oi-ms of action are simply what the divine purpose at any moment demands. They represent, therefore, nothing fixed once for all, so that from their state at any one mo- GOD AND THE WORLD. 209 ment we could deduce their state at all other moments. They are not, then, rigid fixities, but flowing expressions of the divine plan ; and to know them we must know the plan and pur- pose which they express. They are forever becoming that winch the Creator wills them to be. Here is where power has its seat and the road by which purpose marches to its reahza- tion. But with this conception of the di\i.ne immanence and of the absolute dependence of the system in all respects upon the divine pui'- pose, the question of miracle loses all special sig- nificance. Nature becomes, not a self-enclosed existence, but only a general term for the es- tablished order of procedure; and a natural event is one in which familiar processes can be traced, or which can be connected with other events according to general laws. The nih^acu- lous, on the other hand, would have no such connection; but both the natural and the mi- raculous alike would have their root in the su- pernatural. Finally, we may question even the existence of laws except as formal and subjec- tive. There is not first a system of general laws into which effects are afterwards inter- jected ; but there is the actual system of re- 14 210 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. ality, uplield and maintained by the immanent God. For our thought this system admits of being analyzed into universal laws on the one hand and particular effects on the other; but in fact this is only a logical separation. The effects are no more consequences of the laws than the laws are consequences of the effects. The analyses and devices of discursive thought do not give us reality in its actual existence, but only a formal equivalent for purposes of our calculation. It is plain that in this view neither religion nor speculation can have any special interest in scientific cosmogonies, evolu- tionary or otherwise. These relate only to the method of cosmic procedure, and throw no hght on the nature of the agent at work. CHAPTER VI. THE WOKLD-GKOUND AS ETHICAL. The attributes thus far considered are purely metaphysical and concern only the understand- ing. They are such properties as the specula- tive intellect must affirm in deahng with the problem of the universe and its ground. But if we should stop here we should not attain to any properly religious conception, but only to the last term of metaphysical speculation. A good example of this is furnished by Aristotle, with whom the idea of God has a purely met- aphysical function and significance. God ap- pears as prime mover, as self-moved, as the primal reason, etc., but not as the object of love and trust and worship. But the human mind in general has not been content with a metaphysical conception of God, but has rather demanded a rehgious one. And the latter conception has always been first and not second. The metaphysical thought instead 212 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. of being the foundation upon which the rehg- ious thought was built, has rather been reached by later analysis as an implication of the re- hgious conception. The race has been univer- sally religious, but only moderately metaphys- ical. From the religious standpoint the important attributes concern the divine character or eth- ical nature. We have now to inquire for the ground of their affirmation. § 71. If we accept the mental ideal of a per- fect being as the ground of the universe the question is settled at once. Moral quahties are the highest. The true, the beautiful, and the good love goodness and righteousness; these are the only things that have absolute sacred- ness and unconditional worth. The thought of a perfect being in which these qualities should be lacking, or present in only an imperfect de- gree, would be an intellectual, aesthetic, and moral absurdity of the first magnitude. But this demand for faith in the ideal when thus boldly made is apt to stagger us, and w^e prefer to reach the result in somewhat obscure man- ner. When we are told that the problem of THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 213 knowledge demands the assumption of a uni- verse transparent to our reason, so that what the laws of our thought demand the universe cannot fail to fulfil, we are staggered and have many doubts and scruples. So large an assump- tion is not to be made without due wariness and circumspection. But we make the assump- tion piecemeal, without a single critical qualm. In the actual study of nature, in deahng with specific problems, we assume the principle in question as a matter of course. It is only when stated in its abstract universality that it appals us. It is so with the larger ideal of the perfect being. We assume it implicit- ly and upon occasion, but we do not like to have it brought out in sharp abstract state- ment. Here, then, is a psychological limitation of the average mind which must be regarded. We shall find it interesting, however, to note the way in which the ideal determines our reasoning. § 72. There is no way of speculative de- duction. The metaphysical attributes of the world-ground are ethically barren. They fur- nish the possibihty of an ethical nature, but 214 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. they do not imply it as a necessity. There is no way, then, except to have immediate faith in our ideal of the perfect being, or else to appeal to experience to prove that the world- ground proceeds according to ethical i^rinci- ples. Our actual i^rocedure is a mixture of both. The empirical argument for the moral char- acter of the world -ground is derived from our moral nature, the structure of society, and course of history. The two lii'st are held to point to a moral author, and the last reveals a power not ourselves, making for righteousness, and hence moral. § 73. Our moral nature may be considered in two ways, (1) as an effect to be explained, and (2) in its immediate implications. The first problem, then, is to account for the ex- istence of our moral nature. The readiest solution is that this moral nat- ure has a moral author. He that formed the eye, shall not he see? He that giveth man knowledge, shall not he know? So also, He that implanted in man an unalterable rever- ence for righteousness, shall not he himself be THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 215 righteous? There can be no question about the knowledge of moral distinctions by the Cre- ator. Such a doubt would imply that some knowledge is impossible to the source of all knowledge. The question can only concern his recognition of these distinctions in his action. A great deal of ingenuity has been expend- ed in trying to evade the conclusion from the moral effect to a moral cause. Much of this has been irrelevant, and all of it has been un- successful. As there is no known way of de- ducing intelhgence from non - intelhgence, so there is no known way of deducing the moral from the non-moral; except, of course, by the easy, but unsatisfactory, way of begging the question. The irrelevance mentioned consists in the fact that a large part of this discussion has concerned itself with the inquiry how we come to recognize moral distinctions. This belongs to the debate between the empirical, and the intuitional school of morals, and does not nec- essarily touch the deeper question as to the reality of moral distinctions. To become rele- vant it must go on to claim that moral ideas are purely matters of opinion and prejudice, 216 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. that, in fact, there is neither right nor ^Tong, and that one thing is as good and praiseworthy as another. Even this view has been theoreti- cally affirmed, but it conld never be practically maintained because of the sharp contradiction of hfe and conscience. The theorist himself could never maintain it outside of the closet. As soon as he came into contact with others he found himself compelled to acknowledge the difference of right and wrong. Hence spontaneous thought has generally regarded the moral nature in man as pointing to a moral character in God as its only sufficient ground. Speculation, too, knows of no better account to give. § 74. The moral nature, we said, may also be considered in its immediate implications. The claim has been made by a great many that conscience itself immediately testifies to a moral person over against us to whom it re- sponds and to whom we are responsible. This claim can hardly be maintained in its hteral form. In cases of high rehgious development and sensibility the feehng of obhgation may take on this personal form. Right is the will THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 217 of God; sin is sin against God. This view is both strongly asserted and warmly disputed; and, as is usual in such cases, there seems to be some truth on both sides. That conscience carries with it a direct assertion of God the judge and the avenger can hardly be pretended by any student of psychology ; but that the assertion of a supreme judge and avenger has its chief roots in the moral nature cannot well be denied. The sacredness of right, the sin of oppression and injustice, the intolerable nature of a universe in which justice is not regarded, and guilt and innocence come to a common end — these considerations have led the race to posit a supreme justice and righteousness in the heavens. To this all literature bears wit- ness ; and practically these reflections are po- tent arguments. But in logic they are not ar- guments at all. To one who assumes nothing concerning the universe, one thing is no more surprising than another, and one thing is as al- lowable as another. If we do not assume that the universe is bound to be moral, we cannot be surprised at finding it non-moral. If we do not assume that our interests ought to be con- sidered by the world -ground, we ought not to 218 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. be astonished at finding tliem disregarded. The truth is that in arguments of this sort we have an underlying assumption of a perfect being, and of the supremacy of human and moral in- terests ; and this gives the conclusion all its force. Suppose justice is not regarded, what does that prove unless we have assumed that justice must be regarded? Suppose the uni- verse should turn out to be an ugly and shabby thing without moral or aesthetic value ; who knows that it is bound to be the seat and manifestation of the true, the beautiful, and the good? The true force of such considera- tions is not logical ; they serve rather and only to reveal to us the distressing and intolerable negations involved in certain views. Their re- jection is not a logical inference, but an imme- diate refusal of the soul to abdicate its own nature and surrender to pessimism and de- spair. Hence whatever enriches the inner hfe strengthens the appropriate faith. A poem hke "In Memoriam," a growing affection, a strong sense of justice, may do more for faith than acres of logic. But this insight into the true nature of the argument need not prevent us from yielding to it ; for we have abundantly THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 219 seen that it is tlie real basis of our whole men- tal hfe. The considerations just dwelt upon are the gist of the so-called moral argimient for the divine existence. We shall return to this point in the next chapter. § 75. The second form of empirical argument is drawn fi-om the structure of hfe and society, and the course of history. Life itself is so constructed as to furnish a constant stimulus in moral directions. Nature itseK inculcates with the utmost strenuousness the virtues of industry, prudence, foresight, self-control, hon- esty, truth, and helpfulness. In spite of the re- vised version, the way of the transgressor con- tinues hard. When all allowance is made for failing cases, there can be no question that the nature of things is on the side of righteous- ness. This is so much the case that one school of morahsts has claimed that the virtues are simply the great utihties. The possibihty of such a claim shows the ethical framework of hfe. And it is true that the virtues are great utihties; ethical dispute could arise only over the claim that utilities are necessarily virtues; 220 rniLosopiiY of theism. and even then the debate would turn on the meaning of utiUty. If we define utility so as to include the satisfaction of the moral nature, there is no longer any ground of dispute. Society, again, in its organized form is a moral institution with moral ends. However selfish individuals may he, they cannot live together without a social order which rests on moral ideas. And when these ideas are lacking, and injustice, oppression, and iniquity are enacted by law, social earthquakes and volcanoes begin to rock society to its foundations. The elements melt with fervent heat, and the heavens pass away with a great noise. Neither man nor society can escape the need of righteousness, truthfulness, honesty, purity, etc. No cunning, no power, can forever avail against the truth. No strength can long support a he. The wicked may have great power and spread him- self hke a green bay -tree, but he j)asses away. The righteous are held in everlasting remem- brance, but the name of the wicked rots. When wickedness is committed on a large scale by nations the result is even more marked. No lesson is more clearly taught by history than that righteousness exalteth a nation while sin THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 221 is a reproach to any people. Nations rich, in arts and sciences have perished, or been fear- fully punished, because of evil-doing. Oppres- sion, injustice, sensuahty, have dragged nation after nation down into the dust and compelled them to drink the cup of a bitter and terrible retribution. The one truth, it is said, which can be verified concerning the world-ground is that it makes for righteousness. § 76. These empirical arguments, however, wliile they may serve to illustrate and confirm our faith, are plainly not its source. They all rest upon picked facts, and ignore some of the most i^i'ominent aspects of experience. This is especially the case with the historical argu- ment. Here a scanty stream of progress is dis- covered; and the swamps and marshes of hu- manity through which it finds its doubtful way are overlooked. The area of progress is limited, while the great mass of humanity seems to have no significance for history or development, and to have no principle of movement above simple animal want. Here is no history, no progress, no ideas, only physical cravings and brute in- stincts. But we get on with the utmost cheer- 222 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. fulness by letting the " race " and " man " pro- gress, and by ignoring individuals and men. Clearly, we need something beside these facts as the source of our faith. As in the world we find marks of wisdom but not of perfect wisdom; so in the world we find marks of goodness but not of perfect goodness. In both cases we pass from the limited wisdom and goodness which we find to the perfect wisdom and goodness in which we beheve, only by force of our faith in the perfect and complete ideal. Then, having thus gained the conceptions, we come back to the world of experience again for their illustration. And the facts which from a logical standpoint make a poor show as proof are very effective as illustration ; and this passes for proof. It does indeed produce con- viction; but the true nature of the argument should not be overlooked. If any one had an interest in maintaining the opposite hypotheses of unwisdom and evil in the world - ground, a great deal might be said for them. The great mass of apparent insignificance and all the facts of evil with which life is crowded would lend themselves only too readily to illustrate such a view. Of course a purely objective pro- THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 223 cedure would demand that we take all tlie facts into account and strike the average. Such a study of the facts would leave us in great un- certainty. Over against the good in nature we should put the evil ; and this would hinder the affirmation of goodness. But over against the evil we should put the good; and this would not allow us to affirm a fundamental malignity. Over against the wisdom in nature we should put the meaningless aspects of existence, the cosmic labor which seems to end in nothing ; and these would leave us in doubt whether we were not contemplating the work of some blind demiurge rather than of supreme wisdom. But over against these facts w^e should put the ever- growing rational wonder of the universe ; and this would drive us into doubt again. The out- come would probably be the affirmation of a being either morally indifferent, or morally im- perfect, or morally good, but hmited by some insuperable necessity which forbids anything better than oui* rather shabby universe. But the mind is not satisfied to take this road. It will not allow its ideals to collapse without some effort to save them. It prefers rather to maintain its faith in the ideal, and to 224 niiLOSOPiiY of theism. set aside the conflicting facts as something not yet understood, but wliich to perfect insight would fall into harmony. This assumption is made both in the cognitive and the moral realm ; and, so far as logic goes, it is as well-founded in one realm as in the other. In both cases our procedure is not due to any logical compulsion ; it is rather an act of instinctive self-defence on the part of the mind whereby it seeks to save its hfe from destruction. § 77. That experience does not prove the goodness of the world -ground is generally al- lowed. The claim of the optimist is rather that experience is not incompatible therewith; and the opposing claim of the pessimist is that our optimistic faith must perish when con- fronted with the dark realities of life and nat- ure. A word of exposition seems desirable, as both parties have done not a little fighting in the dark. The pessimistic conclusion from the appai ent worthlessness and insignificance of existence to the denial of creative wisdom, as distinct from mere skill, rests upon two assumptions : (1) that perfect wisdom is compatible only with a per- THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 225 feet work ; and (2) that we know the facts in question to be truly worthless and insignificant. In the first assumption we detect only a certain Pharisaism of the intellect; and in the second we detect an arrogance wliich is not entirely compatible with the humihty which so often re- nounces knowledge altogether. The pessimist may say that he proceeds inductively, and that where he sees no purpose he affirms none ; but in this he rather deludes himself. "Whex^e he sees no purpose he denies purpose ; where he sees no significance he denies significance. This denial must be recalled; and the optimist and pessimist must choose sides. The optimist says that he finds wisdom as far as he can under- stand, and he knows his own insight to be very limited. He prefers, therefore, to beheve that advancing knowledge will dispel our difficulties. He adds that this is the method on which thought generally proceeds. Thus experience is largely chaotic. A reign of law is discerned only to a very hmited extent. But instead of suffering chaos to dispute the sovereignty of law we rule it out as an intolerable and impossible thought. The optimistic faith is only another case of the same principle, and is certainly as respectable as 15 226 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. the pessimistic faith which is based on the as- sumption of omniscence. But this is only a skirmish ; we must, if pos- sible, come to closer quarters. The debate has generally been confused by introducing the su- perlative notion of the best possible system; and this has given rise to limitless verbal quib- bhng. This notion has no clear content, and taken quantitatively it is a contradiction, like the largest possible number or the largest pos- sible limited space. But if we take the notion quahtatively, it must still contain quantitative factors, and the difficulty reappears. The no- tion, then, is to be dismissed. Of any finite system whatever the questions would be possi- ble: Why thus and not otherwise? Why now and not then ? Why on this plane and not on that? Why so much and not more or less? Questions of this sort are forever possible and forever insoluble, and should be sacredly left to debating youths and other transcendent in- telhgences. The only question that has any meaning is whether the system is good or not. § 78. The optimist claims that the system is good, the pessimist claims that it is bad. But THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 227 plainly no judgment can be reached unless we have a knowledge of the system as a whole and especially a knowledge of its outcome. A care- ful logic would dismiss the suit on the ground of no jurisdiction. But as the htigants insist on being heard, we must continue to follow the case. The present type of thought in the specula- tive world is somewhat favorable to optimism. The current notions of development, progress, and improvement enable the optimist to claim that everything shows a tendency to the better. The universe is not yet complete, but only in its raw beginnings. Meanwhile we see, if not a finished optimism, at least a decided mehorism, and mehorism is optimism. He calls, therefore, upon the pessimist to master the significance of the great law of evolution, and pending this mastery to hold his peace. The pessimist wants to know why things were not made perfect at once ; but the current type of thought dechnes the question as a survival of an obsolete mode of thought. If evolution is the law of life, of course the present must seem imperfect relative to the future, and the past imperfect relative to the present. This is fairly good chaffing, but 228 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. it does not meet the question why this progress might not have been accomphshed at less cost of toil and struggle and pain. In truth, it is only another way of saying that the system is to he judged only in its outcome and the out- come is assumed to he good. The fancy that evolution in any way diminishes the Creator's responsibility for evil is really somewhat infan- tile. It rests on the assumption that there is some element of chance or seK - determination in the system whereby it is able to make new departures on its own account. But in a me- chanical system there is no such element, and the founder is responsible for the outcome. It is also worth while to note how com- pletely the discussion rests upon the assumed supremacy of human interests. What is meant by a good or a bad universe 1 Imphcitly our in- terests furnish the standard. That universe is good which meets our wishes, and that is bad which ignores them. But how do we know that the universe exists for us^? May it not well have inscrutable ends which it perfectly realizes, and may not our complaints be like those of a nest of ants who should first assume that the universe is meant to be an ant-hill. THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 229 and sliould then condemn it for its unhappy adjustment to formic necessities? Pessimism is the most striking illustration possible of the fact that the mind is hound to measure the universe by itself. But once again, what do we mean by a good or bad universe, and how is such goodness or badness to be tested? Here the debaters have generally imposed upon themselves with ab- stractions. The pessimist is apt to forget that pain in the abstract is nothing, and that it has existence only as felt by sensitive beings. He heaps up all the misery of all beings, past, pres- ent and future, and forthwith makes a sum so great as to hide all well-being from his vision. Thus he resembles the man who, from long dweUing in the hospital, should heap up in one thought all the sickness of the world, and should become so impressed thereby as to con- clude that health and soundness nowhere exist. The illusion is completed by attributing this sum of pains to the abstraction, man; and then all the conditions for profound closet woe and the appropriate rhetoric are fully met. But if we are to get on we must dismiss this integral of abstract pains and this abstract man who 230 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. suffers them, and ask for living men to come forward and testify. The abstract man cannot be miserable, but only concrete, conscious men. The declaration that the world is bad must, then, mean that its structure is such as neces- sarily to make hfe not worth li^dng. The ques- tion, then, becomes simply one as to the worth of life. This question each person must decide for himself. The vanity of argument is ap- parent. As well might one appeal to theory to decide whether he enjoys his dinner. The spec- tacle of a closet philosopher deciding by theoriz- ing whether life is worth hving, might move one either to mirth or to compassion, accord- ing to one's mood or nature. § 79. The value of hfe must be decided by the race ; and the race has never recognized the pessimist's standard of value. This has commonly been taken from the passive sensi- bility; as if the only good in life were passive pleasure, and the only evil passive pain. Hence the pessimist has often demanded why this passive pleasure is not incessantly produced without effort of our own. A being of infinite goodness might do it just as well as not ; and THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 231 the failure to do so weighs heavily upon our so-called minds. But experience shows two sets of values, those of the passive, and those of our active nature, and the race has agreed in placing all significant values of hfe in the latter class, and in viewing the former with a certain measure of contempt. Conscious seK- development, growing self-possession, progress, conquest, the successful putting forth of energy and the resulting growth — these are the things which the race has judged truly valuable. The mere presence of pain has seldom shaken the faith of any one except the sleek and well-fed speculator. The couch of suffering is more often the scene of loving trust than are the pillows of luxury and the chief seats at feasts. The human soul, as long as it retains anything noble and reverend in its nature, is amazingly loyal to faith in supreme goodness. The real difficulty for the race has never been the fact of passive pain, but the apparent moral indif- ference which the cosmos often shows; and this difficulty it has provided for by assmning a future adjustment of all rights and wrongs. But assuming that life is not worth living, the question arises. Who or what is to blame ? In 232 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. deciding this we should need to distinguish be- tween the evil which arises necessarily from the structure of the cosmos and that which is due to our own folly and sin. The latter can- not be laid to the account of the universe ex- cept in a roundabout way. We may comj^lain of the system for making our folly possible, but the complaint will not weigh much with the upright mind and conscience. A large part of our worst woes are of our own making. The most fearful ills of life result from laws in themselves good, such as the law of heredity, of social solidarity, and mutual dependence. In the animal world the problem of e\dl is sunply one of pain. The extent and nature of animal pain are entirely unknown. A multi- tude of facts indicate that even the more highly organized animals are far less sensitive to pain than men are ; while of the sensibility of the simple organic forms we have no knowledge whatever. § 80. Proper pessimism is even more illogical than optimism. There is evil, but there is also good in the universe. There is pain, but there is also happiness. Pain results from animal TUE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 233 structure, but only as an implication, not as a manifest aim. The evolutionists liave often pointed out that the tendency of life must be to increase pleasure and eliminate pain. For pain that exists the optimist often succeeds in showing a beneficent function. The high minis- tries of pain in the development of the virtues and graces of character are a favorite theme with the moralist and the preacher. Hence thoughtful pessimists, as distinct from the rhe- torical shrieker, have generally concluded not to mahgnity, but to a Hmited or conditioned goodness. Why might not pain have been dis- pensed with as a means ? Why might not everything have been made perfect at once? Things may be as good as possible, but if there be an omnipotent goodness at the root of things, why are they not better ? There is no end to these questions, and also no answ^er. The solution of the problem demands data which lie beyond our horizon. The desultory character of the actual debate is evident. It is a series of skmnishes between armies in a fog, and ends mostly in noise and panic. At last we have to choose sides. We may say that there is some inscrutable necessity which prevents 234 PHILOSOPHY of theism. tilings from getting on faster and better than they do ; or we may hold to the moral and met- aphysical perfection of the world -ground and believe in a possible solution which at present we do not comprehend. The facts neither com- pel nor forbid this faith. They permit it, and to some extent illustrate it ; and the mind, with that faith in the perfect ideal which imderhes all its operations, refuses to stop short of the highest. § 81. Only a reference is necessary to the various theories of the origin and meaning of evil. A first thought, of course, was to find its source in something altogether apart from God. A devil, a seK- existent evil principle, an intractable matter, or something of the sort, was adduced in explanation. When advanc- ing thought showed the untenabihty of such a view, recourse was generally had to the notion that the eternal truths, or necessities of reason, are in some way responsible for evil. Unfort- unately no one ever succeeded in connecting the eternal truths with the particular facts of evil. No one ever showed that any eternal truth would have been violated, or that any THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 235 other damage would have been done, if many of the obnoxious features of the cosmic order had been left out. Many have also taken great comfort in the thought of evil as a necessary means to good. It is the shadow which brings out the light, the discord which heightens the sense of harmony. It is, too, a pedagogical fac- tor in the development of humanity. Such con- siderations have given birth to limitless fine writing and served to give the appearance of logic and philosophy to a purely practical post- ulate. In themselves they are so inadequate to a complete solution of the problem that they aggravate rather than reheve the case ; and in so far they become a part of the problem itself. § 82. Speculative theology has produced elabo- rate schemes of the ethical attributes as well as of the metaphysical. Love, mercy, justice, right- eousness, and hohness have been set up as separate attributes; and a good deal of inge- nuity has been shown in adjusting their rela- tions. Into these questions we have no need to enter. The ethical nature of God is suffi- ciently determined for all rehgious, and, we may add, for all speculative purposes, as being holy 236 PHILOSOPUY OF TUEISM. love. These factors belong together. Love without holiness would be simply well-wishing without any ethical content ; and holiness with- out love would be a hfeless negation. Love needs no definition; but the notion of hohness is not so clear. Negatively, holiness imphes the absence of all tendencies to evil and of all dehght in evil. Positively, it involves the dehght in and devotion to goodness. The knowledge of evil must exist in the divine thought, but perfect holiness imphes that it finds no echo in the divine sensibility and no reahzation in the divine will. It further im- phes, positively, that in Grod the ideal of moral perfection is reahzed; and this ideal involves love as one of its chief factors. In determining this ideal we can only fall back upon the immediate testimony of the moral nature. No legislation can make any- thing an abiding part of this ideal unless it be commanded by conscience ; and nothing can be allowed to enter into it which is forbidden by conscience. It is this voice of conscience which distinguishes the non-moral good and evil of sim- ple sensibihty from the moral good and evil of the ethical hfe. THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 237 § 83. In maintaining the absoluteness of God as a moral being a curious difficulty arises from the nature of the moral life itseK. This hfe implies community and has no meaning for the absolutely single and only. Love without an object is nothing. Justice has no meaning except between persons. Benevolence is impos- sible without plurality and community. Hence, if we conceive God as single and alone, we must say that, as such, he is only potentially a moral being. To pass from potential to actual moral existence the Infinite must have an object. Several ways out of this difficulty offer them- selves. First, we may admit that the absolute and essential God is metaphysical only and not moral. His morahty is but an incident of his cosmic activity, and not something pertaining to his own essential existence. God's meta- physical existence is absolute, but his moral life is relative to creation and has no meaning or possibihty apart from it. The immediate imphcation of this view is another, as follows : God is not absolute and seK-sufficient in his ethical hfe, but needs the presence of the finite in order to reahze his own ethical potentiahties and attain to a truly 238 PHiLOSornT of theism. moral existence. But tliis view either makes God dependent on tlie world for his own com- plete seK - reahzation or it makes the cosmic activity the necessary means by which God comes into full self-possession. In either form the moral is made subordinate to the meta- physical, the proper absoluteness of God is de- nied, and a strong tendency to pantheism ap- pears. When the view is made to affirm, as often happens, that God apart from the world is as impossible as the world apart fi'om God, we have pronounced pantheism. The third view aims to escape these difficul- ties by providing for community of personal life in the di\ine unity itself. In this way the conditions of ethical hfe are found within the divine nature; and the ethical absoluteness of God is assured. But how this community in unity is possible is one of the deepest mysteries of speculation. The only suggestion of solu- tion seems to he in the notion of necessary creation. Such creation would be unbegun and endless, and would depend on the divine nature and not on the divine wiU. If now we suppose the divine nature to be such that the essential God must always and eternally produce other THE WORLD-GROUND AS ETHICAL. 239 beings than himself, those other beings, though numerically distinct from himself, would be es- sential imphcations of himself. There would be at once a numerical plurahty and an organic unity. Hence pantheism, while viewing God and the world as numerically distinct, has always maintained that they are organically and essen- tially one. Such a conception can in no way be discredited by a verbal shuffling of formal ideas such as one and many, unity and plural- ity. Formally these ideas are opposed ; but re- ality has ways of uniting our formal opposi- tions in indivisible syntheses which our formal thought cannot construe. But we have abeady seen that we cannot carry the actual world of finite things into God without speculative disaster and shipwreck. It only remains to abandon the notion of a neces- sary creation whereby God forever posits com- munity for himself, or else to find its objects apart from the finite system as persons coeter- nal with God himself. If it be said that this is polytheism, the answer would be that polythe- ism imphes a plurality of mutually independent beings. If it be said that these dependent per- sonahties are created, the answer would be that 240 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. their existence does not depend on tlie divine will, but on the divine nature. They, therefore, coexist with God ; nor could God exist mthout them. If, then, in iDantheism we say that the world is God, what can we say of these but that they are God, at once numerically distinct and organically one ? If creation seems to be an ex- pression implying will, we may exchange it for the profoundly subtle terms of early theological speculation, and speak of an eternal generation and procession. These terms throw no hght upon the matter, and only serve to mark off the eter- nal implications of the divine nature from the free determinations of the divine will. The consideration of the ethical absoluteness of God has led us into speculations which sug- gest the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and which may explain why so many thinkers have insisted on holding that doctrine in spite of the formal opposition of the ideas of unity and trin- ity. But into this question we have no call to enter. In any case speculation can only caU attention to difficulties and suggest possibilities without being able to say anything positive. CHAPTER YII. THEISM AND LIFE. The considerations thus far dwelt upon are chiefly such as address themselves to man as a contemplative being. But man is not merely nor mainly contemplation, he is also will and action. He must, then, have something to work for, aims to realize, and ideals by which to hve. In real hfe the centre of gra\dty of theistic faith hes in its relation to these aims and ideals. God is seen to be that without which our ideals collapse or are made unattainable, and the springs of action are broken. Hence the exist- ence of God is affirmed not on speculative or theoretical grounds, but because of the needs of practical life. This has often been called the moral argument for the divine existence ; a bet- ter name would be the practical argument. § 84. That this argument has no logical value is evident. It is essentially a conclusion from 16 242 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. what we think ought to be to what is, or from our subjective interests to objective fact; and such a conclusion is forever invahd in logic. It becomes valid only on the assmnption, expressed or imphcit, that what our nature calls for, reality must, in one form or another, supply. Hence Kant, who was one of the leading expounders of this conception, expressly denied its specu- lative cogency. On the contrary, he claimed to have shown that, by way of speculation, neither proof nor disproof is possible ; and in this bal- ance of the speculative reason practical inter- ests may be allowed to turn the scale. All that can be done, then, is to show that theism is a demand of our moral nature, a necessity of practical hfe. Whether to accept this subjec- tive necessity as the warrant for the objective fact every one must decide for liimself. That our entire mental hfe rests upon such an accept- ance we have already abundantly seen. The moral argument has often been misman- aged. Sometimes it is put forward as proof, and then it falls an easy prey to the hostile critic. Again, the discussion has often taken on a hedonistic turn and run off into gross selfish- ness, by the side of which even atheism itself THEISM AND LIFE. 243 might seem morally superior. We need, then, to consider the relation of theism and atheism to the moral life. § 85. A peremptory rejection of atheism as de- structive of all moral theory might not be un- warranted, hut it would fail to show the real points of difficulty. To do this we need to con- sider the matter more in detail. Any system of practical ethics involves several distinct factors : (1) a set of formal moral judgments concerning right and wrong, (2) a set of aims or ideals to he realized, and (3) a set of commands to he obeyed. In the first class we have only the moral form of conduct ; in the second class we have the material contents of conduct, and in the third class the contents of the two first are prescribed as duties. The perennial short-com- ing of traditional ethics has been the failure to see the equal necessity of all of these factors. The result has been numberless one-sided sys- tems with resulting war and confusion. What, now, is the bearing of atheism upon these several factors, the system of judgments, the system of ideals, the system of duties ? We consider the last first. 244 PUILOSOPHY OF THEISM. To answer this question we must consider the automatism involved in atheism. This imphca- tion, though not perhaj^s strictly necessary, can be escaped only by admissions fatal to all think- ing, and hence atheism and automatism have generally been united. Hence when we begin to construct a system of duties we are met at once by the question how an automaton can have duties. To this question there is no an- swer. The traditional evasion consists in sajdng that moral judgments, hke aesthetic judgments, are independent of the question of freedom. In determining what is beautiful or ugly we take no account of freedom or necessity, and the same is true in determining what is right or wrong. If ethics were only a set of moral judgments, this claim would not be without some foundation. But ethics is also a set of precepts to be obeyed, and obedience is reckoned as merit, and diso- bedience as demerit ; and for these notions the conception of freedom is absolutely necessary. The same evasion sometimes takes on another form, as follows : We judge persons for what they are, no matter how they became so. A thing which is ugly by necessity is stiU ugly, and a per- son who is wicked by necessity is still wicked. THEISM AND LIFE. 245 It is, then, a mistake to claim that om^ judgment of persons is in any way conditioned by behef in their freedom. To this the answer is that oiu' judgments of persons are from a double stand- point, that of perfection and that of ability. On the former depend judgments of imperfection, on the latter depend judgments of guilt or in- nocence. But however imperfect one may be, he cannot be responsible for anything that tran- scends his ability. So, then, in any atheistic system the question must still remain, How can automata have duties ? This question is so im- portant that it is much to be mshed that the universal necessity or some of its subordinate phases might be brought to consider it. If this question were once answered, it would next be in order to inquire how an automaton could per- form its duties if necessity set in another direc- tion, or how it could help performing them if necessity set that way. Another interesting and important question would concern the ground of the moral difference between the several auto- mata. These questions, however, are not likely to receive a speedy answer, owing, of course, to the intractabihty and illogicahty of the cosmic necessity in general ; and we shall do better to 246 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. go on to consider the bearing of atheism upon ethics as a system of moral judgments. § 86. Our formal judgments of right and wrong have no direct dependence upon theistic faith. It is at this point that the moral argument has been most mismanaged. How can the obhgation of justice, truth, benevolence, gi^atitude be made to depend even on the existence of God ? And with what face can we pretend that atheism would make these virtues less binding than they are? These are absolute moral intuitions. If no one regarded them they would still be vahd. Certainly if they depend at all on theism it must be indirectly. In this respect our moral judg- ments are hke our judgments of true and false. The rejection of theism would not make the unjust just any more than it would make the false true. But in both cases we can show that our nature falls into discord with itseK, or is unable to defend itself against scepticism, until our thought reaches the conception of God as supreme reason and holy will. Then reason and conscience, from being psychological facts in us, become universal cosmic laws, and their su- premacy is assured. But so long as they are THEISM AND LIFE. 247 limited to human and terrestrial manifestation they are perpetually open to the sceptical sur- mise that after all they may only be our way of thinking, and hence matters of opinion. That this conclusion has been persistently di'awn from atheistic premises is a matter of history. This is further strengthened by the fact that right and wrong, if distinct, can have no application to actual hfe because of the universal automa- tism. On this account theorists of this school have generally tended to reduce the distinction to one of utility and inutihty. This distinction plainly exists ; and by and by we remember that right and wrong are other names for the same thing. Forthwith we use them, and thus give variety to our terminology and save moral dis- tinctions at the same time. §87. A consistent atheism, then, cannot defend itself against ethical scepticism any more than against speculative scepticism in general. But there is no need to insist upon this point ; for if these formal principles were set on high above all doubt, we should still not have all the con- ditions of a complete moral system. Such a sys- tem involves, not only these formal principles, 248 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. but also a set of extra-etliical conceptions wliich condition their application. Of these the most important are our general world-view, our con- ception of hfe, its meaning and destiny, our conception of personality also, and its essential sacredness. These elements, however, express no immediate intuition of conscience, but are taken from our general theory of things. Yet any variation in these elements must lead to corresponding variations in practice, even while the formal principles remain the same. Illustrations abound. The law of benevolence may be absolute as a disposition, but its prac- tical apphcation is hmited by a prudent self- regard on the one hand, and by our conception of the nature and significance of the object on the other. Only a high conception of humanity gives sacredness to human rights and incites to strenuous effort in its behalf. The golden rule, also, must be conditioned by some conception of the true order and dignity of hfe ; otherwise it might be perfectly obeyed in a world of sots and gluttons. With Plato's conception of the. rela- tion of the individual to society, Plato's doctrine of infanticide seems correct enough. With Aiis- totle's theory of man and his destiny, Aristotle's THEISM AND LIFE. 249 theory of slavery is altogether defensible. From the standpoint of the ancient ethnic conceptions, the accompanying ethnic morahty was entirely allowable. Apart from some conception of the sacredness of personality, it is far from sure that the redemption of society could not be more readily reached by killing off the idle and mis- chievous classes than by philanthropic effort for their improvement. And Christianity wrought its great moral revolution, not by introducing new moral principles, but by revealing new con- ceptions of God and man and their mutual re- lations. By making all men the children of a common Father it did away with the earlier eth- nic concej)tions and the barbarous morality based upon them. By making every man the heir of eternal hfe it gave to him a sacredness which he could never lose and which might never be ignored. By making the moral law the expres- sion of a Holy Will, it brought that law out of its impersonal abstraction and assured its ulti- mate triumph. Moral principles may be what they were before, but moral practice is forever different. Even the earth itself has another look now that it has a heaven above it. These illustrations show that the actual guid- 250 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. ance of life involves not only a knowledge of for- mal moral principles, but also a series of extra- moral conceptions "wMch. condition their appli- cation. They also show how impossible it is to construct a code of conduct which shall be in- dependent of our general theory of things. Oversight of this fact has been the perennial weakness of the intuitional ethics. It has dread- ed to take the aim and outcome of conduct into account lest it fall into utihtarianism. As a re- sult it has had to fall back upon purely formal principles which, while good and even necessary as far as they go, furnish no positive guidance for practical hfe. We are told to be virtuous, to be conscientious, to act from right motives, and to act so that the maxims of our conduct shall be fit to be universal law. But this only concerns the form of conduct and overlooks the fact that conduct must have aims beyond itself, and that these aims must be in harmony with the nature of things. Besides, it is narrow. The moral task of the individual by no means con- sists solely in being conscientious or even vir- tuous, but rather and chiefly in an objective reahzation of the good. Mere conscientiousness is the narrowest possible conception of wtue. THEISM AND LIFE. 251 and the lowest possible aim. A worthy moral aim can he found only in the thought of a king- dom of righteousness and blessedness reahzed in a commiuiity of moral persons. But no one can work with this aim without implicitly assuming a higher power, which is the guarantee of the possibility of its reahzation. In other words, morahty which goes beyond mere conscientious- ness must have recourse to rehgion. § 88. Working ethics must present not only rules for conduct, but ideals to reahze ; and here we touch the point of chief practical difficulty with all etliics. The great practical trouble, after all, is less a lack of hght than a general discour- agement, a doubt whether anything worth while is attainable. We can, indeed, live in peace and mutual helpfulness with our neighbors without looking beyond visible existence ; but when we are looking for some supreme aim which shall give meaning and dignity to life and make it worth while to hve, forthwith we begin to grope. We can see with some clearness what ought to be, but we are not so sure that what ought to be is. Moral ideals are fair, no doubt, but it is not so clear that they are practicable. Life is short. 252 pniLOSOPHY of tueism. The great cosmic order is not manifestly con- structed for moral ends. It seems mostly in- different to them, and at times even opposed. It only remains that we find the law of hfe within the sphere of visible existence. And here too ideals do not count for much. Virtue within the Hmits of prudence is wise, but an abandon of goodness is hardly worldly-wise. Upon the whole, visible life seems not over-favorable to ideals, unless it be the modest one of not being righteous overmuch. One could indeed wish it were otherwise, that \drtue were at home in the universe and that our ideals were only shadows of the glorious reahty. But what avails it to wish ? It is not so, and we must make the best of it. To meet the depressing and dishearten- ing influences arising from considerations of this kind the race has always had recourse to the belief in God and the future life. Visible existence is not all, and righteousness is at the heart of things. Hence we may beheve in its final trimnph, and in some new existence we shall see it. This practical conviction must be shared by the theorist to this extent: either we must restrict our ideals to those attainable in our present life, or we must enlarge the life THEISM AND LIFE. 253 SO as to make the larger ideals attainable and save them from collapse. The first duty of even a theory of morals is to be rational ; and it can never be rational to live for the unpossible. Our conception of the nature and destiny of a being must determine our conception of the law the being ought to follow. Some have affected to find an unholy selfish- ness in this claim, and have even dreaded to ad- mit a future Uf e lest the purity of their devotion should be sullied. This is one of the drollest whimseys which our self -sophisticated time has produced. But since this pure devotion is most- ly manifested in polemics, there is room for sus- pecting that it is mainly rhetorical virtue. In this respect it seems to be about on a par with the dehcate feehng of the bibhcal critic, who with his mouth full of beef or mutton professes to be shocked at the cruelty to animals involved in the temple sacrifices. But, however that may be, the feehng, so far as it is real and not profes- sional, rests upon an inability to distinguish be- tween a demand that we be paid for our virtue, and the revolt of our nature against a system which treats good and bad alike, and throws the better half of our nature back upon itself as ab- 254r pniLOSOPHY of tueism. surd and meaningless. Neither God nor the fut- ui-e hfe is needed to pay us for present \irtue, but rather as the conditions without which our nature falls into irreconcilable discord with it- self and passes on to pessimism and despair. High and continued effort is impossible without correspondingly high and abiding hopes. Moral theory which looks to form only and ignores ends reduces conduct to etiquette. It may claim, in- deed, to be sublime, but it misses subhmity by just one fatal step. § 89. The only elements in ethics that can claun to be absolute are purely formal, and fur- nish only a negative guidance for life. All working theories of ethics must transcend these formal principles, and seek for the supreme moral aims and ideals in some general theory of life and the world. This leads us to con- sider the third factor mentioned as involyed in ethical system. What is the relation of athe- ism to the ideals of conduct, or what ideals can atheism furnish ? This question is sufficiently answered by a moment's survey of life from the standpoint of atheistic theory. To begin with, we have a blind THEISM AND Lli^E. 255 power, or set of powers, perpetually energizing without purpose or plan, without seK-knowledge or objective knowledge, forever weaving and for- ever unweaving because of some inscrutable ne- cessity. The outcome is, among innumerable other things, a serio-comic procession of " cun- ning casts in clay" in all forms from moUusk to man. No one of these forms means any more than any other, for nothing means anything in this theory. A procession of wax figures would not be more truly automatic than these forms are in all respects. When we come to the hu- man forms we find a curious set of illusions. Most of them necessarily beheve in a God, whereas there is no God. Most of them neces- sarily beheve that they are free, whereas they are not free. Most of them necessarily beheve themselves responsible, whereas no one and nothing is responsible. Most of them necessa- rily believe in a distinction between right and wrong, whereas there is no distinction. Most of them necessarily beheve in duty, whereas automata cannot have duties, or cannot per- form them, or cannot help performing them, ac- cording as necessity determines. All of them, without exception, necessarily assume the possi- 256 rniLOSOPHY of theism. bility of logical thought and reasoning, whereas this assumption is totally unfounded. Further, the members of this procession are perpetually falhng out, and that is the end of them as in- dividuals. For a time the melancholy order is kept up by the fundamental unconscious- ness through the incessant reproduction of new forms,- but there are signs that the process it- self will yet come to an end, and leave no sign. Such is the history, meaning, and outcome of hu- man life on atheistic theory. It seems needless to add anjrthing about the moral ideals of athe- ism. If we speak of them at aU it is only by a fundamental inconsistency which, however, is not to be reckoned to ourselves, but to the basal necessity, which is given to doing odd things. The difficulties of atheism in constnicting a system of ethics may be summed up as follows : First, ethics as a system of duties is absurd in a system of automatism. The attendant ideas of obligation and responsibility, merit and de- merit, guilt and innocence, are illusory in such a theory. Second, ethics as a system of judg- ments concerning right and wrong is in unsta- ble equilibrium in atheistic theory. For atheism has no way of escaping the sceptical implica- THEISM AND LIFE. 257 tions of all systems of necessity. The necessity of denying proper moral differences among per- sons empties onr moral judgments of all appli- cation to practical life. Third, atheism can hold out no good for the individual or for the race but annihilation. At each of these points Chris- tian theism is adequate. By affirming a free Creator and free creatures it gives moral gov- ernment a meaning. By making the moral nat- ure of man the manifestation of an omnipotent and eternal righteousness which underlies the cosmos, it sets our moral convictions above all doubt and overthrow. Finally, it provides a conception of man and his destiny which gives man a worthy task and an inalienable sacred- ness. The mere etiquette of conscientiousness is transformed into loyal devotion to the law and kingdom of God. § 90. The attitude of atheistic speculation tow- ards religion has undergone a great change in recent years. From an atheistic standpoint this would mean that the basal and unconscious ne- cessity is producing a new order of conceptions. At all events, the sturdy brutalities of the last century are out of date. The ancient claim that 17 258 rniLOSOPUY of theism. religion is an adventitious accretion without any essential foundation in liuman nature is obso- lescent if not obsolete. The religious nature is recognized as a universal human fact, and as one which cannot be ignored. The natural as- sumption in such a case would be that the objec- tive implications of this fact should be recog- nized as real, at least until they are positively disproved. Failing to do this, we have an in- stinct Avithout an object, an organ without a function, a demand with no supply. This is the position of the rehgious nature in modern athe- istic systems. They cannot get along without it, and are utterly at a loss to get along with it. The need of making some provision for rehgion mthout admitting its objective foundation has caused infinite embarrassment and given bh-th to many schemes for its removal. In the lack of God we have been urged to worship the cos- mos; and "cosmic emotion" has been put for- ward as something to take the place of rehgion. Some have emphasized the claims of the sun as a religious object, seeing that it is the source of light and warmth and life. Hmnanity, also, has been set up as a supreme object of worship and endowed with many extraordinary functions THEISM AND LIFE. 259 and attributes. The Unknowable, too, lias its altar, and has been worshipped with much emo- tion, mainly of the cosmic sort. Occasionally a suspicion seems to come across the minds of the apostles that these shreds and tatters of old idolatries hardly satisfy the rehgious nature, but they drive it off by sharply reminding us that we cannot have everything we want. As death ends all for the individual, much attention has been devoted to proclaiming the selfishness of the desire for a future Hfe. In what respect it is more selfish to desire to live hereafter than it is to desire to live to-morrow has never been clearly pointed out. To fill up the gap left by the vanishing of the immortal hope a somewhat blind enthusiasm for progress has been invoked. The meaning or value of a progress whose sub- jects are perpetually perishing is somewhat doubtful ; but this fact is covered up by invok- ing the fiction "Humanity" earnestly and re- peatedly. This device, however, is losing its efiicacy, and the cant of progress is receding. From a purely inductive standpoint, the actual man is a poor affair at best ; and it is doubtful if he will ever amount to much. We know more and appear better than past generations, but it 2G0 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. is not clear that character is much superior. The 83sthetics of life progress and material comfort increases; but these things do not necessarily involve a corresponding moral progress. And anyhow the notion of indefinite progress for hu- manity upon the earth is distinctly forbidden by the conditions of physical existence, Both prog- ress and posterity bid fair to come to an end. And then for the race, as now for the individual, the whole meaningless stir of existence will have sunk back into silence and left no trace or sign. And this is the end, this the outcome of the " high intuition," this the result of the " grand progress which is bearing Humanity onward to a higher intelhgence and a nobler character," In such a view there is no heahng and no inspi- ration. It is in unstable equilibrium and must either return towards theism, or pass on to pes- simism and despair. The contention of this chapter was not that God exists, but rather that theistic faith is such an imphcation of our moral nature and practi- cal hfe that atheism must tend to wreck both life and conscience. That contention has been estabhshed. CONCLUSION. In the Introduction it was pointed out that thought demands some things, forbids some things, and permits some things. The first class must be accepted, for it consists of the laws and categories of reason and their imph- cations. The second class must be rejected, as it violates the nature of reason. The third class belongs to the great realm of probability and practical life. In this realm we reach con- clusions, not by logical demonstration, but by a weighing of probabihties, or by a consideration of practical needs, or by a taking for granted in the interest of ideal tendencies. In this realm belief, or assent, involves an element of volition. Logic leaves us in uncertainty, and the will comes in to overturn the speculative equihbrium and precipitate the conclusion. We have abundantly seen that theistic faith has its root in all of these realms, and cannot dispense with any of them. Each contributes 2G2 PniLOSOPHY OF THEISM. ; sometliing of value. The speculative intellect ' necessarily stops short of the religious idea of ' God, but it gives us some fundamental ele- ments of the conception. It is, too, of the highest service in outhning the general form which the theistic conception must take in or- der to be consistent vdth itself and the laws of thought. Here speculation performs the invaluable negative service of warding off a multitude of misconceptions, especially of a pantheistic type, which have been morally as pernicious in history as they are speculatively absurd. But a mind with only cognitive inter- ests would find no occasion to consider more than the metaphysical attributes of God. The demand to consider God as having ethical and I aesthetic attributes arises not from the pure in- tellect, but from the moral and aesthetic nature. Here the understanding has only the negative function of maintaining consistency and pre- venting collision with the laws of thought. The positive content of these attributes cannot be learned from logic, and the faith in their objective reahty must at last rest on our im- mediate conviction that the universe is no more the abode of the true than it is of the beauti- COXCLUSIOX. 263 ful and the good. Indeed, the true itseK, ex- cept as truth of fact, is a purely ideal element, and derives all its significance from its con- nection with the beautiful and the good. For truth of fact has only a utihtarian value apart from the nature of the fact that is true. If the universe were only a set of facts — such as. Water boils at 100° C. — it Would have nothing in it to awaken wonder, enthusiasm, and rever- ence ; and " cosmic emotion " would be quite as much out of place as religious sentiment. Logically considered, our entire mental life rests uj)on a fallacy of the form known as the illicit process ; in other words, our conclusions are too large for the premises. A set of ideals arises in the mind under the stimulus of ex- perience, but not as transcripts of experience. These ideals impUcitly determine our mental procedure, and they do it aU the more surely because we are generally unconscious of them. Our so-called proofs consist, not in deducing them from experience, but in illustrating them by experience. The facts which make against the ideal are set aside as problems not yet un- derstood. In this way we maintain our con- ception of a rational universe, or of a God of 264 PHiLOSornY of theism. perfect wisdom and goodness. We illustrate by picked facts, and this passes for proof. Of course it is not proof, but only an illustration of pre-existing conceptions. Logic, then, is in its full right in pointing out the non-demonstrative character of these argu- ments, but it is miserably narrow when it fails to see that these undemonstrated ideals are still the real foundation of our mental life. With- out implicit faith in them no step can be taken in any field. The mind as a whole, then, is in I its full right when, so long as these ideals are 'not positively disproved, it accepts them on its own warrant and works them out into the rich and ever-growing conquests of our modern life. By the side of this great faith and its great re- sults the formal objections of formal logic sink almost into a despicable impertinence. Of all these ideals that rule our life theism 'is the sum and source. The cognitive ideal of 'the universe, as a manifestation of the Supreme Keason, leads to theism. The moral ideal of the universe, as a manifestation of the Supreme Kighteousness, leads to theism. The practical ideal of a "far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves" leads to theism. In CONCLUSION. 265 short, while theism is demonstrated by noth- ing, it is imphcit in everything. It cannot be proved without begging the question, or denied "without ending in absurdity. Poor atheism, on the other hand, first puts out its eyes by its primal unfaith in the truth of our nature and of the system of things, and then proceeds to make a great many flourishes about "reason," "science," "progress," and the like, in melancholy ignorance of the fact that it has made all these impossible. If consistent think- ing were still possible one could not help feehng affronted by a theory which violates the condi- tions of all thinking and theorizing. It is an outlaw by its ovni act, yet insolently demands the protection of the laws it seeks to overthrow. Supposing logical thought possible, there seems to be no escape from regarding atheism as a pathological compound of ignorance and inso- lence. On the one hand, there is a complete ignorance of all the imphcations of vahd know- ing, and on the other a ludicrous identification of itseK with science. Its theory of knowledge is picked up ready-made among the crudities of spontaneous thought, and when the seK-destruc- tive imphcations of atheism are pointed out, in- 2CG PIIILOSOPHY OF THEISM. stead of justifying itseK from its own premises, it falls back on thoughtless common-sense, which forthwith rejects the implications. Of course the question is not whether the implications be true or false, but whether they be imphcations. This point is happily ignored, and the defence is complete. It only remains to pick some flaws in theistic argument, and to skirmish a little with " the vastness of the Possible," and atheism may be regarded as estabUshed. To be sure, there is no mental health or insight fmnished by the doctrine. It must proclaim our entire nature misleading. The universe which has evolved the human mind as the *' correspondence of inner re- lations to outer relations" has produced a strange non-correspondence here. The aU-illuminating formula. It is because it must be, sheds only a feeble hght. The conception of bhnd power working for apparent ends, of non-inteUigence producing inteUigence, of unconsciousness pro- ducing consciousness, of necessity producing ideas of freedom and duty — this conception is not a transparent one. But these considerations avail nothing. The nightmare of the "Possi- ble" is upon the speculator and prevents the proper working of inteUigence. Under the speU, CONCLUSIOX. 267 the " Probable " and the " Rational " are enth^ely lost sight of. The state is pathologic, and be- longs to the mental pathologist rather than the philosopher. Considering atheistic procedure as a whole, an ill-conditioned mind might lose patience with it ; bnt there is no occasion for warmth, for accord- ing to the theory itself, logical thought is not possible. Thoughts come and go, not according to any inherent rationahty, bnt as produced by necessity. This probably contains the explana- tion of some of the extraordinary logic of athe- istic treatises. Any hiatus between premises and conclusion is due to necessity. Any strange backwardness in drawing a manifest conclusion has the same cause. All lapses into sentiment just when logic is called for are equally necessa- ry. Even the mistakes of theism and the hard- ness and uncircumcision of the critical heart have an equally sohd foundation. A great au- thority, speaking of the advanced thinker, says, "He, like every other man, may properly con- sider himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Unknown Cause ; and when the Unknown Cause produces in him a certain behef he is thereby authorized to profess 268 PHILOSOPHY OF THEISM. and act out that belief." With this conclusion the limits of mental self-respect are transcended, and the theory breaks up in a melancholy farce. The theist may take some comfort, however, in remembering that his faith is no home-made fancy of his own, but a genuine product of the Unknown Cause, and he is thereby authorized to profess and act it out. Two critical words in conclusion. First, it will be a distinct advance when we reach the hisight that a theory is responsible for its imph- cations and that the critical analysis of a theory is not an attack upon its holders. Secondly, it will be a still greater advance when the theory of knowledge is sufficiently developed to show that not every theory of things is compatible '^^'ith the vahdity of knowledge. At present, in the uninstructed goodness of our hearts, we show the largest hospitality towards all theories without ever dreaming of inquiring into their bearings upon the problem of knowledge. If any critic points out that a given theory de- stroys reason and thus violates the conditions of all thinking, such is our good-nature that we conclude the consequences of the theory must be aberrations of the critic. The self-destructive CONCLUSION. 269 theory is thus enabled to reserve all its strength for attack, and falls back on common-sense to defend it fi-om itself. This solemn folly will / continue until it is recognized that the problem of knowledge is a real one, and one which can- ; not be finally settled by the crude assumptions > of spontaneous thought. Least of all can we hope to advance philosophy by the method cur- rent in many quarters, the method of specula- tive suicide. THE END. METAPHYSICS. Metaphysics. A Study in First Principles. By Borden P. BowxE, Professor of Philosophy in Boston University, and Author of "Studies in Theism." 8vo, Cloth, $2 50. Will mark an era in the discussion between materialists and intuitionalists, and between sceptics and theistic believers. . . . The Professor's vivacious style, his keen sarcasm and effective wit, greatly enliven these solid pages of pure con- nected thought and iron logic. ... To read this thoughtful volume will be a wholesome intellectual discipline, as well as a strong confirmation of faith in re- vealed religion as the true philosophy of the universe and of man. — ZioiCs Her- ald, Boston. The work is a very thoughtful, carefully studied, and able production, and is a wholesome antidote to much of the so-called scientific speculations of the day. — Boston Post. Few books of the kind are so readable. The author is not on the watch against dulness. Dulness is so repellent to his nature that he has little occasion to guard against it. . . . The author handles his themes as one who feels at home. The treatise, it may be said at the outset, is thoroughly theistic. We know of no work of the same compass where the postulates and arguments of scientific materialism are subjected to a more searching and destructive criticism. . . . We have only to add that the work of Professor Bowne is marked by a striking freshness and ability, a comprehensive mastery of the history of philos- ophy from the beginnings of speculation, penetrating knowledge of recent dis- cussions in the department, and an uncommon power of presenting abstruse trains of thought in a perspicuous and lively form. It will take a high rank in the philosophical literature of the time. — iV. Y. Trihme. A learned and elaborate treatise on that most alluring and least satisfying of all human inquiries. . . . We are free to express the opinion that the work of Pro- fessor Bowne has real value both as a polemic for the present and as a criticism for the past in the history of speculation. lie has fed his mind on the ripest fruits of philosophy, and is, at the same time, able to assimilate his acquisitions by a digestive power of his own. The conclusions which he reaches will be spe- cially helpful to all who find themselves caught in the drift of materialism with- out being able to regain their footing on the old foundations of theism. — iV. Y, Herald. Ue appreciates the limitations of his theme, and restricts himself within them, while his work has real value from the breaking loose from old ties and restric- tions which modern investigation has shown to be weak and whimsical in many respects. When he applies his fresh, strong style to an assault upon these an- cient "whimseys" he can be not only interesting, but really entertaining. — Brooklyn Dally Times, N. Y. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. C^~ IlAKrEK & Bkothkrs will send the above work by viail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the pyrice. PSYCIIOLOGrY. Introduction to Psychological Theory. By Professor Corden P. BowNE, Professor in Boston University, and Author of "Studies in Theism." 8vo, Cloth, $1 75. Professor Bowiie writes with vigor anil ability, and in a manner that will awaken tliought. . . . Tlie arrangement of the book for progressive study is gen- erally admirable. lie begins witli a discussion of the subject of the mental life, then passes to tlie impressions which that suljject receives from without, and with which the mental life begins, and then considers the complex action and reaction upon these impressions in which tlie developed mental life consists. — Saturdaij Evening Gazette, Boston. In dealing with the deeper problems relating to the human mind, the work of Professor Bowne lias an unmistakable superiority over any other work of Amer- ican or EngUsh authorship. Its lucid and compact style, its orderly arrange- ment, and its keenness and vigor of thought, make it well-nigh a model in its line of writings. No one wlio is interested to know the results of the best think- ing of our age upon the princi[)al topics of psychology can afford to neglect this book. — Prof. II. C. Sheldon, in Ziou's Herald, Boston. The method is original, and wliile embodying what is best in mental science, leads to new and important principles. It is so independent and far-reaching, and withal so scholarly, that one turns to its results as for the first time ... fresh pages in the study of the mind. And one really may find on almost every page some valuable suggestion or application. It is a notable example of abstract analysis and reasoning. — Boston Globe. A masterly and lucid treatise. . . . Professor Bowno has already achieved a reputation as an acute thinker and profound logician by his previous work, " Metaphysics," and new lustre will be given to his name by his latest contri- bution to mental science. — Newark Advertiser. Dr. Bowne has the art of clear statement, and succeeds in dissipating the fog that ordinarily surrounds his subject. . . . His book is throughout a vigorous and apparently unanswerable protest against the theory of the materialist. — Brook- lyn Uidon. This is not a dogmatic treatise of empirical psychology, much less a digest of physiological psychology, and the fanciful theories that cluster round that shad- owy border-land of research, but a series of essays in pure psychology, the basis of the whole performance being facts, not theories. It is this latter point — Pro- fessor Bowne's unswerving respect for facts — that commands confidence from the very start, and makes one willing to accept his guidance througli the portals of philosophy and truth. . . . The value of the performance lies in the fact that it clears the ground, removes ancient and modern nonsense, and enables one to get at the real question. Such a book is enormously useful. — Beacon, Boston. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. IIarpee & Brothers will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt 0/ the price. ^0 n)-fmr MAR 6 1979 Form L9-25w-9,'47(A5618)444 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS AiNGELES 3 1158 00198 9 19 uc S!Srn regional libw^r;; f^lJ^^ AA 001217 676 4