LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORN 
 
 Received ... . '^fe**JL 
 
 Accessions No. ^ 9 ^^^ Shelf i\ 
 
 IA 
 
 G 
 
V 
 
THE 
 
 THEISTIC ARGUMENT 
 
 AS AFFECTED BY RECENT THEORIES 
 
 A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED AT THE LOWELL 
 INSTITUTE IN BOSTON 
 
 BY 
 
 J. LEWIS Ij)IMAN, D. D. 
 
 LATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL ECONOMY 
 IN BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 Htoerstfce Press, 
 
 1882 
 
' 
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 J 6 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
 Stereotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 PROFESSOR DIMAN, the author of this volume, 
 died, after a short illness, on the 3d of February, 
 1 88 1. From the time of his acceptance of the 
 Chair of History and Political Economy in Brown 
 University, in 1864, he devoted himself chiefly to 
 historical studies, for which from early life he had 
 shown a remarkable aptitude. His enthusiasm in 
 this department, however, and the brilliant success 
 which he attained as a teacher, did not dull the in- 
 terest, which he had likewise early manifested, in 
 Philosophy. While preparing for the Christian 
 ministry, he had spent two years in Germany, 
 where he numbered among his instructors Julius 
 Miiller and Rothe, Erdmann, Ulrici, and Trende- 
 lenburg. During those years his time was mainly 
 given to the study of Kant, and of the series of 
 philosophers in the line of succession from him. 
 While a Pastor, and after he became a Professor, 
 the problems which belong to metaphysics and the- 
 ology in common, to the exploring of which the 
 marvelous advance of natural and physical science 
 has lent a new stimulus, continued to engage his 
 attention. Indeed, it was the flavor of a certain 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 speculative element, kept within due bounds, that 
 imparted a peculiar fascination to his portrayal of 
 historical persons and eras. When, therefore, he 
 was invited to give a Course of Lectures at the 
 Lowell Institute, in the spring of 1880, on the 
 foundations of Natural Religion, he needed no 
 other qualification than a careful review of the 
 recent literature on the subject. This preparation 
 was conscientiously made. In particular, the most 
 prominent writers, as Mill, Spencer, Huxley, Dar- 
 win, Tyndall, who have dealt directly or indirectly 
 with these topics from points of view more or less 
 at variance with prevalent opinion, he examined 
 afresh. At the same time he did not pass by the 
 ablest of the later writers in defense of Theism. 
 I perceive that he had profited especially by the 
 perusal of Janet's thorough treatise on " Final 
 Causes," and Professor Flint's excellent volumes 
 on "Theism "and "Anti-Theistic Theories." The 
 result of his reflections and researches appears on 
 the pages which follow. 
 
 In fulfilling the request that I should superin- 
 tend the publication of these Lectures of a dear 
 and most valued friend, I have had no hesitation in 
 deciding to print them precisely as they were left by 
 the author. The changes of phraseology are very 
 few, and are confined almost exclusively to such ob- 
 scurities or slight inaccuracies of expression as are 
 incident to rapid composition. In cases where the 
 author had noted in an abbreviated form the title 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 of a book from which a citation is drawn, I have 
 made the reference more full and exact. In other 
 cases where it appeared desirable to add references 
 not indicated at all in the manuscript, I have en- 
 closed them in brackets. Had Professor Diman 
 himself prepared these discourses for the press, he 
 might have curtailed certain passages and expanded 
 others, have fortified his argument anew at various 
 points, and have made the whole volume, both as to 
 matter and style, more closely conformed to his 
 high standard of literary work. 
 
 At the same time I do not feel that the book 
 needs any apology. It will be found to be distin- 
 guished from most of the recent publications on the 
 subject by its freedom from technical language, and 
 by the luminous treatment which is fitted to com- 
 mend it to the favor of thoughtful persons not spe- 
 cially addicted to metaphysical reading. It is marked 
 by the elevation and grace which, as they were part 
 and parcel of the author's mind, could not fail to 
 enter into all the productions of his pen. The dis- 
 cussion is conducted throughout with absolute can- 
 dor. Nowhere is there an attempt to forestall the 
 judgment of the reader by raising a prejudice 
 against an opinion that is to be controverted. The 
 doctrines and the reasoning of adversaries are fully 
 and even forcibly stated. Vituperation is never sub- 
 stituted for evidence. Nothing in the way of objec- 
 tion that deserves consideration is passed by. The 
 entire field suggested by the theme is traversed. 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 Whatever dissent may arise in the reader's mind in 
 reference to any of the positions which are taken by 
 Professor Diman, or the reasons by which they are 
 maintained, there can be, as I believe, among com- 
 petent judges but one opinion as to the acuteness 
 and vigor, as well as the learning and fairness, with 
 which the argument is pursued. 
 
 GEORGE P. FISHER. 
 NEW HAVEN, May 19, 1881. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM i 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 35 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 CAUSE AND FORCE ....... .67 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER 99 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN 133 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE 168 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 IMMANENT FINALITY .201 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER . . ... 234 
 
yiii CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE 265 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE 297 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES 3 2 9 
 
 LECTURE XII. 
 THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM 3 61 
 
THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 
 
 IN beginning a course of lectures, like the present, 
 I am well aware that I lay myself open to what may 
 seem a grave objection. Are not the questions, it 
 may be asked, which will claim our consideration, 
 as old as human thought, and have they not been 
 explored to the utmost limit to which thought can 
 hope to go ? Can anything be said that has not 
 been said already ? In other directions of inquiry 
 we may add to the sum of human knowledge, but 
 when we reach the line that severs the seen from 
 the unseen, the natural from the supernatural, are 
 we not treading an eternal circle, and only echoing 
 the opinions, while we modify the phrases, of earlier 
 thinkers ? As respects the grounds of religious be- 
 lief, the philosopher of the present day, it is claimed, 
 has no advantage over the sages of antiquity. Ad- 
 vance in knowledge has in no way affected the force 
 of the argument. " The reasoning," says Macaulay, 
 "by which Socrates, in Xenophon's hearing, con- 
 futed the little atheist Aristodemus, is exactly the 
 reasoning of Paley's natural theology. Socrates 
 makes precisely the same use of the statues of Poly- 
 
2 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT 
 
 cletus and the pictures of Zeuxis which Paley makes 
 of the watch." " Natural theology, then, is not a 
 progressive science." l 
 
 As with many of Macaulay's maxims, there is a 
 sense in which this statement is true, but a very im- 
 portant sense in which it mistakes the truth. No 
 one will deny that the great problems of natural 
 theology are the same to-day that they were in the 
 days of yore. Yet any one but slightly versed in the 
 history of opinions must equally admit that the at- 
 titude of the human mind, with reference to these 
 problems, has been marked by many changes. It is, 
 indeed, only a most superficial view which affirms 
 that history repeats itself. True, as we study cer- 
 tain aspects of the past, we are struck with what 
 seem the marvelous resemblances to our own time. 
 In ancient states there were periods of youth and 
 periods of decline, and as we turn the pages of their 
 annals what we have been used to look upon as an- 
 cient becomes strangely modern. Yet, after all, it 
 is only analogy that we can trace, and not a perfect 
 parallel. For the conditions of successive epochs 
 can never be precisely the same. Beneath an ap- 
 parent Jikeness is veiled an essential difference. As 
 little in its opinions, as in its dress, does one age 
 ever reproduce another. 
 
 In the following discussion it will be my aim to 
 show how the great problems which make up what is 
 called natural religion, the problem of the exist- 
 ence of a Supreme Being, of a divine order in nature 
 and in human life, of the immortality arid moral re- 
 sponsibility of man, have been affected by some of 
 
 1 Macaulay, " Ranke's History of the Popes " (Essays, Am. ed 
 vol. iv., pp. 303, 204). 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 3 
 
 the more recent phases of human thought. The in- 
 quiry, at best, under the limitations imposed by a 
 course of lectures like the present, can only be in- 
 complete. A full examination of any of the ques- 
 tions which such an investigation covers would de- 
 mand a minuteness of treatment intolerable to the 
 most patient and attentive hearer. I can only hope 
 to single out the more salient aspects of my subject, 
 and shall willingly forego any praise for elegance 
 of treatment if I can succeed, by the plainest and 
 most simple language, in setting my subject-matter 
 clearly before you. The ascertainment of truth is 
 my single aim. In the presence of the solemn mys- 
 teries which we are about to probe all lesser con- 
 siderations should be forgotten. 
 
 One of the greatest thinkers of all time has said 
 that the business of philosophy is to answer three 
 questions : What can I know ? What ought I to do ? 
 and, For what may I hope ? If I may venture to 
 modify this sentence, I would make it read, not the 
 business of philosophy, but the business of life. The 
 problems here presented are not problems for the 
 professed student alone, but problems which present 
 themselves to every man, and, if we consider them 
 carefully, it is plain that they virtually resolve them- 
 selves into a single one. Evidently the questions 
 'what I ought to do,' and 'what I may hope for/ can 
 only be answered when I have answered the prior 
 question, What can I know ? For " rational expec- 
 tation and moral action are based upon belief," and 
 belief is the result of knowledge. The grounds and 
 the boundaries of knowledge belong to a distinct field 
 of inquiry, but that knowledge, on whatever basis it 
 may be found to rest, is the condition of responsible 
 
4 THE THEIST1C ARGUMENT. 
 
 action and of intelligent belief, seems a principle so 
 evident that it needs only to be stated. The ques- 
 tion that first confronts us, then, is, What can I 
 know ? 
 
 On the far-reaching scope of this inquiry I surely 
 need not enlarge. It is the question which first 
 confronts us ; and it is the question which gives 
 every other question its meaning. The questions 
 which, as a rational being, I am forced to put to 
 myself, ' Whence am I ? ' ' For what was I made ? ' and 
 'Whither am I going?' are these questions which 
 I have a right to ask, questions to which I may ex- 
 pect an answer ; or do they lie outside the boundaries 
 of any knowledge to which I can reach, and are they 
 simply insoluble enigmas which sober reflection will 
 leave in the region of dream-land ? The question 
 whether I myself am simply the passing effect of an 
 indefinite succession of physical forces, a single step 
 in the unresting evolution of a purely natural order, a 
 momentary pause between an unfathomable past and 
 an unfathomable future, a helpless link in a chain 
 of consequences whose beginning and end stretch 
 alike beyond the limit of legitimate inquiry; or 
 whether I am endued with the attributes of a moral 
 being ; whether I am related to a supernatural order ; 
 whether I can by conscious volition control my own 
 acts ; and whether I am held to a responsibility 
 which invests my brief mortal life with an immor- 
 tal import, this question, whatever form it may 
 take, evidently throws every other question of life 
 into insignificance. Until this is answered all other 
 questions are of little account. I may seek to oc- 
 cupy myself with the study of the external world ; 
 I may search out the subtle properties of matter ; 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 5 
 
 1 may analyze the mysterious forces whose restless 
 movement masks itself behind the perplexing phe- 
 nomena of physical nature ; I may note the won- 
 drous order of the heavens ; delight myself with the 
 evidence of an ever-present law comprehending the 
 dust in the sunbeam, and the constellations set in 
 the flaming walls of space ; or, may busy myself 
 with the study of man, trace back his history to 
 its remote and unrecorded beginning, gather the 
 proofs of his upward progress from age to age, strive 
 to elicit from his supreme achievements the secret 
 of his restless aspiration, seek to comfort myself 
 with the prospect of his future perfectibility, to trace 
 the increasing purpose that runs through his years, 
 but I come back again unsatisfied to the haunt- 
 ing question, ' What am I myself, what do I know, 
 what have I to do ? ' Nothing else profits if I can- 
 not answer this. 
 
 While these problems are as old as philosophy 
 itself, they have never been presented with the dis- 
 tinctness, and never been urged with the searching 
 force with which they are clothed at the present 
 hour. The question as to the nature and limits of 
 human knowledge is the one that crops out of all 
 the philosophical and scientific discussion of the 
 day. It is the underlying granite that shows itself 
 whenever the superficial strata are disturbed. And 
 it is not a matter for regret, but rather for congratu- 
 lation, that the controversies of the day have con- 
 verged to this point. For this is the- final issue on 
 which lesser difference of opinion turns ; and it can 
 but be regarded as a wholesome symptom that the 
 very school which so arrogantly discarded meta- 
 physics has been brought at last to recognize so 
 
6 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 clearly the great truth that even physical inquiries 
 result in metaphysical principles, and that the 
 newest conclusions of science carry us back to a re- 
 gion where something more than science must be 
 called into request. The science simply of natural 
 things rests on fundamental truths which are the 
 first principles of the whole edifice of human knowl- 
 edge. The boundary line which divides legitimate 
 and positive knowledge from empty theory and as- 
 sumption was first traced out by philosophers. If 
 Descartes laid the foundation of modern philosophi- 
 cal criticism by his inquiry into the nature of cer- 
 tainty, it was the more sober genius of Locke which 
 taught the busy mind of man " to be more cautious 
 in meddling with things exceeding its comprehen- 
 sion ; to stop when it was at the utmost extent of its 
 tether ; and to sit down in quiet ignorance of those 
 things which upon examination are found to be be- 
 yond the reach of our capacities." "We should not 
 then," he says, "be so forward, out of an affectation 
 of universal knowledge, to raise questions and per- 
 plex ourselves and others with disputes about things 
 to which our understandings are not suited, and of 
 which we cannot frame in our minds any clear and 
 distinct perception, or whereof, as it has perhaps 
 too often happened, we have not any notion at all. 
 We shall not have much reason to complain of the 
 narrowness of our minds if we will but employ them 
 about what may be of use to us. Our business here 
 is not to know all things, but those which concern 
 our conduct." 1 
 
 The conclusion from which Locke was saved by 
 his strong sense and his sincere religious faith did 
 
 1 Quoted by Huxley, Hume, p. 54. 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS Ofi THE PROBLEM. J 
 
 not appall the more subtle genius of Hume. In re- 
 gions where the English philosopher only recom- 
 mended caution, his Scottish follower boldly advo- 
 cated skepticism. Locke has been accused of in- 
 consistency. Attacking the theory of innate ideas, 
 it has been said that he yet clings to conceptions 
 vitally associated with that theory. Thus asserting 
 that all our knowledge comes through the senses, he 
 allows that we yet know of a being who cannot be 
 manifested through the senses. No such complaint 
 has been brought against Hume. Unlike Locke, he 
 was free from theological prepossessions. He was 
 content to follow logic wherever it led him. He 
 completes the critical movement which Locke be- 
 gan and did not push to its legitimate results, and 
 from him we may date the definite abandonment of 
 conceptions which up to his time had ruled almost 
 without question. He assailed alike the old theory 
 of perception and the old theory of causation, and 
 the result was complete uncertainty as to the ulti- 
 mate grounds alike of human knowledge and human 
 belief. 
 
 Under the name of " mitigated skepticism," he 
 advocates the limitation of our faculties to such 
 subjects as are best adapted to the narrow capacity 
 of human understanding. " The imagination of 
 man," he says, " is naturally sublime, delighted with 
 whatever is remote and extraordinary, and running 
 without control into the most distant parts of space 
 and time, in order to avoid the objects which cus- 
 tom has rendered too familiar to it. A correct judg- 
 ment observes a contrary method, and, avoiding all 
 distant and high inquiries, confines itself to common 
 Ufe, and to such subjects as fall under daily practice 
 
8 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 and experience, leaving the more sublime topics to 
 the embellishments of poets and orators, or to the 
 arts of priests and politicians. While we cannot 
 give a satisfactory reason why we believe, after a 
 thousand experiments, that a stone will fall, or fire 
 burn, can we ever satisfy ourselves concerning any 
 determination which we may form with regard to 
 the origin of worlds, and the situation of nature from 
 and to eternity." * The only method of freeing the 
 mind from these useless questions was such an an- 
 alysis of its powers as would show that it was un- 
 fitted to solve them. 
 
 No fact in modern literary history, it seems to 
 me, is more remarkable than the revival of the phi- 
 losophy of Hume. In his own time his influence 
 was not widely felt. The pages of his autobiogra- 
 phy are sprinkled with mortifying admissions of the 
 meagre attention awarded to his works at the time 
 of their publication. His ruling ambition was love 
 of literary fame, and this reward, in the direction 
 that he most coveted it, that of metaphysical in- 
 quiry, he did not succeed in winning. " Never," 
 he says, " was literary attempt more unfortunate 
 than my 'Treatise of Human Nature.'" And years 
 after his death one of his own countrymen, Sir 
 James Mackintosh, says of his system, " Universal 
 skepticism involves a contradiction in terms. It is 
 a belief that there can be no belief. It is an at- 
 tempt of the mind to act without its structure and 
 by other laws than those to which its nature has 
 subjected its operations. To reason without assent- 
 ing to the principles on which reasoning is founded 
 is not unlike an effort to feel without nerves, or to 
 
 1 Huxley, Hume, p. 55. 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 9 
 
 move without muscles." 1 And almost in our own 
 day a later historian of philosophy, Morell, 2 writes, 
 "The philosophy of Hume, as a whole, originated and 
 perished with himself. A more partial and less dar- 
 ing skepticism might, probably, have gained many 
 followers ; but it is the inevitable result of every 
 system professing universal unbelief to destroy it- 
 self." It has been reserved for our own time to 
 assign to Hume a wholly different position in the 
 history of thought, and to recognize him as one 
 whose principles have proved the most fertile seeds 
 in the hot-bed of modern opinion. His skepticism 
 marks one of the great turning-points in modern 
 speculation. His reasonings respecting the ques- 
 tion of the existence of God are commended as the 
 single example in our literature, until very recent 
 times, of a passionless and searching examination of 
 that great problem. He is praised for having un- 
 flinchingly inquired into the profoundest of all ques- 
 tions, and of having dared to give the result of his 
 inquiries without fear or favor. And, with some 
 criticism of subordinate, parts of his system, its 
 strain and method receive unqualified approval 
 from his latest admiring biographer. " One can but 
 suspect," says Huxley, " that his shadowy and in- 
 consistent theism was the expression of his desire 
 to rest in a state of mind which distinctly excluded 
 negation, while it included as little as possible of 
 affirmation respecting a problem which he felt to be 
 hopelessly insoluble." 3 
 
 1 [Sir J. Mackintosh, " Dissertation," etc., Miscellaneous Works, 
 (London, 1846), vol. i., p. 137.] 
 
 2 [J. D. Morell, An Historical and Critical Review of the Specitlative 
 Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century, 2 ed., vol. i., p. 353.) 
 
 3 Huxley, Hume, p. 155. 
 
10 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Hume's philosophy did not, then, perish with him. 
 On the contrary, of no great English thinker may it 
 be more truly said that he lives in the thought of the 
 present day. His precise conclusions on some points 
 may not be accepted, and in some instances may 
 even be forgotten. Those who applaud his max- 
 ims seem not always to remember that he was not 
 less a skeptic in philosophy than in theology, and 
 that if he calls in question the validity of the reason- 
 ing by which we seek to establish the divine exis- 
 tence, he just as much throws doubt upon our belief 
 in the invariable order of the universe. It is not his 
 method so much as his spirit and temper that make 
 him so acceptable to the modern mind. He is the 
 recognized prophet of that new dispensation which 
 finds so many representatives in the science and in 
 the literature of the present day ; which holds that, 
 respecting the greatest problems and ultimate issues 
 of human life, we have no means of arriving at any 
 conclusions, and that it is the part of wisdom to 
 banish them from sight, and busy ourselves with 
 what lies within our sphere, seeking our highest re- 
 ward in our own improvement, or in the future 
 growth of the race. There is a passage in one of 
 the letters of Goethe that so exactly reflects this 
 temper that I may quote it here. Writing to Knebel, 
 he says, " The natural sciences are so human, so 
 true, that I wish every one luck who occupies him- 
 self with them. They teach us that the greatest, the 
 most mysterious, and the most magical phenomena, 
 take place openly, orderly, simply, unmagically ; they 
 must finally quench the thirst of poor ignorant man 
 for the dark extraordinary, by showing him that the 
 extraordinary lies so near, so clear, so familiar, and 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 1 1 
 
 so determinately true. I daily beg my good genius 
 to keep me from all other observation and learning, 
 and guide me always in the calm definite path which 
 the student of nature has to tread." His long career 
 was the realization of this ideal. What was sore and 
 and weary in life, what was humiliating in his own 
 experience, he resolutely put aside ; neither the 
 wrongs which his own selfishness inflicted nor the 
 woes of his unhappy country could turn him from 
 the "calm definite path" in which he was resolved 
 to tread. To make the most!' of himself was his con- 
 stant aim. Closing his eyes to the perplexing prob- 
 lems and tormenting mysteries of life, he dedicated 
 his whole strength to the knowable and the attaina- 
 ble and gave up all wild desire for what lay beyond. 
 The theory of nescience, or, in other words, the 
 doctrine that the limit of human knowledge is the 
 investigation of the laws of phenomena, and that 
 all inquiry into their ultimate causes is illegitimate, 
 defended with so much acuteness by Hume on 
 purely metaphysical grounds, has derived an im- 
 mense impulse in our own day from its supposed 
 coincidence with the conclusions of physical science. 
 This is, in fact, the grand characteristic of the specu- 
 lative thought of the present time. Metaphysics has 
 been transmuted into science, and what was for- 
 merly the subtle speculation of abstract thinkers 
 now claims to rest on the positive basis of reasoned 
 truth. As a result, the doctrine has gained a sudden 
 and wide acceptance. It has passed from the hands 
 of the recluse thinker to the lecture platform and 
 the pages of the popular review. The brilliant dis- 
 coveries of modern science are supposed to be ar- 
 rayed on its side, and it is presented to the 
 
12 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 world in alliance with the most distinctive and most 
 admired intellectual tendencies of modern society. 
 The most eloquent of scientific teachers have uttered 
 this as their final word. 
 
 Thus Hume asserted that " what we call a mind 
 is nothing but a heap or collection of different per- 
 ceptions, united together by certain relations, and 
 supposed, though falsely, to be endued with a per- 
 fect 'simplicity and identity." A modern school, 
 insisting that psychology must be based simply on 
 physiology, have developed this idea, and by bring- 
 ing mental laws under the more general physical 
 laws of correlation, conservation, and evolution, have 
 deduced the will from nervous force, and have at last 
 reached the startling conclusion that thought, mem- 
 ory, reason, conscience, all that has shaped itself 
 through successive generations in social forms, in 
 art, in philosophy, in religion, many ages ago was 
 latent in a fiery cloud. In this view the human 
 will, no longer free, is reduced to the resultant 
 force of a predetermined organization, transmitted 
 from generation to generation with a cumulative 
 power. The practical conclusion does not differ 
 from that reached by the Scottish philosopher, but 
 the grounds on which the conclusion rests seem to 
 have received from this alliance with scientific re- 
 sults an enormous reenforcement. 
 
 Again, Hume threw doubt upon all reasoning 
 from external nature in proof of a first cause. He 
 was logically forced to admit the self-existence of 
 the phenomenal universe. Still he was forced to 
 this admission on purely metaphysical -grounds. No 
 scientific data existed in the eighteenth century 
 which could be urged in support of such a theory 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 13 
 
 With the physical theories then accepted it may be 
 questioned whether any more satisfactory solution 
 of the complexity and harmony everywhere so con- 
 spicuous in the material world was possible than the 
 hypothesis of intelligence. But, in our own time, 
 physical theory has been completely transformed, 
 and to many scientists the doctrine of the self-ex- 
 istence of the universe seems capable of scientific 
 proof. The acceptance of the principle that energy 
 is indestructible, that the amount of force in the 
 universe is never greater and never less, and that 
 the endless transformations of material things are 
 but the shapes this masking spirit wears, supplies us 
 with a theory which renders needless, we are as- 
 sured, any further inquiry into an ultimate cause. 
 Thus we reach the same practical result that Hume 
 reached, but we reach it in a different way, and sci- 
 ence becomes the handmaid of philosophy in teach- 
 ing that the rational use of our intellectual faculties 
 lies in confining ourselves to the realm of the sen- 
 sible, and in relegating to the land of dreams all 
 that lies beyond. The doctrine of the relativity of 
 knowledge is held to preclude us from either affirm- 
 ing or denying anything that lies outside the bounds 
 of rigid scientific demonstration. In the words of 
 one of its most eminent representatives, this doctrine 
 teaches ^"that we have no knowledge of anything 
 but phenomena, and our knowledge of phenomena is 
 relative, not absolute. We know not the essence, 
 nor the real mode of production, of any fact, but 
 only its relations to other facts in the way of succes- 
 sion or similitude. These relations are constant, 
 that is, always the same in the same circumstances. 
 The constant resemblances which bind phenomena 
 
14 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 together are termed their laws. All phenomena, 
 without exception, are governed by invariable laws, 
 with which no volitions, either natural or supernatu- 
 ral, interfere. The essential nature of phenomena, 
 and their ultimate causes, whether efficient or final, 
 are unknown and inscrutable to us." 1 
 
 The appalling array of consequences which are 
 involved in the unqualified acceptance of this doc- 
 trine cannot be fully realized unless we consider 
 them a little in detail. And, here, let me say that 
 .nothing is further from my thought than the wish 
 to cast reproach upon any system of thought by 
 seeking to deduce consequences not fairly involved 
 in it. In philosophical discussion we deal with rea- 
 soned truth, and the truth or the falsity of any the- 
 ory cannot be established by misrepresentation. I 
 have no other purpose than to trace clearly the logi- 
 cal inferences which follow from the acceptance of 
 the proposition that the doctrine of the relativity of 
 knowledge precludes us from either affirming or de- 
 nying that anything exists beyond the region of 
 investigation which science, in the sense of veri- 
 fying facts which rest on the testimony of the senses, 
 includes. It will be only necessary for me to sum 
 up the past admissions of some of the recognized 
 representatives of this theory. As we pass through 
 the dreary desert to which they invite us, no rhetor- 
 ical phrases will be needed to make us more con- 
 scious of the fact that we are wandering in a region 
 of desolation and death. 
 
 According, then, to this view, the notion that the 
 origin of things admits of being explained by the 
 theory of theism any better than by the theory of 
 
 1 MiL, quoted by Bowen, Modern Philosophy, p. 266. 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 15 
 
 atheism must be dismissed as conspicuously absurd ; 
 the argument that the human heart requires a God 
 is invalid, since even could such an inward necessity 
 be demonstrated beyond a doubt, far from proving, 
 it would not even render probable, any correspond- 
 ing external existence. And if even theistic aspira- 
 tions are held to point to God as their explanatory 
 cause, the argument could only be admitted when 
 the possibility of any explanation from mere natural 
 causes had been excluded. So the argument from 
 an intuitive belief must be given up, since if the be- 
 lief were real it would only apply to an individual 
 case, while it is certain that, for the vast majority of 
 the race, such is not the fact. And so far as relates 
 to the argument from a first cause, it would seem 
 that our experience, to which we are indebted for 
 the idea of cause, instead of furnishing an argument 
 for a first cause is repugnant to it, and that the very 
 essence of causation, as it exists within the limits of 
 our knowledge, is incompatible with an absolute and 
 uncaused cause. 
 
 Proceeding further, we find that the argument for 
 the divine existence derived from the existence of 
 mind is as little worthy of attention. This argument 
 consists in the reflection that the existence of 'our 
 own intelligence is the most certain fact that our 
 experience supplies, and one that demands an ade- 
 quate cause for its explanation, and that such a cause 
 can only be found in some other intelligence. But 
 to this it is replied that there is no warrant for the 
 assertion that mind must be either self-existing or 
 caused by another mind. What we call matter and 
 force are to all appearances eternal, and so far as 
 experience goes, mind is invariably associated with 
 
1 6 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 highly organized matter and distribution of force, 
 and all results of science strengthen the conclusion 
 that the grade of intelligence is invariably associated 
 with a corresponding grade of cerebral development. 
 It is nothing to the point to assert that it is incon- 
 ceivable that matter and motion should produce con- 
 sciousness, since the problem confessedly surpasses 
 thought. While, lastly, the argument from the sup- 
 posed freedom of the will, and the existence of the 
 moral sense, is negatived by the theory of evolution 
 and by the new ethics to which evolution has given 
 birth. 
 
 The argument from design, we are further told, 
 affords us no more satisfactory grounds for proving 
 the divine existence, since we have no means of 
 ascertaining the subjective psychology of that Su- 
 preme Mind whose existence the argument is meant 
 to demonstrate. Apparent intellectual adaptations 
 are perfectly valid indications of design, so long as 
 their authorship is known to be confined to human 
 intelligence, but when we pass the limits of experi- 
 ence we can argue nothing of any other intelligence, 
 even supposing it to exist. The argument from 
 general laws dwindles to nothing in the face of the 
 doctrine that matter and force have been eternal, 
 and that all and every law follows, as a necessary 
 consequence, from the persistence of force and the 
 primary qualities of matter. For aught that specu- 
 lative science can show to the contrary, the evolution 
 of all the diverse phenomena of organic nature, of 
 life, and of mind appears to be necessary and self- 
 determined. Human intelligence, but nothing else, 
 has been evolved. And so far as the human mind 
 can see it can discover no need of a superior mind 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. \*J 
 
 to explain the phenomena of existence. Man has 
 no kith or kin in all this universe of being. 1 
 
 It is needless to ask what is left when we have 
 reached' this result. We have our own thinking 
 selves ; but thought is an evolution over which we 
 have no control, our personal consciousness is simply 
 a series of successive sensations and states ; we have 
 no responsibility, we can have no relation to an in- 
 visible world. Morality and religion are alike empty 
 terms. There is something, indeed, almost pathetic 
 in Mr. Mill's recoil from a conclusion which makes 
 such havoc of the sanctities of life, and in his pleas 
 for a belief in God on the score of utility, even if it 
 does not rest on any conclusive grounds. But the 
 utmost concession to which this school can be 
 brought, is the admission of an unknown and un- 
 knowable power lying behind all phenomena. It 
 may be said that in this view science and religion, 
 instead of being hostile, are at one a since they both 
 assume a cause, a permanent and all-pervading force. 
 But under the law of evolution, the recognition of 
 this force will vary with the consciousness of each 
 generation. The so-called religious sentiment will 
 have for its object of contemplation only the Infinite 
 Unknowable. Of it it can only know that it can 
 know nothing. 
 
 A recent exponent of this philosophy 2 has sought 
 to modify the doctrine of the unknowable, by devel- 
 oping it into a definite system of scientific theology. 
 This, he assures us, is the most ennobling form of 
 religion that mankind is destined ever to reach. It 
 is represented as a system in which the most funda 
 
 1 Abridged from J. S. Mill, Theism, pp. 62, 102. 
 
 2 [John Fiske, Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy (1875).] 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 mental truths of theism are taught, as necessary de- 
 ductions from the highest truths of science ; a sys- 
 tem in which the noblest of our aspirations and the 
 most sublime of our emotions are supplied with a 
 far more worthy and glorious object than has been 
 supplied by any of the older forms of theism. Ac- 
 cording to this view, on rigid scientific grounds, we 
 must assume " the existence of a power, to which no 
 limit in space or time is conceivable, of which all 
 phenomena presented in consciousness are manifes- 
 tations, but which we can only know through these 
 manifestations." But cosmic theism, when care- 
 fully analyzed, will be found to involve no essential 
 modification of the doctrine of the unknowable ; for 
 though the designation of the deity is retained, he 
 is divested of all the attributes which give the des- 
 ignation meaning. We have simply absolute being, 
 devoid of personality, intelligence, and volition. 
 , Such an attempt of one of the disciples of this 
 school to supply a deity divested of all anthropomor- 
 phic elements, which linger in the accepted theolo- 
 gies, and in harmony with the latest conclusions of 
 scientific thought, is indeed chiefly interesting as 
 furnishing cogent illustration of the reluctance with 
 which the more thoughtful adherents of this school 
 part with beliefs so endeared to the human heart. 
 Thus, one who asserts, without the least hesitation, 
 "that the hypothesis of mind in nature is as cer- 
 tainly superfluous to account for any of its phenom- 
 ena, as the scientific doctrine of the persistence of 
 forces and the indestructibility of matter is certainly 
 true," adds the touching confession, " It is with the 
 utmost sorrow that I find myself compelled to accept 
 the conclusions here worked out, and nothing would 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 19 
 
 have induced me to publish them save the strength 
 of my conviction, that it is the duty of every mem- 
 ber of society to give his fellows the benefit of his 
 labors for whatever they may be worth. So far as 
 the realization of individual happiness is concerned, 
 no one can have a more lively perception than my- 
 self of the possibly disastrous tendency of my work. 
 And, forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree 
 with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of 
 the ' new faith ' is a desirable substitute for the 
 waning splendor of ' the old,' I am not ashamed to 
 confess that with this virtual negation of God the 
 universe has lost to me its soul of loveliness ; and 
 although from henceforth the precept to 'work while 
 it is day/ will doubtless but gain an intensified force 
 from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 
 that, ' the night cometh when no man can work/ yet 
 when at times I think, as think at times I must, of 
 the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory 
 of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely 
 mystery of existence as now I find it, at such times 
 I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest 
 pang of which my nature is susceptible. I cannot 
 but feel that for me, and for others who think as I 
 do, there is a dreadful truth in these words of Ham- 
 ilton : ' Philosophy having become a meditation, not 
 merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept 
 knozv thyself has become transformed into the ter- 
 rific oracle to CEdipus. 
 
 Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art.' " J 
 
 These confessions of a calm and acute adherent 
 of the Agnostic school have an emphasis which the 
 most convincing objections of an opponent could 
 never equal. 
 
 1 A Candid Examination of Theism, by Physicus (Boston, 1868). 
 
20 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 To comprehend the full import of the problem 
 here presented, it .is needful to observe that those 
 who shrink from these conclusions of modern Ag- 
 nosticism cannot justify their position by the view 
 that has been eloquently advocated that this demon- 
 strated impotence of mere natural religion to solve 
 the problem of the divine existence, and of human 
 responsibility and immortality, only brings out in 
 stronger relief the necessity of an authoritative rev- 
 elation. This easy solution of the difficulty will not 
 stand the test of examination. Such extreme reac- 
 tion against the results of an irreligious sensational- 
 ism is perfectly natural, and has hardly ever failed 
 to show itself at crises when the deepest spiritual 
 sentiments of mankind have received a shock, and 
 the idea of a living God has been lost sight of in 
 that of unconscious nature. Alarmed at what seem 
 the results of rational investigation, this tendency 
 throws discredit upon all operations of reason, and, 
 by boldly turning the enemies' guns, aims to base 
 the authority of revealed truth on this manifest im- 
 potence of natural reason to establish any valid and 
 indisputable foundations of belief. The most brill- 
 iant illustration of this reaction was furnished in the 
 passionate protest of Lamennais against the sensa- 
 tional philosophy which constituted the speculative 
 factor in the French Revolution. Disgusted with 
 the petty aims which deluged society around him, 
 he sought to force his countrymen into the ark of 
 faith by destroying their confidence in all attempts 
 of reason to solve spiritual problems. The senses, 
 he cried, deceive us ; feeling is a continual series of 
 doubts and illusions ; reason operates only on data 
 furnished by the senses or feelings, and from these 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 21 
 
 uncertain data draws the most contradictory conclu- 
 sions. For man there is no reality either in his own 
 processes or in the external world, there is nothing 
 in which he has any right to believe unless he has 
 some other ground than his own private sentiment, 
 or his own individual consciousness. These ex- 
 treme opinions are explicitly asserted by few at the 
 present day ; yet so far as any definite meaning can 
 be attached to Mr. Mallock's recent solution of the 
 problem, "Is life worth living," it would seem to 
 amount to this : appeal to external authority is the 
 only refuge left us. 
 
 But where shall that authority be found ? 
 
 Shall we make our appeal to a written revelation ? 
 But revelation rests on testimony ; its authority can 
 only be established by appealing to certain tests in- 
 dependent of itself. Unless every man blindly ac- 
 cepts the traditions in which he has been born, in 
 which case the claims of one particular class of tra- 
 ditions to be superior to any other could never be 
 established, and the great historic religions of the 
 world would stand side by side on an equal footing, 
 an appeal must be allowed to reason and to the moral 
 intuitions. Shall we make our appeal to the visible 
 church ? But here we come into the presence of a 
 great historical fact, the origin, the nature, the au- 
 thority of which, all become at once subjects not 
 only of legitimate but of imperative discussion. If 
 we reduce this authority to the authority of univer- 
 sal assent, we have still to ask the question where 
 and how such universal assent is to be found, and 
 thus become at once involved in a maze of inquiries 
 which tax to the utmost our capacity of rational 
 comparison and deduction. 
 
22 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Hence natural' and revealed religion must stand 
 or fall together. We cannot, even in the most ex- 
 treme subjection to an external authority, divest 
 ourselves of an appeal to the moral and intellectual 
 constitution of man. To say, as some devout men 
 have said, that the problems of natural theology are 
 insoluble, and that it is the part of wisdom to retire 
 from a border-land so dimly irradiated by any cer- 
 tain light, is in effect to concede all that modern 
 Agnosticism has claimed. It is equally the surren- 
 der of revealed truth and of church authority. I 
 by no means claim that natural and revealed religion 
 are throughout identical, and that we may not owe 
 to revelation truths which the natural reason by no 
 searching could find out ; I only mean that the two 
 must correspond, and that natural religion furnishes 
 the fundamental principles by which alone the truth 
 of revealed religion can be certified. If it be dem- 
 onstrated, beyond a doubt, that the human faculties 
 cannot transcend the limits of the finite and the 
 sensible, that the mind only dreams when it affects 
 to recognize the unseen and the supernatural, the 
 truth of any revelation becomes an idle question. 
 
 The distinction between natural and revealed re- 
 ligion is one not easily traced, though we are accus- 
 tomed to have the terms placed in opposition, as if 
 the relation between them were clearly defined. It 
 seems not unlikely that they designate, after all, not 
 different classes of truths, but simply different meth- 
 ods in which these truths have been apprehended 
 by mankind. What man has ascertained by the un- 
 aided exercise of his own powers is termed natural ; 
 what he-has been brought to recognize through the 
 medium of some assumed supernatural illumination 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 2$ 
 
 is termed revealed ; but the harmony of all truth 
 with itself forbids us to suppose that, between these 
 two classes of truths, supposing them really to exist, 
 there can be any contradiction, or any lack of perfect 
 correspondence. All truth, from whatever source 
 derived, must be rational truth, though its rational 
 grounds may not be apprehended by the mind, and 
 we cannot resist the conclusion that, with the pro- 
 gressive illumination and enlargement of the spir- 
 itual faculties, this harmony of truth will be more 
 clearly perceived, and thus the distinction between 
 natural and revealed truth be gradually done away. 
 
 Who, then, can draw the line between natural and 
 revealed religion, as we see them actually existing 
 before us ? Who can say where one begins and 
 where the other ends ? Look at the most elevated 
 and ennobling modern thought, that boasts its inde- 
 pendence of revelation, and yet how many impulses 
 of revealed truth may have unconsciously contrib- 
 uted to give it shape ! And study the historical 
 forms of revealed religion, and into them, too, how 
 many elements may have entered that owed their ex- 
 istence to a purely natural source ! The wider study 
 of revealed religion has taught us to recognize every- 
 where the working of natural elements ; and in the 
 great tide of social and political and intellectual life 
 around us, we seek in vain to discriminate them. 
 The question of the relation between the two is a 
 question in itself of the highest interest, but one 
 that has no important bearing upon our present sub- 
 ject ; for the tendency of thought which we have to 
 investigate is one that stands in antagonism to any 
 recognition of the supernatural in nature or in hu- 
 man life. All question as to the comparative value 
 
24 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 of revealed or natural religion fades into nothing 
 before the momentous issue which is here so dis- 
 tinctly presented. 
 
 It is superfluous to add the remark that the issue 
 here raised is one that covers the whole of human 
 life, and goes to the very core of human society ; 
 for, whatever be our opinion as to the grounds of re- 
 ligious belief, the fact is incontestible that the sense 
 of the supernatural has been in all ages the most 
 potent factor in the development of character ; that 
 it has supplied the great ideals of human action ; 
 that it has furnished the controlling and sustaining 
 motives in the diversified movement of human life. 
 Whether a great truth, or only a delusion of man's 
 imagination, it has lain at the roots of domestic, of 
 social, and of political relations, and the proud 
 structure of modern civilization is compacted of it. 
 The history of the race, searched out in all its con- 
 trasted aspects of brutal force, or of social order, 
 shows no more universal and more unmistakable 
 fact than that the human soul, whether impelled by 
 blind superstition, or impelled by rational instincts, 
 has reposed on the conviction of a supernatural or- 
 der, and recognized in things seen and temporal 
 the evidences, obscure or distinct, of things unseen 
 and eternal. The literature of nations speaks one 
 voice in its testimony on this point ; and what is lit- 
 erature but the expression of the deepest, fullest 
 conviction of the human heart ? Let us listen to 
 the supreme singers who\have set to music the sov- 
 ereign thoughts of mankind. Poetry, Aristotle tells 
 us, is more instructive and weighty than history 
 even, because it deals with truth in its universal 
 forms. I have already quoted a passage from Goe- 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 2$ 
 
 the in illustration of his purpose to seek inward 
 peace by resolutely shutting his eyes to the great 
 problems of the supra-sensible world ; but Goethe, 
 versed as he was in the literature of so many na- 
 tions, seems strangely to have forgotten that litera- 
 ture in its noblest forms has always dealt with the 
 great problems of life and destiny. It is the per- 
 petual recurrence of these familiar chords that gives 
 the best literature its perennial freshness, and re- 
 duces all differences of ancient and modern to a 
 superficial distinction. The sublime strains of Job 
 find their motive in an unappeasable curiosity of man 
 to pierce the darkness that rounds off his little life, 
 and to see himself in his true relation to a universal 
 and eternal order. Revolting from the meagre the- 
 ory prevailing among the Hebrews of his own time, 
 which saw in human suffering the exact measure 
 and equivalent of human guilt, the soul of the right- 
 eous man asserts a larger solution. He seeks refuge 
 in the thought that the disorder and misery which 
 reproach this present system are parts of a plan not 
 yet revealed. So the Greek tragedy hinges on the 
 recognition of man's relation to the supernatural 
 powers. And in him who, more than any other, 
 held the mirror up to nature, we find the constant 
 recognition of the same principle. And, in Shake- 
 speare, this is all the more impressive because of 
 his own ambiguous relation to any definite form of 
 belief. Standing on the water-shed of two great 
 epochs, a new religious and a new political world 
 struggling around him into being, he held himself 
 strangely aloof from either. The splendor of the 
 Elizabethan Renaissance was fading in the solemn 
 presence of the impending Puritan revolution, yet 
 
26 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 we search in vain the pages of the great dramatist 
 for any hint of his relation to the questions of his 
 day. For anything he has left us, we should be at 
 a loss to decide whether he was Catholic or Protes- 
 tant. The party questions discussed around him 
 have left no mark on the great creations of his gen- 
 ius. We are wholly in the dark as to his positive 
 belief. "To die" is to go "we know not where." 1 
 
 But when he uncovers the springs of human ac- 
 tion, when he sounds the depths of human nature, 
 when he unravels the workings of human conscience, 
 when he draws man in his most hidden moods, in 
 his most anguishing experiences of doubt, of terror, 
 of remorse, he makes him walk along a path that 
 derives all its mystery and meaning from its sugges- 
 tion of the supernatural. To be, or not to be, may 
 remain an unsolved enigma, yet conscience cannot 
 throw off the dread of something after death. Ham- 
 let holds us, not as a son, not as a lover, but as one 
 brought suddenly abreast the dark mystery of exist- 
 ence. What links him so strongly to our sympathies 
 is the fact that he forgets little Denmark, and be- 
 comes suddenly akin to all his kind. He rises from 
 the concrete to the abstract, and not one ghastly 
 crime alone, but the troubled order of the world is 
 what fills his gaze. He is irresolute, not from lack 
 of will, but because his mind lies all abroad. He can 
 avenge his father's murder, but what will be the 
 good of it ? There runs through all his greatest 
 dramas this sense of man's kinship with the infinite 
 and eternal. Thus in Macbeth it is not the death 
 of the victim, but the remorse of the murderer, that 
 stands out ; not that Duncan sleeps, but that Mac- 
 beth shall sleep no more. 
 
 1 [Measure for Measure^ Act iii., Sc. i.] 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 2 7 
 
 I have allowed myself this digression not for the 
 purpose of advancing any argument in favor of be- 
 lief in the supernatural, for that belongs to a later 
 stage of our discussion, but simply for the purpose of 
 making as plain as possible, at the outset, the grav- 
 ity of the questions which we are about to consider. 
 I wish to show that, while the definite problems of 
 natural theology are the same to-day as in the days 
 of Socrates, or that while in a sense, it is true, as 
 Macaulay urges, that natural theology is not a pro- 
 gressive science, and that the early Greeks had pre- 
 cisely the same evidences, in the structure of the 
 universe, of the existence of a Supreme Being, or of 
 the immortality of the soul, that lie before an ob- 
 server of the present day, still the aspects of the 
 discussion have been essentially changed. Doubts 
 which, at the outset, were purely speculative, have 
 been transferred to the domain of reasoned truth, 
 and the ascertained principles of the physical uni- 
 verse have been summoned with decisive effect to 
 the solution of metaphysical problems. The validity 
 of this process involves questions which the ancient 
 thinkers were never called upon to consider. 
 
 And while new factors have thus been introduced 
 into the problem, the problem itself, through the 
 growth of modern civilization, has gained a new im- 
 port. Modern life owes its distinctive character to 
 its strongly emphasized sense of man's relation to a 
 supernatural order. This, more than anything else, 
 marks the contrast between modern life and "the 
 most high and palmy state of ancient society." Mod- 
 ern civilization, in every aspect in which we consider 
 it, confesses the operative presence of a power which 
 the ancients, at best, only dimly recognized. In 
 
28 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 domestic and social life, in laws, in literature, in 
 poetry, in art, we cannot miss it. The import of life 
 has been everywhere measured by its recognized 
 relation to spiritual and immortal destinies. Hence, 
 while in many points the problem of human exist- 
 ence may seem to-day the same that it seemed to the 
 ancient world, yet in the momentous issues involved 
 in the problem it is not the same. The surrender 
 of faith in the supernatural involves vastly more for 
 us than it involved for them. For them it was the 
 loss of a castle in Spain, for us it is the loss of a 
 heritage around which the most hallowed memories 
 of life are clustered. 
 
 It is wholly impossible to measure the revolution 
 that would be caused in modern society by a general 
 renunciation of faith in unseen things. No revolu- 
 tion that has ever taken place in the world's history 
 can be likened to it. It would be a revolution affect- 
 ing man in all his conditions of development, in 
 all his relations to his fellows, in all his habits of 
 thought, all his motives of action, all his ideals 
 of conduct. Where it would land him no reason- 
 ings drawn from other ages, or other conditions of 
 society, would enable us to predict. Those who look 
 forward with complacency to such a result have ap- 
 pealed to some of the eastern religions in proof of 
 the fact that powerful creeds have flourished " which 
 have omitted all that makes the doctrine of a fut- 
 ure state valuable in the eyes of its supporters," 
 and "systems of pure human ethics may be found 
 divorced from the existence of God," but we cannot 
 reason so easily from eastern to western results of 
 thought. The doctrines of Buddhism are profoundly 
 mystical in their character, and owe their popular 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 29 
 
 success to maxims which the scientific unbelief of 
 Europe expressly repudiates. It is true that Buddh- 
 ism, like modern agnosticism, repudiates any per- 
 sonal God, and any conscious immortality. So far 
 they would seem to be precisely alike. Yet we can- 
 not reason from the effect of such a creed on an 
 inactive, contemplative race, profoundly impressed 
 with the misery of life, and reckoning annihilation 
 the supreme boon, to its effect on a society full of 
 energy and action, resolute in the accomplishment 
 of great aims, prizing life, and eager to put its oppor- 
 nities to the highest use. Western civilization is 
 instinct with convictions and with hopes respecting 
 human life and human destiny that, as far as we can 
 see, have never stirred the drowsy East. To have 
 all these snatched away is not to unite us to the 
 passive mysticism of Oriental society, but to launch 
 us on a wholly new experiment. Such is the vast 
 import of the problem with which we have to deal. 
 We have to look at it in aspects which were never 
 even suggested to ancient thinkers, and we have to 
 approach it with a sense of its momentous and far- 
 reaching consequences such as the most penetrating 
 intellect among them could never have realized. 
 
 I have termed the following lectures a discussion 
 of the theistic argument rather than a discussion of 
 theism, because what I have in mind is not theism, 
 meaning by that belief in the existence of a Su- 
 preme Being, but simply the intellectual or rational 
 grounds upon which such belief may be based. The- 
 ism, considered as a temper or attitude of mind, 
 has its origin in many sources. There are very few, 
 if there are any, with whom belief in God is simply 
 the result of logical conviction. In the actual shape 
 
30 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 in which this belief sways so many souls it is the 
 result of all the forces by which human character is 
 fashioned. It is a conviction springing from spirit- 
 ual needs, determined by training, sanctioned by tra- 
 dition. Its practical and governing power has very 
 little to do with the controversies that have raged 
 respecting it. It is a conviction cherished as part of 
 their own being by countless multitudes, who have 
 never asked themselves on what ground it should be 
 received. But I propose to confine myself strictly to 
 its rational grounds, and to seek to ascertain to what 
 extent these have been modified by recent scientific 
 theories. 
 
 And, without anticipating my argument, I may 
 permit myself to say that the aim of this discussion 
 will be to show that the rational grounds on which 
 belief in the existence of a Supreme Being must be 
 rested, have not been essentially modified by modern 
 thought. No doubt the most profound alteration of 
 scientific opinion in our time is connected with the 
 doctrine of evolution, in its wide-spread application to 
 physical and moral phenomena. With the various 
 forms of this theory we shall have most to do in the 
 evenings before us. In the conclusions that have 
 been deduced from this theory, the most formidable 
 antagonism to faith in the supernatural, is supposed 
 to lie. But, if I do not wholly fail of the end I have 
 in view, I shall show you, before we conclude, not 
 only that this theory stands in no necessary antag- 
 onism to the doctrine of theism, but that the view 
 of nature, and of natural operations which it en- 
 forces, has some striking points of harmony with 
 the truths not only of natural but of revealed relig- 
 ion. That it results in atheism is a wholly ground- 
 less and gratuitous assumption. 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 3 I 
 
 With a single additional reflection I close these in 
 trodtictory remarks. We have heard much said, in 
 recent days, of the pursuit of truth for its own sake, 
 and surely no pursuit can be nobler, no pursuit can 
 be more alluring to an eager and ingenuous mind. 
 To throw away all lesser considerations, to forget 
 ourselves even, and all that relates merely to our 
 own personal welfare, in the unselfish search after 
 undiscovered principles, to cast every weight of mere 
 private interest aside as we climb the lofty summits 
 that lift themselves before our enraptured gaze, 
 what more worthy temper than this can befit the sin- 
 cere seeker after truth ? Is not the, pursuit of truth, 
 without regard to consequences, our highest duty ? 
 Should not truth be independent of feeling, indepen- 
 dent even of hope ? Will not the genuine worship- 
 per press on in whatever path opens before him, 
 "with his eyes open, with his head erect." "To be 
 strong and of good courage," we are told, is our only 
 watchword. We are bound by the laws of ou intel- 
 tectual being to honest inquiry. With the possible 
 consequences of this inquiry we have no concern. 
 In courageous search alone the soul finds its highest 
 function and its best reward. 
 
 It may be doubted whether this is true. It may be 
 most seriously questioned whether the highest truth 
 should be thus sought in the interest of mere intel- 
 lectual curiosity. This rule may suffice when we 
 seek for truth in some of its more definite and lim- 
 ited forms. The mathematician who sets out to solve 
 an equation, needs only to have his mental parts alert. 
 The chemist may trust his mere intellectual facul- 
 ties when applying his tests. Emotion, passion, sym- 
 pathy, have no place in such restricted fields. But 
 
32 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the maxim fails when we study the more mysterious 
 and far-reaching problems that cover the whole na- 
 ture and destiny of man. The temper proper to mere 
 scientific inquiry will not suffice us here. Logic 
 leads us up to a certain point, but at this point it 
 leaves us in the lurch. The motives proper to 
 scientific investigation by no means include all the 
 legitimate impulses to inquiry. " After all," says 
 Cardinal Newman, " man is not a reasoning animal : 
 he is a seeing, feeling, contemplating, acting ani- 
 mal." And in the pursuit of the highest truth not 
 one faculty, but all faculties need to be enlisted. 
 
 And even were it possible thus to pursue the 
 highest truth as a mere exercise of the intellect, 
 and to separate the search after it from all con- 
 sideration of consequences, it may be still more 
 doubted whether our progress would be helped by 
 't ; whether the mere intellect, could it be di- 
 vorced from the other faculties, would be any more 
 trustworthy in its operations. It by no means fol- 
 lows that in the sphere of spiritual truth the mind 
 is at its best, and that its conclusions are most to be 
 relied upon, when left thus solitary and naked, like 
 Adam before the creation of Eve. In its -perfect 
 state the intellect needs to be wedded to the moral 
 sense. It is an old maxim that " wonder is a highly 
 philosophical affection," and no one who recognizes 
 the fact that man's nature is a unit can for a mo- 
 ment doubt that his faculties are at their most per- 
 fect play when this mutual adjustment is most com- 
 plete. In other words, the highest rational state 
 must be at the same time a moral state, so that the 
 maxim is unquestionably sound that faith, in its best 
 analysis, is an eminent act of reason, and that rea 
 son finds its normal completion in faith. 
 
PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE PROBLEM. 33 
 
 I am well aware that some recent writers are fond 
 of insisting on the distinction between what they 
 term the objective and the subjective methods, and 
 that the great superiority of later over earlier in- 
 quirers is to be attributed to the fact that they have 
 learned to confine themselves rigorously to the for- 
 mer, in other words, that they have learned to look 
 at truth as wholly independent of themselves, and 
 to study it purely for its own sake. Without rais- 
 ing the question whether this be the fact, and 
 whether modern investigators, as a class, show that 
 they are thus exempt from human passions, I ven- 
 ture wholly to doubt whether such purely objective 
 methods would furnish the means by which the 
 highest merits of thinking can be secured ; whether 
 a spirit of inquiry, thus emptied of the universal 
 interests and emotions which belong to man, not 
 merely as a thinking and reasoning, but as a feeling, 
 hoping, believing being, can supply the highest and 
 most earnest impulses to inquiry. Surely the whole 
 history of the race is proof that man has been im- 
 pelled to his most earnest searchings after truth not 
 by mere intellectual, but always by moral impulses. 
 
 And on this point I am glad to appeal to the sup- 
 port of one who will not be suspected of any exces- 
 sive bias in favor of religious truth, but whose state- 
 ments relating to it are singularly clear and accu- 
 rate : " Curiosity determined by natural sentiments 
 and emotions," says the late Chauncey Wright, " sub- 
 jective curiosity, is the cause of a culture coexten- 
 sive with civilization, long preceding the growth 
 of science, and constituting all that is peculiar to 
 civilized life except the material arts. However 
 meanly the conclusions of theological and metaphys- 
 3 
 
34 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ical operations may appear, when tried by the ob- 
 jective standard of science, they, too, have their 
 superiorities, by the test of which science becomes 
 in turn insignificant. Unverified conclusions, vague 
 ideas, crude fancies they may be, but they certainly 
 are the products of activities which constitute more 
 of human happiness and human worth than the nar- 
 row material standards of science have been able to 
 
 measure. 
 
 After these striking words, I do not shrink from 
 expressing my own conviction that the benefit which 
 every one of us may derive from the following dis- 
 cussion will depend very largely on the temper of 
 mind with which we approach its solemn themes. 
 We shall discuss mysteries which have perplexed 
 the wisest thinkers; we shall deal with questions 
 which lend our human lives all their meaning and 
 value. We shall only deceive ourselves if we think 
 there are no difficulties in the path we have to 
 climb. It is impossible to separate our inquiry 
 from issues so vast. I repeat, with added emphasis, 
 what I said at the beginning, that the problems be- 
 fore us are not problems of philosophy, but prob- 
 lems of life. We are not idly gazing at a landscape, 
 pleased for the moment with its alternate play of 
 light and shadow, but we are pilgrims treading a 
 path where a false step may ruin our most cher- 
 ished hopes. To profess indifference to the result 
 is to give the lie to the finest instincts of our na- 
 ture. 
 
 1 Philosophical Discussions, pp. 51, 52. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 PERHAPS some who are present here this evening 
 can remember when a famous lecturer stood forth, 
 in this very city, to vindicate the new views, which, 
 more than a generation ago, were provoking so much 
 discussion. These views, he declared, were not new, 
 but the oldest of thoughts cast into the mould of a 
 new time. In the style which marked him as a con- 
 summate master of the highest of all arts, the art 
 of using our mother tongue, he portrayed the two 
 great schools into which the thinking men of every 
 age have been divided. These two schools were the 
 materialists and the idealists : according to the first, 
 all our knowledge is founded on external experience ; 
 according to the second, the source of knowledge 
 must be sought in the soul itself. The first makes 
 the starting-point of thought the impressions made 
 on the senses ; while the second claims that the 
 thoughts which enable us to classify and arrange the 
 impressions on the senses must be traced to a source 
 which the senses cannot affect. To the first, the 
 world of fact is the only real world ; while the sec- 
 ond insists that only in the world of ideas do we 
 come in contact with the true, the absolute, the eter- 
 nal. To the enthusiastic hearers, who drank in his 
 honeyed words, the speaker seemed the prophet of 
 a new dispensation ; and the disciples of his gospel 
 
36 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 confidently pictured a near time when the ideal would 
 be recognized as the alone real, when the standard 
 of measurement would be found in the mind itself, 
 when society, government, art, religion, would be 
 estimated solely with reference to this, and all the 
 teeming activities of life be viewed as an endless 
 stream flowing from this invisible fountain. Even 
 the moral code would find here its springs. This in- 
 ner life was a law unto itself ; man was best when 
 allowed the largest liberty. The mind fashioned its 
 circumstances; if its thoughts were changed they 
 transformed its conditions. The best that could be 
 asked for man, was that this spiritual principle in 
 him should be suffered to work itself out. In the 
 creed of the new school the first place was given to 
 the intuitions. Hence it hastened to avow its belief 
 in the supra-sensible ; the soul, it affirmed, could 
 come into direct contact with the invisible ; and was 
 open, at all times, to the influx of the All-knowing 
 Spirit. 
 
 The sage who preached this ideal philosophy with 
 so much applause, still lives among us, but the times 
 have changed. The age of the transcendentalist is 
 gone, and the age of the scientist has come. The 
 eager thought of the time no longer expends itself 
 in the shadowy region of the intuition, but follows 
 the pathway of clearly ascertained fact. Instead of 
 ravishing itself with immediate visions of the abso- 
 lute, it denies that the absolute, even conceding its 
 existence, can become a legitimate object of reflec- 
 tion. The new age, so confidently heralded by the 
 prophets of a generation back, has not dawned. Ex- 
 perience, instead of holding a subordinate place, has 
 been in turn raised to the chief rank ; and philosophy, 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 37 
 
 no longer seeking to lay its foundations in regions 
 not subject to the illusions of sense, makes its boast, 
 not only of regarding sense as the starting-point, 
 but of excluding any other source of knowledge. 
 Mind is no more a self-subsisting centre of energy 
 and life, but is reduced to a series of sensations, 
 conditioned in all its action by its physical sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Let me not seem to confound the coarse mate- 
 rialism which Emerson had in mind, with the subtle 
 theories of physical force with which we are familiar. 
 In our day materialism has assumed a new meaning, 
 and in the conception of an indestructible and cease- 
 lessly acting energy, underlying the phenomena of 
 the external world, we seem to have the dividing line 
 between the material and the spiritual almost wiped 
 out. A conception of matter which insists upon rec- 
 ognizing in it the " promise and potency of all life," 
 which tells us that in the nebulous gases, of which 
 the worlds were formed, there lay latent all that 
 afterwards worked itself out in "Hamlet," in "Para- 
 dise Lost," in the " Principia " of Newton, is evi- 
 dently a conception very unlike that against which 
 the transcendentalists protested ; but so far as re- 
 lates to the question of the limitation of human 
 knowledge, the issue remains unchanged. The old 
 problem, which the transcendentalists so confidently 
 solved, still stares us in the face, the problem 
 whether we have any certain knowledge beyond 
 that derived, either directly or indirectly, from ex- 
 perience; and whether, from the things that are 
 seen, we can argue with any assurance to the things 
 that are unseen. 
 
 To understand clearly the position of the school 
 
38 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which now prevails, we must bear in mind the 
 greatly extended meaning given to the term expe- 
 rience. The so-called experiential method by no 
 means restricts itself to the enumeration of partic- 
 ulars, and classification of sensations, which was 
 included in the old empiricism. The range of what 
 is known is extended far beyond what is simply 
 seen and felt. Not only the direct impressions upon 
 the senses, but the indirect representations, in other 
 words, the inferences from the impressions of sense 
 which are capable of being verified by rigid scien- 
 tific method, are all included within its legitimate 
 scope. And not only the experiences of the indi- 
 vidual, but the accumulated and transmitted expe- 
 rience of the race, organized in language, condensed 
 in axioms, the inherited habits of apprehending truth 
 attested in the whole history of man, all this varied, 
 multiplied, constantly augmenting product, goes to 
 swell the vast aggregate to which the term expe- 
 rience is now applied, and to constitute the subject- 
 matter from which the results of thought may be 
 logically deduced. 
 
 Or, stated more precisely, "whatever conceptions 
 can be reached through logical extensions of expe- 
 rience, and can be shown to be conformable with it, 
 are legitimate products, capable of being used as 
 principles for further research." 1 
 
 On the contrary, whatever lies beyond the limits 
 of experience, and claims another origin than that 
 of induction or deduction from clearly ascertained 
 facts, can never be the proper object of scientific 
 research, and can result only in vain strife of words. 
 Science, in short, deals with things and their rela- 
 
 1 G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, ist Series, vol. i., p. 16 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 39 
 
 tions as they are known to us, or as their existence 
 is logically inferred ; beyond this line we plunge into 
 that "vast Serbonian bog" where "armies whole" of 
 metaphysicians have floundered and sunk ; we deal 
 with things and relations not known to us ; we sub- 
 stitute for the constructions of science the con- 
 structions of the imagination. Yet, with this great 
 extension given to the meaning of the term " expe- 
 rience," the problem remains precisely as before : 
 how do we pass from thought to being? what ground 
 of assurance have we that the intellectual process 
 within us has a corresponding reality without ? 
 
 Can we pass outside the limits of our own expe- 
 rience ? This is the problem that stares us in the 
 face at the threshold of our inquiry, and unless we 
 can reach some solution of this, any further inves- 
 tigation will be idle. On this the foundations of 
 natural religion rest ; for if we are shut up to the 
 creations of our own thought, if we have no means 
 of ascertaining whether anything exists outside our- 
 selves and independent of our own mental processes, 
 religion is reduced to mere delusion. It does not 
 matter with what rigorous scientific method we pur- 
 sue our investigations and deduce our inferences ; it 
 does not matter with what imposing array of at- 
 tributes we clothe the ideal construction of our 
 thought ; if we cannot rest, at last, on the firm con- 
 viction of a corresponding reality, all our labor and 
 pains will be thrown away. In the strict and proper 
 sense, we are directly cognizant of no facts but facts 
 of consciousness. Our inner experience is the start- 
 ing-point. Reasoning from what we have given 
 here, how far may we push our conclusions into the 
 sphere outside ourselves ? This is the first ques- 
 tion. 
 
4O THE THEISTTC ARGUMENT. 
 
 It is evident that the problem is precisely the 
 same, whether we speak of the world of matter or 
 the world of spirit. Of neither have we any direct 
 and immediate knowledge. Of neither can we dem- 
 onstrate the existence in the sense in which we 
 demonstrate the truths of mathematics. They lie 
 outside ourselves, and any assumption that we make 
 about them only lands us in manifest absurdity. No 
 conception seems at first sight more simple than 
 that of matter. No child doubts for a moment what 
 his senses report respecting it. But are all the parts 
 of a seemingly solid body in actual contact ? We 
 need only to call to mind that every portion of mat- 
 ter is compressible, to be forced to the admission 
 that the molecules of which matter is composed are 
 separated from each other by tracts of empty space. 
 But are these atoms divisible or indivisible ? If we 
 assume the former, we are confronted with the in- 
 finite divisibility of matter ; if we assume the latter, 
 we have an indivisible atom ; and, in either case, we 
 have a conclusion which baffles human comprehen- 
 sion. We deal with a problem which involves us in 
 endless contradictions. 
 
 The principle of the relativity of knowledge is as- 
 serted as one of the best established conclusions of 
 modern psychology. We reach it, we are told, not 
 only from actual experience, of our inability to con- 
 ceive either of matter or spirit, but from an analysis 
 of our own mental processes. What do we mean 
 when we say that we know any given fact ? Do we 
 mean more than 'that we have perceived either its 
 likeness or its unlikeness to similar facts which we 
 have previously investigated. In other words, things 
 are known only by being classified ; and what we 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 4! 
 
 cannot classify remains for us in the realm of the 
 unknown. A thing is perfectly known only when 
 it is in all respects like things previously observed ; 
 and when it has no attribute in common with any- 
 thing else it must be absolutely unknown. Or, if 
 we view the process under a different but correla- 
 tive aspect, and recognize not likeness, but unlike- 
 ness, we are brought to the same result. To be 
 conscious, we must be conscious of something, and 
 that something can only be known as that which it 
 is by being distinguished from that which it is not. 
 Thus all knowledge is possible only in the form of a 
 relation. 1 
 
 In itself considered, this principle settles nothing 
 as to the limits of human knowledge. It does not de- 
 termine how far the mind may push its inquisitive 
 search into the region of the unknown, but simply 
 declares that as far as the mind goes it must follow a 
 certain method. It does not affirm that we can know 
 nothing of the Absolute, but only that the Absolute 
 must be revealed to us under the conclusions and 
 limitations of our own consciousness ; it does not 
 say that the universe around us and above us must 
 remain inscrutable, but simply that the universe can 
 be known to us only in accordance with the laws of 
 our own spiritual nature. To other beings, consti- 
 tuted in a different way, it may be disclosed in 
 wholly different aspects, but to us it can be made 
 known only under the conditions of our human con- 
 sciousnesl In other words, when we affirm the 
 relativity of knowledge we simply affirm a method, 
 we do not fix a limit. How far the mind, while rec- 
 ognizing this condition, may legitimately go, is a 
 problem that remains still to be decided. 
 
 1 Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. i., p. 14. 
 
42 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 But, with this principle established, that we can- 
 not directly know anything save modifications of our 
 own consciousness, what grounds have we for be- 
 lieving in the existence of anything external to our- 
 selves ? This was the problem with which Berkeley 
 grappled ; and there is a sense, Mr. Mill truly says, 
 in which all modern philosophy may be said to date 
 from the good Bishop, to whom Pope ascribed " every 
 virtue under heaven." His theory of vision is per- 
 haps the most important contribution made to the 
 science of psychology in modern times. When first 
 published it appeared so novel and impossible that 
 it was scouted as a paradox, but it is now accepted 
 by every scientific school. Briefly stated, it amounts 
 to this, that there is no resemblance whatever be- 
 tween the visible and tangible qualities of things, 
 and that, without the aid of our other senses, our 
 eyes could not inform us that anything existed out- 
 side ourselves. The mind invests the colors and 
 gradations of light and shade with the various modi- 
 fications of size and shape, and disposes them at ap- 
 propriate distances, so that in fact we learn to see 
 precisely as we learn to walk. Common experience 
 shows us that what we call seeing is in reality a 
 complicated act of judgment. It is not the eye, but 
 the mind, that sees. 
 
 While the researches of modern physiologists have 
 not affected the truth of Berkeley's theory, they have 
 set it forth in a still more striking light. For. we 
 now know with certainty that it is not the image 
 formed on the retina that the mind perceives, but 
 that the physical process of vision must be traced 
 much farther back. The eye simply receives and 
 measures the impressions made on it by the waves 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 43 
 
 of light, precisely as the thermometer and the bar- 
 ometer measure and register meteorological phenom- 
 ena. Its function is merely to collect the data out of 
 which vision is constructed. The image formed on 
 the retina is not transmitted to the brain. What is 
 sent is simply the sensation excited. Innumerable 
 waves of nervous energy are rolled inward to the 
 next intercranial station (the tubercula quadrigem- 
 ina). Here is the centre of the sense of sight, 
 though not of the highest form of vision. The 
 optic tubercles take up the process of vision where 
 the eye leaves it, and elaborate and coordinate 
 visual impressions. We pass to a third station (the 
 angular gyrus), before we reach the true sphere of 
 vision. Here, deep in the recesses of the brain, the 
 sensations, transmitted through all the curious ap- 
 paratus we have described, are first brought into 
 direct relation with the mind. 
 
 The line of thought so acutely followed out in his 
 theory of vision was what led Berkeley to doubt the 
 existence of a material universe. For, if the world of 
 sight is a phantasm, and exists only in the mind, what 
 reason have we to suppose that the world reported to 
 us by the sense of touch has any real existence out- 
 side ourselves ? Only with regard to this one of the 
 five senses can the question be ever raised. Sight, 
 as we have seen, primarily tells us nothing, and the 
 same may be asserted, without hesitation, of hearing, 
 smell, and taste. They are simply effects produced 
 on the mind, and of the causes which produce them 
 we know nothing. So far as we can see, the nature 
 of the effect depends far more on the constitution 
 of the thing acted upon than on that of the thing act- 
 ing. Only the sense of touch remains, which seems 
 
44 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 to connect us with an external world. But all that 
 touch reveals is muscular resistance. For aught 
 that we know, or ever can know, what we call mat- 
 ter may be only the regular and uniform manifesta- 
 tion of force, and of force we only know that which 
 is the result of mind. Hence Berkeley inferred that 
 the orderly and uniform phenomena of the external 
 world were simply manifestations of an omnipresent 
 mind. 
 
 Berkeley does not deny ; on the contrary, he 
 strongly affirms the uniformity of nature and the 
 universal reign of law. " That what I see, hear, and 
 feel doth exist," says he, " that is to say, is perceived 
 by me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being." 1 
 What he denied was the existence of an unknown 
 something, lying behind phenomena, without sen- 
 sible qualities itself, but capable of exciting the im- 
 pressions of those qualities in the mind of the be- 
 holder. In thus reducing matter to force, and then 
 regarding force as nothing but will, the virtuous prel- 
 ate strangely anticipated some of the most recent 
 results of speculation. As he sat on " the hanging 
 rocks " and gazed at the fair shore where Chan- 
 ning afterwards wandered, he revolved the principle 
 which Schopenhauer in our own time has rendered 
 so familiar. But evidently this does not solve the 
 problem, whether we can know anything of an ex- 
 ternal world. It assumes that this world has no ex- 
 istence, and this cuts but does not untie the knot. 
 Accepting Berkeley's theory, we are shut up to one 
 of two alternatives, either that the modifications of 
 consciousness in the mind are determined directly 
 
 i {Principles of Human Knowledge, P. i., 40 ( Works, ed. Fraser, voL 
 i-, P- I75-] 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 45 
 
 by the will of God, or that they are created by the 
 mind itself. Berkeley chose the former, and in so 
 doing, as he supposed, rested religion on its firmest 
 basis. 
 
 Himself a devout believer and writing in the inter- 
 est of religion, Berkeley paved the way for skepti- 
 cism. He had shown that we have no experience of 
 anything outside ourselves independent of percep- 
 tion; he had discarded the material universe as a 
 figment of the imagination. Hume took up the dis- 
 cussion at this point, and turned the guns from the 
 world without to the world within. If matter was 
 merely a figment, what reason was there to suppose 
 that mind was more than a figment also ? If it was 
 unnecessary to infer the existence of any hidden 
 something as a basis for material phenomena, why 
 was any hidden something necessary to explain the 
 phenomena of mind ? In the external world, all that 
 we have any experience of is impressions. In the 
 inner world, all that we have any experience of is 
 states of consciousness. In either sphere the exist- 
 ence of anything beyond is a simple inference ; and 
 what reason have we for making this inference in 
 the one case more than in the other. Matter is an 
 aggregate of impressions, mind is but a succession 
 of impressions. Thus, by a single step, idealism was 
 converted into skepticism. Respecting the real na- 
 ture of things we know absolutely nothing. 
 
 It was precisely at this point that Kant grasped 
 the problem. To determine whether we have any 
 other source of knowledge than that given in expe- 
 rience, was the professed aim of the critical philos- 
 ophy. Like Locke, of whom he appears as the suc- 
 cessor and rival, the German philosopher undertook 
 
46 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 " to inquire into the origin, certainty, and extent of 
 human knowledge ; " and as a means to this he sought 
 to make a critical examination of the human mind, 
 an accurate analysis of its principal cognitions and 
 ideas. Hence the designation adopted for his sys- 
 tem. His aim was to mediate between the school of 
 intuition and the school of experience. Yet he does 
 not compare the doctrines of those rival schools, 
 but opens for himself a wholly new path. Giving 
 up any consideration, at the outset, of the problems 
 so long and so fruitlessly debated, he sought to go 
 further back and make mind itself the subject of his 
 inquiry. On account of the new method which he 
 thus adopted, he likened himself to Copernicus, who 
 finding that the motions of the heavenly bodies could 
 not be explained by supposing the firmament to re- 
 volve round the earth, reversed the whole theory of 
 the solar system. " Mind," he declared, " does not 
 derive its primitive cognitions from nature, but im- 
 poses them on nature." 
 
 On interrogating consciousness, Kant satisfied 
 himself that neither of the explanations that have 
 been given could account for the phenomena pre- 
 sented. On the one hand, the mind has a class of 
 abstract ideas, as of time, of space, of cause, 
 which could not be resolved into experience alone ; 
 but, on the other, they could as little be regarded 
 as absolutely independent of experience, since they 
 are simply the necessary conditions of experience. 
 There are not, therefore, two sources of knowledge, 
 the intellect and the external world, but knowledge is 
 the union of the two. All knowledge begins with ex- 
 perience, for the faculty of cognition can be awakened 
 into exercise in no other way than by means of objects 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 47 
 
 which affect the senses, and, by rousing the powers 
 of understanding into activity, convert the mere raw 
 material of the sensuous impression into that recog- 
 nition of objects which is termed experience. But 
 it does not follow that all knowledge arises from ex- 
 perience, for it is possible that even our empirical 
 knowledge may be the result of that which we re- 
 ceive through the senses, and that which the faculty 
 of cognition supplies. Against Locke, the German 
 philosopher sought to prove that we have ideas in- 
 dependent 'of experience ; and, against Hume, that 
 these ideas have a necessary and universal charac- 
 ter. 
 
 The great problem which the critical philosopher 
 undertook to solve, as expressed in Kant's own 
 phraseology, was the question, " How are synthetic 
 judgments, a priori, possible ?" What he means is 
 this : All our judgments may be divided into two 
 classes, analytic and synthetic. An analytic judg- 
 ment is simply a definition, as when we say that a 
 triangle has three sides. This statement is simply 
 explicative ; it adds nothing to our knowledge. 
 When, however, we predicate some attribute of a 
 thing not involved in the conception, as that iron is 
 hard, we express an additional truth, and have a 
 synthetic judgment. Synthetic judgments, when 
 derived from experience, are a posteriori, as that 
 sugar is soluble. But are there any not derived 
 from experience ? Hume declared that our ideas of 
 cause and effect are simply the result of an experi- 
 ence of antecedence and consequence. But Kant 
 replied that, in the mere fact of antecedence and 
 consequence, the idea of causation was not given. 
 But, as it is irresistibly believed in, it must have 
 
48 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 some source. If this source cannot be found in ex- 
 perience, it must have a necessary basis in the un- 
 derstanding. We are, therefore, brought to recog- 
 nize the validity of synthetic judgments a priori. 
 
 At first glance we seem to have reached the shore, 
 and to be planted on a rock, from which we can sur- 
 vey with complacency the frail barks of former sys- 
 tems tossed helplessly on an unresting sea. But a 
 closer examination shows that the critical philosophy 
 has not solved the problem of human knowledge. 
 We have found, indeed, that mind does owe some- 
 thing to sense-experience, and that what it adds has 
 the characteristics of certitude and universality, 
 which experience can never claim. Still, the great 
 question, whether we have ideas that are true inde- 
 pendent of ourselves, remains unanswered. These 
 necessary conditions of thought are purely personal. 
 They are applicable only within the field of experi- 
 ence, and if pushed beyond it only lead to delusion 
 and error. According to Kant, even space and 
 time were only forms of human perception, and not 
 modes of real existence. They are universal and 
 necessary conditions of all experience, but have no 
 reality beyond. For the very reason that they exist 
 in the mind, as forms of intuition, they cannot exist 
 out of it. While he did not deny the existence of an 
 external world, he affirmed that its existence could 
 not be proved. 
 
 In spite, then, of his decided antagonism to Hume, 
 Kant must be regarded as equally the precursor of 
 the doctrine of relativity. He taught that every hy- 
 pothesis which we can frame respecting the Infinite, 
 the first cause, or the ultimate essences of things, 
 must inevitably commit us to contradictions. He 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 49 
 
 showed from a psychological analysis that the neces- 
 sary cooperation of two factors, in each act of cog- 
 nition, rendered any knowledge of the external 
 world, as it really exists, forever impossible. And 
 though he conceded that the existence of an exter- 
 nal world was a necessary postulate, yet this exist- 
 ence was only logically affirmed. Any attempt to 
 transcend the sphere of consciousness, he declared, 
 was hopeless ; as well might the bird, when feeling 
 the resistance of the air, wish that it were in a va- 
 cuum. Where Kant differed essentially from Hume 
 was in asserting the veracity of consciousness. 
 Here he found the basis on which to build religion 
 and morals. Reason is wholly incompetent to the 
 task of demonstrating that the world exists, or that 
 God exists. But there is another certitude besides 
 that derived from demonstration. That the world 
 exists, that God exists, are irresistible convictions. 
 
 With this brief review of phases in the history of 
 thought, perhaps familiar to most of you, we are in 
 a position to understand the position of the present 
 school of experience represented by Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer. To this school the term Positive is com- 
 monly applied, but in its latest modification it de- 
 parts essentially from the so-called Positive Philos- 
 ophy as expounded by August Comte. Starting 
 from the postulate of the relativity of knowledge, 
 the French philosopher affirmed not only that all 
 knowledge comes from experience, but that, in its 
 utmost development, it could not go beyond this 
 line. In effect he reduced philosophy to a physical 
 science, and denied that there was any mode of veri- 
 fying truth save that which the physical sciences 
 supply. One method must be followed in all inves- 
 4 
 
50 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 tigations, whether the investigations relate to phys- 
 ics, to psychology, to ethics, or to politics. Hence 
 the contempt which Comte expressed for metaphys- 
 ics as concerned with questions which lay outside 
 the limit of scientific study. Hence his famous doc- 
 trine of the three stages, in which theology and 
 metaphysics were represented as mere stepping- 
 stones of humanity to positive philosophy. 
 
 The attitude of positivism with regard to the great 
 problem whether any reality existed behind the phe- 
 'nomena recognized by the senses was not explicitly 
 defined by Comte ; he simply dismissed the ques- 
 tion. In his recent English representative, John 
 Stuart Mill, we find substantially the same treat- 
 ment of the question. In his essay on Berkeley he 
 says that we owe to that philosopher " the discovery 
 of the true nature and meaning of the externality 
 which we attribute to the objects of our senses ; that 
 it does not consist in a substratum supporting a set 
 of sensible qualities, or an unknown somewhat, which 
 not being itself a sensation gives us our sensations, 
 but consists in the fact that our sensations occur in 
 groups, held together by a permanent law, and which 
 come and go independently of our volitions or men- 
 tal processes." 1 Hence the existence of an unknown 
 reality behind phenomena is not denied, but is left 
 an open question. Hence it appears that the pos- 
 itive philosophy, refusing to deal with anything be- 
 yond the sphere of experience, simply preserves a 
 non-committal attitude with regard to the question 
 of any absolute existence. Any attempt to solve 
 this problem it contemptuously scouts as a task ir. 
 which only children can take an interest. 
 
 1 [Three Essays on Religion (New York, 1874), p. 263.] 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 51 
 
 Precisely at this point the line is drawn between 
 the school of Mill and the school of Spencer. For 
 it is the characteristic of the latter that in opposition 
 to idealism, and to positivism alike, it unhesitatingly 
 affirms the existence of this absolute reality. Start- 
 ing from precisely the same point of the relativity 
 of knowledge, denying that we have direct knowledge 
 of anything but sensible impressions, reducing con- 
 sciousness to a series of successive states, holding 
 much in common with the positive philosophy, it af- 
 firms that by a strict process of scientific reasoning 
 we may reach the result that something real and ab- 
 solute exists behind the phenomena presented to 
 the senses. It affirms this conclusion, not, it is 
 true, on the old ground, but as the only conclusion 
 consistent with that enlarged and systematized ex- 
 perience, to which alone should be given the name 
 of science. It not only refuses to admit the legit- 
 imacy of the inference drawn by the idealist that 
 the unknown reality beyond consciousness does not 
 exist, but affirms positively that the doctrine of rela- 
 tivity cannot be intelligibly stated without postulat- 
 ing the existence of this reality. 
 
 The grounds for this departure from the positive 
 philosophy may be briefly stated thus. Although 
 we have no experience whatever of this absolute ex- 
 istence in itself, we have an experience of the mode 
 in which we are affected by it. This experience 
 generates in us a fixed order of conceptions. And 
 since we are thus possessed of a subjective order of 
 conceptions wholly independent of our volition, we 
 have the strongest possible warrant for believing 
 that this inner order corresponds to the outer order 
 of phenomena. Or in other words, "when any 
 
52 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 given order among our conceptions is so coherent 
 that it cannot be sundered except by the temporary 
 annihilation of some one of its terms, there must be 
 a corresponding order among phenomena." Or, to 
 put the principle in still a different form, " perfect 
 congruity of experience must generate in us belief, 
 of which the component conceptions can by no men- 
 tal effort be torn apart." The result which we thus 
 reach is a reasoned realism, the fundamental the- 
 orem of the most recent form of the experience- 
 philosophy. It may be defined as a synthesis of 
 scientific truths in a universal science dealing with 
 phenomena as manifestations of an absolute power. 
 
 Let us quote the language of Mr. Spencer himself. 
 " One of two things must be asserted : either the 
 antecedents of each feeling, or state of conscious- 
 ness, exist only as previous feelings or states of con- 
 sciousness ; or else they, or some of them, exist 
 apart from, or independently of, consciousness. If 
 the first is asserted, then the proof that whatever 
 we feel exists relatively to ourselves only, becomes 
 doubly meaningless. To say that a sensation of 
 sound and a sensation of jar cannot be respectively 
 like their common antecedent because they are not 
 like one another, is an empty proposition, since the 
 two feelings of sound and jar never have a com- 
 mon antecedent in consciousness. The combination 
 of feelings that is followed by the feeling of jar is 
 never the same as the combination of feelings that 
 is followed by the feeling of sound ; and hence, not 
 having a common antecedent, it cannot be argued 
 that they are unlike it. Moreover, if by antecedent 
 is meant constant and uniform antecedent (and any 
 other meaning is suicidal), then the proposition that 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 53 
 
 the antecedent of sound exists only in consciousness, 
 is absolutely irreconcilable with the fact that the 
 feeling of sound often abruptly breaks in upon the 
 series of feelings otherwise determined, when no 
 antecedent of the specified kind has occurred. The 
 other alternative, therefore, that the active antece- 
 dent of each primary feeling exists independently of 
 consciousness, is the only thinkable one. It is the 
 one implicitly asserted in the very proposition that 
 feelings are relative to our own natures ; and it is 
 taken for granted in every step of every argument 
 by which this proposition is proved." l 
 
 "Hence our firm belief in objective reality, a be- 
 lief which metaphysical criticisms cannot for a mo- 
 ment shake. When we are taught that a piece of 
 matter, regarded by us as existing externally, can- 
 not be really known, but that we can only know cer- 
 tain impressions produced on us, we are yet, by the 
 relativity of our thought, compelled to think of them 
 in relation to a positive cause the notion of a real 
 existence which generated these impressions be- 
 comes nascent." " The momentum of thought inev- 
 itably carries us beyond conditioned existence to un- 
 conditional existence." At the same time that by 
 the laws of thought we are rigorously prevented from 
 forming a conception of absolute existence, we are 
 by the laws of thought equally prevented from rid- 
 ding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute exist- 
 ence ; this consciousness being, as we have seen, the 
 obverse of our self-consciousness." 2 
 
 But this affirmation of the existence of an abso- 
 lute reality, independent of the series of changes 
 
 1 Principles of Psychology, i. 209, 
 
 2 First Principles, pp. 93, 96. 
 
54 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which constitutes our consciousness, is made with 
 important limitations. If we ask for a more precise 
 definition of what it means, we are told that we can- 
 not identify this absolute existence with mind, since 
 what we know as mind is nothing more than a series 
 of phenomenal manifestations, not an occult reality, 
 but simply a group of thoughts and feelings. Nor 
 can we any more identify this absolute existence 
 with matter, since what we know as matter is also 
 but a group of phenomena perceived by the senses. 
 Absolute existence, which exists independently of 
 us, and of which mind and matter are the manifesta- 
 tions, cannot be identified with either. Thus ideal- 
 ism and materialism are equally set aside. And, 
 since the relations of difference and no-difference, 
 under which we are compelled to do all our think- 
 ing, are subjective, we cannot say that there exists 
 independently of consciousness any reality to which 
 these apply ; we cannot conceive of absolute exist- 
 ence even as single being. We can simply affirm 
 the fact of absolute existence ; the nature of that 
 existence remains inscrutable. We have only an 
 unknowable reality, of which all phenomena are 
 knowable manifestations. 
 
 Like the positive philosophy, the system of Mr. 
 Spencer rejects as futile all ontological speculation; 
 like the positive philosophy, it professes to make a 
 rigorous use of scientific method, but it reaches a re- 
 sult from which the positive philosophy recoils. And 
 this result it does not hesitate to assert in the inter- 
 est of religion. "The certainty," says Mr Spencer, 
 " that, on the one hand, such a power exists, while, 
 on the other hand, i f s nature transcends intuition 
 and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 55 
 
 which intelligence has been from the first progress- 
 ing. To this conclusion science inevitably arrives 
 as it reaches its confines ; while to this conclusion 
 religion is irresistibly driven by criticism. And sat- 
 isfying, as it does, the demands of the most rigorous 
 logic, at the same time that it gives the religious 
 sentiment the widest possible sphere of action, it is 
 the conclusion we are bound to accept without re- 
 serve or qualification." And then, having, in reply 
 to Mansel, declared that duty requires us neither to 
 affirm or deny personality of this Absolute Un- 
 known, but submit ourselves with all humility to 
 the established limits of our intelligence, he adds : 
 " This, which to most will seem an essentially irre- 
 ligious position, is an essentially religious one, nay, 
 is the religious one to which all others are but ap- 
 proximations." l 
 
 If we now ask what is the ground of this ineradi- 
 cable belief in the existence of absolute being, we are 
 told that it rests upon the strongest of all founda- 
 tions, the unthinkableness of its opposite. With- 
 out postulating it, we can frame no theory whatever 
 either of external or internal phenomena. But why 
 are we compelled to think in any given way ? Sim- 
 ply, we are told, because we cannot transcend ex- 
 perience. " The very fact of our being compelled to 
 judge of the unknown by the known, of our irresist- 
 ibly anticipating that the future course of events 
 will resemble the past, of our incapacity to believe 
 that the same effects should not grow from, the 
 same causes this very fact is a triumphant proof 
 of our having no ideas not acquired through experi- 
 ence." 2 Only, by experience is not meant merely 
 
 1 [First Principles, p. 108.] 
 
 2 Lewes, History of Philosophy, vol. i., p. cxiii. 
 
56 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the experience of the individual, nor even the expe- 
 rience of the race, transmitted from past generations 
 by tradition, but the very faculties by which ideas 
 are acquired are themselves the products of accumu- 
 lated and organized experiences received by ances- 
 tral races of beings. This primordial experience 
 supplies the basis from which individual experience 
 begins. 
 
 With the scientific value, or the logical consis- 
 tency, of this theory, we are not now concerned. I 
 am not subjecting the philosophy of Mr. Spencer to 
 any critical review, but simply making use of it as 
 illustrating the most recent phase of the doctrine of 
 relativity. And it clearly shows us this, that start- 
 ing with the doctrine that experience is the only 
 source of knowledge, and making the first test of 
 truth to consist in " the inexpugnable persistence 
 in consciousness," insisting throughout that, in its 
 utmost limit, truth is simply the generalization of 
 experience, he reaches a point when he is compelled 
 to believe in something which is not the product of 
 experience, of which he is not and never can be 
 conscious, and which no generalization of science 
 could ever reach. The existence of this something 
 is simply a matter of belief. The metaphysical 
 ground of this belief is a secondary question. It 
 is essential to his own logical support of his posi- 
 tion, but is not essential to our understanding of 
 it. No matter how explained, no matter how well 
 or how ill supported, the simple fact remains, that 
 our only guarantee for the fundamental conception 
 on which philosophy is built is irresistible belief. 
 
 This point is too important to be passed over 
 without further comment. Nothing was more char 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 57 
 
 acteristic of the positive school, as represented by 
 Comte, than the emphasis with which it insisted on 
 a strictly scientific method. No truth was recog- 
 nized as having any validity but reasoned or logic- 
 ally demonstrated truth. The maxims of physical 
 investigation were exalted into a universal organon. 
 No facts were recognized that could not be made 
 evident to sense. It was the boast of this philos- 
 ophy, that the solid walls of the structure that it 
 reared were not weakened by any doubtful mate- 
 rial from the quarry of metaphysics. But this later 
 school denounces, as a popular misconception, the 
 notion that nothing can be known to be true that 
 cannot be demonstrated. It does not hesitate to 
 recognize belief as the sole basis of the fundamental 
 conceptions of human thought. True, it attempts 
 an elaborate vindication of the origin of such belief. 
 Discarding as equally insufficient the explanation of 
 Hume, that the sole criterion of truth is uniformity 
 of experience, and the explanation of Kant, that 
 the criterion of truth is to be found in the constitu- 
 tion of the mind, it professes to blend both theories 
 together in the doctrine that our experience is the 
 register of the facts which the external world is con- 
 tinually impressing upon consciousness, so that the 
 mind receives, from generation to generation, a 
 shape which renders it incapable of conceiving any- 
 thing at variance with this register. But it is clear 
 that this physical theory of the origin of our neces- 
 sary beliefs, whether true or false, does not in the 
 least modify their nature ; nor does it modify, in the 
 slightest degree, the conditions of the problem we 
 have been all along discussing. What ground have 
 we for inferring the existence of an external real 
 
58 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ity corresponding with the subjective order of our 
 thought ? When we reach the last analysis, our sole 
 warrant for this is not demonstration, but belief. 
 In other words, far as we may push our rigid chain 
 of scientific reasoning, we reach at last a line where 
 the whole complexion of our mental state is altered. 
 We may be forced by a logical necessity to conceive 
 the existence of something transcending thought, 
 but that this existence is not ideal, but real, can only 
 be matter of irresistible belief. 
 
 Another characteristic of the Comtean school of 
 positivism was the unqualified contempt which it 
 expressed, on all occasions, for metaphysics. The 
 great problems of metaphysics -were dismissed as in- 
 soluble, as finding no place in scientific method, as 
 characteristic of a lower and preliminary stage in 
 the growth of the human race. But the later theory 
 brings us face to face with a purely ontological con- 
 clusion, the idea of absolute being. And this con- 
 clusion it does not know of as an abstraction, but 
 presents as a reality, the negation of which is incon- 
 ceivable. True, the old phrases are repeated about 
 the fruitlessness of metaphysical inquiry, and what 
 are termed the objective and the subjective methods 
 are carefully distinguished. We are told that the 
 difference between a scientific and a metaphysical 
 principle consists, not in the fact that the former is 
 not disputed, but that it is open to verification, and 
 that a sound philosophy is simply the most general- 
 ized form of science ; but, with whatever pretexts, 
 the great fact is recognized that these conceptions 
 cannot be dismissed from human thought. 
 
 When Mr. Lewes so earnestly contends for the 
 application of scientific methods to metaphysics, he 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 59 
 
 virtually avows that the problems of metaphysics 
 cannot be discarded. There is a path, he tells us, 
 through which these problems may be accessible. 
 The question with him is one of method. The first 
 operation, in dealing with a metaphysical problem, 
 is to disengage the known from the unknown ele- 
 ments. As a guide to research, he proceeds to 
 lay down the formula, that "the existence of an 
 unknown quantity does not necessarily disturb the 
 accuracy of calculations founded on the known func- 
 tions of that quantity." 1 This not only virtually con- 
 cedes the principle for which I contended at the 
 outset, but it reveals, on the part of this popular 
 writer, a significant change in the estimate of truths. 
 The sphere of inquiry is immeasurably extended be- 
 yond the line drawn by those who limited philos- 
 ophy to the study of physical causation. When he 
 assures us that the great problems which for thirty 
 years he dismissed as insoluble he now regards as 
 soluble, he passes sentence of condemnation on all 
 who, on scientific grounds, profess to care not for 
 these things. 
 
 The general body of doctrine that passes under 
 the designation of positivism is the bugbear of the 
 modern religious mind. It is looked upon as a sys- 
 tem which, on rigidly scientific grounds, subverts 
 our belief in a supernatural order, and which arrays 
 all the best attested results of modern scientific in- 
 quiry in opposition to the most cherished convic- 
 tions of the soul. It is popularly regarded as creat- 
 ing an impassable barrier between the seen and the 
 unseen ; as rejecting with contempt inquiries with 
 which the most vital interests of humanity are 
 
 1 [Problems of Life and Mind (ist series), vol. i., p. 37.] 
 
60 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 bound up. And it must be acknowledged that, as 
 frequently expressed in its more popular forms, it 
 has furnished ample occasion for this reproach. But 
 we have seen from this hasty survey, that, accepted 
 in this spirit, it no longer satisfies its most thought- 
 ful adherents. The strict disciples of Comte, at 
 the present day, are a mere handful. His name is 
 mentioned with scorn by some of the leaders of 
 modern thought who owe their first impulse to his 
 teachings ; and, as we know, he lived long enough 
 himself to bring a stinging reproach of insufficiency 
 against his own fundamental postulate. In its mod- 
 ified form, this school deals with the very problems 
 which it once discarded, and not only this, but, in 
 dealing with them, it virtually indorses the method 
 which it once condemned ; for the irresistible belief, 
 which Mr. Spender recognizes as the foundation of 
 philosophy, however he may account for its exist- 
 ence, does not practically differ from the intuition 
 on which the older philosophy insisted. If this is 
 merely the result of experience, it cannot be neces- 
 sary and absolute ; if necessary and absolute, it must 
 involve an element which mere experience cannot 
 supply. It was this intuitional element in Spen- 
 cer's view which excited the profound repugnance 
 of Mr. Mill. But this is one of its fundamental 
 characteristics ; and although, as applied by Mr. 
 Spencer, it cannot be said to advance us very far in 
 the line of any positive religious conception, yet it 
 effectually demolished the barrier which the earlier 
 positivism had set up. It again opened the ques- 
 tions which Comte had declared forever settled. It 
 may not decide these questions in a satisfactory way 
 but it no longer seeks to banish them from the juris- 
 diction of human thought. 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 6 1 
 
 In recognizing, even in this modified form, the 
 Validity of intuition, Mr. Spencer concedes the great 
 principle that the sphere of truth extends beyond the 
 domain of mere logical inference. In other words, 
 the soul is seen to be subject to more than mere 
 intellectual conditions. It was a maxim of Comte, 
 a maxim that underlies and pervades his whole the- 
 ory of the progress of humanity, that ideas and 
 ideas alone, govern and modify society; that the so- 
 cial mechanism, in its last analysis, rests wholly on 
 opinions. This doctrine was made familiar to Eng- 
 lish readers a few years ago in the now almost forgot- 
 ten history of Mr. Buckle. This writer, with a parade 
 of learning that for the n>oment confused his undis- 
 cerning readers, set forth the theorem that the laws 
 of human development were only intellectual laws, 
 and that the moral element might safely be omitted 
 from our survey. We find in Mr. Spencer an un- 
 qualified rejection of this view. " Ideas," he tells us 
 in a striking passage, " do not govern and overthrow 
 the world ; the world is governed or overthrown by 
 feelings, to which ideas serve only as guides. The 
 social mechanism does not rest finally upon opinions, 
 but almost wholly upon character." 
 
 Refusing as he did, to recognize in his philosophy 
 any consciousness of a cause manifesting itself to 
 us in phenomena, scouting, indeed, the very con- 
 ception of cause as unworthy the notice of science, 
 Comte, when in his old age he sought satisfaction 
 for the irresistible cravings of his religious nature, 
 was driven to find the object of his worship in Hu- 
 manity, whose collective life he termed the Supreme 
 Being. And hence that strange ritual, which Mr. 
 Huxley sneered at as " Catholicism minus Christian- 
 
62 THE TIIEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ity ; " while Mr. Spencer, conceiving the object of 
 religious sentiment as the unknown source of things, 
 insists that however the mere forms of apprehension 
 may change, from age to age, the substance of the 
 consciousness can never pass away. But as, accord 
 ing to his view, the life of humanity is a constant 
 evolution, the inner necessity which shapes our think- 
 ing, being the result of a constant and progressive 
 modification of the structure of the mind itself, we 
 can fix no limit to the form which the religious sen- 
 timent may assume. In our knowledge of the Infi- 
 nite Unknowable we may make an indefinite advance, 
 and come to know far more than we now do of the 
 Being whom we can never fully search out. 
 
 The question by what philosophical term we may 
 choose to designate the result here reached is a ques- 
 tion of quite secondary consequence. The term 
 intuition is connected with old associations and with 
 different modes of thought. But when we are told 
 that, as the last result of a scientific method, and by 
 the inexorable conditions of our thought we are com- 
 pelled to recognize the existence of .a "Power to 
 which no limit in time or space is conceivable, of 
 which all phenomena, as presented in consciousness 
 are manifestations," we seem to recognize what phi- 
 losophy regards as the most fundamental of all intu- 
 itions, the intuition of Being. And, in reaching this 
 result, it need hardly be added, we reach the start- 
 ing-point of Natural Religion. With this postulate 
 conceded, what remains is a question of mere method. 
 We may pause with this result, or following the 
 path of a scientific or a metaphysical inquiry, may 
 deduce further conclusions from it. We may deduce 
 these conclusions soberly, or we may deduce them 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 63 
 
 rashly ; we may pursue the inquiry with the indiffer- 
 ence with which we investigate physical phenomena, 
 or we may pursue it with our whole being stirred to 
 its inmost depths by a sense of the overwhelming 
 interests involved in the solution of the problem, but 
 we are no longer at issue respecting the reality of 
 the fundamental conception on which religion rests. 
 The doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, about 
 which we have heard so much, does not affect this 
 conception in the least. A few may say, with Mr. 
 Frederic Harrison, " We do not concern ourselves 
 with the absolute and the infinite, or with first 
 causes, or eternity, or transcendehtals of any kind. 
 We neither accept these notions nor deny them, nor 
 disprove them, nor denounce them, nor in any way 
 concern ourselves about them," but the doctrine 
 of relativity leads legitimately and logically to no 
 such result. Physical science may rightly take this 
 ground. The physical inquirer, if he is wise, will 
 not intrude upon any other. But beyond the limit 
 of logical inference lie truths which make their ap- 
 peal to something deeper in man than the mere rea- 
 soning faculty. So that, however unsatisfactory Mr. 
 Spencer's conclusion may seem, if we go no further, 
 it supplies an essential siep in our argument for 
 Theism. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that in affirming this we 
 go back to the seductive theories of the early Tran- 
 scendentalists. The result which we here reach is 
 by no means the result which they proclaimed with 
 such generous enthusiasm. The faith instilled in 
 their musical sentences was faith in a direct insight 
 that recognized ideas independently of any relation 
 to the phenomena of sense and spirit. The capacity 
 
64 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 to recognize these ideas was conceived of as a spe- 
 cial faculty for the infinite and absolute, an imme- 
 diate intuition of the eternal and divine. According 
 to this theory, the more completely the soul was 
 sundered from the things of sense, the clearer and 
 more penetrating was its insight. But the conclu- 
 sion which we have reached, though not the logical 
 result of reasoning, is yet, in the strictest sense, a 
 rational result. For, while we conceive that the 
 absolute cannot be known as the product of any in- 
 ductive or deductive reasoning from the phenomena 
 presented to the senses, we affirm that it is and can 
 be known as the correlate which must be necessarily 
 assumed to explain and account for those phenom- 
 ena. And it is by fixing the attention upon these 
 phenomena that the existence of the absolute and 
 eternal is made evident. 
 
 This belief which we have reached in the exist- 
 ence of Absolute Being may, therefore, be defined 
 as an act of Reason. " Reason," in the words of 
 Cardinal Newman, "is that faculty of mind by which 
 knowledge of things external to us, of beings, facts, 
 and events, is attained beyond the range of sense. 
 It ascertains for us not material things only, or im- 
 material only, or present only, or past, or future ; 
 but, even if limited in its power, it is unlimited in 
 its range, viewed as a faculty, though of course in 
 individuals it varies in range also. It reaches to the 
 ends of the universe, and to the throne of God be- 
 yond them ; it brings us knowledge, whether clear 
 or uncertain, still knowledge, in whatever degree of 
 perfection from every side ; but at the same time 
 with this characteristic, that it obtains it indirectly, 
 not directly." 
 
THE RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 65 
 
 " Reason does not really perceive anything ; but 
 it is a faculty of proceeding from things that are 
 perceived to things which are not ; the existence of 
 which it certifies to us on the hypothesis of some- 
 thing else being known to exist, in other words, being 
 assumed to be true." 
 
 " Now, if this be Reason, an act or process of 
 Faith, simply considered, is certainly an exercise 
 of Reason. It is an acceptance of things as real 
 which the senses do not convey : it is an instrument 
 of indirect knowledge concerning things external 
 to us." 1 
 
 I trust that in this imperfect handling of a great 
 subject I have not failed to make my main purpose 
 clear. In presenting the argument for the divine 
 existence, it was needful to show whether the ques- 
 tion was one with which the intellect could legiti- 
 mately deal. Does a problem so vast lie within the 
 scope of finite faculties ? This raises at once the 
 question of the nature and limitations of human 
 knowledge. That human knowledge is in its nature 
 relative, that what we know can be known to us 
 only under the limitations of human consciousness, 
 is a principle on which all sober thinkers are agreed. 
 But what is implied in this ; how far is the mind 
 shut up by acknowledging this principle ? Accord- 
 ing to one view the mind is shut up to phenomena 
 and their laws, and any attempt to pass this line is 
 denounced as childish folly. But I have endeavored 
 to show, from the writings of the recognized living 
 leader of this school, that the doctrine of relativity, 
 fairly understood, will not allow us to stop here, that 
 we are brought at last to a point where the intuition 
 
 1 University Sermons, p. 206. 
 5 
 
66 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 of absolute existence is forced irresistibly upon the 
 mind. Even science cannot come to its extreme 
 verge without drawing transcendental inferences. 
 
 When La Place was reproached for not having 
 mentioned the name of God in his great work, he re- 
 plied that he had no need of that hypothesis. As a 
 mere man of science, he had a perfect right to make 
 such an answer. Physical science deals with the 
 facts of nature, and the laws to be deduced from 
 them. It does not undertake to go beyond. If the 
 motions of the heavenly bodies could be accounted 
 for on a purely mechanical principle, the astron- 
 omer had a right to stop with that. The task he 
 had in hand did not require him to push his re- 
 searches any further. But precisely where the as- 
 tronomer stopped all the real interest of the problem 
 began. The question which he had so skillfully an- 
 swered only brought the mind face to face with 
 questions which his methods could not solve. By 
 the laws of our intellectual constitution we are 
 forced to believe that there is something beyond. 
 What light is thrown by the external universe, or 
 by our own consciousness, upon the nature of that 
 unknown something; what is taught us by the seen 
 respecting the unseen ; these are questions which 
 science does not ask, but to which the soul of man 
 demands an answer. 
 
LECTURE III. ^ 
 
 CAUSE AND FORCE. 
 
 LET us see how far our inquiry has thus far 
 brought us. I have sought to show that the ac- 
 cepted methods of modern philosophical thought 
 furnish no presumption against the primary postu- 
 late on which natural religion rests ; that the recog- 
 nized principle of the relativity of knowledge, in- 
 stead of excluding, logically involves the affirmation 
 of absolute existence. It is simply repeating a com- 
 monplace when I assert that all inquiry leads us 
 back to certain ultimate truths, or facts, which defy 
 any further analysis, and of which the most that we 
 can say is that no conception whatever of things can 
 be formed which does not rest in the affirmation of 
 their existence. For any explanation of the uni- 
 verse that the mind essays must end in the inexpli- 
 cable. The confines of the known are everywhere in 
 contact with the unknown ; the most certain knowl-- 
 edge on every side fades out in mystery ; the far- 
 thest vision at length grows dim ; the infinite world 
 of ever-changing phenomena forces on us the con- 
 viction of something of which all this is but the 
 manifestation and which changes not. 
 
 We have now to ask whether this mystery that 
 envelops the origin and end of all things is abso- 
 lutely inscrutable, or whether the human intelligence 
 may make some effort to search it out. . Are we shut 
 
68 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 up to the blank conclusion that some Being exists, 
 forced to recognize the fact, but with no faculties 
 that fit us to understand its nature and interpret its 
 relation to ourselves ; or have we the means given us 
 of advancing along the path that thus opens before 
 us ? What can we know of the central principle of 
 all existence ? Is it in its real essence accessible to 
 our finite faculties ? Are we capable of reaching 
 any further explanation of it ? These are the prob- 
 lems that have haunted human thought since the day 
 when man became conscious of his own existence. 
 The first dim questioning of the awakened soul in 
 the infancy of time, and the latest results of the most 
 matured and discriminated scientific thought, lead 
 to the same result, and culminate in the question 
 which is the last, and highest, and greatest of all 
 questions, the question as to the nature of that Be- 
 ing who is before all things and in whom all things 
 consist. 
 
 But it will be of use, at the outset, to state the pre- 
 cise form of the inquiry upon which we are about to 
 enter. The contest between those who affirm and 
 those who deny the existence of a Supreme Being, 
 or at least who deny that we have any sufficient evi- 
 dence presented to us for affirming that existence, 
 has varied materially from age to age, and the points 
 on which the controversy now hinges are not the 
 points on which it Hinged a century ago. In the 
 last century the warfare against religious belief was 
 mainly waged on metaphysical grounds ; at the pres- 
 sent day it is mainly waged on grounds derived from 
 the conclusions of science. The physical sciences 
 especially are claimed to have established beyond 
 doubt certain principles which, if they do not con- 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 69 
 
 tradict the existence of a Supreme Being, at least 
 render the hypothesis of such existence no longer 
 necessary. In the new conception which we have 
 reached of the organization and correlation of the 
 material universe, we have a satisfactory solution 
 given us of the problem of existence, and religious 
 belief is discarded as an explanation suited to one 
 stage of human progress, but destined now to give 
 way to a worthier view. 
 
 By the most serious advocates of anti-theistic 
 views it is not denied that the race, in its actual his- 
 torical development, has tended to recognize the ex- 
 istence of a Supreme Being ; nor is it denied that 
 the question to which theism is an answer is a very 
 natural one, and that it has its origin in an obvious 
 want of the human mind. For as soon as the mind 
 rose to the conception of nature as a connected sys- 
 tem, the conviction that this united whole had its 
 origin in one mind, and was directed by one will, 
 was a conception to which it was logically led. Ac- 
 customed as we are within the limits of experience 
 to find a definite beginning for every fact, and to 
 reason continually from effects to causes, it was im- 
 possible that the mind should not ask whether all 
 that we see had not also a beginning, and whether 
 behind the endless play of causes and effects contin- 
 ually presented to us, there were not veiled a more 
 remote and ultimate cause. But the question, it is 
 claimed, which we have now to answer is, whether 
 this universal and natural belief is consistent with 
 the ascertained results of science, and will it bear to 
 be tested by the established canons of scientific in- 
 quiry. 
 
 Let me illustrate more clearly the nature of this 
 
70 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 change. A little more than half a century ago, in a 
 lonely spot on the Italian coast, a few miles to the 
 north of Leghorn, a strange drama was enacted, a 
 drama that in a Christian age and in a Christian 
 land seemed the revival of a pagan rite. On the 
 yellow sand which the blue water of the Mediter- 
 ranean was gently washing, with the islands of 
 Gorgona and Elba lying in the sunlight, with the 
 marble-crested Apennines glistening in the back- 
 ground, with not a human dwelling in sight, and 
 only the old battlemented watch-towers, that stretch 
 along the coast, looming up as silent witnesses, 
 a funeral pyre was built. From out the pure 
 sand that lay lightly over it a naked human body, of 
 wondrous loveliness, was next drawn, and laid upon 
 the wood. Wine and oil was then poured reverently 
 upon it, which when the fire was kindled caused so 
 intense a heat that the atmosphere itself grew trem- 
 ulous and wavy with the quivering flames. In the 
 fierce burning the body was soon reduced to ashes, 
 the only portions not consumed being some frag- 
 ments of bone, with the jaw and skull. In the fiery 
 pile the heart alone remained entire. 1 
 
 Beside the funeral pyre, watching with intense in- 
 terest the progress of the flames, stood three com- 
 panions and fellow-countrymen of the departed, one 
 of them the most famous poet of modern times. 
 Byron watching, by the shore of the sea that he 
 loved and sung so well, the burning of the lifeless 
 form of Shelley ! I recall no picture more striking 
 than that ! The poet who sets to- music as no other 
 poet has done the immeasurable griefs and woes that 
 
 1 [See Trelawny, Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author, vol. i 
 
 p. 212.] 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 71 
 
 make such heart-ache of human life, and the poet 
 whose most daring venture in verse was a denial 
 that life had any consolation beyond the grave. Of 
 Shelley it was Byron himself that wrote, " He was 
 the most gentle, the most amiable, and least worldly- 
 minded person that I ever met ; full of delicacy, dis- 
 interested beyond other men, and possessing a de- 
 gree of genius joined to simplicity as rare as it is 
 admirable." And yet this youth, this amiable, this 
 unworldly, disinterested being, when still a youth 
 was expelled from Oxford for avowing himself an 
 atheist, and remained through his brief life the pas- 
 sionate apostle of a creed which left to those who 
 gathered up his ashes nothing 
 
 " But pale despair and cold tranquillity." 
 
 With Shelley atheism was a sentiment. The 
 ruling impulse of his nature was a passionate antag- 
 onism to what he regarded as unreal and conven- 
 tional. His disgust with platitudes, his enthusiastic 
 love of liberty, his hatred of intolerance, his impa- 
 tience of control, his passion for a kind of logical 
 consistency, all combined to make him the champion 
 of an extreme opinion. His favorite ideal, we are 
 told by his latest biographer, was the vision of a 
 youth "whose eloquence had power to break the 
 bonds of despotism, as the sun thaws the ice on an 
 April morning." 1 Compound of poet and philos- 
 opher, his imagination pictured a. new realm of truth 
 and love and beauty amid the wreck of religious 
 faith in which he rejoiced. The spirit of that un- 
 quiet time, of which the French Revolution was the 
 fruit, was strong upon him. So far as he had any 
 
 1 [J. A. Symonds, Life of Shelley, (Am. ed.) p. 39.] 
 
72 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 reasoned ground for his unbelief it was drawn from 
 the arguments of Hume. The little tract which 
 provoked his expulsion from the university was 
 mainly an abstract of the Scotch philosopher. His 
 favorite authors were the superficial French ma- 
 terialists. And it is striking to note that as his 
 poetic instinct was emancipated from the snares of 
 metaphysics he seemed to yearn for a more satis- 
 factory solution of the dark problem of existence. 
 
 But the denial of any proof of the divine existence 
 with which we are confronted in modern thought is 
 of a very different kind. It is not a mere passionate 
 protest against the tyranny of custom, an impatient 
 revolt against whatever is accepted and established, 
 it is the calm deliberate conclusion of those who are 
 ready to acknowledge that religion is venerable for 
 its age, and consoling in its teachings, but who re- 
 fuse to accept it because it will not bear to be tested 
 by the principles and canons which have been es- 
 tablished as the only safe guides of inquiry. The 
 ruling idea of our time is not revolution but evolu- 
 tion. It affects, no contempt for the past, as was so 
 much the fashion in the last century ; it wages no 
 angry contest with what is old and established ; on 
 the contrary, it recognizes all that has gone before as 
 the essential condition of the present, the ladder by 
 which the human mind has climbed to its present 
 height. In its cautious adherence to its own meth- 
 ods it refuses even to deny the existence of an eter- 
 nal ground of all phenomena ; it only asserts that 
 respecting this eternal source of all existence we, 
 as finite beings, are able neither to affirm nor to 
 deny anything. 
 
 That, after so many centuries, this question should 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 73 
 
 still be debated seems indeed like an irony of fate. 
 That the human race should have existed so many 
 years, that it should have indulged such long cher- 
 ished hopes, that it should have confided in so many 
 forms of faith, and received as authentic so many 
 utterances respecting the invisible world, only at last 
 to be brought to the conclusion that it has walked 
 in a vain show when it supposed itself to be com- 
 muning with its Maker, is a fact which at the outset 
 may incline us to view with distrust any attempt to 
 rest the fundamental postulate of theism upon ra- 
 tional grounds. The utter impotence of reason to 
 deal with this problem, may seem sufficiently at- 
 tested in the fact that the progressive development 
 of thought, and the perfecting of methods of inquiry, 
 have only landed the most cultivated minds in utter 
 skepticism. One deeply convinced of the vital re- 
 lation of this doctrine to the welfare of the soul may 
 well shrink from what seems so precarious an ex- 
 periment as the attempt to justify to reason what 
 should be accepted upon other and more indisputa- 
 ble grounds. 
 
 Yet however profound may be our conviction of 
 the importance of the issues involved in the discus- 
 sion, the inquiry whether religion has any reason- 
 able ground is one that, in the present state of opin- 
 ion, we cannot afford to pass by. Without ques- 
 tioning the fact that feeling and will are as important 
 constituents in religious life as rational conviction, it 
 seems clear that we cannot feel dependence upon that 
 of whose existence we are not convinced, and that 
 we cannot love or fear that of 'which we have no 
 conception. The entire self-surrender of the soul, 
 which is the very essence of religion, can only be 
 
74 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 distinguished from superstition, when it is regarded 
 as in the highest sense a rational act. On any 
 other supposition religion must be viewed as a form 
 of mental disease. And as a fact history shows us, 
 that whatever have been the errors and shortcom- 
 ings of human reason, it has always been in the 
 path of rational inquiry that men have reached a 
 theistic conception. Not by discarding reason, but 
 by making use of reason, has the human mind risen 
 from inadequate to adequate conceptions of the Su- 
 preme Being. 
 
 Theism may be defined in few words, " as the 
 doctrine that the universe owes its existence, and 
 continuance in existence, to the reason and will of a 
 self-existent Being, who is infinitely powerful, wise, 
 and good. It is the doctrine that nature has a Cre- 
 ator and Preserver, the nations a Governor, men a 
 Heavenly Father and Judge." 1 As a matte'r of fact, 
 this conception has not been wrought by each one of 
 us for himself, but has been handed down from age 
 to age, from generation to generation, from parent 
 to child. Few of us know when or how we became 
 possessed of it. Tradition, education, social influ- 
 ence, have determined its shape and insured its ac- 
 ceptance. It is part of our civilization, part of our 
 life, is the very air we breathe. Yet this does not 
 relieve us from the obligation of ascertaining the 
 rational grounds on which it rests. And this obliga- 
 tion, which our own inner harmony demands, be 
 comes imperative whenever the doctrine is called in 
 question. What we have perhaps accepted with pas- 
 sive acquiescence, becomes then, at once, the most 
 urgent, the most sacred, the most momentous inquiry 
 
 i Prof. R. Flint, Theism, p. 18. 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 75 
 
 with which the human intelligence can ever busy 
 itself. 
 
 And since truth is infinite, it seems a reasonable 
 conclusion that the knowledge of religious truth, like 
 other knowledge, is progressive. It has been hastily 
 assumed that in the discussion of religious questions 
 we only tread a circle, and repeat, in other phrases, 
 arguments which have been again and again ad- 
 vanced. But there seems no good reason for sup- 
 posing that here, as everywhere, the mind cannot, 
 by deeper reflection, by wider comparison, by sur- 
 vey of the subject from new points, be unclothed of 
 old errors and clothed upon with new truths. And 
 especially may such a result be anticipated as a re- 
 sult of the new controversies which from time to time 
 spring up. A new phase of error and unbelief, if it 
 be proved to be such, can hardly fail to develop a 
 new phase of truth. Progress is the conciliation of 
 apparent contradictions. It may be, even in relig- 
 ious controversy, that both assertions are imperfect 
 statements. In dealing, therefore, with what we re- 
 gard as error, we need not be disturbed, if we find, 
 on emerging from the conflict, that while we have 
 established some positions, we have been compelled 
 to relinquish others. We learn often our best les- 
 sons from our foes. 
 
 If, then, we believe that there is one God, and be- 
 lieve further, that we can know Him in his relations 
 to ourselves, we ought to have reasons or grounds 
 for this belief. But, upon entering upon a more de- 
 tailed examination of these grounds, there are certain 
 general considerations respecting the nature and 
 limits of the inquiry in which we are about to en- 
 gage, that ought to be presented. The question is 
 
76 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the most momentous and solemn that the human 
 mind can consider, and it needs to be approached 
 with especial care. I do not refer simply to the 
 moral temper that befits such an inquiry, for it need 
 not be said that in such a discussion we ought, at 
 the outset, to divest ourselves of the spirit of the 
 mere controversialist. The petty ambition to van- 
 quish an opponent should have no place in a discus- 
 sion like the present. We are dealing with a ques- 
 tion of incalculable gravity, and one respecting which 
 opinion, in our time, is widely and seriously divided. 
 And the arguments of those who deny that there is 
 any proof of the divine existence, or any means of 
 knowing the divine nature, have been urged with 
 too much candor, and too much seriousness, to be 
 met with any but the most considerate and respect- 
 ful answer. 
 
 But what I have in mind is not so much this moral 
 temper, as certain intellectual conditions which 
 should guide our study. The nature of the proof 
 which we are about to undertake, needs to be care- 
 fully discriminated. Since the famous critique of 
 Kant, arguments which once played a great part in 
 the discussion have fallen into disrepute, and the 
 opinion has come to be widely spread, not only with 
 those who reject, but also with those who accept the 
 doctrine, that the existence of God does not admit 
 of being proved. It is therefore needful to state 
 clearly, at the outset, in what sense we use the word 
 proof as applied to the divine existence. For it is 
 hardly necessary to say that the term, in different 
 departments of inquiry, is used in very different 
 meanings. " The proofs for the existence of God," 
 says Uirici, " coincide with the grounds for the be 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. JJ 
 
 lief in God ; they are simply the real grounds of the 
 belief, established and expounded in a scientific man- 
 ner. If there be no such proofs, there are also no 
 such grounds, and a belief which has no ground, 
 if possible at all, can be no proper belief, but an ar- 
 bitrary, self-made, subjective opinion. It must sink 
 to the level of mere illusion." l 
 
 If this be true, it follows that the proofs of God's 
 existence must be simply his own manifestations ; 
 the ways in which He makes himself known, or, 
 in other words, the phenomena alike of conscious- 
 ness and of the external world. Our reasonings 
 have no value save in so far as they are inductions 
 from these, and from these phenomena our minds 
 may rise legitimately to the apprehension of God, 
 though we are capable, in many instances, of giving 
 ourselves no rational account of the process through 
 which we have gone. The analysis of our mental 
 acts belongs to a later stage of our development. 
 According to this view, it follows further that the 
 evidences of the divine existence are innumerable, 
 while at the same time they coalesce in a single, 
 comprehensive argument. And being so countless 
 and multiform they address different minds in very 
 different ways. Thus, as Mr. Mill truly remarks, 
 " the evidences of a Creator are not only of several 
 distinct kinds, but. of such diverse characters that 
 they are adapted to minds of very different descrip- 
 tions, and it is hardly possible for any mind to be 
 equally impressed by them all." 2 Hence a true view 
 of the subject must be a very wide and very com- 
 prehensive view. 
 
 1 Quoted by Flint, Thehm, p. 60. 
 
 2 Three Essays, etc., p. 138. 
 
78 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 And not only this, but the exceedingly complex 
 nature of the theistic argument is further seen in 
 the fact that the very process by which the mind 
 rises to the apprehension of God is a process which 
 involves what is most distinctive and essential in its 
 own constitution. Or, in other words, God can be 
 thought of as the active, intelligent principle of all 
 that exists only after a distinct consciousness of our 
 own selves as voluntary agents. To conceive of the 
 Deity as a cause, we must have had some experi- 
 ence of causation. If we did not first know our- 
 selves as causes, we should never reach the concep- 
 tion of a primary, all-originating will. So, too, it is 
 only in virtue of the direct consciousness of our in- 
 tellectual operations, that we can conceive of a Su- 
 preme Intelligence. So, from our moral nature, we 
 are led in the same way to invest the Divine Being 
 with moral perfections. Thus the mental process 
 by which we reach the idea of God, is a process 
 which summons into activity all that is highest and 
 most essential in human nature. Whether the re- 
 sult which we thus reach is legitimate or not, it is a 
 result in which all our noblest parts and all our 
 finest faculties harmoniously concur. 
 
 Thus the various arguments for the existence of 
 the Supreme Being are but stages in a single ra- 
 tional process, and parts of one comprehensive 
 proof. They are organically related, and they ought 
 t: be separated only for the purpose of comparison 
 and study. The strength of the argument is the 
 strength of the whole, not the strength of any of 
 the separate proofs which go to make it up. And 
 although so comprehensive and various an argument 
 may appear, at first sight, confused and difficult, it 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. Jg 
 
 is not really so. Though the Divine Being seems 
 so far removed from us in accessless majesty, 
 though no man hath seen Him at any time, and 
 though we have .no direct or immediate knowledge 
 of Him, yet we know Him as naturally and as simply 
 as we know our fellow men, and in fact we know 
 Him, if we know Him at all, in the same way. We 
 have no direct or immediate knowledge of our fellow 
 men. In either case, we simply refer certain mani- 
 festations of character to certain moral and intel- 
 lectual qualities which consciousness has revealed 
 to us as their causes. Thus we grow in the knowl- 
 edge of God precisely as we grow in the knowledge 
 of those whom we meet in the intercourse of every 
 day. 
 
 I do not of course mean that the evidence of the 
 divine existence is as plain and indubitable as the 
 existence of our fellow men. Were it so, we might 
 have spared ourselves this long discussion. Though 
 some have made a boast of atheism who really be- 
 lieved in a form of theism, and some have been 
 called atheists for rejecting unworthy conceptions 
 of the Supreme Being, we must suppose that many 
 have been brought sincerely to doubt the divine 
 existence. Yet the fact that some do not reach any 
 belief in God, does not render any less true the 
 statement, that the process by which the mind at- 
 tains such belief is of the same direct and natural 
 character as the process by which it attains belief in 
 the existence of finite beings. And when it has at- 
 tained this belief its further apprehension of the 
 character and attributes of God is also of essentially 
 the same nature as that by which it becomes ac- 
 quainted with its fellows. For the mental process 
 
SO THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 must remain the same, whatever the subject with 
 which for the time the mind is conversant. With- 
 out doubt the mental process is affected by the 
 moral state, and becomes keener and more active as 
 the emotions are quickened; but that its essential 
 movement is the same, under whatever circum- 
 stances, cannot admit of doubt. 
 
 We do not need to burden our discussion with 
 the consideration of arguments for the Divine ex- 
 istence which are practically obsolete, and which do 
 not touch modern speculation with force enough 
 even to provoke controversy. These theories lie 
 like wrecks on the shores of thought, and interest 
 us only as relics of an intellectual habit that has 
 long passed away. These a priori proofs possessed 
 a singular fascination for speculative minds, but had 
 they been conclusive they would, like the demonstra- 
 tions of geometry, have carried irresistible convic- 
 tion long ago. The fact that they have failed to 
 convince is the best evidence that they were falla- 
 cious. Whether in the form in which the argument 
 was first stated by Anselm, or in the more elaborate 
 theory of Descartes, they are all open to the same 
 objection of reasoning from the necessary notion of 
 God to his necessary existence. But the very es- 
 sence of the problem is the opening of a path by 
 which we may pass from the notions of the intellect 
 to the realities of the universe beyond, and at the 
 very outset to assume the existence of the one as a 
 demonstration of the other is simply to beg the 
 question. We have, in reality, simply an ideal con- 
 clusion from an ideal premise. 
 
 Anselm argued that our idea of God is the idea 
 of a being than whom we can conceive nothing 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 3 1 
 
 greater. But since real existence is greater than 
 mere thought, the existence of God is involved in 
 the idea of the most perfect being. For if we sup- 
 pose God not to have existence, the idea of some- 
 thing greater would remain. This subtle reasoning 
 was characteristic of the scholastic age. That so 
 acute a mind should have been satisfied with such 
 an argument can only be explained from the intel- 
 lectual habit of the time. Descartes, while devising 
 a new method of experimental -research, strangely 
 followed the track of mediaeval speculation. He 
 argued that necessary existence is as essential to 
 the idea of an all-perfect being as the equality of its 
 three angles to two right angles is essential to the 
 idea of a triangle. " I cannot conceive God," he 
 says, " except as existing, and hence it follows that 
 existence is inseparable from him." l Here, again, 
 an ideal concept is identified with an external fact. 
 The most that the argument could prove would be 
 that the mental concept was necessary, not that it 
 had any counterpart in the external universe. But 
 we need not linger with arguments that modern 
 thought has ceased to notice. 
 
 Let us pass, then, to a conception which is still 
 regarded as a main support of the argument for the 
 divine existence, the idea of a First Cause. It has 
 been truly remarked, that everybody is a metaphysi- 
 cian, just as everybody is a poet ; that is, everybody 
 has certain primary ideas and maxims which are in- 
 volved in all exercise of thought, precisely as the 
 rules of grammar are involved in speech. In Moliere's 
 amusing play, Monsieur Jourdain is amazed to find 
 that he had all his life been speaking prose, though 
 
 1 \Meditationes, v.] 
 6 
 
82 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 he had done it with no knowledge of the fact. In 
 the same way we are unconscious philosophers from 
 the hour when we begin to think. One of the most 
 simple and rudimental of all truths is the maxim 
 that every event must have had a cause, not every 
 existence in nature, for much confusion and un- 
 sound reasoning have arisen for want of clear dis- 
 crimination at this point. Merely from the present 
 existence of any object, I cannot infer that it must 
 have had a cause ; for, so far as I can tell, it may 
 have existed in its present state forever. The mere 
 presence of the world would not enable us to prove 
 the agency of a Creator. Simple existence supplies 
 no foundation for reasoning from effect to cause. 
 
 The idea of cause springs out of change. So soon 
 as change takes place, we affirm without hesitation 
 that there is some agency or cause at work. What- 
 ever has begun to be must have had a ground or 
 antecedent sufficient to account for its beginning. 
 I may appeal to the familiar experience of every one 
 of us in proof of this. No sooner do we witness 
 any change within us or without us than we find 
 ourselves instinctively considering how it came to 
 pass. By an instinctive tendency or constitutional 
 law, the mind goes out in the direction of a cause. 
 The intellect is not content till it has pushed on to 
 this resting-place. Save on the hypothesis of this 
 relation between effect and cause, there is not only 
 no rational conception of the present phenomena of 
 mind and matter, but there is no real connection 
 between t4*e past, the present, and the future. Take 
 this away, and the relation of all this is destroyed, 
 and the frame-work of the universe falls to pieces. 
 Existence becomes incoherent as a dream, and the 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 83 
 
 great globe itself but the " baseless fabric of a vis- 
 ion." Without this relation, everything becomes 
 independent ; everything becomes separated from 
 everything else; everything is its own beginning 
 and end. 
 
 Yet, while the idea of cause is the simplest and 
 most natural of all ideas, it is at the same time the 
 most imperious and most unfathomable. While we 
 are compelled to accept it, we strive in vain to 
 grasp it. While we are forced by a necessity of our 
 nature to seek after it, we cannot tell what it is. 
 When we are brought to face the question, what 
 that was which existed before existence, and of 
 which all that exists was the necessary outcome, we 
 can simply pause and confess our inability to answer 
 it. In the order of nature, we have only set before 
 us an endless succession of consequents and ante- 
 cedents, but the connection between these two is 
 something of which we can form no idea. Yet, 
 while we are capable of forming no conception of 
 the nature of a cause, we are none the less con- 
 vinced that a cause for every event must exist, and 
 that no change can take place without one. And in 
 this idea is involved the further idea, not less incon- 
 ceivable, that from eternity something must have 
 existed. Since something now is, it is equally plain 
 that something always was. "This is so evident 
 and undeniable a proposition," says Dr. Samuel 
 Clarke, " that no atheist in any age has ever pre- 
 sumed to assert the contrary." 1 
 
 If the necessary character of this maxim be con- 
 ceded, it is of no consequence, so far as its bearing 
 on the theistic argument is concerned, what philo- 
 
 1 [Demonstr. of the Being and Attributes of God (7th ed.), p. 8.] 
 
84 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 sophical theory we adopt to account for its origin. 
 We may assert that the mind intuitively believes 
 that every event is caused ; or that the idea of cause 
 is suggested to us from the analogy of that spiritual 
 causation of which we are directly conscious in our- 
 selves when we put forth an effort ; or explain it 
 from the inability of the mind to form any other 
 conception ; or hold, with a numerous modern school, 
 that the idea of cause is simply a generalization from 
 observation. " The law of causation," says Mill, " the 
 recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive 
 philosophy, is but the familiar truth, that invariabil- 
 ity of succession is found by observation to obtain 
 between every fact in nature and some fact which 
 preceded it." 1 But Hume himself, who was the father 
 of this theory, did not deny the necessary connec- 
 tion between effect and cause. His elaborate inves- 
 tigation into the nature of causation was undertaken 
 simply to ascertain why we think it necessary. He 
 only sought to show that this connection, so far as 
 the mind can know it, is simply the offspring of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Accepting this principle, which no one will deny, 
 that for every event there must be a cause, the ques- 
 tion next arises, How far does it legitimately carry 
 us ? The notion that the principle of causality can 
 only be abstractly applied, has led some to argue that 
 it can only result in an eternal succession of causes 
 and effects. We have, then, next to ask the question, 
 What can be evolved from the idea of cause as it ex- 
 ists in our own minds ? Does this idea demand final- 
 ity, or is it satisfied with an endless series ? In other 
 words, does the same necessity of thought, which 
 
 1 [System of Logic, b. iii., c. v.] 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 85 
 
 requires us to believe in cause at all, require us 
 equally to believe in a first cause? The objector 
 may urge, " I hold to causation, but why must I be- 
 lieve in a first cause ? What greater difficulties are 
 there in an infinite succession of causes than in an 
 original and self-existent cause ? Both are abso- 
 lutely incomprehensible ; both raise difficulties which 
 I cannot solve. But why compel me to choose one 
 of these dilemmas rather than the other ? " 
 
 The objection, at first sight, seems plausible, but 
 loses its force when we reflect that an infinite series 
 does not make a cause, and cause is precisely what 
 reason here demands. The real alternative does 
 not lie between an infinite series and a first cause, 
 but between accepting a first cause, or rejecting the 
 idea of cause altogether. We are familiar enough 
 with the notion of a proximate or secondary cause, 
 and we may form the conception of an indefinite 
 succession of real causes, yet all this does not sat- 
 isfy our idea of cause. The only true cause is a first 
 cause ; when, therefore, the universe is thrown back 
 upon an infinite succession, there is a violation of 
 the fundamental principle of reason. For an infinite 
 succession of causes rests, by the very hypothesis, 
 upon no cause. Each particular cause rests, indeed, 
 upon the next, but the whole rests on nothing. " The 
 reason," ' says Kant, "is forced to seek somewhere 
 its resting-point in the regress of the conditional. 
 If something exists, it must be admitted that^some- 
 thing exists necessarily ; for the contingent exists 
 only under the condition of another thing as its 
 cause, up to a cause which exists not contingently." l 
 Reason cannot stop short of this. 
 
 1 Quoted by Mozley, Essays, vol. ii., p. 432. 
 
86 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Now, if it be true that the notion of an infinite 
 succession of second causes is incompatible with the 
 idea of cause, we have already met the objection, 
 that the argument which infers a self-existent cause 
 of the universe is a contradiction of the law of 
 causality. That every event must have a cause is 
 granted ; but if you proceed, it is said, to affirm the 
 existence of that which is uncaused you deny the 
 principle that you have just asserted. You claim 
 more than your argument allows ; you are not de- 
 veloping a logical conclusion, but jumping to a result 
 that lies far beyond the limit of your reasoning. It 
 must be conceded that the idea of a self-existent 
 cause does not come under the law of causation. 
 But, while the law of causation does not lead log- 
 ically up to the conclusion of a first cause, it compels 
 us to affirm it. The question why we are compelled 
 to make this affirmation is one for which various 
 explanations may be given. The fact that every 
 one as a reasonable being is forced to do it, is the 
 only fact of consequence, and this is a fact that is 
 placed beyond dispute by any fair analysis of the 
 operations of our own minds. Those who have de- 
 nied that the principle of causality thus involves a 
 first cause, have been, in fact, forced to the recog- 
 nition of the principle under another name. They 
 have virtually confessed what they have professed, 
 to deny. By different paths they have been led to 
 the conception of an original ground of all existence, 
 and not to the conception of an endless succession 
 of second causes. It matters not whether this orig- 
 inal ground of all phenomena be termed matter, 
 mind, or force, it comes essentially to the same thing 
 at last. I do not mean that those who thus hold to 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 8/ 
 
 a permanent element beneath phenomena accept, in 
 the strict sense, the doctrine of a First Cause, but 
 the readiness with which they adopt this hypothesis 
 is conclusive proof of their reluctance to rest in the 
 idea of a mere succession of second causes. And it 
 should further be observed, that the most inadequate 
 explanations of the principle of causality are not 
 more incompatible with the theistic inference than 
 they are with any scientific inference which involves 
 a real extension of knowledge. If compatible with 
 anything more than formal and deductive science, 
 they are equally compatible with religion. 
 
 The argument which we have here considered is 
 metaphysical, for the necessity by which we rise 
 from a series of second causes to a first cause, is a 
 necessity of thought. It is a result legitimately 
 evolved from the very idea of cause. Yet, while 
 metaphysical, it must not be confounded with the 
 purely a priori speculations of Anselm and Des- 
 cartes. For it is reasoning from the external uni- 
 verse, not from the abstract conception of the mind. 
 This concrete use of the principle of causality, the 
 only use which has any meaning, renders the argu- 
 ment, in effect, a conclusion from experience. Still, 
 it has been urged that, as a fact of experience, cau- 
 sation cannot be extended to the material universe 
 itself, but only to its changeable phenomena ; and 
 that it is a necessary part of the fact of causation, 
 within the sphere of our experience, that the causes, 
 as well as the effects, had a beginning in time ; since 
 if the cause existed always the effect would have ex- 
 isted always also. " It would seem, therefore," Mr. 
 Mills argues, "that our experience, instead of fur- 
 nishing an argument for a first cause, is repugnant 
 
88 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 to it ; and that the very essence of causation, as it 
 exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incom- 
 patible with a first cause." l 
 
 In reply, I would say, that no one has ever claimed 
 that we gain from experience the idea of a first 
 cause, and if we can know nothing but what we gain 
 directly from experience, all discussion of cause that 
 assigns any meaning to the term may well be, at 
 once, abandoned. Yet, in the very essay which I 
 have just quoted, Mr. Mill concedes that there 
 may be a permanent element in nature beneath its 
 changeable phenomena, which may with some jus- 
 tice be termed a first or universal cause. But we 
 know nothing, by experience, of any such unchang- 
 ing element. It is a legitimate hypothesis that the 
 substances, which seem to us elementary and in- 
 transmutable, are in reality modifications of some 
 single element. No chemist has ever recognized, 
 in his experience, those ultimate atoms whose exist- 
 ence he assumes. If, then, we undertake to assert 
 the existence of that permanent element in nature, 
 which Mr. Mill so readily concedes, we must pass 
 just as much beyond the limits of experience, as 
 when, by a necessity of thought, we are led to rea- 
 son from a succession of finite causes to a first cause. 
 Science, not less than Philosophy, demands a faith 
 which transcends all testimony that the senses fur- 
 nish. We push no further in one direction than in 
 the other. 
 
 The most vigorous assault upon the doctrine of a 
 first cause comes, however, in our own time, not 
 from the field of metaphysics, but from the field of 
 physics; and this we have next to considei. The 
 
 1 Three Essays, etc. (Theism], p. 144. 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 89 
 
 concrete argument for a first cause starts, as we 
 have seen, from our experience of the changes in 
 the external universe. These are known to us as 
 facts, and for these facts we have to give ourselves 
 an account. Yet in all this reasoning, it is as- 
 sumed that the universe is an effect, and that it 
 owes its existence to a cause distinct from itself. 
 And, according to the conception which formerly 
 prevailed respecting matter, and the distinction be- 
 tween matter and spirit, it is conceded that the view 
 that the external universe was an effect was not 
 irrational. But it is claimed that the conclusions of 
 modern science have changed all this, and that in 
 the light of these conclusions we are no longer 
 authorized to look upon nature as simply an effect. 
 Beside the changing phenomena, which all agree in 
 tracing to the operation of causes, we are confronted, 
 as we examine it, with permanent and unchangeable 
 elements which, so far as we can see, stand in need 
 of no such explanation. 
 
 These permanent elements in nature, it is argued, 
 are not known to us as beginning to exist ; or, in 
 other words, within the range of human knowledge 
 they had no beginning, and consequently no cause, 
 though they are themselves causes of everything 
 that is taking place. The converging evidence of 
 all branches of physical inquiry seems to be landing 
 us in this result. For wherever a physical phenom- 
 enon is traced to its cause, that cause is found, in the 
 last analysis, to be a certain quantum of force, com- 
 bined with certain collocations, and the last general- 
 ization which science reaches is that this force is 
 everywhere essentially the same, and exists in a 
 fixed quantity which can neither be lessened nor 
 
gO THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 increased ; and that the constant changes which we 
 witness are due partly to the amount of force and 
 partly to the diversity of the collocations. It is only 
 to this permanent element in nature that Mr. Mill 
 is willing to apply the designation of First Cause, 
 that is, the primeval and universal element in all 
 causes. " For all effects," he says, " may be traced 
 up to it, while it cannot be traced up, by our expe- 
 rience, to anything beyond." * Here we reach the 
 last result of physical inquiry. 
 
 This requires perhaps, in passing, a little fuller 
 statement. The fundamental maxim on which is 
 founded the modern scientific conception of the uni- 
 verse is derived from the analytic study of the move- 
 ments of matter. For, as the beginning alike of 
 chemistry and physics, we have two universal prop- 
 ositions, both rendered familiar to us in the popular 
 scientific discussions of the past few years. These 
 two propositions are that matter is indestructible, 
 and that motion is continuous. Upon the validity of 
 these two closely related maxims rests the validity 
 of every conclusion which chemical or physical sci- 
 ence has thus, far reached. If the scientific inquirer 
 had to deal with quantities which could be either 
 wholly or in part annihilated, or with motions which 
 could wholly or in part cease, science would at once 
 come to an end. The ancients held to the opinion 
 that matter might be created or destroyed ; and until 
 modern times it was supposed that moving bodies 
 had a natural tendency to come to a standstill ; but 
 by degrees it was seen that where matter apparently 
 disappears, and where motion apparently ceases, 
 there is in reality only a subtle transformation into 
 another form or into an equivalent quantity. 
 
 1 Three Essays, etc. (Theism], p. 145. 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. gi 
 
 These two theorems are not fundamental but deriv- 
 ative, and thus we are led directly to a more general 
 proposition that lies back of both. For in asserting 
 that matter is indestructible, and that motion is con- 
 tinuous, we assert by implication that force is persis- 
 tent, that is, that the force manifested in the known 
 universe is constant, and can neither be increased 
 nor diminished. For, it is evident, that the inde- 
 structible element in matter is its resisting power, 
 or the force which it exerts, and that when motion 
 is arrested we are obliged to conceive of force as im- 
 pressed in the shape of reaction on the bodies caus- 
 ing the arrest. Strictly speaking, we have no proof 
 of the proposition that force is thus persistent. It 
 is a truth which does not admit of demonstration. 
 At the bottom of all demonstration there must lie 
 an axiom which itself is undemonstrable. We are 
 compelled to believe in the persistence of force, sim- 
 ply for the reason that it is impossible to conceive 
 of something becoming nothing, or of nothing be- 
 coming something. We pass beyond the realm of 
 experience, and appeal to a psychological necessity. 
 Science lands us, at last, in a transcendental region 
 all her conclusions are seen to rest upon a pos- 
 tulate which we recognize as a law of conscious 
 thought. 
 
 In this persistent force, of which all the phenom- 
 ena of the universe are but modes of manifestation, 
 we have given us, it is claimed, that permanent ele- 
 ment, to which, if to anything, we must assign the 
 character of a first cause. Nor is this reasoning es- 
 sentially affected if we claim that mind, so far as 
 experience teaches us, is the only thing capable of 
 originating change, and that therefore this original 
 
92 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 force from which all change results must be identi- 
 fied with mind. For if the doctrine of the conserva- 
 tion of force be true, the will does not, any more than 
 any other cause, originate force, it simply directs 
 into a particular channel a portion of the force al- 
 ready working in other ways. Volition is an origi- 
 nating cause only so far as it liberates a certain 
 amount of force evolved in the physical processes of 
 the human system. Volition, therefore, does not 
 answer to the idea of a first cause, since force must, 
 in every instance, be assumed as prior to it, and 
 there is no reason for supposing force itself to have 
 been created by volition. Thus so far as the lights 
 of science guide us, and so far as human experience 
 teaches anything, " we may conclude that force has 
 all the attributes of a thing eternal and uncreated." 1 
 If it be urged that mind at least exists, and that 
 mind must have produced mind, we are pointed to 
 numberless analogies of nature in proof of the fact 
 that nobler and more precious products are con 
 stantly derived from a viler material, and that the de- 
 velopment of the superior from the inferior, the elab- 
 oration of the higher from the lower is the general 
 law. Mind does not therefore demand mind as its 
 original cause. And, as a result, we are brought to 
 this conclusion, "that the argument for a first cause 
 may be dismissed, since no cause is needed .for that 
 which had no beginning. The phenomena and 
 changes in the universe have, indeed, each of them a 
 beginning and a cause, but this cause is always some 
 prior change ; nor do the analogies of experience give 
 us any reason to expect, from the mere occurrence 
 of changes, that if we could trace the series fai 
 
 1 Three Essays, etc. ( Theism), p. 147. 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 93 
 
 enough back, we should arrive at a primeval voli- 
 tion. The world does not, by its mere existence, 
 bear witness to a God." 1 Thus on reasonings de- 
 duced from the conclusions of physical science the 
 doctrine of a first cause is set aside as a wholly gra- 
 tuitous hypothesis. 
 
 Undoubtedly the argument which I have just 
 sketched, an argument urged with so much calmness 
 and made to rest on the most indubitable results of 
 modern science, seems the most powerful assault 
 upon the doctrine of a first cause that has yet been 
 made. The mere metaphysical grounds of that doc- 
 trine are wholly set aside. The questions so much 
 debated by a certain school of thinkers, whether 
 from the consideration of a chain of second causes 
 we are compelled, by a necessity of thought, to as- 
 sume a first cause, whether from the contingent and 
 finite we can leap up by a legitimate process of mind 
 to the infinite and absolute, are no longer of conse- 
 quence. If it be granted that some x kind of being 
 must always have existed, and that the universe in 
 the endless transformation of its own primeval forces 
 contains within itself its own causal principles, the 
 hypothesis of any other source ceases to be a logical 
 necessity. In short, if the universe be not an effect, 
 we are not required to infer a cause. For the affir- 
 mation of a first cause being a regressive inference 
 from the existence of a special class of effects, it 
 is evident that the whole argument hinges on the 
 question, does such a state of things really exist as 
 is only possible through the agency of a supra-mun- 
 dane cause. 
 
 Once Locke wrote the words, " If it be said, there 
 
 J Three Essays, etc. (Theism], p. 153. 
 
94 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 was a time when no being had any knowledge, when 
 that eternal being was void of all understanding, I 
 reply, that then it was impossible there should ever 
 have been any knowledge ; it being as impossible 
 that things wholly void of knowledge and operating 
 blindly and without perception should produce a 
 knowing being, as it is impossible that a triangle 
 should make itself three angles bigger than two right 
 ones. For it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless 
 matter that it should put into itself sense, percep- 
 tion, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea 
 of a triangle that it should put into itself greater an- 
 gles than two right ones." The argument was con- 
 clusive in his day, and with the notion of the distinc- 
 tion between spirit and matter that then prevailed. 
 But in our day, matter is no longer conceived of as 
 senseless. Our notions respecting it are radically 
 changed. If we do not go to the extent of Professor 
 Tyndall's famous declaration, and see in it " the 
 promise and potency of all terrestrial life," we are 
 compelled to view it in a light which goes very far 
 to destroy the sharp antithesis between spirit and 
 matter which prevailed in the time of Locke. It is 
 a sum of forces and of forces which are indestruc- 
 tible. 
 
 When, however, we consider more closely this 
 most recent objection to the old doctrine of a First 
 Cause, a few obvious reflections present themselves. 
 
 In the first place, what is essential -in the idea is 
 in effect conceded. For the theory of an original, 
 indestructible force is, after all, but a method of ac- 
 counting for change. And in accounting for change 
 it not only concedes that every change in nature 
 had a cause, but that back of all change lies some- 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 95 
 
 thing persistent and unchangeable. This goes far 
 beyond the position of the early positivists, who 
 denied that the conception of an original cause had 
 any legitimate place in scientific investigation, and 
 also recognizes the principle, before insisted on, 
 that the mind cannot rest with an endless succes- 
 sion of second causes. There is, after all, in this 
 theory the positive affirmation of something lying 
 behind the finite and the conditioned. We may ap- 
 ply to it what designation we please, but we cannot 
 get rid of the fact that the most refined conception 
 of the universe that science has yet reached is a 
 conception that leads us back to an absolute and 
 eternal source of all the phenomena of existence. 
 
 In the second place, the subtle conception of the 
 material universe which we here reach is not a result 
 of experience, or of any scientific experiment, but a 
 purely abstract and metaphysical conception. If the 
 idea of a first cause, in the ordinary sense of the 
 term, is a metaphysical idea, the idea of a primeval 
 force is not less metaphysical. We arrive at it 
 purely as a deduction from the two doctrines of the 
 indestructibility of matter and the continuance of 
 motion, and, too, the truth of neither one of these 
 doctrines has ever been absolutely established by 
 experiment. They are seen to be true by a neces- 
 sity of thought. Hence, in this discussion, the an- 
 tithesis is not between metaphysics and science, but 
 between two purely metaphysical conceptions. The 
 two hypotheses, that the first cause was self-existing 
 mind, and that the first cause was self-existing mat- 
 ter, considered simply as hypotheses, are of exactly 
 equivalent value. To say that one rests upon a 
 solid basis of fact while the other is merely a logical 
 
96 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 notion of the intellect, is a statement for which 
 there is no ground whatever, since the facts to be 
 accounted for are the same in either case. The 
 only question is which hypothesis covers those facts 
 most completely. 
 
 Science, then, does not rid us of the metaphysical 
 necessity of inferring some kind of first cause ; the 
 only real issue is whether this first cause must be con- 
 ceived of as mind or matter ; whether we are bound 
 to infer some action of conscious intelligence in the 
 production of the ceaseless changes, of the begin- 
 ning of which we have no knowledge, or may we as 
 rationally refer them to the operation of blind force. 
 So far as relates to the bare metaphysical concep- 
 tion of a first cause, it makes but little difference 
 whether we assume it to be mind, or whether, assum- 
 ing it to be matter, we proceed to sublimate our idea 
 of matter, and endue it with such powers and po- 
 tencies that the dividing line between mind and 
 matter is practically wiped out. For the bare ab- 
 stract conception, if that is all that we are in search- 
 of, will be furnished by one assumption as well as 
 by the other. At best, such a conception is only 
 a colorless beginning ; it satisfies a necessity of 
 thought, but does not set us forward in the way of 
 any actual knowledge ; its only value, so far as nat- 
 ural theology is concerned, consists in its laying 
 the foundation of a structure, to be built with other 
 material. We only weary ourselves by seeking thus 
 to climb the ladder of finite agency, and mount back 
 through the long series of dependent sequences to 
 one uncaused cause, if we do not proceed to with- 
 draw the result we have reached from the region of 
 metaphysics. "The notion of a God," says Sir Wil- 
 
 
CAUSE AND FORCE. 97 
 
 Ham Hamilton, " is not contained in the notion of a 
 mere first cause ; for, in the admission of a first 
 cause, atheist and theist are at one." 1 What we are 
 in search of, as the foundation of religion, is not a 
 blank essence, or an inconceivable substance. It is 
 only when we have completed and perfected the 
 idea, and when we return to it with the results of 
 further inquiry, that the idea of a first cause be- 
 comes clothed with religious significance. Yet, in- 
 complete and unsatisfactory as is the mere abstract 
 conception of a first cause, it is still an essential 
 part of that complex and comprehensive reasoning 
 on which, as we have seen, the argument for the 
 divine existence rests ; and it is a point of no small 
 importance thus to ascertain at the outset of our 
 inquiry, that recent science, instead of dismissing 
 the hypothesis, has supplied us with a striking evi- 
 dence of the impossibility of excluding it from ra- 
 tional thought. 
 
 For this reason, I find myself wholly unable to 
 agree with those advocates of theism who would 
 wholly dismiss the doctrine of a first cause from the 
 science of natural theology. A recent writer, Pro- 
 fessor Knight, himself a strenuous theist, is a repre- 
 sentative of this class. He does not hesitate to say 
 that the argument for a first cause belongs to the 
 same class with the long-discarded arguments of 
 Ansel m and Descartes, and that it is not less illu- 
 sory. But this ingenious writer seems to forget 
 that the old a priori arguments were mere reason- 
 ings from Conceptions of the mind, while the argu- 
 ment for a first cause, as here presented, is an argu- 
 ment from an external fact, a fact whose reality is 
 
 1 {Lectures on Metaphysics, Lect. ii., page 19.] 
 7 
 
98 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 not questioned, and whose existence demands ex- 
 planation ; and when he further claims that it is by 
 an illicit process when, in the argument for a first 
 cause, we rise from the finite to the infinite, he im- 
 putes to the argument a conclusion which it does 
 not claim, for in the guarded form in which I have 
 presented it, it has not been claimed for the first 
 cause that it is infinite. From the universe as an 
 effect, we have simply argued a cause, and all that 
 we have undertaken to show further is that a mere 
 sequence of second causes does not furnish what the 
 reason craves. I concede that in the bare idea of a 
 first cause we do not have the idea of God. Much 
 remains to be done before this abstract and empty 
 conception is filled out and completed to a full 
 theistic conclusion. But the notion of a first cause 
 is one essential step towards this result, and I con- 
 ceive it to be a matter of no little moment, if the 
 theories of force, with which modern science has 
 made us so familiar, can be shown, after all, to be 
 simply disguised forms of the old doctrine of a first 
 cause, and to be but lame and impotent substitutes 
 for that earlier conception. It is something to be 
 assured that so far as science has established any 
 theoretical conclusions, these conclusions confirm 
 the doctrine that the universe must have had its 
 origin in something back of itself, and that if science 
 cannot herself give us the idea of a first cause, she 
 has, at least, reached no conclusions inconsistent 
 with it. The notion that the doctrine of a first 
 cause has been wiped out by the modern theory of 
 force, may be dismissed as a mistake. 
 
foVlVBRSITT; 
 
 ^ 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 
 
 WE have advanced thus far in our argument to 
 the conception of a first cause, and if I have not 
 failed of my aim in the considerations that I have 
 presented, I have made it plain that this conception 
 in some form is implied in any explanation that has 
 been attempted of the origin of the universe as it 
 now exists. The most opposite schools of thought 
 agree in this, that if something exists, something 
 must have always existed, and that the unceasing 
 change which we witness on every hand can only find 
 a sufficient ground in something that is unchange- 
 able. The mind refuses to rest short of this solu- 
 tion. We have now to ask, what do we know re- 
 specting the nature of this first cause. Is it eternal 
 matter, or is it eternal mind ; is it force acting 
 blindly, without direction and without aim, achiev- 
 ing its results by a natural development over which 
 no conscious intelligence has presided, an eternal 
 rhythm of evolution and of dissolution, or is it in- 
 telligence, intelligence above nature and working 
 through it, making the operations of nature and the 
 infinite manifestations of physical force subservient 
 to its wise and all comprehending purposes ? 
 
 It is evident that unless we can give some answer 
 to this question, all that we have previously ascer- 
 tained is little to the purpose. On the mere abstract 
 
IOO THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT 
 
 question of a first cause there is really no debate. 
 The most extreme materialist at the present day is 
 willing to concede it, provided that no attempt is 
 made to define it. But if it remains undefined the 
 theist has gained no advantage that is worth con- 
 tending for. If we cannot proceed to clothe this first 
 cause with attributes, if we cannot connect it with 
 intelligence and with personality, we have not ad- 
 vanced a step in satisfying the demands of religion. 
 In other words, a mere formal demonstration of the 
 original source of existence has no theological value. 
 It remains a colorless, unillumined admission, at 
 best ministering comfort only to the speculative rea- 
 son. And if it thus remains an absolute zero, inac- 
 cessible to inquiry, the blank ground of existence, it 
 matters very little whether we insist upon regarding 
 it as mind, or whether we identify it with the ethe- 
 realized forms of matter with which modern science 
 has made us so familiar. Whether it be termed 
 cause or force is a question of little moment. 
 
 We have thus far viewed the universe simply as 
 one endless series of changes ; let us now proceed to 
 subject these changes to a closer examination. And 
 what strikes us at the first glance is the universal 
 prevalence of order. I say at first glance, {or though 
 the nature and endless manifestations of the order 
 that runs through the universe are only partially 
 perceived, after prolonged and elaborate investiga- 
 tion, the fact of the existence of this order is the 
 first thing that strikes the observing eye. We are 
 not more impressed with the great fact of change 
 than with the fact that change everywhere proceeds 
 in accordance with fixed and invariable rule. The 
 first shepherds who watched their flocks under the 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. ioi 
 
 clear oriental sky, must have noted the fact that the 
 stars in their courses marched in an orderly proces- 
 sion ; and the earliest inhabitants of the earth must 
 have waited with implicit confidence for each new 
 rising of the sun that would bathe the world with 
 light and call men once more to the labors of the 
 day. And all subsequent advance of human science 
 has been simply the following out of this first sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 But this advance of science, without modifying 
 the principle, has given it an immense extension. 
 The earliest observers of the changes of the exter- 
 nal world, while profoundly impressed with the prev- 
 alence of law, were hardly less perplexed with its 
 frequent absence. If the outgoings of morning and 
 of evening, if the solemn march of the constellations, 
 if the waxing and waning of the moon spoke of 
 regular and orderly succession, there were other 
 changes which refused to be reduced to rule, and 
 which seemed, to their uninstructed eye, signs of 
 disorder and confusion. The flaming comet speed- 
 ing unheralded across the sky was to them the por- 
 c ent of direful change. In its train were pestilence 
 and war, and the fate of empires. It seemed a fear- 
 ful intruder into the harmony of things. It has been 
 the mission of science to extend further and further 
 on every hand the reign of law, and to show that 
 what at first sight appears most exceptional, most 
 unaccountable, most incapable of being reduced to 
 regular rule, is after all but another and more strik- 
 ing illustration of this principle, a principle which 
 equally finds its illustration in the falling of a peb- 
 ble to the ground, and the flight of a flaming sphere 
 through the furthest removes of space. 
 
102 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 And what is shown so clearly in the grandest 
 works of nature is shown not less clearly in the 
 least. I heard not long ago of a visit paid by one 
 of the first of living botanists to a friend, whose 
 summer home was on one of the most barren and 
 rocky headlands of our stern' New England coast. 
 On his arrival, his host laughingly apologized for 
 having invited him to a spot that presented so little 
 opportunity for indulging his favorite pursuit, re- 
 marking that nothing grew there but a few imported 
 trees, whose stunted growth seemed only to reveal 
 the ungenial nature of the soil. " On the contrary," 
 replied the guest, " I see much to reward me, and I 
 will engage, before we sit down to dine, to gather 
 three hundred distinct specimens of plants." And 
 each of these, so small most of them that only the 
 most practiced eye could detect them lurking in the 
 crevices of the rocks, so delicate that scores of them 
 were crushed under foot by each step of a careless 
 child playing with his ball or driving his hoop, was 
 fashioned in its growth in accordance with its own 
 law, and could be recognized by minute differences 
 of structure as distinct from each of its fellows, and 
 illustrated in its way, not less than Orion and Arc- 
 turus, the order of the world. 
 
 But I am reciting mere commonplace when I say 
 that order pervades the universe. It is obvious to 
 the eye of the child led out by the hand for the first 
 time to gaze at the starry heavens ; it is the last 
 thing noticed by the man of science whose optic 
 glass has swept the flaming walls of space, or whose 
 microscope has searched out the minutest forms of 
 the vegetable' or animal creation. And it is not 
 only a fact of to-day, but runs equally back through 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 103 
 
 all epochs of astronomical or of geological time. It 
 has been the common work of all the sciences since 
 the day when man first assumed the great office of 
 making himself the minister and interpreter of na- 
 ture, to discover and to illustrate it. Science is in 
 fact but another name for this progressive and ever 
 extending knowledge of the order of nature, foi 
 there can be no science which is not an advance of 
 knowledge in this direction. And it is the pride 
 and boast of science that it is achieving this result, 
 that with each new step it is bringing what seems 
 irregular and exceptional within the realms of order, 
 and demonstrating that what have passed for excep- 
 tions, when intelligently comprehended, are simply 
 proofs of a larger and more comprehensive order. 
 
 Perhaps the most impressive result of this more 
 scientific apprehension of the order of the world 
 has been the ascertainment of the fact that the laws 
 of the physical universe are laws of mathematical 
 relations. Thus the law of gravitation, which rules 
 the grains of dust in the sunbeam and the farthest 
 orb that revolves beyond the reach of human vision, 
 is a definite numerical law. The curves which the 
 heavenly bodies describe in their revolutions around 
 the sun and around one another belong to the class 
 of curves known as the conic sections, curves the 
 proportions of which were investigated by geometers 
 centuries before Kepler and Newton had revealed 
 the true system of the heavens. The law of chem- 
 ical combination always admits of precise numerical 
 expression. Each color in the rainbow that spans 
 the arch of heaven, and makes the heart leap up, is 
 due to a certain number of vibrations within a given 
 time, and so are the long-drawn notes of the organ 
 
IO4 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 that uplift the soul in praise, or the accents of the 
 human voice, melting with tenderness from a moth- 
 er's lips, or thrilling the ear with the accents of an- 
 guish and despair. A crystal is frozen geometry, 
 and the feathers in the wings and tail of the hum- 
 ming-bird are all numbered. 
 
 The universe everywhere reveals itself to us as a 
 whole; all the parts of which are related to each 
 other by precise and unvarying laws. The system 
 of which our earth is a member is a vast and orderly 
 system, the various parts of which are so adjusted, 
 as regards mass and magnitude, and distance, and 
 rate and plane of motion, that the whole is ren- 
 dered stable and secure. And our solar system, so 
 far as we can see, is only one of millions of systems, 
 all as arranged and distributed in relation to one an- 
 other as to secure the same result. While each orb 
 is affecting the orbit of every other, while each is 
 exerting a constant influence which, if left uncoun- 
 teracted, would destroy itself and all the rest, all are 
 balanced in their motions with such wondrous accu- 
 racy as to convert the element of danger into a 
 source of strength. And so in the structure of mat- 
 ter we are everywhere confronted with the same 
 system of definite proportions, no chemical union 
 being possible except where the different elements 
 bear to each other a definite numerical ratio. The 
 least alteration of this proportion would convert the 
 most wholesome substances into the most deadly 
 poisons, and, instead of furnishing nutriment to ani- 
 mals and plants, spread everywhere destruction and 
 death. 
 
 The reign of law is then the result which science 
 has everywhere reached. It lies at the root of every 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 105 
 
 conception we can form of the universe, either with- 
 out us or within us ; for while regularity and order 
 are most conspicuous in the grand phenomena of 
 the external world, we are not less assured of their 
 pervading presence in the most intricate and ob- 
 scure processes of life. Beginning with astronomy, 
 the idea has passed to every department of science, 
 and to every domain of thought. It refuses to be 
 excluded from any sphere where there is change and 
 progress and growth. It meets us at every step. 
 This order which science finds in nature may be de- 
 scribed as either general or special ; the character- 
 istic of the former being regularity, and of the lat- 
 ter adaptation. In inorganic nature, general order 
 is more apparent ; in organic nature, special order. 
 By some for example, Professor Flint these are 
 treated simply as parts of the same argument ; but 
 it rather seems to me that they are distinct, and that 
 the latter, which is termed the argument of design, 
 derives its main support from the much more com- 
 prehensive argument from general laws. Order or 
 regularity is a simple fact, while design is an infer- 
 ence from a fact. 
 
 The argument from order, strictly speaking, is a 
 corollary of the idea of cause. If, as here seen, the 
 changes in the phenomenal universe carry us back 
 irresistibly to a cause not simply of each individual 
 phenomenon, but of the phenomena as a whole, the 
 order and regularity displayed in these phenomena 
 in the same way suggest an intelligent cause. As 
 the fact of order is universal and evident, so is the 
 inference, if made at all, a necessity of thought. 
 But the end for which things exist is not self-evi- 
 dent ; it is the consequence of an induction. We 
 
IO6 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 cannot, therefore, affirm that the principle of finality 
 is universal and necessary, like the principle of caus- 
 ality. No doubt, the doctrine of final causes, if es- 
 tablished, gives an immense support and extension 
 to the argument from order, but the two arguments 
 rest upon different grounds : one is the discussion 
 of a product, the other of a process. I am there- 
 fore unable to agree with Professor Flint, that the 
 arguments are essentially identical. 1 It is true that 
 the argument from design rests on the recognition 
 of nature as displaying order and adjustment, yet 
 the two notions are not equivalent in the first in- 
 stance. Thus no order is more rigorous than the 
 order of mechanics, yet we have no proof here of 
 final cause. 2 
 
 Proceeding, then, first to consider the argument 
 from order, at the outset we shall need to subject 
 the conception of natural law to a brief examination. 
 We are accustomed to use the term law in very 
 different senses. Thus we apply it equally to de- 
 scribe physical, or moral, or juridical relations. We 
 speak of the law which determines the velocity of a 
 falling body, of the law which conscience will not 
 suffer us to violate, of the law which the judge ad- 
 ministers upon the bench. Perhaps the most gen- 
 eral definition of the word is that made familiar to 
 us by Montesquieu, "that laws are the necessary 
 relations which arise from the nature of things." 
 On the other hand, the late John Austin, who rigor- 
 ously limited the definition of law to the commands 
 of a superior, rejected Ulpian's explanation of the 
 law of nature, and ridiculed as fustian the famous 
 
 1 Prof. R. Flint, Theism, p. 158. 
 
 2 Janet, Final Causes (Edinburgh, 1878), p. 12. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 107 
 
 description in Hooker. If we restrict the term to its 
 original and proper sense, law must be defined as 
 the authoritative expression of will, enforced by 
 power. But by long usage the term has come to 
 have various derivative and secondary senses, and is 
 now habitually used by those who would wholly re- 
 ject its primary signification. It is only in these 
 secondary senses that we speak of the laws of na- 
 ture. 
 
 The primary and simplest sense in which the term 
 " law " is applied to physical phenomena, is that in 
 which it is used simply to express an observed order 
 of facts, or, in other words, facts which under the 
 same conditions always follow each other in the same 
 order. This was the sense in which the word was 
 used by the late Mr. Buckle, who seemed, at least in 
 the earlier chapters of his work, to cherish the opin- 
 ion that the mere accumulation of statistics was suf- 
 ficient to furnish a basis not only for physical, but 
 also for social laws. In this sense, the laws of nature 
 are simply those phenomena which recur according 
 to an empirical rule. For the application of the term 
 in this sense, it is not necessary that the cause of this 
 regular recurrence should be known or presumed. 
 All that was required was that the order should be 
 uniform and constant. The so-called laws of Kepler 
 are illustrations of this application of the term. Be- 
 ginning with strange, mystical views of the heavenly 
 bodies, and supposing at first that the sun, stars, 
 and planets were divinely constituted symbols of the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, he was led by his instinctive 
 search for harmony to recognize the remarkable 
 mathematical relations between the distances of the 
 different planets from the sun and the length of 
 
108 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 their periodic times, and again between the velocity 
 of their motion and the space inclosed between 
 corresponding sections of their orbit. These were 
 termed laws, but they were in reality simply an order 
 of facts, established simply by observation, and not 
 connected with any theoretical explanation : and the 
 larger part of what are called laws, in every science, 
 are simply facts of this description. Thus, in chem- 
 istry, the relation of different substances to each 
 other in respect to combination and affinity, a rela- 
 tion which is simply the result of observation, and 
 concerning which all that is known is that, under 
 the same conditions, it will be manifested with the 
 same regularity, is in the same way denned as a law. 
 
 But the ascertainment of this regularity leads in- 
 stinctively to the search for a deeper explanation, 
 For an observed order of facts, to be entitled to the 
 designation of law, must carry with it the idea of 
 some necessity out of which this uniform and reg- 
 ular result arises. Hence law comes to mean, in the 
 second place, not only an observed order of facts, 
 but a persistent force, from the constant operation 
 of which as an arranging cause this observed order 
 springs. 
 
 But the mind refuses to rest content with this. 
 The conviction that some force lies thus at the bot- 
 tom of all phenomena, causing them thus to recur 
 with unfailing regularity, prompts us next to search 
 out the rule or method by which it operates. Of 
 law in this third sense we have a great example in 
 that ascertained by Newton, the discovery of which 
 ranks him so much above Kepler as a philosophical 
 investigator. In the Newtonian theory of gravita- 
 tion we have not merely a force, but a force accu- 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 109 
 
 rately defined according to the mode and measure of 
 its operation, and from which other phenomena arise 
 by necessary consequence. So that the law of grav- 
 itation was not merely an observed order, nor 
 merely an abstract conception assumed as a neces- 
 sity of thought, but a force the exact measure of 
 which was numerically ascertained and denned. 
 The three laws of Kepler were simply facts, the 
 grand discovery of Newton revealed their connec- 
 tion and their cause. Yet laws in these three senses 
 simply explain the order of subordinate phenomena. 
 They set forth that order as due to force. But here 
 they leave us. There are far more curious questions 
 which they do not answer. 
 
 The law of gravitation is undoubtedly the grand- 
 est discovery connected with the material universe 
 that the human mind has yet made. It is the most 
 universal of all laws, for so far as we can see it per- 
 vades all space. It is the most familiar of all laws, 
 for we cannot stir without confessing its operation. 
 It has been analyzed with mathematical precision. 
 We know, with certainty, that it is a force of attrac- 
 tion operating "directly as the mass and inversely 
 as the square of the distance." Yet after all how 
 little do we know about it ! It gives us no explana- 
 tion of itself. What is the cause of this force, which, 
 so far as we can tell, pervades all space ; what is the 
 source of the power which it is ceaselessly putting 
 forth upon worlds beside which our great globe it- 
 self dwindles in insignificance, and upon specks in 
 the sunbeam which only the microscope reveals, 
 through what medium it operates, how the exact 
 uniformity of its operations is always and every- 
 where maintained, all these are questions to which 
 
IIO THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 science, as yet, cannot give us any answer. With 
 strict and sober truth did Newton, after his great 
 discovery, describe himself simply as picking up a 
 few pebbles by the shore of a boundless s.ea. 
 
 Let us now turn to another fact quite as prom- 
 inent as the universal presence and prevalence of 
 law, and that is, the great variety of laws that exist 
 around us on every hand, and are directly concerned 
 in every operation of nature. For no one law deter- 
 mines anything that we see happening around us. 
 Whatever happens is always the result of different 
 and opposing forces, that are nicely balanced against 
 each other. And the least disturbance in the pro- 
 portion in which each one is allowed to operate, 
 would produce a total change in the result. Thus, 
 the force of gravitation would wreck our solar sys- 
 tem did not ainother force act against it and keep 
 the planets in their paths. And the more we study 
 nature the more intricate do we find these combina- 
 tions of opposing forces. The most recent physio- 
 logical research seems to show that our very mus- 
 cles are thus seats of two antagonistic powers, so 
 arranged that the will by acting upon one may reg- 
 ulate the action of the other. We are fearfully and 
 wonderfully made. Force combines with force to 
 produce definite and orderly results. And thus we 
 reach a fourth sense in which law is used to describe 
 not mere individual force, but an adjustment of 
 forces for the attainment of a definite end. 
 
 Nor can we stop even here. It is at once the in- 
 stinct of mind and the business of science to rise 
 from the visible to the invisible, from what we ob- 
 serve by sense to what we infer by reason. And 
 here we reach a fifth meaning of the term law, where 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. \ \ \ 
 
 it is used to denote some purely abstract idea which 
 carries us up to a higher conception of what phe- 
 nomena are, and how they are caused. There may 
 be no phenomena known to us within the range of 
 experience which actually correspond to such idea, 
 and yet it may be logically implied in all phenomena 
 around us. Thus what is termed the first law of mo- 
 tion, that all motion in itself is uniform in velocity 
 and rectilinear in direction, is an abstract concep- 
 tion which no student of physics has ever seen ex- 
 emplified, yet it is not the less essential to a true 
 explanation of all the motions that are actually seen. 
 It belongs to the class of purely intellectual concep- 
 tions which alone render intelligible to us this order 
 of the material world. These conceptions have 
 guided all great pioneers of science in the path of 
 discovery. These happy guesses, which are but the 
 intuitions of the finest minds, have their origin in 
 an aptitude for comprehending the real facts of the 
 external world under these purely abstract concep- 
 tions. 1 
 
 Before passing from these discriminated senses in 
 which we apply the term law to the material uni- 
 verse, there are two important considerations which 
 should not be overlooked. 
 
 In the first place, that character of invariableness 
 or immutability which we are accustomed to attrib- 
 ute to the laws of nature is true only in a single 
 sense, and that is in the sense in which we use the 
 term law to designate a single force. Thus gravita- 
 tion, so far as we know, always operates according 
 to a rigid mathematical rule. But when laws are 
 not conceived of as single, but as combined, instead 
 
 1 Duke of Argyle, The Reign of Law, chap. 2. 
 
112 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 of being immutable in their operation they are the 
 agencies of ceaseless change. To say, therefore, as 
 is often said, that all phenomena are governed by in- 
 variable laws, is only to express a partial truth, since 
 there are no phenomena within the range of human 
 experience of which it can be strictly said that they 
 are governed by an invariable force. That, on the 
 contrary, which governs them is endlessly varying 
 combinations of invariable forces. There is no ob- 
 served order of facts which is not due to a combina- 
 tion of forces, and there is no combination of forces 
 which is not capable of infinite change. If it be 
 true that laws are invariable, it is not less true that 
 they are subject to endless variation. 
 
 The second consideration is that, so far as we can 
 see, no result is ever attained in nature except 
 through the agency of law. There is nowhere any- 
 thing forced, anything sudden, anything fortuitous. 
 All phenomena with which we are acquainted are 
 due to causes, and these causes are combinations of 
 invariable forces. In the organic world all things 
 around us grow. This is not more true of the 
 familiar operations of nature, which we see on every 
 hand, than of the extraordinary results which at first 
 startle and perplex us. In this respect we simply 
 copy nature. The most elaborate and intricate ma- 
 chines contrived by human wit are simply combina- 
 tions of natural forces for producing some desired 
 result. The " light out-speeding telegraph," which 
 leaps across the frosty Caucasus and glides beneath 
 the oozy bottom of the deep, is nothing but a contriv- 
 ance for putting natural forces in operation ; and 
 the electric ray, with its cunningly devised battery 
 of hexagonal cells, subdivided by horizontal plates 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. \ \ 3 
 
 is nothing more. The laws enlisted in the works of 
 nature are many, and various and complicated ; our 
 knowledge of them and of their mode of operation is 
 very limited, but we find no result that is not reached 
 through their agency. 
 
 Up to this point in our argument there is no dis- 
 pute. The theist and his opponent are equally 
 agreed in the interpretation of nature that has been 
 thus far presented. Both are ready to admit that the 
 universe considered as a whole presents this charac- 
 teristic of order and uniformity, that its phenomena 
 are in all cases due to the operation of invariable laws 
 or forces, and that the operation of these forces pro- 
 ceeds in accordance with* methods and principles 
 which demand for their explanation the most refined 
 analysis of modern science. The question now arises, 
 how shall this be explained. What hypothesis shall 
 we adopt to account for the universal presence alike 
 in the most sublime and in the most insignificant 
 of nature ; processes of what in human operations 
 we should ascribe without hesitation to a directing 
 mind ? Shall the external world be regarded as the 
 expression of a supreme intelligence, an intelligence 
 which has reflected itself in the wondrous order and 
 in the harmonious combinations, and in the intricate 
 mathematical relations which the works of nature un- 
 doubtedly display ; shall the laws which mind alone 
 can recognize be accepted as the necessary products 
 and operations of mind ? 
 
 No one questions that this would be the natural 
 and logical conclusion in dealing with any results due 
 to human or finite agency. Have we a right to carry 
 this reasoning into the transcendent region of the 
 Infinite ? Here let it be noted that the inference 
 8 
 
114 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which the theist undertakes to draw from the exist- 
 ence of order in the universe, is simply the inference 
 of an intelligence that produced that order. It is, 
 therefore, an unfair objection to urge that the argu- 
 ment cannot prove anything as to the creation of the 
 universe, but only as to its fashioner, that it only goes 
 to show that mind was concerned in the orderly dis- 
 position of that which previously existed. Let what 
 has before been said be borne constantly in mind, 
 that the argument for the being of God is manifest, 
 and this inference from the order and harmony of 
 the world is only part of it. The argument for a 
 first cause has already been considered, and the 
 present argument does not undertake to stand apart 
 from that. It must be admitted that the immediate 
 inference from the order of the universe is to an 
 intelligent framer of the universe, not to a creator ; 
 but if the order of the universe cannot have orig- 
 inated with matter, the intelligence which formed it 
 must have been an eternal intelligence. 
 
 The argument which we are now considering from 
 the order of the universe may be concisely stated 
 in these words : there must be a Supreme Mind, 
 because such and such organic structures must in 
 some way have been ultimately due to intelligence. 
 And not only so, but every phenomenon in the uni- 
 verse must have been due to the same source, since 
 all are alike subject to the same method of sequence, 
 so that the argument becomes connective, and the 
 united effect of so vast a body of evidence is to point 
 us irresistibly to some one explanatory cause. The 
 scope of the argument is, the force, coextensive with 
 the universe ; and it is not surprising that some of 
 the most earnest of the recent opponents of theism 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 115 
 
 have recognized this as the most formidable weapon 
 drawn from the armory of natural theology. It is 
 admitted that the perpetual and uninterrupted uni- 
 formity of method is a cogent if not a convincing 
 proof of a presiding intelligence, since the progress 
 of science has rendered the hypothesis of fortuity 
 irrational. " And let us think of this .Supreme Caus- 
 ality as we may," says one of the ablest of these, 
 "the fact remains that from it there emanates a 
 directive inference of uninterrupted consistency, on 
 a scale of stupendous magnitude and exact pre- 
 cision, worthy of our highest possible conceptions 
 of Deity." 
 
 This argument from the order of the universe has 
 received so powerful and lucid a statement from 
 Baden Powell, that I cannot do better than borrow 
 his words : 
 
 " The very essence of the whole argument is the inva- 
 riable preservation of the principle of order ; not neces- 
 sarily such as we can directly recognize, but the universal 
 conviction of the unfailing subordination of everything to 
 some grand principles of law, however imperfectly appre- 
 hended in our partial conceptions, and the successive 
 subordination of such laws to others of still higher gener- 
 ality, to an extent transcending our conceptions, and con- 
 stituting the true chain of universal causation which cul- 
 minates in the sublime conception of the Cosmos. 
 
 " To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, 
 the one essential requisite is to have attained a complete 
 and satisfactory grasp of this one grand principle of law 
 pervading nature, or rather constituting the very idea of 
 nature ; which forms the vital essence of the whole of in- 
 ductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher 
 inferences from the inductive study of natural causes, 
 which are the indications of a supreme intelligence and a 
 moral cause. 
 
Il6 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 11 The whole of the discussion must stand or fall with 
 the admission of this grand principle. 
 
 "If we read a book which it requires much thought 
 and exercise of reason to understand, but which we find 
 discloses more and more truth and reason as we proceed 
 in the study, and contains clearly more than we can at 
 present comprehend, then undeniably we properly say 
 that thought and reason exist in that book irrespectively 
 of our minds, and equally so of every question as to its 
 author or origin. Such a book confessedly exists, and is 
 ever open to us in the natural world. When the astron- 
 omer, the physicist, the geologist, or the naturalist notes 
 down a series of observed facts or measured dates, he 
 is not an author expressing his own ideas, he is a mere 
 amanuensis taking down the dictations of nature ; his 
 observation book is the record of the thoughts of another 
 mind ; he has but set down literally what he himself does 
 not understand, or only very imperfectly. 
 
 " That which requires thought and reason to under- 
 stand must be itself thought and reason. That which 
 mind alone can investigate or express must be itself mind. 
 And if the highest conception attained is but partial, then 
 the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind 
 and reason of the student. If the more it be studied the 
 more vast and complex is the necessary connection in 
 reason disclosed, then the more evident is the vast extent 
 and compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested, 
 and its reality, as existing in the immutably connected 
 order of objects examined, independently of the mind of 
 the investigator. 
 
 " But considerations of this kind, just and transcend- 
 ently important as they are in themselves, give us no aid 
 in any inquiry into the origin of the order of things thus 
 investigated, or the nature or other attributes of the mind 
 evinced in them." x 
 
 1 Order of Nature, by Baden Powell, quoted by " Physicus " in 
 Theism, pp. 47-5 1 - 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 117 
 
 We need to note carefully the precise scope of 
 the argument here presented. It simply infers from 
 the order of the universe the presence of intelli- 
 gence. It claims to go no further ; it makes no con- 
 clusion respecting the nature or attributes of this 
 creative mind. Hence we may at once dismiss as 
 irrelevant some objections which have been urged 
 against this reasoning. One of these objections is, 
 that since the universe, as a system of order, is finite, 
 we have no right to infer that the author of this sys- 
 tem is infinite. , The argument from order does not 
 undertake to prove this. It simply claims that the 
 order shown in the universe points unmistakably to 
 intelligence as its source. The inference here is as 
 direct, as valid, as the inference from the intelli- 
 gence displayed in any human work. When, there- 
 fore, writers like Mr. Spencer argue that the cause 
 of the universe cannot be known to be intelligent 
 because the reason of man, being finite, cannot com- 
 prehend the infinite, they forget that human reason, 
 while it can never comprehend the infinite, can com- 
 prehend such manifestations of the infinite as come 
 within its range. A man may infer that the au- 
 thor of Hamlet was intelligent without professing 
 to sound all the depths of Shakespeare's mind. 
 
 It may be, and indeed it seems highly probable, 
 that the entire visible universe, as disclosed to us 
 by the farthest search of our most powerful tele- 
 scopes, the system or systems that spread out before 
 the bewildered eye of the astronomer as he consid- 
 ers the starry heavens, are but the local product 
 and temporary phase of a far greater universe which 
 is itself but part of another, till even imagination 
 droops ; but this does not render any less convin- 
 
Il8 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 cing the evidences of intelligence presented to our 
 view. It may be that in these other systems there 
 are manifestations of intelligence, not only unlike 
 any that are presented to us, but manifestations 
 which our faculties have no capacity for apprehend- 
 ing; but this would not weaken in the least such 
 inferences as our finite minds might be capable of 
 drawing. The whole stupendous order of that na- 
 ture which we survey may be but a ripple across the 
 universal and illimitable action of the mind which 
 manifests itself in all things ; but while our limited 
 and partial and finite comprehension can never in- 
 clude all this, we are not shut up to the conclusion 
 that we can draw no inference at all from the order 
 and harmony which we see everywhere above us 
 and around us. 
 
 Mr. Mill would have us think that the order of 
 the universe, so far as it reveals a combination of 
 the invariable forces of nature to produce a special 
 end, not only does not prove that the Intelligence 
 that presided over this was infinite, but even affords 
 convincing proof that it was limited and finite. 
 "There is in nature," he says, "no reason whatever 
 to suppose that either matter, or force, or any of 
 their properties, were made by the Being who was 
 the author of the causations by which the world is 
 adapted to what we consider as its purposes ; or 
 that he has power to alter any of those properties. 
 It is only when we consent to entertain this nega- 
 tive supposition that there arises a need for wisdom 
 or contrivance in the order of the universe. The 
 Deity had on this hypothesis to work out his ends 
 by combining materials of a given nature and prop- 
 erties. Out of these materials he had to construct 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. \ 19 
 
 a world in which his designs should be carried into 
 effect, through given properties of matter and force, 
 working together and fitting into each other. This 
 did require skill and contrivance, and the means by 
 which it is effected are often such as justly excite 
 our wonder and admiration ; but exactly because it 
 requires wisdom it implies limitation of force, or 
 rather the two phrases express different sides of the 
 same fact." l 
 
 It is difficult to treat with seriousness an argu- 
 ment which when analyzed will be found to be desti- 
 tute of force. What it amounts to is simply this : 
 that working toward results in regular and orderly 
 methods is proof of limitation in a being who, if in- 
 finite, could achieve results by a direct and imme- 
 diate exercise of power. In other words, if every 
 chicken were called into being by a creative fiat we 
 might infer that the power was infinite to which such 
 a phenomenon was due ; but if this power chose to 
 endow the egg with the potency by which in accord- 
 ance with invariable law the chicken was to be pro- 
 duced, we are bound to infer from such resort to an 
 indirect method of production, that it was shut up 
 to the employment of natural agencies, and hence 
 was finite. Aside from the strange omission to note 
 that all the natural agencies called into requisition 
 to produce a definite result are themselves the very 
 proof of the intelligence on which the argument in- 
 sists, this objection fails to recognize the simple 
 principle, that in producing any definite results in- 
 finite power must always work under limitations, limi- 
 tations not in the power, but in the method adopted 
 and in the end purposed. 
 
 1 Essays on Religion, p. 178. 
 
120 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 These objections, however, as I have said, have 
 nothing to do with the argument which we are now 
 considering. What that argument undertakes to 
 prove is simply that the order of the universe had 
 its origin in intelligence. On the further question 
 whether that intelligence is infinite or finite, it under- 
 takes no decision. True, the argument from order, 
 if admitted as conclusive, must carry with it the ir- 
 resistible conviction that the intelligence thus every- 
 where manifested in the works of nature must be an 
 intelligence far surpassing any capacity of finite 
 mind to measure or search out. He would be rash 
 and presumptuous, indeed, who even from the things 
 that are seen would venture to fix any limit to it ; 
 and when we bear in mind how small a part the 
 things that are seen are of the whole universe of 
 things that are unseen, the conclusion is one to 
 which the reason is inevitably led ; but this conclu- 
 sion, whether legitimate or not, is no part of the 
 argument which we are now considering. And to 
 ascertain how far this argument is valid, it is impor- 
 tant for us not to confuse it with inferences, or with 
 objections that are not directly connected with it. 
 We are only considering the proof of intelligence. 
 
 The order and harmony everywhere apparent in 
 the universe are conceded facts. Those who refuse 
 to refer them to intelligence are bound therefore to 
 account for them in some other way. To say that 
 they originated with chance, is an explanation so 
 manifestly absurd that it need not be considered. 
 To believe, as some of the ancients professed to do, 
 that this universal frame had its origin in the fortui- 
 tous concurrence of primordial atoms, which after 
 passing through infinite combinations presented at 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 121 
 
 last this present world, implies a degree of credulity 
 such as no religious system has ever yet exacted of 
 its votaries. Supposing the ultimate molecules of 
 matter to have existed from all eternity, they might, 
 by chance contact, have produced from time to time 
 some strange combinations ; but to suppose that a 
 universe, such as science reveals to us, so real, so 
 intricate, so harmonious, so stable, could have been 
 called into being by the operation of blind chance, 
 is a hypothesis that no man in bis senses, at the 
 present day, would think for a moment of maintain- 
 ing. If modern science has done nothing more, it 
 has at least passed a final sentence of condemnation 
 upon Democritus and Epicurus. 
 
 To account, then, for this order and harmony every- 
 where so apparent in the external world, we are 
 shut up to one of two hypotheses : the hypothesis of 
 mind, working through the forces of nature and co- 
 ordinating them into a mutual adjustment, or the hy- 
 pothesis of matter endowed with inherent powers 
 and potencies, and working in an endless succession 
 of combination and dissolution. There is no other 
 explanation possible, and in the present state of 
 speculative opinion no other explanation is proposed. 
 The choice lies between intelligence and blind force ; 
 between reason enthroned above physical causation 
 and the unconscious working of purely natural laws. 
 And this brings us to the latest and most powerful 
 assault that has been made upon the argument from 
 order, an assault springing directly from the modes 
 of scientific thinking so current at the present time. 
 In this the problem, which the order of the universe 
 presents to human reason, is not solved but rather 
 set aside by an attempted indication of the process 
 
122 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 by which that order has been brought about. It is 
 claimed that this order is sufficiently accounted for 
 when its physical antecedents have been traced back 
 to their presumed beginning. 
 
 In view of these conclusions of modern science, to 
 which reference has been already made, it is claimed 
 that every law controlling the universe both of mat- 
 ter and of mind follows as a necessary consequence 
 from the persistence of force and from the primary 
 qualities of matter. It is conceded that a generation 
 ago the argument from the order of the universe, so 
 lucidly presented by Baden Powell, must have been 
 accepted as irrefutable. With the conception of mat- 
 ter which then prevailed, the most rational explana- 
 tion of this order would have been the hypothesis of 
 an eternal mind. But in the light of recent physical 
 discovery all this is changed, and the argument so 
 long and so generally received " that that which it 
 requires thought and reason to understand must it- 
 self be thought and reason," must be forever aban- 
 doned by reasonable men. Hitherto the objections 
 to this argument have been mere guess or unwar- 
 rantable assertions ; but now it is claimed they are 
 no longer a matter of unverifiable opinion, but are 
 sure as the most fundamental axiom of science. That 
 the argument from the order of the universe will be 
 henceforth inadmissible in scientific thinking cannot 
 be a matter of questions Let us glance at the 
 grounds for these strong assertions. 
 
 The problem before us is to account for a univer- 
 sal order existing independently of mind. If we in- 
 terpret, we are told, the harmonious and mutually re- 
 lated phenomena of nature only by the facts which 
 science has revealed, we are driven to this conclu- 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 123 
 
 sion, that from the time when the process first began 
 every subsequent change or event was bound to en- 
 sue, else the doctrine of the persistency of force 
 must be abandoned. But how did this process first 
 begin. In the primeval generation of the universe 
 there was probably in existence not more than one 
 of the forces which we term natural laws. This was 
 gravitation. It matters not, whether there was ever 
 a time when gravitation, or matter as we now know 
 it, did not exist, for if there was such a time there is 
 every reason to conclude that the first matter owed 
 its existence to law. Nor is it of any consequence 
 how the law of gravitation came to be associated 
 with matter, for it is overwhelmingly probable that 
 if we could push our examination far enough it would 
 be found to follow as a necessary deduction from 
 the primary qualities of matter and force. We need 
 only to start from the three data which science fur- 
 nishes, matter, force, and gravitation, and ask the 
 question what next must happen ? 
 
 Science affords us strong grounds for the assump- 
 tion that the matter which makes up our solar sys- 
 tem primordially existed in a highly diffused form. 
 It was an ethereal cloud of indefinite and immeasur- 
 able magnitude. By mutual gravitation, the sub- 
 btance of this cloud began to concentrate upon itself. 
 It is frankly conceded, that what is termed the neb- 
 ular hypothesis is not beyond dispute, and that all 
 positive knowledge of the genesis of our solar sys- 
 tem is still of the crudest and most uncertain char- 
 acter ; still it is claimed that the theory that evolution 
 in some form has been the method of the formation 
 of the universe is placed beyond reasonable doubt, 
 and hence, that the inferences to be drawn from it 
 
124 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 are as certainly true as if we were acquainted with 
 each step of the vast process. " Given," says Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer, who may be selected as undoubt- 
 edly the foremost representative of the view which 
 we are now considering, "a raw and widely diffused 
 mass of nebulous matter, and what are the succes- 
 sive changes that will take place ? Mutual gravita- 
 tion will approximate its atoms, but their approxima- 
 tion will be opposed by atomic repulsion, the over- 
 coming of which implies the evolution of heat." 
 That is, the condensation of the nebula originates 
 new dynamical relations among its constituent 
 parts. 
 
 "As fast as this heat partially escapes by radia- 
 tion, further approximations will take place, attended 
 by further evolution of heat, and so on continuously ; 
 the processes not occurring separately, as here de- 
 scribed, but simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and 
 with increasing activity." But the previous essen- 
 tial conditions remaining the same, the new relations 
 now established would, of necessity, give rise to new 
 laws, by which is meant, simply, the occurrence of 
 similar effects under similar conditions. Hence, 
 "eventually this slow movement of the atoms to- 
 wards their common centre of gravity, will bring 
 about phenomena of another order. 
 
 "Arguing from the well-known laws of atomic 
 combination, it will happen that, when the nebulous 
 mass has reached a particular stage of condensation, 
 when its internally situated atoms have approached 
 to within certain distances, have generated a certain 
 amount of heat, and are subject to a certain mutual 
 pressure, some of them will suddenly enter into 
 chemical union. Whether the binary atoms so pro- 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 125 
 
 duced will be of kinds such as we know, or whether 
 they be of kinds simpler than any we know, which is 
 more probable, matters not to the argument. It suf- 
 fices that molecular combinations of some species 
 will finally take place." 
 
 On the process here traced is based the doctrine, " 
 that the self-generation of the laws of nature is a 
 necessary corollary from the principle of the persist- 
 ence of matter and force. For just as in the begin- 
 ning of the process, the proto-binary compounds of 
 matter gave rise to new relations, involving of ne- 
 cessity their appropriate laws, so throughout all the 
 subsequent stages of the unceasing evolution, as 
 often as matter acquired a new state, or as often as 
 in any of its former states it was thrown into new 
 relations, laws which before were non-existent and 
 impossible, became at once both possible and neces- 
 sary. And since there is no reason for fixing a limit 
 to the process once begun, if there be only time 
 enough allowed, we arrive at last at the marvelous 
 complexity of things that we see around us. All its 
 harmony and order are the product of endless modi- 
 fications of the original matter and force in which 
 the whole process had its origin. " For aught that 
 speculative reason can ever show to the contrary," 
 says the author of "Theism," "the evolution of all 
 the diverse phenomena of inorganic nature, of life and 
 of mind, appears to be as necessary and as self-de- 
 termined as is the being of that mysterious Some- 
 thing which is Everything, the entity we must all 
 believe in." l 
 
 Let it be remembered that, according to this the- 
 ory, human intelligence, like everything else, has 
 
 l "Physicus," Theism, p. 57. 
 
126 THE THEISTIC ARGOMENT. 
 
 been evolved. Mind is just as much the result of 
 this long process as heat or magnetism. For the 
 evolution of intelligence is simply the establishment 
 of more and more numerous and complex psycholog- 
 ical relations. When, therefore, the question is put, 
 must not the order and harmony of the external uni- 
 verse be due to mind, since it requires mind to in- 
 terpret and understand it ; the answer is, that if the 
 mind was itself evolved from these relations existing 
 in the material universe, being ever continuously 
 moulded into conformity with them as the very con- 
 dition of its existence, then its process of interpreta- 
 tion is simply reflecting in consciousness these ex- 
 ternal relations. In other words, granting that such 
 orderly relations exist in the external world, whether 
 with or without mind to account for them, then the 
 mere fact of our conscious intelligence being able to 
 recognize relations in the outer world, answering 
 to those which they have themselves caused in our 
 intelligence, does not warrant the conclusion that 
 these external relations are caused by an intelli- 
 gence similar to our own. The thought of the mind 
 within, simply answers to the order of the world 
 without, and both are due to precisely the same 
 cause. 
 
 Hence the final conclusion which we reach is this : 
 if all the laws of the universe are self-evolved, in- 
 cluding among them the laws of mind as well as the 
 laws of the external world, and if human intelligence 
 is simply a subjective photograph of certain of the 
 relations of the external world, then nothing is more 
 natural than that the correspondence between the 
 two should give rise to the impression that the ex- 
 ternal world instead of being itself the cause of that 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 12? 
 
 conformity, should be itself the effect of some com- 
 mon cause. Human intelligence being itself re- 
 quired to think and act in conformity to law, con- 
 founds the mere fact of action in conformity to law, 
 wherever manifested in the external world, with the 
 existence and action of a self-conscious intelligence. 
 Reading in external nature innumerable examples of 
 action in conformity with law, it draws the unwar- 
 rantable conclusion that because its own conscious- 
 ness reveals intelligence acting according to law, 
 therefore all action according to law must proceed 
 from intelligence. But it by no means follows as a 
 logical conclusion, that because the phenomena of 
 the external universe admit of being intelligently 
 inquired into, they are therefore of necessity due to 
 an intelligent cause. Hence, admitting the funda- 
 mental axioms of science, the hypothesis of intelli- 
 gent cause is needless to explain the varied phenom- 
 ena of existence. 1 
 
 In considering the objection to ttye argument from 
 order here presented, I will not pause to show that 
 it involves a series of assumptions of the highest 
 moment, most of which have not passed from the 
 region of mere hypothesis. Thus the assertion that 
 mind is evolved from matter is one of which, it is 
 needless to say, there has been as yet no proof pre- 
 sented. But, for the sake of the present discussion, 
 we may concede the general truth of the theory 
 of evolution. It is not indeed a theory, but a fact, 
 certain- as any that science has established, that 
 Creation has a history, and that this history presents 
 unmistakable evidence that the universe as it now 
 stands was not due to a single act done once for all, 
 
 1 " Physicus, Theism, p. 63. 
 
128 THE THEISTTC ARGUMENT. 
 
 but that it is a work which has been continuously 
 and progressively pursued through inconceivable 
 epochs of time. So far as it is possible for us to 
 trace back this impressive record, it presents to us 
 the same story of one age succeeding another, and 
 one system of relations formed out of previous sys- 
 tems. And it is not less certain that these progres- 
 sive changes have followed an orderly method. The 
 annals of creation, whether considered in the or- 
 ganic, or in the inorganic world, are inscribed on 
 every page with the impressive truth that creation 
 has been in accordance with law. 
 
 But admitting all this, as we are bound to admit 
 it, what conclusion follows. Because creation has 
 proceeded according to law, shall we infer that in- 
 telligence has been absent from it. To ascribe the 
 origination of order simply to law is clearly an eva- 
 sion of the real problem. For order and law in 
 nature are the same thing, and law is the very 
 thing to be explained. What we call the laws of 
 nature are not the causes, but the expressions of 
 order. Accepting the account of the origin of nat- 
 ural law which Mr. Spencer gives us, laws are 
 simply the results of delicate adjustments, infinitely 
 but harmoniously varied. The existence of a law, 
 in every case, presupposes the coexistence of several 
 conditions, and of conditions that are themselves 
 always related to each other in a way that itself de- 
 mands explanation. Besides, laws do not act of 
 themselves. It is always that which acts according 
 to law which produces the result, and the nature of 
 the result depends upon the number and character 
 of the agents, and the manner in which they are 
 disposed in relation to one another. Matter might 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 1 2Q 
 
 be endued with all its laws and yet only contusion 
 and chaos result from their operation. Hence, the 
 mere laws of nature furnish no rational explanation 
 of the order and harmony that exist. 
 
 All are ready to concede that creation, as its his- 
 tory stands revealed to us, is a process, a process to 
 which science can assign no beginning, and of which 
 it is as little competent to determine the end. But 
 it is a wholly erroneous assumption that we account 
 for the origin of this process when we simply trace 
 the method according to which that part which is 
 revealed to us proceeds. This method is precisely 
 the feature which we have to account for. That 
 the result is arrived at through appropriate condi- 
 tions, which is all the conclusion that science 
 reaches when it attempts to unfold the so-called 
 laws of nature, does not in the least explain what it 
 was that combined these conditions so that the re- 
 sult should follow. We may grant that the nebular 
 theory implies the law of gravitation, and that grav- 
 itation has determined the cause of cosmical evolu- 
 tion ; but evidently this marvelous result could have 
 followed only on the theory that the nebula origi- 
 nally possessed a definite constitution ; that its con- 
 stituents, whatever they may have been, were en- 
 dowed with certain properties and were disposed in 
 fixed relations, so that, in effect, we have at the out- 
 set an order to account for just as truly as in any 
 stage of the subsequent process. 
 
 If we do not accept this view, we are thrown 
 back upon the alternative of regarding the existing 
 order of the universe as one special result among 
 infinite possibilities of disorder, produced by the 
 mutual interaction of atoms of matter through eter- 
 
130 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 nal epochs of time. We must conceive of these 
 atoms as passing through all possible combinations, 
 till at last, after an infinite number of failures, they 
 have fallen into a harmonious arrangement. 'But 
 this is simply to fall back upon the solution of the 
 ancient atomists. " For verily," says the great ex- 
 pounder of this theory, Lucretius, "not by design 
 did the first beginnings of things station themselves 
 each in its right place, guided by keen-sighted intel- 
 ligence, nor did they bargain, sooth to say, what 
 motions each should assume, but because many in 
 number, and shifting about in many ways through- 
 out the universe, they are driven and tormented by 
 blows during infinite time past; after trying motions 
 and unions of every kind, at length they fall into ar- 
 rangements such as those out of which this our sum 
 of things has been formed." 1 Moreover, this hy- 
 pothesis has nothing whatever to support it in what 
 we observe of the process of nature. What we find 
 everywhere attested is not blind chance, but the 
 reign of law. 
 
 Dismissing as utterly untenable and irrational the 
 theory of chance, the two alternatives to which we 
 are shut up to account for the wondrous order and 
 harmony of the universe, are the alternatives of 
 mind or of matter. The theory of the persistence of 
 force, which is brought forward as supplying a cause 
 sufficient to account for this, if it means anything, 
 means one of these two. It is either force directed 
 and controlled by intelligence, or physical force 
 working blindly. But when we ask, as we surely 
 have a right to do, what is precisely meant by this 
 mysterious and indestructible potency, which is thus 
 
 1 [Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, book i., 1021-1028.] 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER. 131 
 
 represented as adequate to all the work of creation, 
 we get no definite answer. " The word force," Mr. 
 Lewes tells us, " is a symbol which has many mean- 
 ings. . It varies in different works, and often in dif- 
 ferent passages of the same work. Sometimes it 
 stands for the unknowable, whose manifestations 
 are the objective universe; sometimes it is the com- 
 mon measure by which all phenomena are rendered 
 intelligible ; sometimes it is an imaginary entity, 
 supposed to take up its habitation in substances, 
 passing freely from one to the other ; sometimes a 
 peculiar kind of matter, very subtle, and endowed 
 with qualities wholly unlike those of ordinary mat- 
 ter ; sometimes it is a simple synonym of cause 
 sometimes of strength, sometimes of motion, now 
 confounded with and now distinguished from en- 
 ergy." l 
 
 If, indeed, by conservation of force we mean con- 
 servation of actual energy, the doctrine is by no 
 means universally admitted. There is a broad dis- 
 tinction between the statement that the sum of 
 energies remains unaltered, and that the quantity of 
 force remains always the same. For example, to 
 make heat efficient we must have hotter and colder 
 bodies. As soon as all bodies are reduced to the 
 same temperature, though the sum of energy re- 
 mains the same, its efficiency or force is gone. For 
 no transformation from one body to the other is 
 longer possible. Now, according to very high au- 
 thority, there is a tendency in the universe, from the 
 constant radiation of heat, to a uniform tempera- 
 ture ; in other words, the time is coming when trans- 
 formation of heat will cease, or when force will be 
 
 1 [Problems of Life and Mind, ist Series, vol. ii., p. 307.] 
 
132 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 exhausted. But since all the phenomena of life are 
 due to this transformation, this is the same as say- 
 ing that the time is coming when the universe, as it 
 now stands, will no longer exist. And if the pres- 
 ent system of things must thus have a definite end- 
 ing it must also have had a definite beginning. So 
 the notion of an eternal rhythm of evolution and 
 dissolution based on the doctrine of the persistence 
 of force wholly falls to the ground. Physical sci- 
 ence itself, rightly interpreted, gives no support to 
 the theory. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 
 
 I HAVE thus far aimed to show from the order and 
 harmony everywhere pervading the universe, that 
 it must have had its origin in mind ; for no other 
 explanation will account for a result so marvelous. 
 This order, to repeat what has been said before, is 
 both general and special, the former showing itself 
 in regularity and the latter in adjustment. Of the 
 .former, astronomy gives us the most perfect illustra- 
 tion ; for the latter, the examples are furnished us 
 in all the departments of organic life. While it may 
 be urged that regularity and adjustment are, after 
 all, but different aspects of the same thing, since 
 the most specialized adjustments of organic structure 
 always presuppose the most general uniformities of 
 physical nature, yet even then such difference exists 
 between the two arguments as to warrant a separate 
 treatment. The former argument infers the uni- 
 verse to be an effect of mind because it is charac- 
 terized by order and harmony, the latter draws the 
 same inference because the parts of which the uni- 
 verse is composed are so collocated and combined 
 as to cooperate in the attainment of certain results. 
 
 We now proceed to consider this second phase of 
 the general argument, or, as it is commonly termed, 
 the argument from design. This designation, how- 
 ever, though common, is inaccurate, since the argu- 
 
134 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ment is not an inference from design, but an argu- 
 ment to prove design. ' To assume that the external 
 universe furnishes proof of design, and then from 
 this to reason back to a designer, is simply to beg 
 the question. In the external world we have law, 
 order, and arrangement, but design can have no ex- 
 istence save in intelligence. What is properly meant 
 by design in nature are simply certain characteris- 
 tics which are held to be indications of intelligence, 
 and which further imply such adaptation and fitness 
 as show that the result reached was a foreseen effect. 
 From this point of view the argument of design is 
 also termed the argument from final causes, mean- 
 ing by this the end for which anything exists. Thus 
 if I form a purpose to write a book, to build a house, 
 to pursue a course of study, this purpose, if realized, 
 will be the end of a series of steps or actions, and, 
 by a secondary signification, this end is made to sig- 
 nify a purposed result. 
 
 The phrase, "argument from final causes," now 
 in common use, is also not free from objection. The 
 expression " final cause " is an inheritance from the 
 scholastic philosophy, and is used in senses not al- 
 ways carefully discriminated. It is sometimes used 
 as signifying certain aspects of order or adaptation, 
 and sometimes as signifying certain aspects of design 
 or intention. And in either of these senses, it may 
 refer to the intrinsic, the extrinsic, or the ultimate 
 end of things. Thus, viewed simply as the intrinsic 
 end of what is orderly and established, the stability 
 and movement of the solar system may be termed the 
 final cause of the arrangement by which that result 
 is secured. So sight is the final cause of the eye. 
 On the other hand, final cause may mean not merely 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 135 
 
 the end of an arrangement in itself, considered as a 
 completed whole, but its relation to something else, 
 or the end which it serves as a system included in 
 other systems. If we admit one, we must admit the 
 other, for nothing in nature stands alone ; it is a sys- 
 tem composed of systems within systems. Hence 
 the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic ends 
 exists, after all, not so much in the nature of the 
 things themselves as in our way of looking at them. 
 
 In either of these two senses, we may reason legit- 
 imately from final causes. When we affirm the ex- 
 istence of final causes as intrinsic ends, we simply 
 affirm that things are systematic unities, the parts of 
 which are definitely related and coordinated to a 
 common result. When we affirm the existence of 
 final causes as extrinsic ends, we simply affirm that 
 each system is related to other systems, forming 
 parts of larger systems, and adjusted to more com- 
 prehensive results. In this sense, final causes are 
 in things ; but when we affirm them in the sense of 
 design, they are not in things, but can only exist in a 
 mind. The final cause of a thing may also mean 
 neither its intrinsic nor its extrinsic, but its ultimate 
 end, that is, its destination independent of any of 
 the relations or uses which science can trace. But 
 while speculation with regard to final causes in this 
 latter sense may be legitimate within certain bounds, 
 it affords us little help in proof of a supreme intelli- 
 gence ; for any proof must rest on what we actually 
 perceive, not on what we are able to conjecture. 
 Only after we have ascertained the Divine existence 
 and attributes can we draw any inferences with re- 
 gard to ultimate ends. 
 
 And here two things should be observed : First > 
 
136 f THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 that the argument of design is not, as often rep- 
 resented, a mere argument from analogy. Thus 
 it is said that in this argument we infer, from the 
 likeness which certain natural objects bear to artifi- 
 cial objects, that there must be a likeness in their 
 causes. We know that a watch can only be the 
 work of an intelligent maker, and hence, from the 
 wonderful adjustments in the hand or the eye, we 
 conclude that they in like manner must have been 
 framed by an intelligent being. But, whatever anal- 
 ogy there may be between the operations of nature 
 and the works of man, as part of the design argu- 
 ment it is rather a means of -illustration than a con- 
 dition of inference. When we infer that the eye, or 
 the watch, are the work of an intelligent being, there 
 is an inference in either case, and an inference of 
 precisely the same nature. It is as direct and as in- 
 dependent in the one case as in the other. We have 
 no more direct perception of the intelligence of our 
 fellow beings than we have of a supreme mind. It 
 is, therefore, impossible that our knowledge of the 
 one should be dependent on our knowledge of the 
 other. In both cases it depends on the immediate 
 consciousness of intelligence in ourselves. Hence 
 the argument of design rests directly on the charac- 
 ter of the works of nature. 
 
 In the second place, the argument of design can- 
 not be regarded as resting upon an a priori or intui- 
 tive basis. In other words, we cannot rank final 
 causation with efficient causation as a first principle 
 or axiom of thought. 1 That there is in the universe 
 an intelligent and wise adaptation of powers and 
 laws to rational ends is not an intuitive principle, 
 
 1 See Porter, Human Intellect, pp. 594-599. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 137 
 
 but a conclusion drawn from observation. To as- 
 sume the relation of means and ends to be true of 
 every event and being in the universe, is to assume 
 precisely what we are undertaking to prove. The 
 principle " that every being has an end " has neither 
 the evidence nor the necessity of the principle "that 
 every event has a cause." While causality is a prin- 
 ciple, finality is the result of an induction. 1 Final- 
 ity, in other words, is a law of nature, not a law of 
 reason. It must be sought and established by anal- 
 ysis and discussion. "The design argument," says 
 Mr. Mill, "is not drawn from mere resemblances in 
 nature to the works of human intelligence, but from 
 the special character of those resemblances. The 
 circumstances in which it is alleged that the world 
 resembles the work of man, are not circumstances 
 taken at random, but are particular instances of a 
 circumstance which experience shows to have a real 
 connection with an intelligent origin, the fact of con- 
 spiring to an end." Hence he terms it an inductive 
 argument. 2 
 
 This confusion of opinion with regard to its mean- 
 ing and scope is undoubtedly the main cause of the 
 discredit which has been attached in our time to an 
 argument which has been advanced and defended for 
 two thousand years. In the minds of many it has 
 been connected with such unintelligible or preposter- 
 ous conclusions that it has been set aside as destitute 
 of any logical basis. It is thus of the utmost impor- 
 tance to understand clearly, at the outset, what this 
 basis is. The argument of design, then, is simply 
 this : that there is a certain interpretation which the 
 
 1 Janet, Final Causes, p. 8. 
 
 2 Three Essays, etc., Theism, p. 170. 
 
138 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 facts of nature themselves call for and necessitate, 
 the interpretation or explanation which attaches to 
 manifest arrangement and adaptation. This expla- 
 nation adheres to the facts of nature, and cannot be 
 separated from them. It is stamped upon these 
 facts. In this sense, and in this only, is it claimed 
 that design or finality is in things. It is not an ex- 
 planation of nature derived from theory, but one 
 forced upon the mind by nature itself. By the con- 
 stitution of our minds, and by the laws of thought, 
 we are forced to put this construction upon the facts 
 presented. Just as we connect uniform recurrence 
 with law, so we connect manifold coincidence and 
 adaptation with design. 
 
 Bacon's familiar comparison of the search for final 
 causes to vestal virgins, who were consecrated to God 
 and barren, has done much to discredit the argument 
 of design ; but what Bacon meant was simply that 
 the student of nature should not be diverted from the 
 investigation of efficient causes by the suggestion of 
 ends or adaptations, for the appropriate work of the 
 interpreter of nature is to trace the connection of 
 natural agents and laws. And in taking this position 
 no one doubts that Bacon was right. For he was 
 dealing with a set of inquirers who refused to recog- 
 nize the physical cause of a fact as a subject of in- 
 quiry on the ground that the final cause was a suf- 
 ficient explanation. This was to put an end to all 
 scientific progress. But the maxim which he applied 
 only to the separate items of nature has been ex- 
 tended since his time to the whole system of nature, 
 while it is the agreement and concurrence in the 
 system of the separate facts which constitutes the 
 whole force of the- argument. That Bacon did not 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 139 
 
 deny that nature, in this sense, is penetrated and 
 illumined by the evidence of design is proved clearly 
 enough by his own words : " For while the mind of 
 man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may 
 sometimes rest in them and go no further, but when 
 it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and 
 linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and 
 Deity." l 
 
 The definition here given of the argument of de- 
 sign at once removes one of the most common objec- 
 tions to it. Design^ it is said, is a human concep- 
 tion, the essential offspring of a mode of thinking 
 which belongs to a limited intelligence. What right 
 have we to attribute this to an infinite being; what 
 ground have we for connecting this characteristic 
 with the supreme intelligence ? This objection, 
 though urged by writers in our own time (for exam- 
 ple, Lewes), is by no means new. Even Descartes, 
 who sought to base an argument for the existence of 
 God upon innate ideas, rejected the argument of 
 design on the ground that we must know God be- 
 fore we can attribute design to him. But, if we 
 keep clearly in our minds the principle already laid 
 down, that design is an explanation which adheres 
 to the facts of nature as they are manifest to us, this 
 objection is stripped of all its force. If, by the con- 
 stitution of our minds we are compelled to put a 
 certain construction upon certain facts, no insolu- 
 ble problem which lies beyond can hold us back 
 fron the plain and irresistible inference. We do 
 not need to know the infinite to argue from facts. 
 We start from the finite, not from the infinite, side 
 of the problem ; we assume no knowledge of an infi- 
 nite mind, but simply argue towards it. 
 
 1 [Essays : " Of Atheism."] 
 
140 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 The question which we are discussing is not 
 whether nature had an infinite designer, but whether 
 we find in nature evidences of design. " The idea 
 of infinity," as Dr. Mozley truly remarks, "combines 
 two great and startling opposites : that of being the 
 most religious, and that of being the most skeptical 
 idea of the human mind. On the one hand, it is the 
 foundation of all that is transcendental and aspir- 
 ing in human prospects ; on the other hand, it is 
 the destruction of it all." 1 Thus, on the one side, 
 it has been the favorite idea of religious minds, while 
 on the other it is the great undoer, the great re- 
 verser, of all the religious verdicts of reason. Infin- 
 ity thus becomes nature's great recantation, whereby 
 she gives up what she held, and acknowledges her- 
 self mistaken and deceived. But into this unfath- 
 omable deep we are not required to plunge. We 
 are not determining the scope of the designing mind 
 which nature shows. For it is evident that, if we 
 cannot argue up to a designing mind till we have 
 first argued down from one ; if we cannot interpret 
 the facts of nature till we have explained the mind 
 which formed nature, then the argument of design 
 would have no validity until it had ceased to have 
 any value. 
 
 If the principle of final causes were, as has been 
 claimed by some, an a priori principle, we should 
 apply it at once to all phenomena, but this is not 
 the case. In a great number of instances phenom- 
 ena have no end that we can recognize, or do not 
 at once suggest the notion of an end, while in a 
 multitude of other cases this notion is suggested to 
 the mind of the observer with irresistible force. We 
 
 1 [Essays, etc., vol. ii., p. 381.] 
 
\ 
 
 THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.- 141 
 
 NT, 
 have, then, to ask the question, what iis it that 
 
 makes this difference, what is it that warrants -us 
 in recognizing this characteristic in some cases aft^ - . , ^ 
 not in others. We see everywhere in nature not 
 only effects but a harmony and coincidence of ef- 
 fects, and reason refuses to admit that this -coinci- 
 dence itself can have followed without a cause. The 
 mind not only requires a cause to explain phe- 
 nomena, but a cause to explain the order of phenom- 
 ena. Yet, in this combination simply, we have no 
 suggestion of finality. For example, the geomet- 
 rical shapes which minerals assume in crystallizing 
 do not directly suggest the notion of design. It is 
 a phenomenon that seems only related to the past. 
 So far as our observation reaches it is a phenom- 
 enon absolutely finished, though doubtless, in the 
 strict sense, this is true of none of nature's works. 
 
 On the other hand, when a combination of phe- 
 nomena has, besides, the evident character of having 
 been determined to a future phenomenon, no matter 
 whether near or remote, reason demands an explana- 
 tion not only of the order or arrangement but equally 
 of that relation to a future effect which has given it 
 its determinate form. But this correlation cannot 
 be explained unless the resulting phenomenon, in 
 some sense, preexisted in the cause ; and when the 
 combination, to become intelligible, is thus referred, 
 at the same time, to its anterior cause, and to its 
 future effect, we have not simply a relation of cause 
 and effect, but a relation of means to end. When a 
 great number of phenomena, very different in every 
 other point of view, yet present one common and 
 constant circumstance, this circumstance may be 
 given as the cause. " We are warranted," says Mr, 
 
142 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Mill, "by the canons of induction in concluding that 
 what brought all these elements together was some 
 cause common to them all." 1 Hence it follows that 
 the criterion of final cause is the determination of 
 the present with reference to the future. In other 
 words, "the agreement of certain phenomena, bound 
 together with a future phenomenon, implies a cause 
 in which that future phenomenon is ideally repre- 
 sented." 2 
 
 Let us now glance at some of the more obvious 
 facts in nature which seem to, illustrate this deter- 
 mination of phenomena with reference to a definite 
 and future end. The operations of nature in which 
 the character of finality is most strikingly displayed 
 are of two kinds : functions and instincts. The 
 former are shown in the interior operation of organs, 
 and the latter in their exterior actions. In the 
 former that which is most striking is the structure, 
 while in the latter it is the operation. These illus- 
 trations, for the most part, are so obvious, and have 
 been so frequently employed, that it will be impos- 
 sible to treat this part of my subject without making 
 free use of familiar facts. 
 
 Of all instances of apparent adaptation in the 
 structure of the organ, the most striking is the 
 structure of the eye in its relation to the act of 
 vision. For this the primary condition is the exist- 
 ence of a nerve sensible to light. But a nerve sim- 
 ply sensible to light would serve only to distinguish 
 light from darkness ; to discriminate between ob- 
 jects an optical apparatus is required, and it is in the 
 construction of this apparatus that the nice adjust 
 ment of means to ends is most clearly manifested. 
 
 1 {Three Essays, etc., Theism, p. 171.] 
 
 2 Janet, Final Causes, p. 55. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 143 
 
 A great German physiologist, Miiller, remarks 
 upon this point : " In order that the light may pro- 
 ject upon the retina the image of the objects from 
 which it proceeds, that which comes from certain 
 definite parts of the external bodies, whether imme- 
 diately or by reflection, must not put in action more 
 than corresponding parts of the retina, a thing which 
 recognizes certain physical conditions. The light 
 which emanates from a luminous body diffuses itself 
 by radiating in all directions when it meets no ob- 
 stacle to its passage ; a luminous point will there- 
 fore lighten a whole surface, not a single point of 
 that surface. If the surface which receives the light 
 radiating from a point is the united surface of the 
 retina, the light of that point causes the sensation 
 of light in the whole, and not merely in a part of 
 the nervous membrane." There then would be no 
 vision, in the proper sense of the word, but only the 
 sensation of light. " Consequently, in order that 
 the external light may produce in the eye an image 
 corresponding to the bodies, it is indispensable that 
 there should be arrangements to cause the light 
 given forth from certain points to act on isolated 
 parts of the retina arranged in the same order, and 
 which prevent one point of that membrane from 
 being illuminated at once by several points of the 
 external world." 1 
 
 In order to attain the result here desired, two dif- 
 ferent systems have been employed. The first of 
 these, which are called composite eyes, is seen in 
 the case of insects. The method here adopted con- 
 sists in placing before the retina, and perpendicular 
 to it, an innumerable quantity of transparent cones 
 
 1 Janet, p. 58. 
 
144 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which allow only the light which follows the direc- 
 tion of their axis to reach the nervous membrane, 
 while all which strikes obliquely is absorbed by the 
 pigment which lines their walls. Here nature pro- 
 ceeds precisely like the chemist in his laboratory, 
 when, in order to study a phenomenon, he seeks first 
 to isolate it, that surrounding circumstances may not 
 disturb his experiment. This combination of. trans- 
 parent cones with absorbing walls, allowing the light 
 to come in one direction, and absorbing it in every 
 other, however it may be explained, is evidently the 
 same process. But what makes the contrivance of 
 the eye vastly more marvelous than the precaution 
 of the chemist, is the amazing quantity of combina- 
 tions which the system requires, amounting to 12,000 
 or even 20,000 cones in a single eye, to which must 
 exactly correspond in the co'rnea as many little geo- 
 metrical divisions without which the result intended 
 would not follow. Can such wonderful contrivances 
 fail to suggest design ? 
 
 But more striking even than this is the structure 
 of the human eye. With insects the method con- 
 sists in excluding the rays which would prevent the 
 effect from being produced. With man the same 
 result is obtained with more precision, and greater 
 intensity of effect, by concentrating upon one point 
 the divergent rays which emanate from another. 
 The human eye is, in fact, a camera, and is con- 
 structed on the principle of the instrument which 
 photography has rendered so familiar. We have a 
 solid membrane, enclosing the globe of the eye, 
 made transparent at one point, this transparent part 
 corresponding exactly with the opening of the orbit. 
 Behind this transparent opening are placed con 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 145 
 
 vergent media to unite the luminous rays. And 
 lastly, in the very axis of the transparent cornea, 
 and of the crystalline lens, is placed the. retina 
 which receives the image of the object. Nor is this 
 all ; but the degree of curvature of the crystalline 
 lens is always exactly adapted to the medium in 
 which the animal is called to live, whether it be air 
 or water, and the eye possesses a faculty of accom- 
 modation, by which it is enabled to see with equal 
 distinctness objects placed at different distances. 
 And still another remarkable property of the eye is 
 its achromatic power, which, if not perfect, is yet 
 sufficient for practical use. 
 
 While considering this complicated internal struc- 
 ture of the human eye, the part which the external 
 organs play should not be overlooked. The eye is 
 protected from injury by a lid, which is further pro- 
 vided with lashes. For a long time it was supposed 
 that these organs served simply- to prevent injurious 
 substances from entering the .eye, but recent re- 
 search has shown that they have another and far 
 more delicate function; that is, that they have the 
 power of partially arresting what are termed the 
 ultra-violet rays, or the luminous rays which lie be- 
 yond the violet in the solar spectrum, and which act 
 in a very injurious manner upon the retina. Precise 
 experiments have also shown that these protecting 
 media have also the power of arresting almost the 
 whole of the obscure radiating heat which always 
 accompanies light in considerable proportion, and 
 which might, if allowed to strike upon the retina, 
 affect its very delicate tissue. But, in consequence 
 of this arrest, only those rays are transmitted which 
 are required for producing vision. Here we have 
 
 10 
 
146 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 an arrangement which is no part of the organic 
 structure of the eye itself, but which is externally 
 combined with it, simply that the eye may be pro- 
 tected in the work it has to perform. We have the 
 adjustment of one organ to another and wholly dis- 
 
 tinct organ. 
 
 Now I am well aware that the human eye has 
 been the object of severe criticism, and that some 
 physicists have not hesitated to declare that it is by 
 no means the perfect and admirable organ that has 
 been represented. Some have complained of the 
 uselessness of the crystalline humor, since the blind 
 operated on for cataract, can do without it. Helm- 
 holtz has shown, to his own satisfaction, that consid- 
 ered as a mere instrument, the eye has imperfections 
 and defects ; while a French writer declares that 
 there is no maker of optical instruments who could 
 not make a better one than Nature has furnished 
 to man. But we are not discussing the question 
 whether the eye is an absolutely perfect instrument, 
 nor are we called on here to pronounce an opinion 
 as to whether a German or a French professor could 
 make a better. The only question before us is 
 whether the eye, as it stands, shows the character- 
 istics of design. Placing before us its delicate and 
 complicated structure, its exact adjustments, the 
 careful manner in which it is protected in the per- 
 formance of its important functions, shall we say 
 that it was intelligently planned with reference to 
 a definite end, or shall we explain it from the blind 
 operation of mere physical causes ? 
 
 Another striking class of facts on which the argu- 
 ment of design is based is that illustrated in the 
 instincts of the lower animals. Little as we know 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 147 
 
 of the real nature of instinctive acts in distinction 
 from those which we term intelligent or rational, 
 this much seems certain, that they are not executed 
 with any foresight on the part of the animal of the 
 result attained, and are not acts of judgment derived 
 from any previous experience. Facts without num- 
 ber in proof of this might be supplied from the most 
 cursory observation. The young bee is hardly able 
 to move its wings when it leaves the hive in search 
 of flowers, and begins to labor not to supply its own 
 immediate wants, but for a common and future good. 
 The spider has not so much as seen the insects 
 which will serve for its food when it hastens to lay 
 a snare for them by weaving its curious web. The 
 spinning machinery which is set up in its body is 
 not more accurately adjusted to the secretion of 
 which its web is formed, than is its instinct directed 
 to the construction of the web, and to the selection 
 of suitable places for the capture of its prey. Each 
 step it takes is adapted to a determinate result. 
 And this determination appears more striking as we 
 descend the scale of nature, and as the parents are 
 more released from personal care of their offspring. 
 All creatures are under a like impulse to provide for 
 the nourishing of their young, but while animals dis- 
 charge only a purely physical function in giving 
 suck, birds have their nests to build, and after hatch- 
 ing their young, must gather food adapted to the 
 period of growth, while insects go much farther, and 
 in some instances, as with bees, are charged with 
 the selection of nourishment which has the power 
 of producing organic changes in the young, so that 
 certain selected individuals can be made the queens 
 of future hives. Here we have a vast series of ad- 
 
148 THE TPIEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 justments, not only between the bodily organs and 
 instincts of the individual, but between the instincts 
 of animals and those forces of surrounding nature 
 which are related to them. The foresight is not in 
 the animals themselves. They simply walk in a path 
 which has been marked for them. We have, in all 
 this, the criterion of finality, the determination of 
 the present by the future. Nor is this evidence any 
 less striking if we allow that instinct in the higher 
 animals is often coupled with intelligence, and that 
 it may be modified by experience, or by hereditary 
 transmission. 1 
 
 A consideration of these instances, which might 
 be multiplied without end, will now enable us to 
 recognize more clearly the truth of the principle 
 that has been already asserted, that the argument 
 of design is simply an explanation or interpretation 
 of facts. The general conclusion of order belongs 
 to the category of mental inferences, but each par- 
 ticular instance of purpose on .which this general in- 
 ference is based, is not a mental inference but a 
 physical fact. Of nothing can we say that we see 
 its ultimate purpose, but the immediate purpose lies 
 directly before our eyes, and is all with which we 
 have to do. The function of an organ is a matter 
 of purely physical investigation, but this function is 
 not merely what it does, but what its construction 
 enables it to do. The idea of function cannot be 
 separated from the idea of purpose. The function 
 of an organ is its purpose, and the adjustment of its 
 various parts as well as of its complex whole to that 
 purpose is as much a fact as any other phenomenon 
 of which science can take note. It is, therefore, a 
 
 1 Flint, Theism, p. 383. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 149 
 
 manifest misunderstanding of the truth to assert 
 that the idea of purpose belongs, not to science, but 
 to the domain of metaphysics and theology. 1 
 
 There is no doubt a sense, and an important 
 sense, in which all science rests at last on meta- 
 physical conceptions. Yet the idea of purpose and 
 adjustment is by no means so metaphysical as other 
 ideas which are not only freely adopted into physical 
 science, but are even, in some instances, made its 
 fundamental postulates. The relation of a given 
 structure to its function or end is certainly a physi- 
 cal fact far more simple, direct, and unmistakable, 
 than the relation of the same structure to a corre- 
 sponding part in a wholly different animal on which 
 the whole doctrine of homologies is based. Classi- 
 fication, on which all science is founded, is simply 
 an arrangement of facts in an ideal order, or in con- 
 formity to certain laws of thought. But mere phys- 
 ical facts can have no such close relation to an 
 ideal order, as the organs of an animal have to the 
 precise function which they are meant to discharge 
 in the animal economy. The marvelous adjust- 
 ment, then, which we have presented in the natural 
 world is simply a question of fact. It is a fact to 
 be ascertained and recognized in each particular 
 case, and the question of its existence has nothing 
 to do with the question of any larger or ultimate 
 purpose. 
 
 Before leaving this part of our discussion, it is 
 important to observe that these numberless facts 
 which illustrate contrivance or design in nature not 
 only do not conflict with what has been asserted, 
 in a previous lecture, of the order and harmony 
 
 1 Duke of Argyle, Reign of Law, p. 86. 
 
I5O THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 everywhere displayed in the physical universe, but, 
 on the other hand, only serve to render it more 
 striking. For the necessity of contrivance is a di- 
 rect result of the immutability of natural forces. 
 These forces must always be conformed to and 
 obeyed, and therefore, when they cannot directly 
 serve a given purpose, they can only be made to do 
 so by combination and contrivance. Hence we may 
 lay it down as an evident principle that when a 
 universe is governed by constant and invariable 
 laws contrivance will follow by a logical necessity. 
 Instead, therefore, of suggesting any unworthy con- 
 ception of the universe, or of the intelligence that 
 everywhere manifests itself through the universe, 
 this adaptation of means to ends, or contrivance for 
 the accomplishment of purpose, is inseparably bound 
 up with the conception of the universe as it exists. 
 Even had we no facts to prove it, we might infer 
 contrivance as a consequence of the inflexible de- 
 mands of law. 
 
 And, as we follow out and understand more 
 thoroughly each instance of contrivance, this fea- 
 ture will be more distinctly recognized. Nowhere 
 is it more strikingly displayed than in the way- in 
 which nature accomplishes that in which man has 
 Always failed the navigation of the air. This point 
 has received such apt and beautiful illustration from 
 the Duke of Argyle that I cannot do better than 
 borrow the substance of his reasoning. 
 
 Among the great mysteries of nature has always 
 been reckoned the flight of birds. It seemed a vio- 
 lation of one of the most familiar and ever-present 
 forces of nature. How, in defiance of the known 
 effects of gravity, could heavy bodies float them- 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 151 
 
 selves in thin air, or sweep at will, in headlong 
 plunge, with movements more easy, more rapid, 
 more certain, than could be executed by animals 
 upon the solid eartli ? Well did Solomon say of 
 " the way of an eagle in the air," that " he knew it 
 not." Anything more beautiful and more striking 
 is not presented to us in the realm of organic life. 
 Yet, when we come to study and understand it, we 
 find it simply an illustration of the way in which 
 contrivance has bent to its purposes the most rigid 
 and universal of laws. 
 
 In the first place, we have to note that the force 
 which seems so adverse, the force of gravitation, is 
 the very thing which renders the flight of birds pos- 
 sible. Birds do not fly because they are lighter than 
 air, but because they are heavier. Were they lighter 
 they might float like a balloon, but they could not 
 fly. What makes it impossible to direct the course 
 of a balloon, what causes it to drift helplessly in the 
 upper space, is the simple fact that it possesses no 
 active force which enables it to resist the varying 
 currents in which it is immersed. It is part of the 
 atmosphere, and must go with the wind that blow- 
 eth where it listeth. But the bird, being always 
 greatly heavier than the air, is endowed with a force 
 which supplies momentum, and therefore is capable 
 of overcoming any lower force, and even heavy 
 gales of wind. Gravitation is, therefore, an essential 
 element in the flight of birds ; and hence the heavy 
 birds are always the most vigorous on the wing, and 
 can wrestle victoriously with the rudest blasts. It 
 is because the law of gravity is always acting that 
 the eagle swoops from his mountain nest, and the 
 wild goose wings his rapid flight across a continent 
 in search of his winter home. 
 
152 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 But, coupled with this, is another principle which, 
 at first sight, would seem, like gravity, only an im- 
 pediment to flight. This is the resisting force of the 
 atmosphere, in which the requisite balance to the 
 force of gravity is supplied. Now that the force of 
 air should be made effectual for this purpose, it must 
 be used under peculiar conditions. The force of air 
 is a force acting in all directions, and if it can pre- 
 vent a body from falling it can also prevent it from 
 advancing. Hence it must be called into action in 
 a direction as much as possible opposed to the force 
 of gravity, and as little as possible in any other. 
 These conditions are met by the great breadth of 
 surface presented perpendicularly by the bird's ex- 
 panded wing, and by the narrow line presented hori- 
 zontally. But mere pressure of air is not enough. 
 More must be invoked to accomplish flight, and that 
 is the air's immense elasticity. To enable a crea- 
 ture heavier than the air to support itself against 
 the force of gravity, it must be able to strike down- 
 ward with such force as to cause a corresponding 
 rebound. These conditions are all met in the enor- 
 mous vigor of the muscles which move the wings of 
 birds. In many birds the pulsations of the wing 
 are so rapid as utterly to defy any attempt to count 
 them. 
 
 Without pausing to dwell on the obvious adapta- 
 tion of the structure of the wings to the work they 
 have to do, we pass to another arrangement which 
 shows in a manner, if possible more striking still, 
 how a difficulty opposed by natural laws is over- 
 come. It is plain that if a bird is to support itself 
 by the downward stroke of its wings upon the air, 
 it must lift the wings again, and that each upward 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 153 
 
 stroke is in danger of neutralizing the opposite. It 
 must be made with equal velocity and must hence 
 produce equal resistance. If this difficulty were not 
 overcome flight would still be impossible. But by 
 two contrivances, it is evaded. One is that the 
 upper surface of the wing is made convex, so that 
 the air escapes readily on all sides, and compara- 
 tively little resistance is produced, and the other 
 consists in the fact that the feathers of the wing are 
 made to under lap t so that in the downward stroke 
 they are closed, while in the upward they are separ- 
 ated, the air rushing freely between them at every 
 point. 
 
 But rapid blows thus struck against the air might 
 enable the bird simply to lift itself straight up. The 
 power of forward motion is given by the direction 
 in which all the wing feathers are set, and by the 
 structure given to each individual feather. The wing 
 feathers are all set in a rigid frame, and in a direc- 
 tion opposite to that in which the bird is meant to 
 move, and each feather while rigid at its base is 
 extremely flexible and elastic at the end. In conse- 
 quence of this disposition of the parts, the air which 
 is struck and compressed in the hollow of the wing, 
 being unable to escape through the wing, owing to 
 the closing upwards of the feathers, and unable to 
 escape forwards on account of the rigidity of the 
 irame and of the quills in that direction, is com- 
 pelled to pass out behind. In thus escaping back- 
 wards it lifts by its force the elastic ends of the 
 feathers, and thus, in obedience to the law of action 
 and reaction, communicates along the entire edge of 
 both wings a corresponding push forwards to the 
 body of the bird. By this elaborate contrivance the 
 
154 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 same volume of air that yields pressure enough to 
 sustain the bird against the force of gravity commu- 
 nicates a forward motion. The bird has simply to 
 repeat its perpendicular blows, and as a direct con- 
 sequence of this peculiar structure of its wings, the 
 same blow supports and propels it. Thus it appears 
 that gravity supplies birds with an internal force 
 which, acting through nicely adjusted instruments 
 upon the external force of air, is the explanation of 
 their wondrous evolutions. Could we ask for a more 
 convincing proof that it is the very immutability of 
 law that renders contrivance a necessity ? 
 
 But while the argument of design may rest on 
 this broad basis of undisputed fact, there are objec- 
 tions to it, the most formidable of which also appeal 
 to facts, and which require candid consideration at 
 our hands. Many objections that have been urged 
 against contrivance, or finality, have been already 
 disposed of by the careful limitation of the argu- 
 ment on which we have already insisted. One who 
 defends this argument at the present day is by no 
 means called upon to defend all the ill-grounded and 
 preposterous applications that have been made of it. 
 That the study of final causes is not opposed to the 
 study of physical causes, and that in the investiga- 
 tion of final causes we do not assume to gather the 
 ultimate purposes of the Supreme Intelligence, has 
 been already shown. To borrow on this latter point 
 an illustration from Robert Boyle : " A peasant, en- 
 tering the garden of a famous mathematician and 
 seeing there a curious astronomical instrument, 
 would, no doubt, be guilty of great presumption 
 should he believe himself capable of comprehending 
 all the ends for which it had been constructed ; but 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 155 
 
 if he sees on it a plate and index casting a shadow 
 of the sun, he might infer that one part of its pur- 
 pose was to mark the hours." 
 
 An abuse of final causes which long prevailed con- 
 sisted in rejecting facts on the ground of their in- 
 consistency with some final cause supposed to be 
 ascertained. Thus, in the last century, the exist- 
 ence of double stars was denied by a celebrated 
 astronomer, on the ground that one luminous body 
 did not need another revolving round it. So the 
 theory that the earth was a mere satellite of the sun 
 had, for a long time, to contend \vith the notion that 
 man was the final cause of the creation, and was, 
 therefore, entitled to a central position in the uni- 
 verse. Final causes have at times been used to 
 account for phenomena that had no existence. Even 
 Fenelon maintained that the moon was created to 
 give the earth light in the absence of the sun, for- 
 getting that we are often deprived of the light of 
 both. Some applications of the doctrine are almost 
 too absurd for mention. Thus the author of " Paul 
 and Virginia" asserted that dogs were usually of 
 two opposite colors, light and dark, that they might 
 be distinguished from the furniture of a room, and 
 that a melon had been divided into sections by nat- 
 ure to adapt it to family eating. Voltaire did not go 
 beyond this when he affirmed, " Noses are made to 
 bear spectacles ; let us wear them." 
 
 But, leaving these objections, which spring from 
 misconceptions or misapplications of the argument, 
 I pass to consider one that is very ohd, and that 
 touches the very centre of the problem. The the- 
 ory of final causes, it is claimed, inverts the order 
 of the facts by taking the effect for the cause. The 
 
156 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT, 
 
 eye sees, not because it was made for sight, but 
 because it is capable of seeing ; the bird flies, not 
 because he was made for flight, but because he is 
 so made that he can fly. For the most forcible ex- 
 pression of this doctrine we may turn to the great 
 Roman poet, whose theory coincides so precisely 
 with some of the? currents of modern thought : 
 
 "But before all, be on your guard against too 
 common an error : believe not that the shining orb 
 of our eyes has only been created to procure for us 
 the sight of objects ; that these legs and these mov- 
 able thighs have only been reared on the basis of 
 the feet to give greater extent to our paces ; that 
 the arms, in fine, have only been formed of solid 
 muscles, and terminated by the right and left hands, 
 to be the ministers of our wants and of our pres-. 
 ervation. By such interpretations, the respective 
 order of effects and causes has been reversed. Our 
 members have not been made for our use, but we 
 have made use of them because we have found them 
 made." l 
 
 But the objection here urged, which has been more 
 accurately stated by Spinoza, is the very problem here 
 at issue. For if there are final causes, the effect is 
 no longer merely an effect, it is at the same time a 
 cause. The question, whether there are not effects 
 which are at the same time causes, is the point on 
 which the whole discussion hinges. Or rather, to 
 speak with entire accuracy, it is not the effect itself 
 which is the cause, but the idea of the effect. The 
 objection would, therefore, hold only against the 
 theory of an unconscious finality. But if, by final- 
 ity, we mean an intelligent foresight of the end, the 
 
 1 Lucretius, Nature of Things, b. iv. 822 : ( J; net, p. 200.) 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 157 
 
 objection has no force. For in this sense there is no 
 contradiction in the assertion that an effect may be 
 a cause. But, still further, this objection does not 
 touch the real point at issue. If we assume the ex- 
 istence of the eye, no one denies that sight is the 
 necessary result. But how came the eye itself, with 
 all its complex adjustments, to exist ? The harmony 
 between the internal and the external conditions 
 once established, and the effect follows as a thing 
 of course ; but the problem how that harmony was 
 first brought about is in no way solved by the asser- 
 tion that man sees simply because he has eyes given 
 him. 
 
 A far more formidable objection to the argument 
 of design is drawn from the vast armory from which 
 the arguments in support of it are furnished, that 
 is from the facts of nature. If the generality of 
 facts support the law, it cannot be denied that the 
 apparent exceptions are also numerous and striking. 
 The theory rests on the adaptation of organ to func- 
 tion, but in many instances this adaptation cannot be 
 made out. Numerous cases might be cited among 
 the lower animals where the same organ performs 
 at the same time wholly different functions. In the 
 hydra, the animal may be turned inside out like a 
 glove, and the exterior surface will then perform the 
 functions of digestion. In the animal kingdom, two 
 distinct organs, in the same individual, may simul- 
 taneously perform the same function. Thus the air- 
 bladder found in certain fishes, originally constructed 
 to aid in floating, may be converted into an appa- 
 ratus for oreathing. The tail, a nullity for man, 
 fulfills the office of a fifth hand for monkeys, and 
 serves as a leg to the kangaroo. An organ is not, 
 
158 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 therefore, always characterized by its use, and we 
 are compelled to admit that we cannot trace in na- 
 ture an absolute and necessary correlative between 
 organ and function. 1 
 
 There are, also, organs appealed to against final 
 causes that seem to have no function. These seem- 
 ingly useless organs are of two kinds, complete or 
 rudimentary. With the advance of science the for- 
 mer class are continually becoming less. It would 
 be presumption to say that an organ has no use be- 
 cause its use has not been discovered. An organ, 
 like the spleen, may be of use, without being essen- 
 tial to existence. On this point Mr. Darwin re- 
 marks, with his habitual caution : " We are much too 
 ignorant regarding the whole economy of any one 
 organic being to say what slight modifications would 
 be of importance or not." 2 As he proceeds to show, 
 even characteristics in an animal apparently so su- 
 perficial as color may be of essential use, and, if this 
 be true, we can hardly affirm positively of any organ 
 that it serves no purpose. Since the law of the 
 utility of organs and of their adaptation finds suffi- 
 cient verification in such a vast multitude of cases, 
 it seems far more reasonable to suppose that the 
 apparent exceptions spring from our ignorance rather 
 than from any failure of the principle. For a long 
 time there were apparent exceptions in some of the 
 heavenly bodies to Nature's law, yet when analyzed 
 they have only furnished a new verification of it. 
 
 But when we pass from complete organs to rudi- 
 mentary organs the case is different. Here we en- 
 counter a real difficulty, which cannot be -removed 
 
 1 See Janet, p. 223. 
 
 2 [Origin of Species, c. vi. (Am. ed., p. 190.)] 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 159 
 
 by appealing to human ignorance. Thus the woman 
 bears on her bosom the organs destined to support 
 her child. In man they exist, but in a rudimentary 
 state, and serve no useful purpose. Horses can 
 move their skin, and thus drive away the flies that 
 trouble them. Man has the muscle with which this 
 movement is accomplished, but he has no power to 
 contract it voluntarily. The marsupials, such as 
 the kangaroos, are furnished with a pouch, in which 
 their young are carried during the period of lactation. 
 Man bears the traces of the same arrangement in 
 the processes of the pubis, and the pyramidal mus- 
 cles, but they are manifestly without use. He has 
 in the calf of his leg a long slender muscle, inca- 
 pable of energetic action, which in the tiger, the 
 panther, and the leopard, explains the prodigious 
 leaps with which they pounce upon their prey. The 
 human intestine has an appendix, represented by a 
 large fold in the herbivorous animals, which in man 
 serves no purpose of digestion, yet may become a 
 source of danger and even of death. He has an 
 organ not only without use but positively detri- 
 mental to him. 1 
 
 The existence of such useless rudimentary organs 
 can, however, be accounted for in two ways : on the 
 theory of the unity of type, or on the theory of the 
 atrophy of organs by disuse. In the first, we can 
 easily see that the type remaining the same, nature, 
 whether by amplifying it, or inverting it, or chang- 
 ing its proportions, may adapt it to various circum- 
 stances, and that the organs thus rendered useless 
 survive only as a souvenir of the original plan. Or, 
 adopting the second, if the organs have ceased to be 
 
 1 See Janet, p. 228. 
 
l6o THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 of service, and thus have been reduced to a mini- 
 mum, it does not follow that they cannot have been 
 of use at some former time. But neither of these 
 two explanations contradicts in the least the theory 
 of finality. It is by no means implied in this theory 
 that plan should be subordinated to use ; and nothing 
 conforms more exactly to it than the gradual disap- 
 pearance of useless organs. " Those who maintain 
 final causes are not bound to maintain that they 
 must always prevail over efficient causes. Nature 
 is not bound to conform itself, in all things, to the 
 utility of living beings, but the organization must 
 be considered as a mean taken between the interest 
 of the organized being and the general laws that 
 render his structure possible." l 
 
 " At first sight," says the Duke of Argyle, " it may ap- 
 pear as if there were facts not to be reconciled with the 
 supremacy of purpose, at first sight, but at first sight 
 only. For as we look at them and wonder at them, and 
 set ourselves to discover how many of a like nature can 
 be found, our eye catches sight of an order which has not 
 been at first perceived. Exceptions to our narrow rule, 
 such as we might have laid down and followed for our- 
 selves, they are now seen to be in strict subordination to 
 a larger rule which it would never have entered into our 
 imagination to conceive. These useless members, these 
 rudimentary or aborted limbs which puzzle us so much, 
 are parts of a universal plan. On this plan the bony 
 skeletons of all living animals have been put together. 
 The forces which have been combined for the moulding 
 of organic forms have been so combined as to mould 
 them after certain types or patterns. And when compar- 
 ative anatomy has revealed this fact as affecting all the 
 animals of the existing world, another branch of the same 
 i Janet, p. 234. 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. l6l 
 
 science comes in to confirm the generalization, and extend 
 it over the innumerable creatures which have existed and 
 have passed away. This one plan of organic life has 
 never been departed from since time began. 
 
 " When we have grasped this great fact, all the lesser 
 facts which are subordinate to it assume a new signifi- 
 cance. In the first place, a plan of this kind is in itself 
 a purpose. An order so vast as this, including within 
 itself such variety of detail, and maintained through such 
 periods of time, implies combination and adjustment 
 founded upon, and carrying into effect, one vast concep- 
 tion. It is only as an order of thought that the doctrine 
 of animal homologies is intelligible at all. It is a men- 
 tal order, and can only be mentally perceived. For what 
 do we mean when we say that this bone in one kind of 
 animal corresponds to such another bone in another kind 
 of animal ? Corresponds in what sense ? Not in the 
 method of using it, for very often limbs, which are homo- 
 logically the same, are put to the most diverse and oppo- 
 site uses. To what standard, then, are we referring when 
 we say that such and such two limbs are homologically 
 the same ? It is to the standard of an ideal order, a 
 plan, a type, a pattern mentally conceived." 1 
 
 Two distinct ideas are, in fact, interwoven in or- 
 ganic life, the ideas of homology in structure and 
 of analogy in use. One represents unity of design, 
 the other variety of function, and the two constantly 
 modify each other. 
 
 I pass to another objection urged against the ar- 
 gument of design, the objection on which altogether 
 most stress is laid at the present time, an objection 
 which, in the opinion of not a few, has removed from 
 nature all evidence of a final cause. I refer to the 
 doctrine which derives all the wonderful adaptations 
 
 1 Reign of 'Law ', p. 206. 
 II 
 
1 62 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 of the physical universe, simply from antecedent 
 conditions of existence. The objection already con- 
 sidered, that in the argument of design the effect is 
 put for the cause, implies that any given organism 
 is simply an effect resulting from certain given 
 causes, and that those causes are all contained in 
 the series of successive steps by which the organism 
 has come into existence. This objection in itself is 
 not new, but may be traced back as far as Aristotle ; 
 but it has recently derived great additional force 
 from the new illustration it has received at the hands 
 of some eminent observers of the facts of nature. 
 According to this theory, design is no longer needed 
 to connect organs with the function they discharge ; 
 but another principle, drawn from nature itself, af- 
 fords an adequate explanation. This is the principle 
 of Mr. Darwin which has become familiar in the 
 phrase, " survival of the fittest." 
 
 It is an error to speak of Mr. Darwin as the orig- 
 inator of the theory of natural selection. It was 
 advocated in a general form by many before his 
 time. But the great English naturalist was the first 
 who attempted to trace with precision the steps by 
 which the process was carried on, and from his un- 
 rivaled powers of observation the theory was set 
 forth with a wealth of illustration that gave it alto- 
 gether a new character. As presented by him, the 
 theory did not pretend to account for the origin of 
 sensation, or of animal or vegetable life. Assum- 
 ing the existence of some of the lowest forms of 
 organic life, in which are found no complex adapta- 
 tions, and no traces of contrivance, and assuming, 
 as was not unreasonable, that many small variations 
 from those simple types would be thrown out in all 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 163 
 
 dii actions, which might be transmitted by inherit- 
 ance, some of which would be advantageous to the 
 creature in its struggle for existence and others dis- 
 advantageous, the former would tend to survive, 
 while, on the other hand, the latter would tend to 
 perish. And thus, by a slow but constant modifi- 
 cation of the type, adapting itself to different condi- 
 tions of existence, it might develop into all the va- 
 rieties that now present themselves. 1 
 
 In thus explaining the evolution of higher from 
 lower forms of life, Mr. Darwin appeals to physical 
 agencies that are visibly in action. Whether spe- 
 cies are changing or not at the ^resent cannot, in- 
 deed, be determined by observation ; but the entire 
 period during which man has watched the operations 
 of nature is but an infinitesimal portion of the vast 
 epoch that has elapsed since this process of nat- 
 ural selection began. Yet man's experience, short 
 as it is, furnishes abundant illustration of the method 
 by which these modifications have taken place. The 
 mode in which the existing breed of race-horses has 
 been produced is a case in point. Simply by taking 
 a score of horses and selecting from these the fleetest 
 to pair together, and then again selecting the fleet- 
 est of their offspring, he will soon produce an animal 
 whose speed far exceeds that of the native race from 
 which he sprung. The different kinds of dogs, so 
 unlike in all their external characteristics, the 
 mastiff, the greyhound, the terrier, have all been 
 developed from allied varieties of the wolf and jackal. 
 Our domestic pigeons, where the divergences, due in 
 most cases to human fancy, are still more remark- 
 able, are all descended from a single species of wild 
 pigeon. 
 
 1 Mill, Three Essays, etc., Theism, D. 172. 
 
1 64 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 To comprehend how nature conducts her long 
 process of natural selection we must remember that 
 the reproductive capacity of plants and of the lower 
 animals almost transcends belief. Thus, a minute 
 alpine plant (proto-coccus) is said to multiply so fast 
 in a single night as to color many acres of snow 
 blood-red. A single codfish is estimated to lay six 
 million eggs within a year. This enormous increase 
 can only be kept within just bounds by the destruc- 
 tion of the greater number. Of the six million em- 
 bryo codfish but a small number reach maturity. 
 This is what is meant by the struggle for existence, 
 the universal law of the natural world. Those only 
 survive and propagate their kind which are best 
 adapted to the conditions in which they live. By a 
 stern method nature saves from the general slaugh- 
 ter only those who are best able to support them- 
 selves. But, during this process, the external con- 
 ditions are also changing. Modifications of the 
 earth's surface, in the moisture of the atmosphere, 
 in the intensity of solar heat, are ever going on, and 
 thus, in the constant struggle, no constant race re- 
 mains, but new varieties are constantly produced, 
 once more under new conditions, to renew and per- 
 petuate the endless struggle. Only time is needed 
 to explain all phenomena of variation. 
 
 But without dwelling at greater length upon a 
 theory which has been rendered familiar to us all 
 by recent discussion, let us ask the only question 
 with which we are here concerned, how does it af- 
 fect the argument of design ? For the sake of the 
 argument let us concede that the theory of natural 
 selection is well established. To what conclusion 
 does it lead ? It has been hastily inferred that the 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 165 
 
 doctrine of finality has received its death-blow from 
 this theory. Is this a logical result? Taking Mr. 
 Darwin's own account, natural selection is evidently 
 not an agent, but simply a result. It is nothing 
 more than the success of one animal in its strug- 
 gle with another. Thus, by fleeing for generations 
 from its enemies, the swiftness of the antelope has 
 been developed. By seeking its food from trees, the 
 long neck of the giraffe has gradually been drawn 
 out. But the primal productive agency in both these 
 cases was not natural selection. Natural selection 
 was simply a negative condition. It created noth- 
 ing ; it simply destroyed a large part of that already 
 in existence. When we are told that natural selec- 
 tion "effects improvement," that it "develops struc- 
 ture," this language can be only metaphor. For 
 natural selection can do nothing. It can produce 
 no new variety, but only determines what new vari- 
 ety, under favorable circumstances, shall survive. 
 
 Now what strikes us most forcibly in the natural 
 world is not simply the fact of development, but the 
 fact that this development has been progressive, 
 and that it proceeds in accordance with an orderly 
 method, a method which results in the constant for- 
 mation of more highly organized species. How shall 
 this be accounted for ? There are but two explana- 
 tions possible : chance variation running through 
 long periods of time, or variation according to pre- 
 arranged order. Only let us have an infinity of time, 
 it is urged, and the right variation will, sooner or 
 later, take place, and be perpetuated. But these va- 
 riations join on, in every instance, to what has been 
 produced before, forming a harmonious fabric, and 
 they occur not as fluctuating and vanishing products, 
 
1 66 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 but as fixed and permanent modifications. Let us 
 go back to the illustration of the eye. Accepting 
 this explanation, we are forced to the conclusion 
 that this organ, not only with its inimitable contri- 
 vance for adjusting the focus to different distances, 
 for admitting different amounts of light, for the cor 
 rection of spherical and chromatic aberration, but 
 with its nerve unlike any other in the system, its 
 external mechanism of lid and lashes, is the result 
 of chance. Such a hypothesis violates moral pos- 
 sibility ; it is, in fact, nothing but the discarded doc- 
 trine of Lucretius and the Epicureans. 
 
 We have only left the other hypothesis, that nat- 
 ural selection works according to fixed laws. But 
 laws in nature are simply uniform facts. And as 
 soon as we look at them clearly, we see everywhere 
 coincidence, correspondence, correlation. If they 
 result finally in elaborate and intricate system, they 
 must contain system and imply system. Hence the 
 so-called law of variability must, itself, be taken as 
 the expression of a purpose. For the variation of 
 an organism must be, in some measure, at least, de- 
 termined by the original constitution of the organ- 
 ism. Nobody expects to gather figs of thistles. And 
 this variation proceeds just as much in a definite 
 direction. In the nature of things there is no more 
 reason for improvement than for deterioration. 
 Why is improvement and advance the rule ? Sim- 
 ply because the internal constitution of the organ- 
 ism is in every case adjusted to external circum- 
 stances. Natural selection cannot account for this 
 adjustment. So the law of over-production, which 
 results in the survival of the fittest, is obviously sim- 
 ply a means of attaining a desired result. It may 
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. l6/ 
 
 seem to us a mysterious law, involving so much as 
 it seems to do of privation, pain, and death ; but it 
 is not the less the method by which nature works, 
 and by which ultimate order, harmony, and perfec- 
 tion are secured among living creatures. 
 
 The law of natural selection, therefore, not only 
 does not conflict with the argument of design, but 
 affords new illustration of it. It is a contrivance 
 for securing a desired result. The proofs which 
 have been brought forward so abundantly to estab- 
 lish the theory of natural selection, are in reality 
 new arguments in favor of finality in nature. The 
 works of Mr. Darwin himself are rich in such ex- 
 pressions as "beautiful contrivances" and "marvel- 
 ous adjustments." The human mind seems instinc- 
 tively to adopt this mode of interpreting the facts 
 of nature. 
 
 " The issue," says Professor Gray, " between the 
 skeptic and the theist is only the old one, long ago 
 argued out, namely, whether organic nature is a 
 result of design or of chance. Variation and natural 
 selection open no third alternative ; they concern 
 only the question how the results, whether fortuitous 
 or designed, may have been brought about. Organic 
 nature abounds with unmistakable and irresistible 
 indications of design, and, being a connected and 
 consistent system, this evidence carries the implica- 
 tion of design throughout the whole. On the other 
 hand, chance carries no probabilities with it, can 
 never be developed into a consistent system, but 
 when applied to the explanation of orderly or bene- 
 ficial results, heaps up improbabilities at every step 
 beyond all computation." l 
 
 1 Darwiniana, p. 153. 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 
 
 IN my argument thus far, I have sought to show 
 that the universe, as it exists, implies a cause ; that 
 from the order and harmony which it everywhere 
 displays we have a right to infer the presence of 
 intelligence, and that from the manifold adjustments 
 which are not less manifest, we have a further right 
 to clothe this intelligence with the characteristics of 
 purpose and finality. All this by no means amounts 
 to a complete theistic proof, nor would the argument, 
 in this incomplete form, satisfy the legitimate de- 
 mands of the religious nature. We need to go much 
 further and embrace much more within the scope of 
 our conclusions before the great problem of natural 
 theology is solved. But before proceeding to the 
 next stage of the discussion, something is needed to 
 complete what has been already said. In the course 
 of my remarks, I have repeatedly referred to a the- 
 ory which is so fundamental and characteristic a 
 feature of modern thought that its bearing upon nat- 
 ural theology requires to be submitted to a somewhat 
 more detailed examination. I refer to the doctrine 
 of evolution. 
 
 In noticing the objections urged against intelli- 
 gence and against design, I have already considered 
 briefly some specific forms which this theory has 
 assumed, but its prominence at the present time 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 169 
 
 makes it incumbent on us, before going further, to 
 consider it as a whole. For the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion may be said to sum up and comprehend the 
 speculative movement of our time. It is the word 
 which science pronounces as a solution of the riddle 
 of existence, the characteristic form in which the 
 thought of the present age has shaped itself. As 
 formulated in its widest compass, by its leading ex- 
 ponent, the unhesitating claim is made that it has 
 involved the exercise of intellectual gifts not less 
 supreme than those required to demonstrate the 
 law of gravitation, while for the grandeur of the con- 
 ception it involves, as well as for the vastness of its 
 consequences, and the extent of the revolution it 
 is destined to effect in human thought, the work 
 achieved by Spencer must be regarded, we are told, 
 as fully on a par with that which has made Newton 
 immortal. And, with whatever abatement of the 
 praise due any single individual, the fact must be 
 conceded that the doctrine of evolution has, in our 
 day, gained a rapid and widespread ascendency. 
 
 This doctrine must be accepted then as the char- 
 acteristic note of contemporary thought, and any 
 discussion of natural theology would be incomplete 
 which did not recognize its various, direct, and im- 
 portant bearings. The doctrine, considered in it- 
 self, I do not undertake to criticize. It would be 
 wholly foreign to the purposes of this discussion to 
 pass in review the scientific grounds by which it 
 claims to be established. It is sufficient that it has 
 now a wide acceptance, and seems winning a wider 
 acceptance every day. It is enough, in illustration 
 of what the doctrine is, to refer to the familiar fact, 
 established by the researches of physiologists two 
 
I/O THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 centuries ago, that every animal without exception, 
 at the outset of its existence, consists, simply of a 
 minute, structureless, and homogeneous germ. In 
 this primitive stage, from which we have all alike 
 emerged, the man, the monkey, the dog, the parrot, 
 cannot be distinguished from one another. So far 
 as the closest scrutiny of science has been able to 
 push its examination, they all begin their varied 
 careers at precisely the same point, and not only 
 this, but every part of each of these germs is pre- 
 cisely like every other part, in texture, in composi- 
 tion, in temperature, and in specific gravity. Yet out 
 of this simple and homogeneous beginning springs 
 all the wonderful variety that the world of ani- 
 mated nature shows. From this one source comes 
 man with his wide discourse of reason, the ape 
 with his grimaces, the hound with 'his keen scent, 
 the bird with his thick warbled note and his brill- 
 iant plumage. And not .only is this true of all that 
 now exists, but it is not less true of all that has for- 
 merly existed. The idea is fruitful, and capable of 
 quick and wide extension. If the marvelously 
 complicated and diverse structures which we see 
 around us can be evolved, as we see them every 
 day, from such simple beginnings, why may not all 
 life, all organic beings, all nature, whether in its 
 grandest or its humblest forms, be traced back, in 
 the same way, through numberless ages, to a similar 
 origin ? Derived, in the first instance, from physi- 
 ology, the theory has at last been made to include 
 not only the physical, but the moral and the intel- 
 lectual sphere. Zoology, geology, astronomy, his- 
 tory, politics, morals, have all been brought within 
 its sway. Evolution is affirmed as the principle 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 171 
 
 that underlies all existence, the conception that 
 gives unity and cohesion to all manifestations of 
 life and force. 
 
 Freed, as far as possible, from mere technical and 
 abstract phraseology, the principle of evolution may 
 be reduced' to this statement: that nothing in na- 
 ture is produced in a complete or finished form, but 
 on the contrary everything commences in a rudi- 
 mentary state, and by a slow succession, through 
 modifications slight in degree but infinite in num- 
 ber, it at last appears in its final determinate form, 
 then again, by a reversing of the process, to be car- 
 ried back again to its original condition. These 
 changes, produced by forces inherent in matter, are 
 what make up the endless rhythm of evolution and 
 dissolution, and to this law the appeal is made to 
 explain as well the beginning as the end of the ma- 
 terial universe. Thus the great globes that revolve 
 in space are compacted out of nebulous ether, and 
 thus, having performed their appointed rounds, their 
 solid mass is resolved again into thin air. For it is 
 claimed that the universe, both as a whole and in 
 all its parts, is subject to this law, which explains 
 not only the organization of matter, but the origin 
 and development of life, and the long succession of 
 organic species. Nature is, in fact, an endless 
 change from the indefinite to the definite, from the 
 simple to the complex, from the unrelated like to 
 the related unlike. 
 
 To give the form of this theory with a little more 
 precision, it may be stated that the co-existence of 
 antagonistic forces, throughout the knowable uni- 
 verse, necessitates a universal rhythm of motion ; 
 and that in proportion to the number of forces any- 
 
172 THE THEISTfC- ARGUMENT. 
 
 where concerned in producing a given set of mo- 
 tions, the resulting rhythms are complex. Hence, 
 as a result of each rhythm, must occur a redistribu- 
 tion of matter and motion. That redistribution in- 
 volves, on the one hand, an integration of matter, 
 with a concomitant dissipation of motion, and on 
 the other, a disintegration of matter, with a con- 
 comitant absorption of motion. The former pro- 
 cess, which results in the acquirement of individual 
 existence, is termed evolution, and the latter, which 
 results in a loss of individual existence, is termed 
 dissolution. Without pushing further this abstruse 
 analysis of the factors concerned in evolution, it 
 will be enough to give the modern statement of the 
 principle, which is that " the integration of matter 
 and concomitant dissipation of motion, which pri- 
 marily constitutes evolution, is attended with a con- 
 tinuous change from indefinite, incoherent homoge- 
 neity to definite coherent heterogeneity of structure 
 and function, through successive differentiations 
 and integrations." 
 
 Aside from this extremely abstract form, into 
 which it has been cast by Mr. Spencer, the doctrine 
 of evolution contains nothing new. % The idea did 
 not originate with him, nor in our own time, but may 
 be certainly traced back as far as Leibnitz. It was 
 this great thinker who uttered the maxim, " the pres- 
 ent is big with the future," and in this maxim the 
 modern idea of evolution is virtually contained. As 
 Leibnitz advanced the theory it was opposed to a 
 mechanical conception of nature prevailing in his 
 iay, but in his mind it did not stand in any antago- 
 nism to theistip belief. It did not, in the least, con 
 tradict the notion of a first cause, nor was it in the 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 173 
 
 slightest degree incompatible with the theory of final 
 cause. What Leibnitz maintained strenuously, in all 
 his philosophy, was that the highest idea which we 
 can form of a creator is to suppose him creating a 
 world capable of developing itself by its own laws, 
 without requiring a constant interference on his 
 part to sustain and govern it. Nothing was further 
 from his purpose than to weaken our conception of 
 a divine agency in nature. He simply held that the 
 Almighty had implanted, at the beginning, in each 
 creature the law by which its whole subsequent de- 
 velopment was shaped. 
 
 In this sense, the idea of evolution was simply 
 opposed to the doctrine of special creation, and of 
 a constant divine interference to shape the course 
 of the world. First in our own time has this doc- 
 trine, based on a wider induction and set forth 
 with more scientific precision, been clothed with an 
 anti-theistic meaning. In virtue of this secret and 
 incessant and long continued process, it is claimed, 
 by which everything that exists is continually 
 changing its form, and accommodating itself to the 
 medium in which it lives, the functions and adap- 
 tations everywhere displayed in nature are suffi- 
 ciently accounted for. The explanation which the 
 race has so long cherished is dismissed as a need- 
 less hypothesis, and the endless rhythm of evolu- 
 tion and dissolution is put forward as a satisfying 
 explanation, at once, of the mystery and harmony 
 of things. This theory, it is claimed, meets better 
 than any. other the claims of reason. The legiti- 
 mate demand of reason is for unity, for there can 
 be but one ultimate ground for what exists, and by 
 this theory alone the whole universe is explained, 
 
174 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 as a homogeneous and coherent system, naturally 
 evolved out of a single primary substance. It is a 
 simple explanation, as it asks for nothing outside 
 itself. 
 
 That there is any universal law of evolution or 
 dissolution, and that one is united with the other by 
 a mystic rhythmic harmony, such as the followers of 
 Mr. Spencer imagine, is a doctrine which, it need 
 hardly be said, is destitute as yet of any scientific 
 proof ; but evolution in the limited sense that na- 
 ture presents to us an infinite variety of movements 
 up and down, may be accepted as an established 
 principle. No one will deny it who has ever sown 
 seed with the expectation that it would spring up, 
 or has hatched chickens out of eggs. Evolution in 
 this sense is merely a process of nature, a process 
 which implies constituent elements and conditions, 
 and which proceeds in accordance with regular 
 method. It is true that the process may be traced 
 back to a point where the characteristic constituent 
 elements cannot be discriminated, where to all ap- 
 pearance the germ of the man, the monkey, and the 
 parrot, are just alike; but no one doubts that even 
 here, though the most minute scrutiny of science 
 cannot detect it, a difference exists, and that all 
 \he later modifications of the being produced are 
 simply the result of this original distinction. 
 
 Evolution, with whatever accumulation of elaborate 
 phraseology we may dress it up, remains still an evo- 
 lution out of something. Far back as we may 
 go, we cannot go back so far that we do not encoun- 
 ter existence, in however simple and homogeneous 
 a form. Evolution is a process, but a process which 
 implies material to be evolved. What this original 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 175 
 
 material was is mere matter of conjecture, but its 
 existence is a fact which must be assumed, and for 
 which evolution, as a mere process, manifestly can- 
 not account. So far as the great problem of the 
 beginning of things is concerned, we are left by this 
 theory precisely where we were before. We may 
 assume as proved the nebular hypothesis, and be- 
 lieve that the sun and planets once existed in space 
 as a fiery cloud. But the solar system evidently 
 could not have been evolved out of its nebulous state 
 if the nebula had not possessed, at the outset, a cer- 
 tain mass, form, and constitution ; in short, a sys- 
 tem presenting to the reason a problem demanding 
 solution no less than the existence of the planets. 
 We have pushed the problem back, but it remains 
 tfae same problem still. 
 
 Unless we have recourse to the fanciful theory of 
 rhythmic evolution and dissolution, the universe, 
 through eternal ages, with no directing intelligence 
 enacting the strange drama of slowly forming itself 
 from chaos and developing into the varied and per- 
 fected forms of life with which we are familiar, only 
 once more to be dissolved into its original elements, 
 all things without form and void, as they were in 
 the beginning, a hypothesis not only destitute of all 
 scientific proof, but contradicted by all the analogies 
 of nature that we see around us, we are driven to 
 assume that this visible universe had a beginning in 
 time. Scientific reasoning points to this conclusion ; 
 at this point evolution began, and for all that existed 
 ir N to this point, evolution does not account. But 
 evidently evolution, taken in this sense, does not con- 
 flict with the idea of an intelligent cause. Des- 
 cartes, a devout believer, in his famous discourse on 
 
176 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 method, clearly recognizes the principle that even if, 
 at the beginning, there existed nothing but chaos, 
 still, if the laws of nature were established, it is 
 more easy to conceive of all things coming in time 
 to exist as they now do, than to conceive of them as 
 created by one act. 1 
 
 Mr. Spencer himself clearly recognizes this when 
 he tells us : " The genesis of an atom is no eas- 
 ier to conceive than the genesis of a planet." In- 
 deed, far from rendering the universe less mysteri- 
 ous than before, this theory makes a greater mystery 
 of it. Creation by fabrication seems less wonderful 
 than creation by evolution ; a man can bring a ma- 
 chine together ; he cannot make a machine that de- 
 velops itself. That our harmonious universe should 
 formerly have existed potentially in the state of dif- 
 fused matter, without form, and that it should grad- 
 ually have attained its present organization, is much 
 more marvelous than its formation according to the 
 artificial method supposed by the vulgar would be. 
 Those who consider it legitimate to argue from phe- 
 nomena to noumena, have good right to maintain 
 that the nebular hypothesis implies a primary cause 
 " as superior to the mechanical god of Paley as that 
 "is to the fetish of the savage." So that, whatever 
 ground we may have for believing in a first cause, 
 or in an intelligent first cause, that ground is not 
 in the slightest degree impaired by the doctrine of 
 evolution. For evolution is only a method, and leads 
 us inevitably back to our great original. 
 
 It may be said that in this reasoning we assume 
 that matter has been created, whereas physical sci- 
 ence ha,s demonstrated beyond doubt that matter is 
 
 1 Discours de la Methode : Janet, Final Causes, p. 254. 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 177 
 
 absolutely incapable of increase or diminution, of 
 creation or of annihilation. I reply that physical 
 science has done, and can do, no such thing. Phys- 
 ical science, as understood and taught by its ablest 
 professors, does not undertake to draw any such 
 conclusions. Its inferences are bounded by experi- 
 ence. It does not venture to define what is possible 
 or impossible beyond the line traced by its own ex- 
 periment. All that it affirms is, that matter cannot 
 be destroyed by any of the methods known to man, 
 and that it is not destroyed by any of the processes 
 revealed in nature. This is simply affirming that, 
 in the physical system which is known to us, matter 
 is indestructible. Science has a perfect right to say 
 that matter has no beginning and no end, for it 
 has none in any of the processes, and the relations, 
 that science traces ; any inference beyond this is 
 purely unscientific reasoning. We may conclude, 
 then, that any theory of evolution which includes 
 as a premise the doctrine that matter is eternal, is 
 a theory which science will not recognize. 
 
 And, if evolution cannot be explained from the 
 eternity of matter, as little can it be rested on mere 
 force. We are told that force is inherent in matter ; 
 that matter has an inherent activity ; that matter 
 and force are inseparable, and that both have existed 
 from eternity. These are bold assertions, and in 
 striking contrast with the cautious words of Newton, 
 who wrote : "that gravity should be innate, inherent, 
 and essential to matter, so that one body may act 
 upon another at a distance through a vacuum, with- 
 out the mediation of anything else, by and through 
 which their action and force may be conveyed from 
 one to another, is to me so great an absurdity, that 
 
THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters 
 a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into 
 it." 1 I know that physical science has made great 
 advance since Newton's time, and that the scientific 
 conception of matter to-day is very different from 
 what it was two centuries ago ; but the doctrine that 
 matter is endowed with potencies which make it 
 continually self-active, and go far to identify it with 
 spirit, is a doctrine that cannot be claimed as a 
 demonstrated result of science. 
 
 Yet, leaving out of the discussion as irrelevant 
 the question whether matter is eternal or created, 
 and granting that evolution does not do away with 
 a first cause, it may still be objected that this cause 
 is removed so far back as to strip the idea of any 
 practical effect. A first cause carried back through 
 incalculable epochs of time, and only felt and recog- 
 nized to-day through a process of necessary trans- 
 formations, that imagination can no more conceive 
 than it can conceive the limitless abysses of space, 
 is virtually taken out of the sphere of human 
 thought and action. But this objection wholly mis- 
 conceives the process of evolution as expressed in 
 the specific forms which the theory has assumed. 
 The law of natural selection, for example, implies 
 not only an original germ as the starting-point, but 
 a long series of favorable conditions. The presence 
 of these external conditions is an essential part of 
 the theory, ancl these external conditions are not 
 fixed once for all, at the beginning, but must con- 
 tinually vary with the transformation of the individ- 
 ual. For evolution can continue only upon the con- 
 dition of this harmony between the individual and 
 its surroundings at every successive stage of growth, 
 
 1 [Letter to Bentley : Newton, Opera, iv. p. 438.] 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 179 
 
 Evolution is not, then, the blind working of me- 
 chanical forces ; for, on that hypothesis, we are log- 
 ically driven back to the ancient doctrine, that the 
 universe had its origin in the mere fortuitous con- 
 currence of atoms. Its order, its harmony, its con- 
 stant progress from a lower to a higher state, cannot 
 be accounted for on such a theory. We have the 
 favorable conditions as a part of the process. These 
 favorable conditions are ever varying ; they result 
 from intricate combinations of invariable forces. We 
 have, in all this, more than the idea of intelligent 
 cause ; we have an ever-acting cause ; hence evolu- 
 tion, instead of pushing far back the transcendental 
 ground of being, reveals that ground as a present 
 source of phenomena that surround us at every 
 stage of our progress. Evolution could not go on 
 without the constant action of this ever-present 
 cause. Evolution, then, is simply a method by 
 which the Supreme Cause acts. In the words of 
 the Duke of Argyle, " Creation by law, evolution 
 by law, development by law, or, as including all 
 these kindred ideas, the reign of law, is nothing but 
 the reign of creative force directed by creative knowl- 
 edge, worked under the control of creative power, 
 and in fulfillment of creative purpose." l 
 
 In discussing this subject we must keep carefully 
 in mind the distinction between evolution as a the- 
 ory of the universe, a law claiming to be universal 
 and all-pervading as gravitation, and to account for 
 all forms of organic and inorganic being ; and evolu- 
 tion in the more limited and modest sense in which 
 it is asserted by most men of science, and in which 
 it professes to be based directly upon facts of nat- 
 
 1 Reign of Law, p. 294. 
 
180 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ure. In this sense, it is to be accepted precisely like 
 other facts ; not to be rashly set in opposition to 
 them, but to be interpreted in accordance with them. 
 One class of natural phenomena illustrates every 
 other class. The sound conclusions of science must 
 be drawn from these phenomena, taken as a whole, 
 not from any one exclusive class considered by itself. 
 The recognition of evolution, as a method of nature, 
 has unquestionably worked already a great modifica- 
 tion in our conception of the physical universe, and 
 no doubt is destined to work still greater in the 
 future ; for a mechanical it has substituted a dy- 
 namical conception ; it has correlated and explained 
 phenomena that seemed disconnected and apart ; still 
 as a law it has, as yet, received no generally accepted 
 statement. 
 
 As a method of accounting for the origination of 
 living things, it simply stands in opposition to the 
 doctrine of separate acts of creation by the imme- 
 diate fiat of a supreme being. When applied to 
 animals, it signifies that the various kinds are genet- 
 ically connected, and that the different species have 
 arisen, not from an independent source, but by a 
 gradual process of transmutation. But among men 
 of science who, in a modified sense, adopt the theory, 
 there are very wide diversities of opinion as to the 
 extent to which it may be applied in explanation of 
 the various groups of natural objects. Many hold 
 to special acts of creative agency at particular stages 
 of transition in the long process, and some would 
 regard the introduction of man himself upon the 
 stage as one of these acts. Mr. Darwin holds that 
 animal life, including the human species, is traceable 
 to a few primitive germs. Others think that evolu- 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. l8l 
 
 tion spans what seems at first the wide chasm be- 
 tween animal and vegetable life, and even between 
 vegetable and inorganic existence. But that, in the 
 present stage of science, much of this is mere con- 
 jecture is illustrated from Mr. Huxley's confident 
 prediction about the diffusion of protoplasm at the 
 bottom of the ocean, which recent marine explora- 
 tion has placed in the realm of mare's-nests. 
 
 It is obvious, if we consider the matter fairly, 
 that evolution, in any sense in which the doctrine 
 can lay claim to a scientific footing, relates to the 
 operation simply of second, or what are termed ef- 
 ficient causes. It undertakes to account for the ac- 
 tual -condition of the world as we see it and know 
 it. It does not, as a scientific theory, go a step 
 beyond this ; it does not treat the problem of the 
 ultimate origin of the world ; it does not necessa- 
 rily raise the question whether the world, as we see 
 it, is the result of intelligence ; it neither affirms 
 nor denies a divine agency in the operations of na- 
 ture. It is purely a hypothesis of natural science, 
 and as such has nothing to do with supernatural 
 problems. The man of science who applies him- 
 self, in the light of its guidance, to trace out the 
 links of causal connection in the phenomena of na- 
 ture is following a perfectly legitimate path. The 
 doctrine of natural selection is one to be proved or 
 to be disproved simply by appealing to facts. If 
 Mr. Darwin's conjecture as to the origin of man 
 should be fully established it would no more conflict 
 with theism than the fact that each living individ- 
 ual has been born and not made. 
 
 Conceding, then, the great importance in modern 
 science of the theory of evolution, conceding that 
 
182 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 it is destined indirectly to modify not only scientific 
 but theological conceptions, I deny that the doc- 
 trine, in any form in which science accepts it, 
 sta-nds in thejeast antagonism with the fundamen- 
 tal ideas on which all theistic belief rests. If there 
 is anything in the theory of evolution inconsistent 
 with that belief it must be, not in the theory itself, 
 but in some hypothesis made in connection with it. 
 It can only be made the basis of materialism by be- 
 ing brought into alliance with another class of as- 
 sumptions, with which it has no necessary connec- 
 tion whatever. The eternity of matter and spon- 
 taneous generation are no part of the doctrine of 
 evolution. Evolution, I repeat, is a fact to be ex- 
 plained in the light of other facts. One universal 
 characteristic of evolution is that it proceeds ac- 
 cording to law, and is carried on by means of intri- 
 cate and harmonious adjustments. This order, and 
 these adjustments, are just as much facts as evolu- 
 tion itself, and in seeking to explain the one, we are 
 bound never to lose sight of the other. Evolution 
 does not destroy, but confirms, the proof of intelli- 
 gent cause. 
 
 If there is nothing in evolution which contradicts 
 the notion of a first cause, we have next to ask 
 whether evolution renders irrational and needless 
 the conception of final cause. It is against the 
 theory of finality in nature that evolution has been 
 most decidedly arrayed, and some of those who 
 have adopted this latest explanation of the phenom- 
 ena of nature have hastened to proclaim that by it 
 the mechanical God of Paley has been forever set 
 aside. Thus, Mr. Huxley says : 
 
 " In Paley's famous illustration, the adaptation of al 1 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 183 
 
 the parts of the watch to the function or purpose of 
 showing the time, is held to be evidence that the watch 
 was specially contrived to that end, on the ground 
 that the only cause we know of competent to produce 
 such an effect as a watch which shall keep time, is a con- 
 triving intelligence, adapting the means directly to that 
 end. Suppose, however, that any one had been able to 
 show that the watch had not been made directly by any 
 person, but that it was the result of the modification of 
 another watch which kept time but poorly, and that this, 
 again, had proceeded from a structure which could hardly 
 be called a watch at all, seeing that it had no figures on 
 the dial, and the works were rudimentary, and that going 
 back and back in time we come, at last, to a revolving 
 barrel as the earliest traceable rudiment of the whole 
 fabric ; and imagine that it had been possible to show 
 that all these changes had resulted first, from a tendency 
 in the structure to vary indefinitely, and secondly, from 
 something in the surrounding world which helped all va- 
 riations in the direction of an accurate time-keeper, and 
 checked all those in other directions, then it is obvi- 
 ous that the' force of Paley's argument would be gone." 1 
 
 On the contrary Dr. Paley, had he been alive, 
 would probably have replied to Professor Huxley 
 that by this ingenious and complicated hypothesis 
 his argument was not weakened in the least. For 
 we have now to account for the existence of a re- 
 volving barrel, capable of such extraordinary trans- 
 formation, and of that mysterious something in its 
 surroundings which helped all its variations in one 
 direction and checked them in every other. We 
 are forced to admit some primordial arrangement in 
 accordance with which all these transformations 
 were directed, and the greater the interval between 
 
 1 [Lay Sermons, pp. 330, 331 (Flint, Theism, p. 197).] 
 
1 84 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the original barrel and the final completed watch 
 the greater the number of connecting steps between 
 the first and the last of these two terms the more 
 convincing the evidence of the purpose which 
 worked itself out through the entire process. 
 
 Let us now ask, is there anything in the doctrine 
 of evolution which renders irrational the theory of 
 a final cause ? There is certainly nothing in human 
 experience which would lead to such a conclusion. 
 In all the operations of man the existence of a final 
 cause harmonizes with the law of evolution. Every 
 plan that we form for the future, every combination 
 that we make for achieving some purpose, involves 
 a final cause, yet the execution is gradual, and in- 
 volves many intermediate steps. Thus, I form a 
 purpose to write a course of lectures, but the exe- 
 cution of this purpose proceeds by steps, and by a 
 law of evolution. In all human industry the whole 
 chain of successive steps is prepared and directed 
 to attain the final end. True, in human industry, 
 we constantly interpose, so that we do not have a 
 perfect illustration of evolution ; but it is easy to 
 conceive of an operation directed by so much 
 greater power and wisdom that only a single initial 
 purpose should suffice for endless combinations. 
 Evolution, in its idea, then, not only does not ex- 
 clude final cause, but seems naturally to imply it. 
 For evolution is simply development, and develop- 
 ment implies tendency towards an end. If we ad- 
 mit a tendency we thereby admit finality. 
 
 The theory of evolution, instead of rendering the 
 notion of final cause absurd, leads to a conception of 
 finality that is grander and more impressive. When, 
 for example, we consider the marvelous structure of 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 185 
 
 the eye, and realize that it has been gradually pro- 
 duced by organizing forces which have fashioned it 
 through the agency of complex organs working har- 
 moniously toward this one result, we have a much 
 more complicated problem presented than in the 
 case of simple mechanism. It explains nothing to 
 say that this result has been brought about by vir- 
 tue of a law inherent in the species, for here, in 
 place of one organism, we have countless similar or- 
 ganisms, and the problem is only endlessly compli- 
 cated. If we carry the process a step backwards, 
 and bring in the more general law of transforma- 
 tion, we have only a vaster organism, moved and 
 guided from the beginning in the same direction. 
 If we go still further back to the inherent laws of 
 matter, we have still the question, would not the 
 force which by a single act produced this whole at 
 the beginning, be superior to that needed to fashion 
 any one of the parts ? There is manifestly nothing 
 in the mere idea of evolution which cannot be 
 brought into harmony with the existence of final- 
 ity. 1 
 
 Next let us ask, is there anything in the doctrine 
 of evolution that renders the hypothesis of final 
 cause unnecessary? It may be conceded that the 
 more we allow to nature the grander will be the 
 exhibition of intelligence in her operations, provided 
 the presence of intelligence be admitted ; but why, 
 it may be objected, need we make this admission ? 
 If all the phenomena of nature are thus bound to- 
 gether in this endless chain of evolution, why are 
 they not sufficiently explained, and why do we re- 
 quire any additional hypothesis ? In short, is not 
 
 1 See Janet, p. 258. 
 
1 86 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the whole notion of a final cause a purely subjective 
 hypothesis, which the constant extension of objec- 
 tive physical laws is rendering gratuitous ? Does 
 not final cause flee from us as we recognize physical 
 causation ? 
 
 But when we affirm means and ends in nature, we 
 have only in mind a cause perfectly proportioned to 
 its effect. Where the cause is not thus propor- 
 tioned to the effect, there is nothing whatever that 
 leads us to infer finality. In the case of a phenome- 
 non where the cause is wholly concealed from us, 
 we have simply the emotion of wonder roused, but are 
 not led on to the recognition of wisdom. Hence it 
 is plain that our conviction of final cause is precisely 
 proportioned to our recognition of efficient cause. 
 If the physical cause, in other words, was not seen 
 to be sufficient, it would not be recognized as means, 
 and consequently would carry with it no idea of end. 
 Thus it follows that enlarged knowledge of physical 
 causes cannot render needless the hypothesis of 
 final cause, since one is simply the completion of 
 the other. No doubt we are led to infer final causes 
 because we regard physical causes as insufficient to 
 account for the whole phenomenon ; but why are we 
 led to this ? Simply because of the agreement of 
 divergent and heterogeneous causes in a phenom- 
 enon which can only result from such agreement. 
 The further we ascend from cause to cause, the more 
 difficult does it become to account for the multi- 
 plicity of these agreements, so that the more we sim- 
 plify causes, in a merely physical point of view, the 
 more difficult is it, from a physical cause, to account 
 for the phenomenon resulting from these agree- 
 ments. The physical cause is simply the possibility 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. l8/ 
 
 of a given effect ; we have yet to ascertain what de- 
 termines these possibilities to a given result, and 
 what circumscribes within a certain limit their end- 
 less variations. Far back as we. can trace the pro- 
 cess of evolution, matter remains simple matter, and 
 force simple force. We have not explained how, 
 from primitive chaos, a regular order has emerged. 
 
 We have looked at the question only in its gen- 
 eral aspects. If we now glance at the special forms 
 which the theory has assumed, we shall be just as 
 much impressed with the fact that the idea of final- 
 ity is by no means set aside. The first to assert the 
 now familiar doctrine of transmutation was La- 
 marck, who made use of three principles to explain 
 the organic adaptations and progressive develop- 
 ment of animals. These three principles were, me- 
 dium, habit, and need. The influence exerted by 
 physical medium, or, in other words, by the combi- 
 nation of external circumstances surrounding any 
 animal, is too evident to be denied by any one ; but 
 it does not appear that the organization is deter- 
 mined by the medium, for who would venture to 
 assert that it is the light that has made the eye ? 
 The fundamental law in the development of ani- 
 mals is the progressive complication of organs. But 
 to account for this, even in Lamarck's view, we must 
 suppose something more than medium ; we must 
 recognize what he terms "a power of life." Accord- 
 ing to this, medium is only a modifying cause ; it 
 simply produces deviations ; it is only an obstacle to 
 the regular and harmonious development of organic 
 forms. 
 
 We have left this need and habit ; the former pro- 
 duces organs, while the latter develops and strength- 
 
1 88 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ens them. In the hypothesis of medium the mod-- 
 fying power is purely external ; we have only sucti 
 transformation as is effected when rocks are hol- 
 lowed out into curious forms by the action of swift- 
 running water ; but when we allege need and habit we 
 are evidently dealing with internal causes. It is no 
 longer the mere physical surroundings, but an internal 
 power cooperating with the external forces. There 
 is a capacity of accommodation to external circum- 
 stance ; and how shall we account for this ? Is this 
 accommodation the result of mere mechanical causes, 
 and therefore of chance ? To affirm this is simply to 
 go back to the hypothesis of Epicurus. And grant- 
 ing that habit can develop organs, does it follow that 
 need can create them ? The blacksmith's arm is 
 made stronger by striking ; but did striking create 
 the arm ? But if, on the other hand, we reject as in- 
 sufficient the explanation that this accommodation is 
 the result of chance, if we allow that the modifica- 
 tions of an organ are the result of some more or 
 less conscious tendency which serves as a directing 
 principle, then we are brought to recognize finality 
 as the very foundation of nature. 
 
 The insufficiency of this explanation of Lamarck 
 is shown by the fact that it has been given up. Mr. 
 Darwin tells us that he has no great confidence in 
 such agents as the French rationalist suggests, and 
 he gives us in place of them his famous theory of 
 Natural Selection. Granting that this law is well 
 established, let us ask how it acts. According to 
 this hypothesis the adaptation results from a coinci- 
 dence between the accidental production of an ad- 
 vantage derived from heredity, and an accidental 
 change of. medium. Hence arise different varieties 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 189 
 
 well armed for the struggle of life. Those, on the 
 other hand, which have adhered to the original type, 
 having acquired no new advantage fitted to preserve 
 them in the new conditions which have arisen, per- 
 ish. A popular, but wholly ill-founded objection to 
 Mr. Darwin's theory may here be mentioned. He 
 not only never asserted that man was descended from 
 an ape, but according to his theory such an origin 
 for man would be impossible. For, had man de- 
 scended from an ape, he would have conquered and 
 destroyed the ape in the struggle of life. What Mr. 
 Darwin claims is, that man and the ape are both 
 divergent deviations from some original type which 
 has long passed away. 
 
 Mr. Darwin's theory appeals for support to the 
 results obtainec^ in the artificial breeding of animals. 
 But, in making "the transition from artificial to nat- 
 ural selection, we have to account for the fact that 
 nature, working/blindly, by mere coincidence of cir- 
 cumstanceSj^tiains precisely the same end that man 
 premeditated plan. In order that nat- 
 ural/selection might obtain the same results that 
 man obtains, nature would have to be capable of 
 choice. But how can we admit that an animal 
 which has undergone a mere chance modification, 
 should seek out another individual, affected by pre- 
 cisely the same modification, for the sake of perpet- 
 uating itself? And granting that, in one instance, 
 this took place, can we account for the fact that it is 
 repeated for successive generations ? According to 
 Mr. Darwin, nature practices an unconscious selec- 
 tion, and those species most favored necessarily pre- 
 vail by right of the strongest. Evidently, however, 
 it trie cause of change is simply natural selection, 
 
190 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 there is no reason why it should not take place while 
 the surrounding circumstances remain unchanged, 
 and species ought to vary before our eyes. If hu- 
 man industry creates new varieties with such rapid- 
 ity, why should not nature produce similar changes ? 
 
 This line of argument is not directed against the 
 general truth of the doctrine of natural selection, 
 but is only designed to show that too much is 
 claimed for it. The principle of natural selection, 
 even when combined with the additional force de- 
 rived from the survival of the fittest, cannot have the 
 importance which Mr. Darwin ascribes to it. Con- 
 ceding the utmost that can be legitimately claimed, 
 it still fails to explain the origin of organized forms. 
 Here some internal principle of transformation must 
 be admitted, and thus we are brought directly face 
 to face, again, with the idea of finality. Mere nat- 
 ural selection, when the surrounding circumstances 
 remain the same, can only in accidental cases be- 
 come a principle of modification and change. True, 
 it is claimed, that it is where the external conditions, 
 for some reason, come to be different, that the law 
 of natural selection will be found to work most pow- 
 erfully. But here we have to encounter the grave 
 difficulty, that animal structures are bound together 
 by organic correlations, and that, consequently, if a 
 chief organ from external causes undergoes an im- 
 portant modification, all the other essential organs 
 must be modified in the same direction. 
 
 Mr. Darwin meets this objection by admitting 
 what he terms a correlation of growth, that is, that 
 there are, in animals, connected and sympathetic 
 variations which occur at the same time, and in the 
 same manner. But if these correlations are, in every 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 191 
 
 instance, precisely those required to meet the change 
 in the external conditions of the animal, the question 
 at once arises, why should organs, that can only act 
 in harmony, be modified at the same time and in the 
 same way ? The theory of mere fortuitous modifi- 
 cation is thus seen to present insuperable difficulties 
 when applied to the formation of organs. Applied 
 to the explanation of instinct, the theory will serve 
 no better. In short, the more closely we study any 
 of the various theories of transmutation, the greater 
 will the difficulty become of explaining the origin of 
 organic forms by mere external and mechanical 
 causes. And it should be observed that the ablest 
 expounders of the doctrine of evolution habitually 
 fall into the use of language which implies finality. 
 They speak of an intrinsic and innate property in 
 nature, " of a power which harmonizes each member 
 with the whole, by adapting it to the function it 
 must fulfill in the general organism." 1 And what is 
 this but final cause ? 
 
 The theory of evolution, as is well known, has 
 been most precisely formulated, and has been pushed 
 to its farthest extreme by Mr. Herbert Spencer. By 
 him it has been elevated to the rank of a universal 
 principle which accounts for everything. All the 
 infinite multiplicity of transformations which have 
 been required to convert the nebulous mass of which 
 the universe once consisted into its present orderly 
 arrangement, and the whole series of living organ- 
 isms from the lowest vegetable form up to the brain 
 of Shakespeare or La Place, can be explained from 
 the operation of this ever-acting and everywhere 
 present principle. Yet Mr. Spencer is emphatic in 
 1 See Janet, p. 295. 
 
THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 his rejection of finality. Even Lamarck and Darwin 
 seem, from their language, at times, to admit the 
 possibility of a plastic principle which gives form to 
 matter. But Mr. Spencer systematically excludes 
 this. With him everything can be derived from 
 the laws of force and motion. To quote his own 
 words : 
 
 " In whatever way it is formulated, or by whatever lan- 
 guage it is obscured, this ascription of organic evolution 
 to some aptitude naturally possessed by organisms, or 
 miraculously imposed upon them, is unphilosophical. It 
 is one of those explanations which explain nothing, a 
 shaping of ignorance into the semblance of knowledge. 
 The cause assigned is not a true cause, not a cause 
 assimilable to known causes ; not a cause that can be 
 anywhere shown to produce analogous effects. It is a 
 cause unrepresentable in thought; one of those illegiti- 
 mate, symbolical conceptions which cannot by any men- 
 tal process be elaborated into a real conception. In 
 brief, this assumption of a persistent formative power, in- 
 herent in organisms, and making them unfold into higher 
 forms, is an assumption no more tenable than the as- 
 sumption of special creations, of which, indeed, it is but 
 a modification, differing only by the fusion of separate 
 unknown processes into a continuous unknown process." * 
 
 If we analyze the system of Mr. Spencer, we find 
 that the two fundamental principles by which he 
 seeks to account for life and organization are, inter- 
 nal coordination, and external correspondence with 
 the medium. Life, he says, is a coordination of ac- 
 tions, imperfect coordination is disease, and arrest 
 of coordination is death. Low organisms display 
 but little coordination, while, on the other hand, as 
 
 1 Quoted by Janet, p. 299, from Spencer, Biology, P. iii. ch. viii. 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSp.' 193 
 
 we rise in the scale of life, we find the ^extent and 
 the complexity of the coordinations constantly in- 
 creasing. 
 
 But this is not enough ; we must add a secoi 
 principle, which is supplied in what is termed the 
 correspondence of the medium, or the continued ad- 
 justment of internal to external relations. We have a 
 striking illustration of this in the embryo where, from 
 beginning to end, there is a gradual and continued 
 adjustment, all the phases of the organism corre- 
 sponding strictly to the phases of the medium. Thus 
 the embryos of viviparous animals are fed in the 
 womb by direct communication with the mother ; 
 but at a given moment this communication ceases, 
 and a complete separation between the two beings 
 is effected. Does death ensue in consequence ? By 
 no means. The new-born creature is adjusted to a 
 new medium. But, is it not evident that such new 
 adjustment is only rendered possible from the fact 
 that it has been anticipated and prepared for ? and 
 how can such preparation be explained from the 
 blind working of mere mechanical forces ? So that, 
 granting the proposition that coordination and cor- 
 respondence are the two constituent principles of 
 life, what do we find after all to be involved in these 
 two principles or aptitudes but the essential and 
 characteristic marks of that fundamental law which 
 we term finality ? 
 
 Mr. Spencer seeks to establish two propositions 
 as representing in the most general form the tenden- 
 cies of all the changes in the universe. These are, 
 first, that nature tends to proceed from the homo- 
 geneous to the heterogeneous ; and, secondly, that it 
 tends to proceed from the indefinite to the definite. 
 13 
 
194 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Without discussing the grounds on which these prin- 
 ciples are made to rest, we need only ask, in this con- 
 nection, what do they amount to ? The sole ques- 
 tion at issue is, whether blind mechanical forces are 
 adequate to explain what we see everywhere around 
 us. The mere abstract statement of the law by 
 which these changes proceed does not, in the least, 
 solve this problem. State the question as we please, 
 we are, at last, shut up to the alternative that or- 
 ganic forces are either the result of fortuitous com- 
 binations, or are the product of intelligence. The 
 theory of evolution means, therefore, nothing more 
 than the doctrine that organic beings have risen by 
 degrees from less to more perfect forms, a doctrine 
 that contains nothing whatever opposed to the the- 
 ory of final causes, or else it must be reduced to a 
 new statement of the old doctrine of chance, a doc- 
 trine which the intelligence of mankind rejects as a 
 childish explanation of the origin of the universe. 
 
 That the theory of evolution is radically opposed 
 to the doctrine of final cause, and that as it is ex- 
 tended it tends more and more to push final causes 
 out of sight, has been loudly asserted by some of 
 the' disciples of Mr. Spencer. It is claimed that 
 the whole conception of final causes rests on the as- 
 sumption that the Deity entertains intentions and 
 purposes closely resembling the intentions and pur- 
 poses of men, and that hence, although it involves a 
 more refined conception than the mediaeval notion 
 of an arbitrary providence, it still retains a strong 
 element of anthropomorphism. " The career of the 
 theory, it is said, has consequently been that of a 
 perishable hypothesis, born of primeval habits of 
 thought, rather than that of a permanent doctrine 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 195 
 
 obtained by the employment of scientific methods." 
 " Hence, with the steady advance of knowledge the 
 search for final causes has been discarded in the 
 simpler sciences, until it is kept up only in the com- 
 plex and difficult branches of biology and sociol- 
 ogy." l From these remaining strongholds it has 
 now almost been driven by recent discoveries, and 
 the prospect now is that with every advance of 
 science this anthropomorphic conception will be 
 robbed of some part of its jurisdiction. 
 
 It was Mr. Darwin, it is claimed, who first, by his 
 theory of natural selection, furnished the champions 
 of science with the resistless weapon by which to 
 vanquish, in their chief stronghold, the champions of 
 theology. For, in natural selection, there has been 
 assigned an adequate cause for the marvelous phe- 
 nomena of adaptation, which had formerly been re- 
 garded as clear proofs of beneficent contrivance. 
 " And we have only to take into account the other 
 agencies in organic evolution, besides the one illus- 
 trated by Mr. Darwin, to remember that life is essen- 
 tially a process of equilibration, in order to be con- 
 vinced that the doctrine of evolution has, once for 
 all, deprived natural theology of the materials upon 
 which until lately it has subsisted." The apparent 
 indications of creative forethought are, in fact, so 
 many illustrations of the scientific theorem that 
 life, whether physical or psychical, is the continuous 
 adjustment of inner relations to outer relations. In 
 other words, it is not that the environment has been 
 adapted to the organism by an exercise of creative 
 intelligence, but the organism is of necessity fitted 
 to the environment only because the fittest survive. 
 
 1 Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii., p. 385. 
 
196 THE THE f STIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 The so-called proofs of creative foresight are, there- 
 fore, the mind reflecting itself. 
 
 If I have not wholly failed of my aim in the pre- 
 ceding discussion, I have already sufficiently shown 
 the utter groundlessness of these loud assertions. 
 I have shown that evolution is perfectly consistent 
 with the idea of final cause ; that it does not render 
 the hypothesis of final cause superfluous ; and the 
 extension of our knowledge of physical causation, in- 
 stead of putting final causes out of sight, only adds 
 to the evidence in their favor. Evolution, how far 
 soever we may extend it, can neither account for 
 the origin of the universe as a whole, nor for the 
 order and adjustment of its parts. An element en- 
 ters into the problem for which the mind demands 
 another and a more satisfactory solution than mere 
 physical causation can furnish. To affirm that life 
 is the continuous adjustment of inner relations to 
 outer relations, is to affirm nothing to the point, 
 since the adjustment is the very fact for which we 
 are seeking to account. And in accounting for this, 
 as I have before said, carry our investigation into 
 physical causes as far back as we may, we are at 
 last shut up to the two alternatives with which we 
 began, that the universe had its origin in mind or in 
 chance. 
 
 And not only is it an altogether hasty and unwar- 
 i anted assertion that the theory of natural selection 
 has driven the doctrine of final causes off the field, 
 but when we call to mind the fact that, so far as 
 has yet been observed, natural selection never has 
 its cause in mere external influences, and never 
 occurs at random, we have every reason to believe 
 that the law of natural selection, when it comes tc 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 197 
 
 be more perfectly understood, will become one of 
 the strongest supports of the argument of design. 
 The vast array of facts which Mr. Darwin has accu- 
 mulated with such untiring industry, and such. un- 
 rivaled penetration, all point in this direction ; and 
 it is by no means impossible that from his well fur- 
 nished armory will be drawn the most effective 
 weapons in defense of the doctrine to which he has 
 been so unwarrantably opposed. There is an evi- 
 dent chasm in his theory which has never yet been 
 filled ; his hypothesis requires another hypothesis to 
 make it work. For not only is natural selection 
 perfectly in harmony with design, but it absolutely 
 requires the recognition of design to render it a 
 complete and rational hypothesis. 
 
 In the preceding discussion, however, it has not 
 been my purpose to press evolution into the service 
 of natural theology, but simply to establish the neg- 
 ative proposition that it does not conflict with any 
 of the grounds which have been advanced for be- 
 lieving in a first cause and in final causes. What- 
 ever positive religious value the theory of evolution 
 may prove to have remains to be seen. It is still a 
 hypothesis, and if undeniably winning its way to the 
 acceptance of scientific men, must still be regarded 
 as incomplete. For the present, it is enough to 
 show that there is nothing in it that is opposed to 
 Theism. To put in few words the substance of 
 what I have endeavored to show, evolution is simply 
 a scientific interpretation of the facts of nature. It 
 's to be proved or disproved by an appeal to facts, 
 and, in this respect, rests on precisely the same 
 basis as the argument of design. As a scientific 
 interpretation of nature it deals only with physical 
 
198 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 or second causes, and instead of being reproached 
 for not going beyond this limit, it would sacrifice 
 its claim to be accepted as a scientific theory if it 
 undertook to deal with anything beyond. Confined 
 to its legitimate field, it does not touch one of the 
 problems with which natural theology deals. 
 
 As a theory simply to account for natural phe- 
 nomena, evolution may be likened to gravitation. 
 Before Newton's law of gravitation was understood 
 it was met with theological objections. To some 
 devout men it seemed to substitute the action of a 
 physical force for the direct action of Deity. It 
 removed God from the world by the hypothesis of 
 constant and omnipresent law. But no one would 
 now for a moment claim that a universe governed 
 by laws was a universe without God : on the con- 
 trary, the presence and uniform operation of law is 
 one of the strongest proofs of the divine existence 
 to which natural theology makes her appeal. In 
 the same way, to some, evolution seemed, at first 
 sight, inextricably bound up with atheism. To ex- 
 plain the complex from the simpler forms of being 
 wore, at first sight, the aspect of a materialistic hy- 
 pothesis. But a little consideration must convince 
 any candid mind that while evolution pushes the 
 first cause a little further back, it does not lessen, in 
 the least, the intellectual necessity which forces the 
 conception of a first cause upon the mind. And, in 
 furnishing us with a hypothesis of the method of 
 creation, it does not in the least account for the 
 method as an actual fact. 
 
 Some justification, it should in fairness be added, 
 for this misapprehension of the real meaning of evo- 
 lution on the part of those who would jealously main- 
 
EVOLUTION AND FINAL CAUSE. 199 
 
 tain the fundamental truths of theism, may be found 
 in the fact that by a certain class of writers the con- 
 clusions of Mr. Darwin have been loudly asserted in 
 the interest of atheism and materialism. To these 
 extreme advocates of evolution the theistic concep- 
 tion has not only seemed modified by it, but has 
 been stripped of all rational ground of support, and 
 the operations of nature, whether in the physical 
 or intellectual spheres, are sufficiently explained in 
 the terms of matter and motion. In this view, God 
 is a figment of the imagination, and matter in mo- 
 tion the only real existence. With this distortion 
 of the doctrine of evolution I am not here dealing. 
 Those who draw such conclusions from it are no 
 longer arguing as men of science. To hold that 
 Mr. Darwin's theory, that a certain aggregate of 
 phenomena now existing has had for its antecedent 
 a certain other and different aggregate of phenom- 
 ena, affects in any way the proof of the existence of 
 a Supreme Being, is an absurd misconception that 
 deserves notice here only to show that folly is by 
 no means confined to theologians. 
 
 " Darwinism," to quote the words of a recent writer 
 who has stated this question with much fairness, " may 
 convince us that the existence of highly complicated or- 
 ganisms is the result of an infinitely diversified aggregate 
 of circumstances so minute as severally to seem trivial or 
 accidental ; yet 'the consistent theist will always occupy 
 an impregnable position in maintaining that the entire 
 series, in each and every one of its incidents, is an imme- 
 diate manifestation of the creative action of God. 
 
 "The business of science is simply to ascertain in what 
 manner phenomena coexist with each other, or follow 
 each other; and the only kind of explanation with which 
 
200 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 it can properly deal is that which refers one set of phe- 
 nomena to another set. In pursuing this, its legitimate 
 business, science does not trench on the province of the- 
 ology in any way, and there is no conceivable occasion 
 for any conflict between the two. In short, no matter 
 how far the scientific interpretation of nature may be car- 
 ried, it can reveal to us only the fact that the workings of 
 the ultimate existence of which nature is the phenomenal 
 expression, are different from what they were supposed 
 to be by uninstructed thinkers of former times." 1 
 
 1 Fiske, Darwinism) pp. 7, 54. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 IMMANENT FINALITY. 
 
 FROM the order everywhere displayed in nature 
 we have been forced to recognize Intelligence, and 
 this conviction has been further strengthened by the 
 manifest adjustment of means to ends, from which 
 we infer design. We have also seen that the theory 
 of evolution, instead of detracting from the force of 
 this argument, really supplies it with a more com- 
 plex and elaborate basis. But having established 
 this, we now come in contact with a different ques- 
 tion, a question which we can only answer by turn- 
 ing our investigation from the outer to the inner 
 world. The problem is this. Admitting that we 
 have, in the order of nature, the evidence of intelli- 
 gence, and that we have, in its manifold arrange- 
 ments and adaptations, the proof of design, still what 
 is there that compels us to believe that this intel- 
 ligence is anything distinct from nature herself ? 
 What authorizes us to argue from the fact of finality 
 to the cause of finality ? Because nature has ends, 
 are we, therefore, justified in concluding that there 
 is an intelligent cause distinct from nature which has 
 consciously coordinated its several parts with refer- 
 ence to a final purpose ? 
 
 This brings us directly face to face with the most 
 subtle objection with which Theism has to deal. 
 The doctrine of evolution, perfectly consistent with 
 
202 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Theism when considered as a mere hypothesis of 
 the method of creation, totally changes its aspect 
 when we regard nature as a great living force, realiz- 
 ing itself by its own inherent energy, and in accord- 
 ance with its own laws. Now evolution is no longer 
 a mere method which a Supreme Intelligence has 
 chosen, for the sake of carrying out its own pur- 
 poses, but becomes a process through which nature 
 passes, by an inner necessity, and without the direc- 
 tion of any superintending mind. Those who hold 
 this view admit intelligence, but not an intelligence 
 distinct from, only an intelligence identical with, na- 
 ture. They admit the fact of adjustment of means 
 to ends, but it is not an adjustment planned and 
 arranged by a power in whose hands the forces of 
 nature were mere plastic agencies, but an adju^t- 
 ment resulting from the presence in nature of a uni- 
 versal energy, working without any conscious volition 
 towards harmonious and rational results. 
 
 This mode of looking at nature has possessed, in 
 all ages, a singular charm. We trace its presence 
 in the most widely separated regions, and with races 
 whose moral and intellectual characteristics seem to 
 stand in the sharpest contrast. It has had a wide 
 foothold among the dreamy nations of the East ; it 
 swayed with almost unsuspected presence the posi- 
 tive religious faith of the Middle Ages ; it has cu- 
 riously interwoven itself with the philosophy, the 
 poetry, the science of modern times. It has been 
 understood in the widest variety of senses, and has 
 been made to include the loftiest as well as most 
 groveling forms of speculative opinion. The gross- 
 est schools of modern materialism have sheltered 
 themselves beneath its name, and by some of the 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 203 
 
 warmest defenders of Christian truth it has been 
 identified with the teachings of the most spiritual of 
 the apostles. It is a remarkable fact, that the gos- 
 pel, which sternly opposed every form of ancient ma- 
 terialism, seems to have given a new impulse to thi's 
 method of interpreting the external universe. The 
 early church abounded with schools whose specula- 
 tion was colored by this subtle belief. 
 
 Any precise definition of a doctrine held in so 
 many forms it would be difficult to give. In general, 
 this mode of explaining the existence of the universe 
 may be stated as the theory "which regards all 
 finite things as merely aspects, modifications, or 
 parts of one eternal and self-existent being ; which 
 views all material objects, and all particular minds, 
 as necessarily derived from a single infinite sub- 
 stance. This one absolute substance, this one all- 
 comprehensive being, it calls God. Thus God, ac- 
 cording to it, is all that is, and nothing is which is 
 not essentially included in, or which has not been 
 necessarily evolved out of God." 1 
 
 This theory is the opposite of theism. While the- 
 ism views the Supreme Being as existing alone and 
 apart from the world, this, on the contrary, denies 
 that God and nature either do or can exist apart. It 
 regards God without nature, as a cause without effect, 
 or as a substance without qualities, and nature with- 
 out God, as an effect without a cause, or as qualities 
 without a substance. God and nature are conceived 
 as eternally and necessarily coexistent, the contrasted 
 phases of an indissoluble unity, the inner and the 
 outer sides of the same eternal whole. 2 
 
 1 Prof. R. Flint, Anti- Theistic Theories, p. 336. 
 
 2 Anti- Theistic Theories, p. 339. 
 
204 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 This doctrine has been rendered familiar to us by 
 our enlarged knowledge of the religions and philos- 
 ophy of the East. While it is an error to regard 
 India as the fountain-head of this wide-spread ten- 
 dency, we find it nowhere sp deeply rooted. The 
 rich literature of this mysterious land furnishes us 
 with the most striking illustrations of it. In the 
 Indian religion Brahma was conceived as the uni- 
 versal life in which the world is absorbed, and from 
 which it issues. All subsequent Hindoo specula- 
 tion evolved this idea. Thus, in the later Vedanta 
 philosophy, the central doctrine is that there is only 
 one real being, of which all material things and 
 finite minds are simple emanations. Whoever 
 knows Brahma becomes Brahma. But it is not only 
 on the banks of the Ganges that we find these theo- 
 ries prevailing. All the pre-Socratic schools of Greek 
 philosophy, with one exception, that of Democritus, 
 were more or less inclined to the same opinion. Par- 
 menides, with his doctrine of absolute being, can 
 hardly be distinguished from the Hindoo thinkers. 
 And even Heraclitus, asserting a different doctrine, 
 that the universe is merely a process of incessant 
 change, arrived at the same result. 
 
 In modern times the head and front of this an- 
 cient theory has been Benedict Spinoza, who in his 
 "Ethics" summed up, from a great variety of sources, 
 and elaborated with unrivaled precision, the doctrine 
 which from his hands may be said to have received 
 its final form. Assuming that philosophy was a 
 purely deductive science, its truths needing only to 
 be analyzed and demonstrated like the propositions 
 of geometry, Spinoza identified the order of knowl- 
 edge with the order of existence. Beginning with 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 2O5 
 
 
 
 a definition of God as the first and self-existent be- 
 ing, he next proceeded to prove the identity of the 
 two ideas of God and of substance ; and from this 
 his whole system flowed. God is conceived as think- 
 ing substance when apprehended by the mind under 
 the attribute of thought, and as extended substance 
 when conceived under the attribute of extension ; 
 but thinking substance and extended substance are 
 not two substances distinct from one another ; but 
 the one substance apprehended by the mind of man, 
 now under this attribute and now under that. The 
 universe, including not alone sun and stars and 
 earth, but all human intelligence, all human experi- 
 ence, all human history, are but modes /of the abso- 
 lute, man's soul a divine thought, his body a divine 
 extension. 
 
 In the long line of seekers after truth, who have 
 set themselves resolutely and patiently to solve the 
 great enigmas of life, there is no one to whom we 
 turn with more sincere respect and with deeper in- 
 terest, than to the Jew Spinoza. It is a strange cir- 
 cumstance, that the race, distinguished above all 
 others for its stern and uncompromising theism, 
 should have produced the founder of modern pan- 
 theism. The scanty record preserved of his humble 
 career presents his private character in the most 
 admirable and winning light. The only account we 
 have of him we owe to a clergyman who distorted 
 his theories, but who could detect no flaw in his 
 blameless character. Driven in wrath from the re- 
 ligious communion in which he was born and edu- 
 cated, disinherited, left when still a mere boy in pen- 
 ury to seek his livelihood, he sought, in his own lan- 
 guage, to substitute certainty for conjecture, and by 
 
206 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 placing himself in contact with the bare facts* of life, 
 to find where the real good of man actually lay. He 
 refused pensions, legacies, and calls to honorable 
 positions, which might in the least lessen his per- 
 sonal independence. He chose to earn a scanty 
 subsistence by grinding glasses for optical instru- 
 ments, rather than have anything interfere with his 
 honest quest for truth. 
 
 No great thinker has been more variously esti- 
 mated. Denounced on the one hand as an atheist, 
 and as a teacher of doctrines subversive of all mo- 
 rality, on the other hand he has been eulogized as a 
 Christian, and represented as a "god-intoxicated" 
 man. The most severe and methodical of reason- 
 ers, clothing his thoughts in words as precise as the 
 language of geometry, has been identified with tran- 
 scendental mystics. But with whatever difference 
 of opinion respecting his views, there is no question 
 as to the deep mark he has cut in modern thought. 
 Not so much his precise method and his specific con- 
 clusions, as his general habit of thinking, has given 
 him his enduring influence. Few but professed stu- 
 dents now open his " Ethics " ; but the underlying 
 spirit which pervades his ethics has worked itself 
 widely into the modern mind. It appeared in the 
 pantheistic philosophy of Hegel and Schelling, and 
 in the pantheistic Christianity of Herder and Schlei- 
 ermacher. It possessed an irresistible fascination for 
 the penetrating intellect of Goethe. In an anecdote 
 which has been preserved, relating to his very last 
 days, we have a striking illustration of the keen in- 
 terest with which the great poet watched the devel- 
 opment of these new theories of nature. 
 
 To this mode of viewing the external universe 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 2O? 
 
 may be traced some of the most remarkable scien- 
 tific conceptions of modern times. From Schelling's 
 doctrine of nature, a doctrine set forth in lofty and 
 eloquent language, and illustrated from a wide range 
 of scientific knowledge, came the now familiar the- 
 ories of vegetable morphology, the homologies of the 
 skeleton, and even the later hypothesis of the origin 
 of species. This new philosophy was a protest 
 against the lower materialism of the last century, 
 and received an impulse from the powerful reaction 
 against the ideas of the eighteenth century which 
 the nineteenth has shown in so many ways. Nature 
 was now looked upon, no longer as apart from God, 
 but as the agent and manifestation of the absolute. 
 It was viewed as one organic whole, independent 
 and self-sustained, a system of forces and agencies 
 acting upon and limiting each other, yet all derived 
 from one original source and all working by one 
 universal law. The individual was simply a momen- 
 tary bubble floating along on this everlasting flood. 
 The rapid progress of the physical sciences helped 
 the tendency ; for there was a fascination in thus 
 giving variety to physical facts by speculative ideas, 
 and binding the mysterious phenomena of nature 
 into a living organism. 
 
 But, after all, the subtle influence of this theory 
 was made effective less as a clearly conceived sci- 
 entific system, than as a mode of looking at things. 
 What made it popular was its appeal to that poetic 
 instinct which exists to a greater or less extent in 
 all of us. We have it nowhere more adequately 
 embodied than in the familiar lines of Wordsworth : 
 
 " I have felt 
 ...... A sense sublime 
 
2O8 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Of something far more deeply interfused, 
 
 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
 
 And the round ocean, and the living air, 
 
 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man ; 
 
 A motion and a spirit that impels 
 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 
 And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 
 
 A lover of the meadows and the woods 
 
 And mountains, and of all that we behold 
 
 From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
 
 Of ear and eye, both what they half create 
 
 And what perceive ; well pleased to recognize 
 
 In nature, and the language of the sense, 
 
 The anchor of my purest thoughts, . . . and soul 
 
 Of all my moral being." * 
 
 In this passage we have the key-note of a large 
 part of our modern speculative natural science. 
 
 Starting with this conception, all that we have 
 claimed as evidence of mind, and even of finality, 
 in nature is readily conceded, but it is argued that 
 this mind is in nature, and not above it or distinct 
 from it. That there is everywhere in the external 
 universe proof of intelligence is not for a moment 
 doubted, but the question is asked, Why should 
 this intelligence be conceived of as apart from na- 
 ture ; why should we be constrained to go out of 
 nature to account for its origin ? The ordinary ar- 
 gument of design, it is claimed, proceeds upon a 
 superficial analogy. There are, it is true, certain 
 products of nature which at first glance seem to re- 
 semble the works of man, but this resemblance is 
 only in appearance. The works of man are prod- 
 ucts of an intelligence distinct and apart ; the 
 pieces of a machine, for example, are strangers to 
 each other, and the unity and motion that they 
 possess are impressed upon them from without 
 
 1 [Lines on Tintern Abbey.} 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 2OQ 
 
 but in the products of nature the force is internal, 
 and the end realizes itself. Organized structures, 
 such as we are and see around us, are not mere 
 machines, but are always endowed with an inner 
 energy, and possess a formative force. 
 
 The distinction here insisted on between the 
 works of man and the products of nature is too ob- 
 vious to be denied. A moment's glance is enough 
 to show that the operations of nature are distin- 
 guished by three characteristic signs, which are 
 never found in any human works : 
 
 1. In nature the organized being has a formative 
 energy, in virtue of which the original germ succes- 
 sively assimilates all the particles which it borrows 
 from the external world, and which constitute its 
 growth. 
 
 2. It is endowed with a reparative power, by vir- 
 tue of which it repairs any injury that it may suffer, 
 and so effectually that it is a maxim of the healing 
 art that nature is the best physician. 
 
 3. It has a reproductive power, by which the in- 
 dividual is perpetuated from one generation to an- 
 other. 
 
 These characteristics draw so broad a line be- 
 tween the artificial works of man and the sponta- 
 neous products of nature that it is evident that any 
 analogical reasoning from one to another can have 
 no force whatever. 
 
 From this distinction has been drawn the theory 
 which we are now considering, the theory of what 
 is termed immanent finality. The first hint of it was 
 given in an acute distinction of Kant between what 
 he termed external and internal finality. In the 
 former, things are never considered as means, but 
 14 
 
2IO THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 in the latter all the parts are reciprocally means and 
 ends. As afterwards developed and stated by 
 Hegel, the doctrine of immanent finality included 
 three fundamental points : 
 
 1. There are final causes in nature, and not only 
 so, but the final cause is the sole veritable cause, 
 for it alone has in itself the reason of its own de- 
 termination. . The domain of efficient causes is 
 simply that of blind necessity. 
 
 2. It is not, however, necessary to conceive the 
 final cause in the form which it assumes in human 
 consciousness, that is as an anticipated representa- 
 tion of the end. There are two ways of attaining 
 an end : one voluntary and the result of conscious 
 choice, like that in man, the other rational but un- 
 conscious, the activity of nature. 
 
 3. The finality of nature is immanent and inter- 
 nal, where the cause, the means, and the end are 
 simply three terms of one process, the cause at- 
 taining its end without going out of itself, by self- 
 development. 
 
 The physical theology of the eighteeenth cen- 
 tury, for the most part, conceived of the supreme 
 cause as wholly distinct from the universe, framing 
 the world with conscious design, much in the same 
 way as an architect fashions a house. Making all 
 allowance for the imperfection of human language 
 when attempting to represent the divine operations 
 under analogies derived from man's works, it must 
 still be acknowledged that the reproach was, to a 
 great extent, well founded. Paley's famous illustra- 
 tion of the watch carries with it a mechanical con- 
 ception of the divine working, though it was far 
 from his thought to suggest any such idea. The 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 2 1 1 
 
 argument of design was founded on external final- 
 ity, that is, on utility, and this explains why it was 
 so much abused, and at length brought to such gen- 
 eral contempt. We certainly owe this debt to Spi- 
 noza and to Schelling, and it is a debt that we need 
 not fear to acknowledge, that they have given us a 
 far more worthy conception of the divine working, 
 and supplied us with a far more satisfactory theory 
 of the relation of the spiritual and the material uni- 
 verse. Incomplete and unsatisfactory as was their 
 theory, it has served to build something far better 
 than the doctrine it destroyed. 
 
 The theory of immanent finality, like the theory 
 of evolution, contains nothing that of necessity con- 
 tradicts the theistic conception of a supreme cause. 
 In either case the fact of antagonism has been far 
 too hastily assumed. A little reflexion will show 
 that such antagonism has really no existence. Im- 
 manence and transcendence do not exclude each 
 other. Those who accept one view are not logically 
 required to reject the other. A transcendent cause 
 and an immanent cause are simply different sides of 
 the same fact. For the conception of a transcendent 
 cause, if that cause is at the same time recognized 
 as a cause ever present and operative, carries with 
 it, of necessity, the notion of immanence. Abso- 
 lute transcendence would be such entire separation 
 of the supreme cause from the actual creation that 
 there would no longer be any bond of connection 
 between them, and the most pronounced theist has 
 never for a moment dreamed that the relation of 
 God to the world was of this kind. To assert this 
 would be, in effect, not to assert theism, but to as- 
 sert atheism ; it would be the most complete exclu* 
 
212 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 sion of the infinite from the sphere and knowledge 
 of the finite. 
 
 On the other hand, an absolute immanence would 
 be such utter blending and confounding of God and 
 the world that cause and effect, ground and phe- 
 nomenon, absolute and relative, would be terms no 
 longer possessing any meaning. But those who as- 
 sert most emphatically the divine immanence have 
 never gone to the extreme of asserting this. Even 
 accepting the ancient hypothesis of a soul of the 
 world, the distinction between God and the world 
 would still remain. Hence we are fully justified in 
 the assertion that the doctrine of a supreme cause, 
 above nature and distinct from nature, does not in 
 any way exclude the notion of a cause at the same 
 time immanent in nature ; and that the idea of na- 
 ture as endowed with an internal activity, and work- 
 ing to an internal finality, contains nothing that ex- 
 cludes a supra-mundane cause. In other words, the 
 supreme cause may be, at the same time, within and 
 outside of nature. Experience goes strongly to 
 confirm this view, for wherever a theistic faith has 
 been most earnest it has instinctively allied itself 
 with the practical persuasion that the Supreme Be- 
 ing was not remote from the world, but was work- 
 ing in all things and through all things, and bring- 
 ing all things to pass. 
 
 But, though it may be conceded that there is no 
 necessary contradiction between the true concep- 
 tions of a mind above nature, and a mind working 
 in and through nature, yet the question still remains 
 ' Having the evident proof of one why need we infer 
 the other ? ' Order and finality are, as we have seen, 
 facts in nature, but when we undertake to reason 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 213 
 
 from these facts to their cause we pass to a wholly 
 different sphere. What right have we to conclude 
 that the finality of nature is conscious and voluntary, 
 like the purposes formed by man ? Those who deny 
 that the finality of nature is the result of any con- 
 scious choice appeal to the instinct of the lower 
 animals. Instinct is the activity, which without 
 conscious purpose, achieves a definite end. The 
 difference between the rational man and the irra- 
 tional brute is that the latter does not know his ends 
 as ends. The beaver builds his house with no plan 
 before him ; the bee, without calculation, constructs 
 his cells in accordance with the most refined geo- 
 metrical laws. So far as we can ascertain, there is 
 no conscious intelligent purpose in the marvelous 
 structures which rival the most elaborate creations 
 of human skill. 
 
 Thus instinct presents us with the type of uncon- 
 scious finality, and by showing its possibility at the 
 same time furnishes us, it is claimed, with the true 
 explanation of external nature. Conscious purpose, 
 intelligent choice, such as we see displayed in man, is 
 after all but one form of finality, and by no means its 
 highest and absolute form. Man, limited in his range, 
 limited in his powers, works, with a preconceived pur- 
 pose, towards a definite end ; but nature works on a 
 larger scale and according to a different rule. Yet, 
 according to those who take this view, there is no 
 contradiction whatever in admitting that this uncon- 
 scious, plastic force of nature creates works, which, 
 to the human understanding, appear as means con- 
 formed to an end. Unconscious adjustment of means 
 to ends implies, therefore, no contradiction ; and the 
 denial of a personal, intelligent creator consciously 
 
214 THE TPIEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 accomplishing his ends, no more involves a denial 
 of the order and adjustments of nature, than a denial 
 of the harmony of the human organs follows from 
 the doctrine that plants and animals are formed by 
 an organic, plastic force. The order springs from a 
 tendency in nature. 
 
 This theory of unconscious finality, first suggested 
 by Hegel, has been carried to its extreme by later 
 writers. Thus Schopenhauer writes : " The admira- 
 tion and astonishment which are wont to seize us 
 in view of the infinite finality manifested in the con- 
 struction of the organized being, rests at bottom on 
 the natural but false supposition that this agreement 
 of the parts with each other and with the whole of 
 the organism, as well as with its external ends, is 
 realized by the same principle that enables us to 
 conceive and judge it, and consequently by means 
 of representation ; that, in a word, as it exists for 
 the understanding so it exists by the understanding. 
 No doubt, we can realize nothing regular nor con- 
 formed to an end, except under the condition of the 
 conception of that end ; but we are not warranted 
 to transfer these conditions to nature, which is itself 
 a prius of all intellect, and whose action is absolutely 
 distinct from ours. It brings to pass what appears 
 to us so wonderfully teleological, without reflection 
 and without concept of the end, for it is without rep- 
 resentation, a phenomenon of secondary origin." 1 
 Nature, he adds, has given us a brilliant comment 
 on its productive activity in the artistic instinct of 
 the lower animals. 
 
 Building in the main on the same foundations 
 as Schopenhauer, and arriving often at results that 
 
 i Die Welt ah Wille, t. ii. c. xxvi. See Janet, p. 378. 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 2 1 5 
 
 seem identical, Hartmann has somewhat modified the 
 view. Without adopting the conception of intelli- 
 gent finality, he yet opens a way of returning to it. 
 Schopenhauer had completely separated the will from 
 that which was presented to consciousness. The 
 presentation, in his view, was wholly secondary. 
 The unconscious purposes of the will could be com- 
 pletely realized without it. But, on the contrary, 
 Hartmann strongly asserts the necessary connection 
 between these two. A mere unconscious tendency 
 he terms but the empty form of will, and as empty 
 form is always pure abstraction, actual volition can 
 exist only in relation to the actual cognition by the 
 mind of something present or future. In other words, 
 no one can really will without willing to accomplish 
 some definite end. But, while thus affirming that 
 the will cannot exist as will without intelligence, he 
 maintains that this presentation is at first uncon- 
 scious. The aim of his philosophy is to show that 
 there is omnipresent in nature one will and intelli- 
 gence, acting in unconscious union with one another, 
 by whose agency all phenomena may be accounted 
 for. 
 
 As a necessary preliminary step towards proving 
 this presence, throughout all nature, of one will and 
 intellect, distinct from what appears in the mind of 
 man, Hartmann is obliged to analyze the idea of 
 purpose or final cause, and to show that physiological 
 and psychological processes, indeed all the phenom- 
 ena of nature, cannot be accounted for in a satisfac- 
 tory manner, save on the hypothesis that they were 
 first arranged, and are ever after directed and kept in 
 activity by one governing purpose ; in other words, 
 that we find everywhere in the universe the evi- 
 
2l6 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 dences of intelligent design. He argues that the 
 conception of final cause by no means excludes that 
 of efficient cause, but rather presupposes it, and that 
 one could not be carried out except through the 
 other. But an intelligent will is surely one efficient 
 cause among others. Thus, while in the structure 
 of the eye we have the evidence that many physical 
 agencies have cooperated in building up that com- 
 plex and nicely adjusted organ, yet these agencies 
 would not so have harmoniously cooperated had they 
 not been combined and directed by an intelligent 
 will. Yet the eye is only one out of innumerable 
 instances that go to multiply the probability that the 
 order of the universe is due to a designing intellect 
 and will. 
 
 Still, according to Hartmann, in all these manifold 
 and wonderful adaptations of the organic world we 
 see only the working of unconscious intellect and 
 will. In proof of this, he calls attention to the inde- 
 pendent or self-regulating functions of the ganglia, 
 or lower nervous centres, connected with the spinal 
 cord and the sympathetic system. These, without 
 any communication with the brain, and therefore un- 
 consciously, maintain complicated movements nicely 
 adjusted to each other. In all of these, too, a cer- 
 tain purpose is evident, and in the more complex 
 movements this purpose is strikingly apparent. The 
 conscious mind knows nothing of these movements ; 
 they are regulated by a power distinct from our 
 proper selves. Even what are regarded as the vol- 
 untary movements of the limbs and muscles cannot 
 be effected without the cooperation of the uncon- 
 scious. I simply will the movements of my hand in 
 executing a piece of music upon the piano, without 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 21 J 
 
 being in the least conscious of the complicated ap- 
 paratus of nerves, muscles, and tendons by which 
 the movements are executed, without even knowing 
 what part of the brain must be touched to bring all 
 this apparatus into play. Consciousness does not, 
 in fact, belong to the essence, but only to the phe- 
 nomenal manifestation of the individual. 
 
 The direct answer which at once suggests itself 
 to all this is that, granting the fact of this uncon- 
 scious activity in nature, why look to this alone for 
 the explanation of nature's processes ? To solve 
 the great problem of life we need to utilize our 
 very highest resources ; we ought to look for the 
 solution we are in search of, not in the lowest, but 
 in the highest form of life and being. Why turn to 
 the instinct of brutes, about which we know so little, 
 when we have directly before us the intelligence of 
 man, of which we know, through our consciousness, 
 so much ? Granting that instinct, as Schopenhauer 
 asserts, is a commentary on creative activity, yet 
 is it a commentary any easier to read or to com- 
 prehend than the intelligence of man ? There are 
 three distinct modes of action of which nature fur- 
 jiishes us the illustration. These three are, mechan- 
 ism, instinct, and intelligence. Of these three we 
 dismiss the first as yielding no help in the problem 
 we have to solve. Of the remaining two instinct is 
 confessedly the most obscure, and the least under- 
 stood ; why should we turn to this alone for an ex- 
 planation of the method by which the purposes of 
 nature are accomplished ? 
 
 But the hypothesis of instinctive finality not only 
 compels us to appeal to a more obscure class of 
 facts, it really presents much greater difficulties 
 
2l8 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 than the hypothesis of intelligence. For, on this 
 theory, the question still remains, how can a cause 
 attain an end by appropriate means without hav- 
 ing either known that end, or selected those means ? 
 Out of an infinite number of directions in which 
 the cause might have acted, what limited it to that 
 one direction which alone would produce the de- 
 sired result ? If, in the very nature of the cause, 
 every direction but one was excluded, then the idea 
 of finality is set aside. We have only left the neces- 
 sary determination of Spinoza. In short, while the 
 doctrine of immanent finality, that is, the theory of 
 an intelligence working in nature, presents no diffi- 
 culties, and does not stand in any antagonism with 
 the conception of a supreme cause distinct from 
 nature, when we proceed to affirm that this imma- 
 nent finality is unconscious, we are at once involved 
 in difficulties and contradictions. For, if the final- 
 ity displayed in the universe only exists, as Scho- 
 penhauer asserts, for intelligence, but not by intelli- 
 gence, it is pure illusion, and in reality does not exist 
 at all. 
 
 To answer the question before us, what reason 
 we have for inferring that the source of the intelli- 
 gence displayed in the external universe must be 
 sought, not in nature, but in a sphere above nature, 
 and transcending nature, we must turn from the 
 phenomena of matter to the phenomena of mind. 
 Only let it be observed that our object here is not 
 to repeat the old argument of Locke, that the ex- 
 istence of finite intelligence is a fact that can only 
 be adequately explained by going back to an in- 
 finite intelligence as its cause, since mind must 
 have had its origin in mind, but simply to make use 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 2 19 
 
 of the facts of consciousness, and of the processes 
 of human intelligence, to explain the facts of ex- 
 ternal nature, and the processes of organic life. In 
 other words, we are making use of the phenomena 
 of mind for the purpose of completing and perfect- 
 ing the argument from order and design. The 
 force of this argument depends upon its connection 
 with the facts of human consciousness. It fails to 
 satisfy unless combined with this additional proof 
 derived from an independent source. The validity 
 and impressiveness both depend on the support 
 which it derives from the knowledge of ourselves 
 as conscious and voluntary agents. 
 
 We have a perfect right to make this appeal, for 
 the facts of human consciousness are as strictly and 
 truly facts as any of the phenomena of the external 
 world. It is true that Comte and the early posi- 
 tivists denied the right of psychology to be re- 
 garded as an independent science. According to 
 his view, there could be no science worthy of the 
 name founded upon the observation and comparison 
 of states of consciousness, and psychology could 
 only claim attention as a department of biology. 
 That is, the study of mind was simply the study of 
 nervous phenomena. The legitimate conclusion 
 from this postulate was a blank materialism. The 
 intellectual limitations of this writer are nowhere 
 more conspicuously shown than in a doctrine which 
 would reduce to nonsense the greatest achievements 
 .of human thought. That there is such a fact in na- 
 ture as mind, that its laws may be unfolded, that its 
 operations may be traced, that it furnishes us with 
 a basis of scientific reasoning as evident, as certain, 
 as comprehensive, as anything supplied by the ex- 
 
22O THE THEIST2L ARGUMENT. 
 
 ternal universe, is a principle respecting which the 
 most opposite schools have no dispute. Leibnitz 
 and Kant and Mill and Spencer here stood upon 
 the same ground. 
 
 So far as our present argument is concerned we 
 do not need to discuss the various conflicting the- 
 ories respecting the nature or origin of mind. 
 These have no direct bearing on the existence and 
 operation of mind as a fact of human conscious- 
 ness. Intellectual processes, in themselves consid- 
 ered, are as real as gravitation or electricity, and it 
 is with these processes alone that we are here con- 
 cerned. It is, however, important to observe that, 
 however close and intricate the relations of mind to 
 organized and living matter, modern physical science 
 has not yet advanced a single step in the direction 
 of proving that they are not radically and essen- 
 tially distinct We may concede to the materialist 
 that we know the phenomena of mind only as man- 
 ifested through a material organization, and that, so 
 far as our experience can inform us, no mind has 
 ever existed except in connection with a material 
 frame. We may concede that the powers and fac- 
 ulties of the mind are always arranged in close cor- 
 respondence with the energies and functions of this 
 material structure. We may concede that mind is 
 always dependent on some material organization for 
 the exercise of many of its activities, yet the inher- 
 ent and radical distinction between the two reveals 
 itself to the most superficial survey. 
 
 Mr. Huxley, indeed, tells us that " all vital action 
 may be the result of the molecular forces of the pro- 
 toplasm which displays it. And if so, it must be 
 true in the same sense, and to the same extent, that 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 221 
 
 the thoughts to which I am now giving utterance, 
 and your thoughts regarding them, are the expres- 
 sion of molecular changes in that matter of life 
 which is the source of our other vital phenomena." 
 And again, " as the electric force, the light waves, 
 and the nerve vibrations, caused by the impact of 
 the light waves on the retina, are all expressions of 
 the molecular changes which are taking place in the 
 elements of the battery, so consciousness is in the 
 same sense an expression of the molecular changes 
 which take place in that nervous matter which is 
 the organ of consciousness." 1 Yet Mr. Huxley 
 finds it necessary to recognize a clear distinction 
 between brain-movements and thoughts, and he 
 indorses the opinion of Tyndall that " the passage 
 from the physics of the brain to the correspond- 
 ing thoughts of consciousness is unthinkable." We 
 cannot reason, Dr. Tyndall declares emphatically, 
 from physical to mental phenomena. How these 
 two classes of facts are connected we cannot tell. 
 " The chasm between them " still remains for us 
 " intellectually impassable." 2 
 
 Dr. Carpenter has put this distinction clearly in a 
 passage which I will quote : 
 
 " The connection between mind and body is such that 
 the actions of each have, in their present state of existence 
 .... a definite causal relation to those of the other, so 
 that the actions of our minds, in so far as they are carried 
 on without any interference from our will, may be consid- 
 ered as functions of the brain. On the other hand, in 
 the control which the will can exert over the direction of 
 the thoughts, and over the motive force exerted by the 
 
 1 Physical Basis of Life (Lay Sermons, etc., N. Y., 1871), p. 138. 
 
 2 Address at Norwich (1868). 
 
222 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 feelings, we have the evidence of a new and independent 
 Power, which may either oppose or concur with the auto- 
 matic tendencies, and which, according as it is habitually 
 exerted, tends to render the ego a free agent. And truly 
 in the existence of this Power, which is capable of thus 
 regulating the very highest of these operations that are 
 causally related to corporeal states, we find a better evi- 
 dence than we gain from the study of any other part of 
 our psychical nature, that there is an entity wherein man's 
 nobility essentially consists, which does not depend for 
 its existence on any play of physical or vital forces, but 
 which makes these forces subservient to its determina- 
 tions. It is, in fact, in virtue of the will that we are not 
 mere thinking automata." 1 
 
 This does not in the least explain the connection 
 of mind and body, but simply asserts, as an indis- 
 putable fact, their inherent and radical distinction. 
 The various explanations which have been proposed 
 on the side of physical science, of the relation be- 
 tween the physical and mental processes, may be 
 reduced to three : 
 
 1. The theory that mental acts are distinct from 
 nerve-changes, yet in some way products of them. 
 
 2. The theory which conceives the alliance be- 
 tween mental and physical processes to be so inti- 
 mate that they are not successive and distinct, but 
 strictly concomitant and inseparable acts, forming, 
 in reality, but one series with two sides. 
 
 3. The extreme theory which converts this insep- 
 arable concomitance into absolute identity. In this 
 view matter and mind are one. The statement of 
 the theories is enough to show that physical science 
 is wholly incompetent to deal with the problem. In 
 
 1 Mental Physiology, pp. 26, 27. 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 22$ 
 
 short, the only legitimate attitude of physical science 
 towards mental phenomena is to ignore them alto- 
 gether. For if we proceed to the logical extreme 
 of identifying mind and matter, it virtually amounts 
 to saying that the material universe, with its phenom- 
 ena, has no existence. 
 
 Nor are we any more debarred from appealing to 
 the facts of consciousness by any theory of the ori- 
 gin of mind. What we have to do with, in our pres- 
 ent argument, is mind as it now exists, and as its 
 workings are revealed to us in our own conscious 
 personality, not with mind in its primordial begirt 
 nings. Suppose it could be shown, as is claimed by 
 Mr. Spencer, that what we are conscious of as intel- 
 ligence is simply the climax of a series of existences, 
 rising from one another in an orderly and progres- 
 sive gradation, each one preparing the way for the 
 next, and all at last represented in that crowning and 
 consummate result, the mind of man. According 
 to this view, the lowest form of matter obeyed only 
 mechanical laws. The particles were held together 
 by cohesive attraction. In the series next above 
 appeared bodies endowed with chemical properties 
 and combinations. Still higher, were shown the 
 crystalline arrangement of matter. Next appeared 
 the lowest types of organized existence, and these, 
 under the requisite conditions, developed from veg- 
 etable to animal life, and so at length, in connection 
 with more perfectly and delicately organized struc- 
 tures, the phenomena of mind began to appear, re- 
 quiring for their perfect manifestation all the lower 
 forms of life. 
 
 But conceding, for the moment, the possibility of 
 this daring hypothesis, the appeal which we now 
 
224 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 are making to the facts of consciousness would not 
 be, in the least, invalidated. Even going to the full 
 extent of assuming that mind, by this process, is 
 evolved from matter, inconceivable as such a suppo- 
 sition mast seem, the real existence of mind as mind 
 would not be disproved. To those who believe in a 
 first cause, and who recognize design in the works of 
 nature, this would simply be a method of creative 
 action. Suppose we were able to trace " the myriad 
 stages of the composition of mind from the reflex 
 contractions of a rudimentary fin, up to the general- 
 izations of an Aristotle or a Newton," matter and 
 mind, as they are now presented to us, would remain 
 equally distinct, and as the last and crowning result 
 of the long process, mind would be more than ever 
 the source of our highest knowledge of the method 
 of creation, and from the phenomena of mind, with 
 far more assurance than from the phenomena of 
 matter, might we reason respecting the nature and 
 operations of that supreme cause from which the 
 phenomena of matter and 'of mind alike proceed. 
 Man would remain the highest and most perfect ex- 
 pression of the method of nature. 
 
 In now passing, as I have shown that we are fully 
 justified in doing, from the phenomena of matter to 
 the phenomena of mind, there is one truth that we 
 need to keep clearly in view, that we do not pass 
 from the region of law. We have seen, in an ear- 
 lier stage of our discussion, that the universal reign 
 of law is the one great fact that we are everywhere 
 forced to recognize. Its presence is more apparent 
 in the world without us. It is first suggested to us 
 in the uniform motion of the heavenly bodies. It is 
 the primitive and common speech that day every- 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 22$ 
 
 where utters unto day. But science has taught us 
 that not alone the regular and uniform occurrences 
 of nature, but what seem, at first sight, its most sur- 
 prising and inexplicable phenomena, are all corre- 
 lated under the same principle, and that the further 
 we push our search the more evident does it become 
 that one single force manifests itself under all these 
 manifold and changing aspects. The phenomena of 
 mind are more obscure : they inevitably lead us back 
 to a more remote region of inquiry ; yet here, too, 
 as we advance, we find facts ranging themselves 
 under an observed order, and cannot doubt that the 
 chain of causes and effects is equally indissoluble. 
 
 This principle is, in fact, the necessary postulate 
 of all mental science. All that we term science is 
 simply the tracing of laws, and the combination of 
 manifold and various laws under a common princi- 
 ple. So that there can be no science of mind unless 
 there be an observed order of mental phenomena, 
 and unless these phenomena are capable of being 
 reduced under some common principle. One palpa- 
 ble form in which this subjection of mind to law is 
 presented to us is in the close connection of mental 
 phenomena with our physical organism. In the ex- 
 ercise of the higher faculties of our reason we seem, 
 indeed, to be wholly independent of our bodies. We 
 pass, at will, from one mental state to another ; we 
 revive trains of thought long buried in the past ; in 
 imagination we surround ourselves with ideal scenes ; 
 we pass on to the distant future, we fly with wings, 
 fleeter than those of light itself, to the remotest 
 bounds of space;, we seem free from dependence 
 upon any material organism ; but the instant that 
 fatigue or disease comes, we realize how closely, 
 15 
 
226 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 after all, we are bound up with the material condi- 
 tions of our being. At one moment we are in the 
 heavens, at the next we are creatures of the earth. 
 
 In proceeding to analyze, more closely, these men- 
 tal phenomena, we are brought into contact with dif- 
 ferent classes of facts. We have already seen that 
 mental are distinguished from physical phenomena 
 by differences far greater than those which mark 
 mere physical phenomena. It is a difference wholly 
 distinct and peculiar. Matter, as we all know, may 
 pass through many transformations ; it may assume 
 many shapes ; it may disguise itself under very dif- 
 ferent masks, and may seem to perform very differ- 
 ent functions, yet, after all, it never ceases to be an 
 object of sense. No experiment has ever yet suc- 
 ceeded in converting a material substance into an 
 idea ; it remains, after all its protean changes, some- 
 thing extended, divisible, movable, an object of 
 sense, qualities which pure thought never possesses. 
 Those, even, who assert most strongly that matter 
 and mind are but two sides of a double-faced unity, 
 have never succeeded in showing that these con- 
 trasted qualities can cohere in a single substance, 
 that thought can be combined with extension or 
 weight. We have also seen, from the acknowledg- 
 ments of the foremost men of science, that no in- 
 vestigation of molecular changes in the brain has 
 advanced us a step towards explaining mental states. 
 They are as inexplicable as ever. 
 
 But there are other facts revealed in conscious- 
 ness which we have not yet considered. The first 
 of these is the mysterious unity of consciousness, 
 which many regard as the most invincible argument 
 against materialism. How can this be explained 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY, 22/ 
 
 if the mind be regarded as nothing but successive 
 physical states of the brain ? Connected closely with 
 this, is the consciousness of personal identity, a fact 
 as clearly revealed as the fact of existence itself, and 
 amply attested in every moment of our lives, but a 
 fact that we seek, in vain, to harmonize with the 
 theory that man is merely a material existence, the 
 elements and atoms of which are in a state of per- 
 petual change. In this consciousness of personal 
 identity, the mind distinguishes itself, not only from 
 external objects, but just as much -from its own 
 body, and even from its brain. But, beyond all this, 
 and here is the point at which all along I have 
 been aiming to arrive, the mind is conscious of an 
 internal spontaneity. It is not only conscious of 
 itself, as distinct from the external world, and from 
 its own body, but is no less conscious of itself as an 
 active, willing agent, producing, results, by its own 
 volition, in itself and in the world without. 
 
 And here we are brought face to face with the 
 most astonishing and inexplicable fact that nature 
 anywhere presents, the phenomena of the human 
 will. The existence of this will we need have no 
 hesitation in affirming as a fact. The difficult prob- 
 lems connected with its nature and mode of oper- 
 ation we need not here discuss. That our wills 
 should be determined by motives, that in so many 
 cases where consciousness assures us that we are 
 acting freely we should be governed by underlying 
 impulses, of which we have no consciousness, that 
 what seem our voluntary actions should, in so many 
 instances, follow a course marked out for them by 
 conditions over which we had no control, and which 
 we even fail to recognize, all these are aspects of 
 
228 THE THEISTTC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the question with which we need not here concern 
 ourselves. What we have now to do with is volition, 
 simply as it emerges into consciousness, with the 
 will as it reveals itself in the higher processes of 
 our being, where we directly know ourselves as act- 
 ive and free agents. That, by the exercise of his 
 will, man can produce changes in himself, and in 
 the external world, is a fact which we need not stop 
 to prove. 
 
 It is not at all with the nature or origin of will, 
 but simply with its mode of operation that we are 
 here dealing. We are conscious of a volition, we 
 put forth an effort, we produce a result, that is 
 the simple and familiar chain of facts which we need 
 to keep before us. And, in this process, we find the 
 highest proof of our personal existence, the supreme 
 and ineradicable fact that separates our conscious, 
 thinking selves from the physical universe with 
 which we are so closely and in so many ways con- 
 nected. The phenomenon which we here perceive 
 we have no reason for separating from other phe- 
 nomena. Whether we study the influence of matter 
 upon mind, or the influence of mind upon matter, 
 we have no reason for supposing that we are exempt 
 from that reign of law which we have recognized as 
 everywhere present. Here, as always, we have an 
 order of facts, and, like every other order of facts, 
 it implies a force, or an arrangement of forces, out 
 of which this order has come. This exercise of voli- 
 tion, 'in the accomplishment of a definite purpose, 
 with which we are so familiar, is part and parcel of 
 the great order and harmony which pervades the 
 universe. 
 
 Let us now return to two principles which we have 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 22Q 
 
 already discussed, the principle of causality and 
 the doctrine of the conservation of energy. Modern 
 science has brought us to the conclusion that the 
 phenomena of nature are not simply a series of se- 
 quences, not simply an infinite variety of observed 
 facts occurring in orderly succession, but that they 
 also afford evidence of the presence and constant 
 operation of a mysterious power or force. What we 
 perceive by the senses are indeed but a series of 
 phenomena, and what we term the laws of nature 
 are the generalized expression of these facts. But 
 this is not the whole. We cannot rest at this point. 
 Every change is a revelation, not only of succession, 
 but of causal power. No matter where we take our 
 stand, no matter whether we contemplate physical 
 01 mental phenomena, this conviction is forced upon 
 us. But what is this mysterious force ? No keen 
 scrutiny of science has ever been able to detect it. 
 It announces its presence in every change that takes 
 place around us, but when we look for it, it hides its 
 face from us. The mighty masters of science have 
 wrestled with it, yet like the angel who wrestled 
 with Jacob, it will not reveal its name. 
 
 But one fact has been established, which ranks as 
 one of the greatest discoveries of modern times, that 
 all forms of force are convertible among themselves. 
 In other words, they are ultimately identical, and are 
 endlessly passing and repassing into one another. 
 So that, at last, we are brought to the recognition 
 of one supreme force, everywhere present, every- 
 where acting, the fountain of all changes, pulsating 
 in every part, in the grandest, and in the minutest, 
 forms of the mighty whole. This force, while end- 
 lessly assuming new shapes, is never increased or 
 
230 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 lessened ; nothing adds to it, nothing takes from it, 
 it never slumbers nor sleeps. In striving to reason 
 back to the real nature of this mysterious entity, we 
 cannot reach an abstract conception by eliminating 
 what is peculiar in each of its manifestations, for 
 while present in all, it is identified with none. Each 
 individual phenomenon is simply its passing shape. 
 We must base our inferences respecting it upon the 
 highest exhibition of force which nature presents, 
 and that is our own will. It is only through the 
 consciousness of power within us that we can com- 
 prehend power as manifested in the changes of nat- 
 ure. It is our own personality that first flashes light 
 across the external universe. 
 
 To answer, then, the question whether the intel- 
 ligence revealed in nature is simply in nature, or 
 whether it is an intelligence above nature, and direct- 
 ing the processes of nature by its own free deter- 
 mination, we must look at the facts revealed within 
 ourselves. But, let it not be supposed that this argu- 
 ment means that because we are free and independ- 
 ent of nature, that therefore the power involved in 
 nature is. We have no right to leap to this bold 
 conclusion. Some of those who seek in human per- 
 sonality the clue to the operation of the supreme 
 cause, have urged this argument in the place of any 
 other, and have thrown aside as worthless all proof 
 derived from a first cause, from the universal order, 
 and from finality. To my mind, when thus advanced 
 as an independent argument, it does not carry full 
 conviction. We cannot thus reason from our own 
 consciousness simply to the constitution of the ex- 
 ternal universe. For what we regard as our own 
 voluntary action may be but part of a universal sys 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 231 
 
 tern, and to infer that the universe results from 
 intelligence and freedom because we ourselves are 
 intelligent and free is assuming that the laws of 
 human nature are universal. We make man the 
 measure of all things. 
 
 The force of the foregoing argument is wholly de- 
 rived from what has been already proved, that the 
 world had an intelligent cause. What we are now 
 seeking to discover is, whether that intelligent cause 
 was in nature or above it. And, in answering this 
 question, we have a perfect right to reason from the 
 highest type of causal power which nature presents 
 to us. Those who defend the doctrine of immanent 
 finality appeal to instinct as affording the most sat- 
 isfactory explanation of the method of nature, and 
 hence infer that the finality displayed in nature is 
 unconscious ; in other words, the brute creation is 
 made the type of the supreme causal power that 
 frames the world. But the argument which I have 
 here presented reasons not from the lowest, but from 
 the highest exhibition of causal power revealed in 
 nature, and claims that this should be regarded as 
 the type of the supreme cause, and hence that the 
 power that made the world is intelligent and free. 
 The argument proceeds upon the same ground, in 
 either case, and hence must be accepted as equally 
 legitimate. It is simply reasoning respecting the 
 nature of a cause, the existence of which, on both 
 sides, is conceded. 
 
 The positive philosophy began with the lowest 
 grade of forces, the mechanical, and from that 
 ascended to the higher. The more spiritual, and 
 more satisfactory, conception of nature to which the 
 school of Schelling introduced us, recognized the 
 
232 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 presence of intelligence, but insisted, in the case 
 of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, on illustrating the 
 operations of that intelligence from the most ob- 
 scure processes of mind known to us, the instinct of 
 the lower animals. Our argument appeals, on the 
 contrary, to the highest known type in intelligent 
 action, the type revealed in our own consciousness, 
 with which we are best acquainted, and from which 
 is derived our only notion of a power outside our- 
 selves. For, it is only through the consciousness 
 of power or energy in our own voluntary actions 
 that we arrive at any conception of power or energy 
 in the external world ; we must come back to the 
 human will for any explanation of what we see dis- 
 played around us. And as the force of will is both 
 higher and better known to us than the mere me- 
 chanical, chemical, or vital forces of nature, we are 
 perfectly warranted, on philosophical grounds, in 
 thus explaining the lower from the higher, rather 
 than reducing the higher to the lower. 
 
 Professor Huxley, it is true, assures us that mod- 
 ern science is banishing gradually from all regions 
 of human thought what we call spirit and spontane- 
 ity. But when modern science shall have succeeded 
 in doing this, it will involve not only the destruction 
 of all evidence that the universe is the result of a 
 free intelligent cause, but that any events whatever 
 are due to such an origin. The reasoning which 
 obliterates a supreme cause, obliterates every human 
 cause just as much. So that, if science succeeds in 
 proving that the phenomena of nature do not pro- 
 ceed from will, it will demonstrate, just as conclu- 
 sively, that, in the most ordinary acts of life, we do 
 not bring things to pass by the exercise of volition. 
 
IMMANENT FINALITY. 233 
 
 In other words, mere science seeks in vain to ex- 
 plain the realization of a purpose. It cannot trace 
 the connection between mental states and physical 
 changes. So far as physical science is concerned, 
 the acts of the will are on exactly the same level 
 as the operations of nature. Purpose and intelli- 
 gence are nowhere presented to its view. In fact, 
 the problem of freedom and the problem of design 
 are fundamentally the same. With respect to a 
 directing intelligence no line can be drawn between 
 the processes of nature and the works of man. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 
 
 IN turning as we have, in the course of our argu- 
 ment, from the phenomena of the external world to 
 the wholly different class of phenomena revealed in 
 man's inner consciousness, we have thus far sur- 
 veyed only a part of the field presented to us. We 
 have looked at man as a creature of intelligence, as 
 a being endowed with reason, as capable of choice, 
 as forming conscious resolves, and as acting in ac- 
 cordance with preconceived purpose. From these 
 undeniable characteristics of man we have reasoned 
 respecting the processes revealed in nature around 
 him. And we have taken the ground that to ex- 
 plain these processes, to account for the manifest 
 working towards definite ends that nature so unmis- 
 takably shows, it is at once more natural and more 
 legitimate to argue from these higher operations of 
 intelligence so directly revealed to us in conscious- 
 ness, than to argue from the lower operations of 
 instinct only obscurely presented in -the brute crea- 
 tion. And thus we have reached the conclusion that 
 the finality shown in nature is the operation of a 
 conscious intelligence distinct from and above nat- 
 ure. 
 
 But in thus reasoning we have accomplished only 
 part of our task ; we have surveyed only a portion 
 of the phenomena that consciousness presents. For 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 235 
 
 it is not more certain that man is a rational and in- 
 telligent creature, than that man is a moral creature. 
 If it be evident that he is endowed with reason, it is 
 not less evident that he is endowed with conscience. 
 The proof of these two propositions rests upon pre- 
 cisely the same ground, and if we accept the one we 
 must accept the other also. And if we have a right 
 to reason from one class of facts which conscious- 
 ness attests, we have the same right to reason from 
 the other. The argument in either case is perfectly 
 direct and simple. It is an argument from obvious, 
 clearly attested facts, facts which can only be ig- 
 nored or denied by denying the existence of human 
 nature itself. Unless we are prepared to go to the 
 extreme of regarding human consciousness as a mere 
 delusion, unless we are willing to reduce the opera- 
 tions of mind to mere physical modifications of the 
 brain, and make volition the inevitable sequence of 
 cause and effect, we cannot deny the existence of a 
 moral sense. 
 
 Let us bear in mind that in this whole argument, 
 we are reasoning simply from facts. All that I now 
 claim is that man himself, and the phenomena of his 
 inner consciousness, are just as much facts as any- 
 thing we can note in the world around us. If then 
 we are willing to admit that man himself is anything 
 more than an illusion, that his active powers are 
 anything more than a passing fancy with which he 
 deceives himself during the few short years of his 
 conscious existence on earth, we must admit, not 
 only that he is an intelligent, but a moral being : that 
 he is capable of distinguishing between right and 
 wrong, that he is influenced by moral emotions, and 
 that he recognizes the existence of moral laws. The 
 
236 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 question here raised is simply a question of fact, and 
 the fact that there is an external world is not a fact 
 more directly attested than the fact that man has 
 a conscience which forces him to an approbation of 
 the right and a condemnation of the wrong. When 
 we reason respecting the laws of the external world, 
 or respecting the subtle properties of matter, we 
 are not dealing with facts so clear and so incon- 
 testible as when we reason respecting the moral 
 sense. The facts with which we are here brought 
 so closely in contact reveal themselves in our daily 
 lives, and in all our acts. They are not far off, but 
 lie close at hand. They are not inferences from other 
 facts, but facts of which we are directly conscious ; 
 not reported to us upon the testimony of others, but 
 part and parcel of our very selves. If we exist, 
 these exist as the essential constituent of our very 
 being. If we cannot assume, as established beyond 
 doubt, these universal and distinctive characteristics 
 of man's moral nature, we have no basis for any in- 
 ference that we may draw respecting any phenom- 
 ena whatever. For the test of all knowledge must be 
 found in consciousness. If we cannot confide in 
 consciousness when consciousness reveals to us the 
 existence of moral distinctions, we cannot implicitly 
 trust in what consciousness attests respecting our 
 intellectual processes. The absolute validity of con- 
 sciousness is not less the basis of philosophy than 
 the basis of morals. Hence Leibnitz truly says: 
 11 If our immediate internal experience could possi- 
 bly deceive us, there could no longer be for us any 
 truth of fact ; nay, nor any truth of reason." 1 
 
 And let it further be observed that, as our argu- 
 
 1 \Nouveaux Essais, lib. ii. c. 27, 13.] 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 237 
 
 ment proceeds simply from facts, we are not at pres- 
 ent concerned with any speculations respecting the 
 origin of what is termed the moral sense, or with 
 any subtle analysis of its nature and working. 
 These are questions important in themselves, but 
 they have no immediate connection with what we 
 are now discussing. We are simply looking at man 
 as he is; and are not asking how he came to be so. 
 We are dealing with the phenomena of conscious- 
 ness simply as facts of universal experience. The ex- 
 planation of these facts is another matter. No man 
 can doubt that the moral sense exists. We have 
 each of us only to look within ourselves for the un- 
 mistakable proofs of its presence and reality. There 
 is not one of us who has not bowed to its impera- 
 tive sway. It exists as a distinct consciousness of 
 moral law, as recognizing a rule of duty, as always 
 involving a sense of responsibility. It sits in judg- 
 ment on us. Human nature would not exist, human 
 life would be stripped of its significance, the com- 
 plex relations we sustain to one another would be 
 divested of value, if this element were lacking. 
 
 It is not more evident that man is the supreme 
 fact in nature, than that the possession of a moral 
 sense is the supreme fact in man. It is this, rather 
 than reason, that draws the line between him and 
 the brute creation. The fact that he recognizes the 
 imperative obligations of a moral law is the distinct- 
 ive fact about him. In the oft-quoted words of 
 Kant : " Two things there are which, the of tener and 
 more steadfastly they are considered, fill the mind 
 with an ever new and ever rising admiration and 
 reverence, the starry heavens above me, and the 
 moral law within me. Of neither am I compelled 
 
238 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 to seek out the reality, as veiled in darkness, or 
 only to conjecture the possibility as lying beyond 
 the hemisphere of my knowledge. Both I contem- 
 plate lying clear before me, and connect them im- 
 mediately with my consciousness of existence. The 
 one departs from the place I occupy in the outer 
 world of sense, and expands the physical connec- 
 tions in which I stand beyond the bounds of imag- 
 ination, with worlds rising beyond worlds, and sys- 
 tems embraced in systems." " The other departs 
 from my invisible self, from my personality, and 
 represents me in a world, truly infinite indeed, but 
 with which my connection, .... unlike the relation 
 I stand in to the worlds of sense, I am compelled to 
 recognize as universal and necessary." 1 
 
 The most recent theory of the origin of the moral 
 sense, and the only one that we need to refer to here, 
 is the theory which accounts for it as the conse- 
 quence of evolution, as a development either in the 
 experience of individuals or in the course of ages, 
 out of pleasure and pain, out of benefits and inju- 
 ries, and which traces the convictions and feelings 
 implied in it to the course of circumstances under 
 which it has grown up. Those who give this ex- 
 planation readily concede all that we have thus far 
 asserted, the existence of a moral sense and of 
 moral intuitions in civilized man. It is admitted 
 that man, in his present highly developed state, is 
 endowed with a complex group of emotions leading 
 him to seek the right and to avoid the wrong with- 
 out any reference to considerations of utility. It is 
 further admitted, that the intuitions of right and 
 wrong, like the intuitions of time and space, are in- 
 
 1 \Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, Beschluss.] 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 239 
 
 dependent of mere individual experience. In this 
 respect, those who hold to the evolution theory of 
 morals really approach nearer to the lofty view of 
 Kant than to the utilitarian theory which referred 
 moral distinction to the experiences which each man 
 has of pleasure and pain. 
 
 The evolution theory accounts for moral distinc- 
 tion, not from the experience of the individual, but 
 from the long-continued and ever advancing experi- 
 ence of the race. The explanation is the same as 
 in the case of physical or intellectual growth. Pleas- 
 ure and pain furnish the starting-point. Pleasure, 
 says Mr. Spencer, is "a feeling which we seek to 
 bring into consciousness and retain there," while 
 pain " is a feeling which we seek to get out of con- 
 sciousness and keep out." And supposing a race of 
 animals could come into existence which should ha- 
 bitually seek baneful actions as pleasurable and shun 
 'useful actions as painful, natural selection would im- 
 mediately exterminate it. Only those races can ex- 
 ist whose feelings, on the average, result in actions 
 which are in harmony with environing relations. 
 Thus we arrive at the conclusion that pleasure is a 
 state of consciousness accompanying the relatively 
 complete adjustment of inner to outer relations, 
 while pain is a state of consciousness attendant upon 
 the discordance between inner and outer relations. 
 The satisfaction that men sometimes find in injuri- 
 ous activities does not invalidate the general rule, 
 that pleasures and pains are positive or negative 
 conditions of self-preservation. 
 
 But we have thus far reached no proper basis for 
 ethical distinction. We can do this only when we 
 so far enlarge our conception of pleasure and pain 
 
240 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 as to take into the account not only what concerns 
 the well-being of the individual, but the well-being 
 of the whole body of which he is but a single mem- 
 ber. And bearing in mind that this whole body, 
 which at first was but the family or tribe, has come 
 to include the whole race, we have for a basis of 
 ethical distinction, the principle that actions mor- 
 ally right are those which are beneficial to human- 
 ity, while actions morally wrong are those which are 
 detrimental to humanity. It is not correct to say, 
 however, that the doctrine of evolution teaches that 
 the moral sense is due merely to the registration 
 through countless ages that some actions benefit 
 humanity, while others injure it, and that from a 
 gradual organization of such inductions all our 
 moral distinctions have arisen. It is equally true 
 that there is also a highly complex feeling of sym- 
 pathy, the product of a slow emotional evolution, 
 which prompts us to certain lines of conduct irre- 
 spective of any conscious estimate of pleasure or 
 utility. 1 
 
 By the more enthusiastic adherents of the doc- 
 trine of evolution it is claimed that in no depart- 
 ment of inquiry is it illustrated with more truth 
 and grandeur than in its application to the prov- 
 ince of ethics, and in the explanation that it fur- 
 nishes of the origin of moral distinctions. But, 
 while in this deeper synthesis supplied by the the- 
 ory it is claimed that a common ground is furnished 
 on which the intuitional school and the school of ex- 
 perience, the disciples of Kant and the disciples of 
 Locke, may stand together, it is not maintained 
 that we possess an instinctive and inherited moral 
 
 1 Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii., pp. 339, 356. 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 241 
 
 sense, so that anterior to education or experience, 
 we possess an organic preference for good actions, 
 or an organic repugnance to bad actions ; but simply 
 that when we are taught that an action is right or 
 wrong we follow or shun it, without taking in all its 
 ultimate consequences ; nor is it denied that when 
 the intelligence is very high there is likely to arise 
 a deliberate pursuit of moral excellence, attended 
 by a distinct knowledge of the elements in which 
 such excellence consists. Such conscious devotion 
 to ends conducive to the happiness of society is the 
 latest and highest product of social evolution. 
 
 I have not introduced this brief summary of 
 what is awakening wide discussion just at this mo- 
 ment as a theory of ethics, for the purpose of in- 
 quiring what elements of truth are involved in it, 
 or how far it is likely to render any efficient service 
 in reconciling theories that heretofore have stood 
 opposed. We may concede, without hesitation, that 
 it is an advance upon the theory of the old utili- 
 tarians ; we may accept as sound the principles in- 
 volved in its representation of the progression of 
 nature, that nature makes for happiness, and that 
 nature gradually prepares the way for the introduc- 
 tion of morality. We may go further than this, and 
 grant that the " intuitions of the moral faculty are 
 the slowly organized results of experience received 
 by the race," and still our reasoning from the facts 
 of moral consciousness would not be in the least af- 
 fected by these admissions. Grant, for the sake of 
 the argument, that the present moral consciousness 
 of the race is wholly the product of evolution, and 
 that man as a moral being has come to be what he 
 is by a process strictly analogous to that by which 
 16 
 
242 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 his physical organs have been developed, any infer- 
 ences deduced from man's moral nature, instead of 
 being weakened, would rather be strengthened by 
 it ; for we have already seen that evolution is sim- 
 ply a process, and a process that in no way conflicts 
 with the idea of design. Whether the moral sense 
 is a faculty implanted in man by a supreme intelli- 
 gence, or whether the moral sense is the result of a 
 long process of development which a supreme intel- 
 ligence has designed and superintended, are ques- 
 tions which do not in the least affect the authority of 
 conscience, or the validity of the distinctions which 
 it shows. Nay, if we accept this explanation of the 
 genesis of man's moral nature, we must be driven 
 to admit that his moral being, as the last term in 
 the stupendous series of cosmical changes which 
 began with the massing together of nebulous mat- 
 ter in the distant past, represents the highest plane 
 of existence yet attained, and that in reasoning from 
 it we are reasoning on the highest plane to which it 
 is possible to rise. For those, therefore, who hold 
 to evolution, the moral argument must be of neces- 
 sity the supreme argument. The bar of man's 
 moral consciousness is the very highest tribunal to 
 which we can make our appeal. 
 
 Having established this important point, that the 
 argument deduced from the phenomena of man's 
 moral consciousness is wholly independent of any 
 theory as to the origin of his moral nature, let us 
 now set distinctly before us the new stage in our 
 discussion on which we are about to enter, and its 
 relation to what has been accomplished up to this 
 point. It is of the utmost importance to under- 
 stand precisely what it is that we are attempting to 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 243 
 
 prove, and to see clearly how far our argument legit- 
 imately extends. In the argument presented in the 
 last lecture from human intelligence, it will be re- 
 membered that it was not claimed that human intel- 
 ligence, in itself, furnished the proof of the existence 
 of a supreme being, but that the existence of a su- 
 preme cause, having been inferred on the grounds 
 of human intelligence, this latter afforded us the 
 highest illustration of its method of working. In 
 other words, having derived from the facts pre- 
 sented in the external universe the idea of intelli- 
 gent cause, the phenomena of human volition enti- 
 tled us to infer that intelligence holds the same rel- 
 ative supremacy in the universe that it holds in us. 
 The argument which I am now presenting from 
 man's moral nature rests upon precisely the same 
 basis, and has precisely the same scope. I make 
 this explanation here because by many the moral 
 argument has been carried much farther. The phe- 
 nomena of conscience are so impressive and so dis- 
 tinctly revealed, they possess, in contrast with mere 
 physical phenomena, a character so imperative and 
 constraining, they force themselves so powerfully 
 upon us as the mandates of a superior power, that 
 some have not hesitated to infer that conscience is 
 itself the very will of God in the soul, and that in 
 the mere fact of the existence of a moral sense, we 
 have a proof of the divine existence complete in 
 itself, and not needing to be supplemented by any 
 further evidence. This was the result at which 
 Kant arrived. After having exerted to the utmost 
 his unequaled logical powers, to prove that the un- 
 aided reason, by whatever path it searches after 
 God, inevitably loses itself in a maze of self-con- 
 
244 THE THEISTrc ARGUMENT. 
 
 tradictions, he ends by appealing to the moral fac- 
 ulty as affording an assurance of the divine exist- 
 ence which no cavil of skepticism could affect. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton has also given the weight 
 of his authority to the opinion that "the only valid 
 arguments for the existence of God, and for the im- 
 mortality of the human soul, rest on the ground of 
 man's moral nature," l or as he has elsewhere ex- 
 pressed it, "Theology is wholly dependent on psy- 
 chology, for with the proof of the moral nature of 
 man stands or falls the proof of the existence of a 
 Deity." 2 Thus the moral nature of man is not made 
 use of as furnishing illustration of the attributes of 
 a being whose existence has been already inferred 
 from other sources, but is exclusively appealed to in 
 proof of the existence of that Being. The argument 
 thus presented by Hamilton is essentially the argu- 
 ment of adequate cause, and its validity depends 
 upon the principle that whatever exists must have 
 had an antecedent at least equal to itself, and hence 
 that man's moral constitution must have proceeded 
 from a cause itself moral. But it is clear that this 
 argument can have no weight unless we have first 
 ascertained precisely how it was that man's moral 
 constitution came to exist. Divorced from the doc- 
 trine of a first cause it comes to nothing. 
 
 But the argument for the divine existence, derived 
 from conscience, has been presented in still another 
 form, where without any reference to the origin of 
 the moral sense the simple phenomena of conscience 
 are alone taken into account. The force of this 
 argument rests, not on the existence of the moral 
 
 1 [The Works of Reid, vol. ii., p. 974 (note U).] 
 
 2 {Lectures on Metaphysics (Lect. ii.), vol. i., p. 33.] 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 24$ 
 
 sense, as a fact in nature needing to be accounted 
 for, but on its character, and the nature of its teach- 
 ings. Conscience is here viewed as a spontaneously 
 admonishing influence which acts independently of 
 our own volition, and which thus forces upon us the 
 conviction of something distinct from and above 
 ourselves. The monitions of conscience come to 
 us as a mandate, and carry with them the neces- 
 sary recognition of something superior to ourselves. 
 When we attentively regard the operations of con- 
 science, it is urged by those who hold this view, the 
 chief thing forced upon our attention is that we find 
 ourselves face to face with a purpose, a purpose not 
 our own, yet one that dominates us, and makes itself 
 felt as ever present, and one that we cannot disso- 
 ciate from a purposer, who thus furnishes unmis- 
 takable indication of his own character. 1 
 
 By no one has this argument been presented with 
 more force and beauty than by Dr. Newman, a writer 
 whose pure and lucid language I am glad to have 
 any excuse for quoting : 
 
 " If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, 
 are frightened, at transgressing the voice of conscience, 
 this implies that there is One to whom we are responsi- 
 ble, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us 
 we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the same tearful, 
 broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting 
 a mother ; if, in doing right, we enjoy the same sunny 
 serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, 
 which follows on our receiving praise from a father, 
 we certainly have within us the image of some person to 
 whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we 
 find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom 
 
 1 See Flint, Theism, p. 402. 
 
246 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we are troubled 
 and we waste away. These feelings in us are such as re- 
 quire for their exciting cause an intelligent being ; we are 
 not affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel shame 
 before a horse or a dog; we have no remorse or com- 
 punction in breaking mere human law : yet so it is ; con- 
 science excites all these painful emotions, confusion, 
 foreboding, self-condemnation ; and, on the other hand, 
 it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a res- 
 ignation, and a hope which there is no sensible, no earthly 
 object to elicit. ' The wicked flees when no one pursu- 
 eth ; ' then why does he flee ? whence his terror ? Who 
 is it that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden 
 chambers of his heart ? If the cause of these emotions 
 does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which 
 his perception is directed must be supernatural and di- 
 vine ; and thus the phenomena of conscience as a dictate 
 avail to impress the imagination with the picture of a su- 
 preme governor, a judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, 
 retributive." x 
 
 But, beautiful and impressive as this statement 
 is, to my mind it is not conclusive. On the con- 
 trary, when carefully analyzed, it will be found itself 
 to furnish the evidence that it is only when the 
 moral emotion is illuminated and instructed by ideas' 
 derived from a different source that it awakens in the 
 mind such clear conviction of the divine existence. 
 The mere fact that conscience is independent of 
 will is equally true of all our emotions. 
 
 Hence I find myself unable to agree with those 
 who would make the moral nature of man the sole 
 and exclusive basis of the argument for the divine 
 existence. It is true that conscience makes us di- 
 rectly cognizant of moral law, and awakens through 
 
 1 Grammar of Assent, pp. 105, 106. 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 247 
 
 reflection the idea of a moral order. But to affirm 
 that conscience is distinctively and exclusively the 
 religious organ of the soul, to represent its primary 
 function to be direct and immediate communion with 
 God, is going much beyond this. In its essence 
 conscience is ethical, not religious. What we imme- 
 diately apprehend through conscience is the right 
 and wrong in actions. I grant that conscience is the 
 supreme faculty in man, and that the logical infer- 
 ences to be deduced from the nature and operations 
 of conscience carry us farther in our understanding 
 of the Supreme Being than the arguments derived 
 from any other, or from all other sources, but they 
 do this only when combined with those other argu- 
 ments. Man does not reach his final conviction of 
 religious truth through any one faculty or organ. 
 He is framed for religion by the whole make and 
 constitution of his nature. 
 
 Let me here repeat what I said in a former lec- 
 ture, that the argument for the divine existence 
 which we are here following out is complex and cor- 
 relative. Not from one, but from many sources is 
 the evidence derived, and its force lies in the whole, 
 not in any of the separate parts. Neither the phe- 
 nomena of man's rational nature, nor the phenomena 
 of his moral nature, taken by themselves, wbuld be 
 sufficient to prove the divine existence. But having 
 inferred, from a wholly different source, the exist- 
 ence of a supreme cause, we may reason with confi- 
 dence from the highest phenomena which nature 
 presents, man's intellectual and moral nature, 
 respecting the nature and attributes of that cause. 
 Having established that something must exist be- 
 vond and above ourselves, we may legitimately infer, 
 
248 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 from what we find in ourselves, what that something 
 must be. Hence we are enabled to see clearly the 
 force and scope of the argument from conscience. 
 It does not claim to prove the existence of a supreme 
 being, but recognizing the existence of that being as 
 already proved, it proceeds to clothe him with his 
 highest and most impressive attributes. 
 
 What, then, let us next ask, may we infer respect- 
 ing the Supreme Being from the moral constitution 
 of man ? 
 
 In the first place, since the moral constitution of 
 man is part of the general system of nature, the 
 same method of reasoning which we have made use 
 of in dealing with the facts of external nature, we 
 may make use of here. Conscience, as we have 
 already seen, exists within us as the recognition of 
 moral law. It is an inward judge ; it continually ac- 
 cuses or excuses ; it condemns or approves ; it fills 
 the soul with the blissful sense of self-approval, or 
 drives it to remorse and despair with the bitter feel- 
 ing of self-condemnation ; it asserts an imperious 
 sway over body and mind, over appetites and affec- 
 tions and faculties ; yet it never claims to do this by 
 any authority of its own. It does not lay down a 
 law, but simply warns us of the existence of a law. 
 Its authority is not original, but derived ; in its 
 sternest accents it never speaks but with a delegated 
 voice. The law of conscience is not set by any man 
 for himself, for the characteristic of conscience which 
 is most unmistakable, is that it claims obedience from 
 the will. 
 
 Hence, while the direct function of conscience is 
 to discriminate the right and wrong in actions, while 
 its immediate sphere is the human will, it goes far 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 249 
 
 beyond this. In fact it can perform those functions 
 only in this way. It carries the soul outside of 
 itself, and brings the will before a bar independent of 
 its own impulses. It inevitably awakens in the soul 
 the perception of a moral law, universal, unchange- 
 able, binding under all circumstances, in short of a 
 moral order of the world analogous to the physical 
 order which it is the province of science to trace and 
 illustrate. The moral consciousness of man re- 
 fuses to stop short of this conclusion. Man feels 
 himself, not merely related to physical laws, but even 
 more closely and more vitally related to moral laws, 
 laws which not only enter into the structure of his 
 own being, and go to form the framework of human 
 life, but laws which extend beyond himself and his 
 own hopes and struggles, and assert themselves as 
 everywhere supreme. Such recognition of the moral 
 order of the world is not only the highest, but the 
 only conclusion that can satisfy the educated moral 
 consciousness of mankind. 
 
 This universal moral order supplies us a basis of 
 reasoning like the physical order which we consid- 
 ered in a former lecture. As from the reason man- 
 ifest in creation we argued back to the intelligence 
 of the first cause, so in the same way from the moral 
 order we may reason back to the moral attributes of 
 the first cause. We did not infer, in the first in- 
 stance, that the complex mathematical laws illustrated 
 in the movements of the heavenly bodies were cre- 
 ated by the .first cause, but simply that they illus- 
 trated, and revealed, and made manifest, some of the 
 characteristics of that cause ; and so here we do not 
 affirm that the moral order of the world, the un- 
 changeable distinction of right and wrong, sprang 
 
250 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 from a supreme will, but that they afford us the 
 means of forming conclusions respecting that will ; 
 for it is inconceivable that the Supreme Being should 
 not himself be in harmony with what is highest and 
 most perfect. The laws which we can only conceive 
 of as universal and unchangeable, must be the laws 
 of his own being. We therefore reach the conclu 
 sion, that the supreme cause must be not only su- 
 premely intelligent, but supremely righteous and 
 good. 
 
 It may be objected that we make a bold leap in 
 thus reasoning from the phenomena of our inner con- 
 sciousness to the nature of an absolute being. But 
 let it always be borne in mind that we are reason- 
 ing, not to his existence, but simply to his attributes, 
 and if the inferences which we have already made 
 from the phenomena of the external universe were 
 legitimate, these that we are now making from the 
 facts of moral consciousness cannot be less so. They 
 are equally a part of the whole system of things ; 
 and even conceding what is claimed by the school of 
 evolutional moralists, that the moral sense in man is 
 .the result of the progressive experience of the race, 
 refined, disciplined, consolidated through countless 
 generations, the moral perceptions being conditioned 
 by the growth of the nervous organism, yet this 
 would not detract from, but would only add to, the 
 force of the argument, since this conviction of a 
 moral order, and all the inferences logically flowing 
 from it, would stand reve~aled as the highest result 
 of human development, and as the last and highest 
 phenomenon which would furnish the most authori- 
 tative postulates for reasoning. 
 
 But we may go further than this. The moral con- 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 251 
 
 stitution of man, like his physical constitution, does 
 more than illustrate the presence and operation of 
 law ; it not less clearly reveals the indications of a 
 purpose. When we closely study it, we find mani- 
 fest evidence that it is a means to an end. The eye 
 is not more distinctly made for seeing and the ear 
 for hearing, than is the conscience fashioned to ena- 
 ble man to discriminate between good and evil. We 
 instinctively recognize this fact when we term it the 
 moral sense. But this purpose which conscience 
 reveals is no more our purpose than is the law which 
 it recognizes our law. It is the purpose of another, 
 which it is our mission in life to realize. Our own 
 purposes are often in conflict with it ; our inner con- 
 sciousness is often tortured and rent asunder by the 
 conflict that thus ensues ; but the ends purposed in 
 our moral constitution remain just as certain and as 
 unmistakable. We cannot throw off the conviction 
 that this constant aim is our own moral improve- 
 ment. We are endowed with this supreme faculty 
 that we may more and more eschew evil and habit- 
 uate ourselves to do right. 
 
 The moral education and discipline of man is, 
 therefore, revealed as the ultimate and highest end 
 of his being. Whatever may be the subordinate 
 ends set before him to realize, the highest and ulti- 
 mate end is the conformity of his nature to the su- 
 preme law of existence, and this law is moral. Moral 
 perfection is the mark set before him, a mark which 
 in his deepest degradation and ignorance he is never 
 able to lose wholly out of sight. But if we reason 
 from the evidences of purpose shown in physical 
 nature, we may also reason from these evidences of 
 purpose in man's moral constitution. If we may 
 
252 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 infer that the first cause of nature is rational and 
 free, we may just as confidently argue that he is 
 righteous and holy. Only to such a being could this 
 ultimate purpose, revealed in man's moral nature, be 
 referred. All the feelings and emotions of the soul 
 which are involved in the apprehension of right and 
 wrong, the approval of conscience when we follow 
 the path of duty, its unfailing condemnation when 
 we wander from that path, point us to a righteous 
 cause of arrangements so distinctive and universal. 
 
 And here again let us note that our conclusion is 
 independent of any theory of the origin of man's 
 moral nature. Let us take the latest and most elab- 
 orate statement of the evolutional theory of ethics 
 from Mr. Spencer's recent volume ; yet even here, 
 though Mr. Spencer would not acknowledge it, we 
 find clearly indicated the constant and elaborate real- 
 ization of purpose. When he asserts that nature in 
 all her changes is progressive, and that this prog- 
 ress tends to happiness, and that this tendency is 
 secured by many and intricate adjustments, what 
 have we in all this but indications of a purpose ? This 
 adjustment to an end, being itself an effect, implies 
 a cause, and if the end is happiness the cause must 
 be benevolent. The grand law of beneficent prog- 
 ress, revealed in the whole history of the race, is 
 surely as impressive a witness to the character of the 
 supreme cause as anything in the physical constitu- 
 tion of man. But there is another and a higher end 
 in nature than happiness. We have seen that man's 
 moral constitution points to a moral end. The two 
 concur, yet they are distinct. In bringing man to 
 recognize this highest end, evolution furnishes proof 
 of design. 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 253 
 
 But, I repeat, that this argument proceeds simply 
 from conscience as a fact. We have only to ask, 
 what have we indubitably given in conscience, just 
 as we asked, in a former lecture, what did we have 
 given in the facts of the external world. Our whole 
 reasoning, up to this point, has been reasoning from 
 facts. Doubtless, reasoning from the facts of the 
 inner consciousness should be pursued with caution. 
 The facts lie, indeed, near to each one of us, yet 
 in the nature of the case they are liable to miscon- 
 ception. But the argument has not been rested on 
 single and exceptional phenomena of individual ex- 
 perience, but on the general and distinctive and ac- 
 knowledged characteristics of man's moral nature. 
 I have been careful to assert nothing the truth of 
 which would not be at once conceded. The argu- 
 ment cannot, therefore, be affected by the possible 
 objection, that man's moral perceptions show every 
 degree of development, and that they are often de- 
 graded and false. In reasoning back, as we have, 
 to the character and attributes of the supreme 
 cause, we have reasoned from human nature, as we 
 had a right to do, not in its lowest, but in what is 
 acknowledged to be its highest stage of develop- 
 ment. 
 
 According to that school with whose conclusions 
 we are now most directly concerned, the answer to 
 the great question of human life must be sought 
 in a complete survey of the history of the Universe, 
 as far as it is revealed to human faculties. This sur- 
 vey shows us that throughout all the provinces of 
 nature may be traced the aspect of a stupendous 
 process of evolution, which is alike exemplified in 
 the development of our planetary system from a 
 
254 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 relatively homogeneous mass of vapor, in the in- 
 creasing physical and chemical diversity and inter- 
 dependence of the various portions of the surface of 
 our cooling earth, and in the wonderful differentia- 
 tions by which solar radiance is metamorphosed 
 into the countless forms of energy manifested in 
 winds and waves, in plants and animals, and in rea- 
 soning men. The progress has always been from the 
 lower to the higher, life, whether in its lower or 
 its higher forms, consisting in a series of adjust- 
 ments between the organism and its environments, 
 till, at length, as the crown and glory of the com- 
 plicated movement, man appeared, endowed with 
 intellect and with moral sense, the mark toward 
 which nature had all along been striving. 
 
 Now all that I claim is that in any reasoning re- 
 specting the ultimate ground, or first cause of this 
 stupendous process, man himself, as the last, the 
 highest, the most clearly comprehended result, 
 should be the starting-point and postulate of our 
 argument. I care not whence he came, or how he 
 was fashioned in the womb of unrecorded time ; I 
 take him just as he is, as the most wonderful fact 
 that nature has to show. As from the phenomena 
 of man's will, rather than from the instinct of 
 brutes, we reasoned respecting the nature of that 
 causal power which lies behind the ever-changing 
 phenomena of the physical world, so from man's 
 moral nature, as confessedly the highest manifesta- 
 tion of conscious life known to us, we have rea- 
 soned respecting the moral character and attributes 
 of that being by whom this moral sense was called 
 into existence. From the highest known we reason 
 respecting the highest unknown. Not in the starry 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 255 
 
 heavens, not in the wonderful adaptations and ar- 
 rangements of organic nature, not in the lower 
 forms of conscious life, but in man, the crown and 
 glory of all, do we have the clearest image of the 
 invisible maker. 
 
 Reasoning from this lofty premise of man's moral 
 nature, we are led to the conclusion that man is sub- 
 ject to a moral law, and this moral law resolves it- 
 self into a universal moral order, the counterpart of 
 the order and harmony shown in the physical uni- 
 verse. We are led to "accept the contents of the 
 moral law as a revelation of the moral attributes of 
 the supreme cause, precisely as we are led to accept 
 the characteristics of the physical universe as evi- 
 dence of his rational attributes. If the facts pre- 
 sented authorize the inference in the one case, they 
 authorize it equally in the other. We are not adopt- 
 ing any different method of reasoning, and are not 
 pushing the argument to any greater extreme. In 
 either case, the reasoning is inductive, and the ar- 
 gument rests on the basis of fact. And the facts, 
 in either case, are acknowledged by all. The phe- 
 nomena of the external world are shown in the 
 speech which day utters to day, and the knowledge 
 which night showeth to night, and the phenomena 
 of the moral consciousness, however we may ac- 
 count for them, are uttered not less distinctly in 
 every language spoken under heaven ! 
 
 But precisely at this point in our argument we 
 are brought face to face with grave difficulties, 
 difficulties that must be met and fairly considered 
 before we can proceed further, Granted that the 
 soul of man is conscious of these moral emotions ; 
 granted that it inwardly realizes a moral law to 
 
256 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which it owes obedience ; granted that in view of 
 its relation to this law it is rewarded with approval 
 or tortured with remorse, still what reason have we 
 to infer that there exists any external reality corre- 
 sponding with these emotions? If these phenom- 
 ena go to prove the existence of moral laws, and of 
 a moral order, are there not other facts which go 
 as much to prove the opposite ? Are there not 
 anomalies in human life which are inconsistent with 
 the idea of moral government ; are there not dark 
 facts, and these not few in number, but countless 
 and various and everywhere present, which , contra- 
 dict this testimony of the moral sense, and forbid 
 us to believe that there is any such moral order of 
 the world as conscience attests ? Is the presence 
 of so much misery and sin to be reconciled with 
 the idea of a moral government ? 
 
 In proceeding to consider this objection, let us 
 note at the outset that the facts here x alleged in op- 
 position fo the doctrine of a moral government, 
 facts, let us frankly avow, which cannot be denied 
 or gainsaid, will be found on examination to be anal- 
 agous to similar defects in the physical world, which 
 have in the same way been used as arguments 
 against the divine wisdom and power. In the case 
 of physical phenomena, however, the advance of 
 science has steadily tended to remove these diffi- 
 culties. To the first savage who gazed with wonder 
 at the heavens, the movements of the celestial 
 bodies must have seemed full of anomalies. Only 
 after long and repeated observation was a correct 
 and coherent theory of their movements reached. 
 And not till the most refined analysis of mathemat- 
 ical science was called into requisition, was it finally 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 2$? 
 
 demonstrated that what seemed their most anom- 
 alous and eccentric movements were only more 
 striking and convincing illustrations of the simple 
 and universal law which caused the tides to rise and 
 fall, and steered with unerring precision the course 
 of the comet in its furthest flight The seeming 
 disorder was not in nature, but in man's limited and 
 partial vision. 
 
 I know there have been those, even in our own 
 time, who have claimed that the general arrange- 
 ments of the universe might be very considerably 
 improved. Thus the founder of the positive phi- 
 losophy has argued that there is no evidence of in- 
 telligence or design in the solar system, because its 
 elements and members have not been disposed of 
 in the most advantageous manner. As, however, 
 Comte himself has declared that we know nothing 
 whatever of final causes, and hence can know noth- 
 ing of the purpose which the arrangements of na- 
 ture were meant to accomplish, it is not easy to see 
 how we are qualified to form an opinion on the ques- 
 tion whether these arrangements are the best or 
 not. If I am shown an intricate machine, the pur- 
 pose of which I not only do not know, but am in- 
 capable of comprehending, of how much worth is 
 my opinion as to the usefulness of that machine. 
 Or if I stand at the beginning of a road, and do 
 not know where it leads, it would seem somewhat 
 presumptuous in me to claim that I can point out a 
 more direct route to the same destination. Criti- 
 cism of the arrangements of nature, absurd in any 
 case, are a self-contradiction in such as deny design. 
 
 These arguments urged against the inorganic 
 world have been urged even more strongiy against 
 17 
 
258 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 organic nature. Here, it is claimed, we are con- 
 fronted with more striking anomalies, and with 
 more inexplicable contradictions. Thus there are 
 organs, it is said, which have no use, and other or- 
 gans so imperfectly developed as to be capable of 
 serving no useful function. And even those organs 
 which are most highly developed, and the elaborate 
 arrangements of which seem most apparent, have 
 been subjected to a 'searching criticism and pro- 
 nounced ill adapted to the purpose claimed for 
 them. Thus it has been argued that the eye itself 
 is not a perfect optical instrument, and that a much 
 better might be contrived. And it has been claimed 
 that many arrangements in nature serve only to 
 inflict pain or cause destruction. And finally, the 
 abortions and monstrous productions of nature are 
 arrayed against the doctrine that the first cause of 
 organic existence was wise and good. If we fairly 
 weigh, it is argued by those who hold this view, 
 all the phenomena of nature, the difficulties which 
 we encounter will fully offset any argument to be 
 derived from the proofs of intelligence and benev- 
 olence. 
 
 No one can deny these facts, and no thoughtful 
 person can close his eye to the dark shadow cast 
 over nature by the universal presence of physical 
 evil. The history of suffering began on our planet 
 ages before man existed. Geology shows that the 
 earth was a scene of suffering and destruction, of 
 violence and disease and agony and death, from the 
 earliest epoch of animated existence. And not 
 only were all creatures made subject to suffering, 
 but as they advanced in the stages of growth, and 
 became more highly organized, their suffering be- 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. ' 
 
 came more acute. Physical pain, instead of being 
 gradually eliminated, constantly increased, and the 
 higher and more varied the endowments of any 
 creature, the more acute became his sensibility 
 alike to pleasure and pain, till, at last, man, the 
 crown and completion of organic nature, curiously 
 summing up and reflecting in himself the functions, 
 and attributes of the lower creatures, was racked 
 and tortured by pains of which they could have no 
 conception. He purchases life by the physical tor- 
 ture of another, and at last longs for the grave, as 
 the only place where the weary are at rest. 
 
 The general answer to these objections lies on 
 the surface. We need only briefly to restate what 
 has been often urged. Even could it be proved 
 that undeniable defects may be discerned in the ar- 
 rangements of the external universe, there might 
 still remain sufficient proof of the wisdom and 
 goodness of its author. Because intelligence and 
 goodness are not everywhere shown, it does not 
 follow that there is no proof of intelligence and 
 goodness whatever. The question whether the uni- 
 verse had its origin in intelligence is entirely differ- 
 ent from the question whether the intelligence 
 shown in the universe is perfect ; and at this stage 
 of the argument the two questions should not be 
 confounded. 
 
 But further, in undertaking to show that there 
 are defects and imperfections in the present system 
 of things, it is obvious that we ought to proceed 
 with caution. From our present point of view 
 these defects may be apparent, but it does not fol- 
 low, of necessity, that they are real. The inquiry 
 upon which we here enter is a very large one, and 
 
260 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 there are many considerations that should be borne 
 in mind before we undertake to answer it. We are 
 throwing our plummet into water that is very deep. 
 
 If it would be gross presumption in us to un- 
 dertake to criticise a complicated piece of mech- 
 anism, the design of which we very imperfectly com- 
 prehend, it surely becomes us to pause before pro- 
 nouncing with confidence upon the structure of 
 the universe. We see but a very small portion of 
 it, and understand but little of that we see. While 
 this limited knowledge need not prevent us from 
 recognizing such indications of intelligence as fall 
 clearly and unmistakably within the range of our 
 survey, it ought to deter us from pronouncing an 
 opinion with regard to things the wisdom of which 
 we fail to recognize. That they are unmixed and 
 absolute evils does not follow from the mere fact 
 that we do not perceive that they are good. In 
 other words, we have a positive argument, which is 
 not invalidated by an argument which may be only 
 apparently negative. Most of the anomalies which 
 at first perplexed us in the inorganic world have 
 faded away in the increasing light of scientific re- 
 search ; and reasoning from analogy, we should be 
 prepared to expect that the seeming incongruities 
 and contradictions in organic nature will be ex- 
 plained in a wider comprehension of the whole sys- 
 tem of things. 
 
 For we cannot bear too strongly in mind the 
 great principle, which every advance in science 
 tends to establish, that all nature forms one great 
 whole, the parts of which are curiously related and 
 interdependent, and that the manifold uses and re- 
 lations of all these parts to one another must be 
 
CONSCIENCE AN-D A MORAL ORDER. 26 1 
 
 taken into account before we can undertake to pass 
 any judgment upon them. Could we survey the 
 whole universe, and mark how all its parts are 
 related to each other and to the whole, we might de- 
 termine whether an apparent defect in it was real, 
 but not before. Nor is it simply by the present re- 
 lations of these parts to one another that they are 
 to be judged, but by their relation to all the past 
 and to all the future of the whole system of things. 
 A child may view the complicated engine of a great 
 modern steamer. He has been taught the general 
 theory on which engines are constructed ; he under- 
 stands the properties of steam ; his mechanical 
 knowledge enables him at once to comprehend the 
 function of the piston and the crank, and to see 
 how power is transmitted to the shaft. But he will 
 be puzzled by many elaborate contrivances, some 
 of which will not be called into play till a wholly 
 new emergency arises. 
 
 The existence of so much actual pain and suffer- 
 ing presents a darker problem, a problem which the 
 human mind, with its present knowledge, may not 
 be able to solve. Yet there are considerations here 
 which deserve attention. It is easy to see that pain 
 serves some useful purposes. It has a preservative 
 use, and supplies a needed warning against the ap- 
 proach of danger. Without this constant monition 
 animals would be continually running into peril. To 
 this extent, therefore, pain may be regarded as a 
 proof of benevolence on the part of the author of 
 nature. Again, pain is a powerful stimulus to exer- 
 tion. The keen sense of hunger stirs us to secure 
 food, and those animals which depend most on their 
 own energies for self support are precisely the ani- 
 
262 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 mals which rank highest in the scale of animated 
 beings. And here it should be noticed that if the 
 theory of evolution be accepted as established, all 
 these seeming defects and anomalies of the organic 
 world afford new proofs of a wise and benevolent 
 purpose in the arrangement of things, since they 
 must all be regarded as the necessary means and 
 conditions of the preservation and improvement of 
 successive races. Evolution removes many difficul- 
 ties in the natural world. 
 
 I do not urge these considerations as a solution of 
 the mystery of physical pain and suffering, but sim- 
 ply as showing that, with our limited understanding 
 of the matter, pain and suffering cannot be fairly 
 shown to conflict with the positive proofs of benevo- 
 lence which the universe presents. The same line 
 of argument will help us when we advance to the 
 darker mystery of moral^ evil. The same reasons 
 which forbid us to infer that suffering is inconsistent 
 with the divine goodness, will make us shrink from 
 the conclusion that moral evil is inconsistent with 
 the divine righteousness. In neither case can hu- 
 man reason reach any complete solution of the prob- 
 lem, yet with regard to both these questions we may 
 safely take the ground that positive proof, on the 
 one hand, is not invalidated by partial knowledge on 
 the other. That there is a law of right, is revealed 
 to us in consciousness, that the government of the 
 world must conform to this supreme law is a convic- 
 tion which is forced upon the mind with a power too 
 overwhelming to be shaken by any doubts or mis- 
 givings which may arise when we fail to trace this 
 law in the tangled web of human experience. 
 
 We may ask the old question, why a perfectly hoi) 
 
CONSCIENCE AND A MORAL ORDER. 263 
 
 being should permit sin to exist at all. No doubt we 
 can conceive of intelligent creatures so formed as 
 always to follow the path of right. Why then should 
 a man have been brought into existence certain to 
 go astray ? But we have seen, in the physical world, 
 that sensibility to pain and suffering keeps pace with 
 higher endowment, and that those who enjoy most 
 are also liable to suffer most. As we rise from the 
 sphere of physical to the sphere of moral life, the 
 same rule holds, and the greater the endowment 
 the greater becomes the liability to its abuse. The 
 highest endowment of all is the free agency, in the 
 very nature of which is involved the possibility that 
 man may rebel against the moral law. If moral be- 
 ings were to exist in the universe at all, so far as we 
 can see they could only exist under this condition. 
 The question, therefore, whether moral evil should 
 exist, resolves itself into the question, whether man 
 himself should exist. But the question, why the 
 world should have been constituted as it is, or why 
 it should not have been a different world, is a ques- 
 tion which we are not here discussing. 
 
 All that we have to show is that the existence of 
 moral evil is not inconsistent with the idea of moral 
 government. We have seen that liability to sin is 
 involved in the idea of free agency ; it is not less true 
 that the existence of moral disorder implies moral 
 order. For, it is evident, that moral disorder can 
 exist only as the counterpart and antithesis of moral 
 order, for the very notion of moral evil implies a good 
 which it contravenes, and a moral law by which it is 
 condemned. We cannot conceive of a being as per- 
 verted and depraved, unless we have in our minds 
 the idea of a moral standard to which that being has 
 
264 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. . 
 
 failed to conform. Sin is not primary and original, 
 but secondary and derivative. We can only be con- 
 scious of it as violation of law. If, then, we admit 
 the existence in the universe of any such thing as 
 moral evil, we must admit the presence and impera- 
 tive sway of moral law. The two conceptions are 
 correlates of one another. We may take the ground 
 that the sense of sin in man is a delusion, we may 
 confound the distinction between moral and physical 
 impulses, but if we recognize the mystery of moral 
 evil we must recognize the reality of moral law. 
 
 Furthermore, in considering the problem of moral 
 evil we should have always in mind what was shown 
 with regard to physical evil : that the narrow field 
 open to. our vision is only part of a general system 
 of things. The laws of the moral, like the laws of 
 the physical world, are connected together and form 
 a great whole; and the wisdom or justice of any 
 specific arrangement can be estimated rightly only 
 by one to whose gaze the whole is revealed. We 
 can clearly perceive that much of the moral evil 
 existing in the world is incidental to such a system. 
 If this principle fails to yield a complete evolution 
 of the problem, we are still not authorized to con- 
 clude that the unknown remainder is in conflict with 
 the results already reached. The solid fact on which 
 we stand is the moral sense. We have clearly revealed 
 in moral consciousness the^ existence and authority 
 of moral law. Many of the facts of human life tend 
 powerfully to confirm this testimony ; some seem to 
 contradict it. But contradictions, the real import 
 and force of which we have no means of estimating, 
 cannot weigh against a testimony of which we are 
 directly conscious. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 
 
 IN reasoning back, as we have thus far, from the 
 facts of man's moral consciousness to the existence 
 of a moral law, and as a legitimate inference from 
 this, to the existence of moral attributes in the first 
 cause, we have considered the facts of consciousness 
 simply as presented in the individual. Our starting- 
 point has been what each one of us knows of him- 
 self. This self-consciousness we have assumed as a 
 fact directly revealed, and we have reasoned from it 
 precisely as we reason from any fact given in nature. 
 Man, whatever else we may say of him, is a natural 
 phenomenon, and all that belongs to man must be 
 accepted as part of the whole system of things. His 
 moral consciousness is as indubitable a fact as any- 
 thing presented in the physical universe. All that 
 is required for the validity of the argument is to 
 discriminate carefully between what belongs simply 
 to the individual and what belongs to man as man. 
 Or, in other words, the argument from moral con- 
 sciousness makes its appeal to facts in man's moral 
 nature which are recognized as universal. 
 
 But this argument may be greatly extended and 
 strengthened by being considered from a different 
 point. Man is something more than an individual ; 
 he is a member of a race ; he is an integral part of a 
 great human family. It is not more certain that he 
 
266 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 exists, than that he exists in connection with other 
 beings like himself, and that his existence is condi- 
 tioned by theirs. The individual is part of the whole, 
 and all are members one of another. No one of us 
 could be precisely what he is but for others existing 
 around us. Nor are we determined simply by these 
 present conditions. Not only those who exist with 
 us, but all those who have existed before us, are in a 
 certain sense a part of ourselves. Their existence 
 was just as much the condition of our existence, and 
 no one of us could be what he is but for influ- 
 ences which they have put in motion. Thus each 
 one of us was shaped by influences that existed be- 
 fore he was born, influences that were not only 
 immediate, but remote, and that go back to the be- 
 ginning of time. So we are led back to the most 
 impressive fact presented in human history, that 
 of the unity of the race. 
 
 The question which now presents itself is, whether 
 we can apply to the race the same method of reason- 
 ing which we have applied to the individual. As 
 we have deduced from the facts of individual con- 
 sciousness the presence and binding authority of 
 moral law, can we deduce the same conclusion from 
 the facts of human history considered on a large 
 scale. From the long and checkered story of the 
 human race, from its incessant struggles, from its 
 ever-changing and apparently confused and bewil- 
 dering phases, from its alternating epochs of decay 
 and growth, of decline and progress, can we draw 
 any valid and satisfactory inference respecting a 
 moral government of the world. The question is 
 evidently the supreme question of historical study. 
 It dominates over every other, and unless it can be 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 26? 
 
 answered, all other historical questions can claim 
 only a very limited and secondary interest. Ques- 
 tions as to the origin of races and of nations, as to 
 the source and growth of political institutions, as to 
 the rise and fall of dynasties, sink into insignificance 
 when we once set before us this solemn question as 
 to the meaning of human history itself. 
 
 And while, for convenience, we here consider the 
 argument from individual consciousness and the ar- 
 gument from history as separate and apart, yet it is 
 evident that they are closely connected, and that one 
 depends upon the other. The facts of history are 
 so complicated and confused, they present, when 
 looked at externally, so little evidence of order and 
 connection, that we should seek in vain to wind our 
 way through the labyrinth without the clew that in- 
 dividual consciousness affords. Without the light 
 cast upon the facts of history by our own inner con- 
 viction of the reality of a moral law, we should find 
 that law nowhere printed on its pages. The argu- 
 ment from history must therefore follow, and not pre- 
 cede, the argument from the moral sense. Unless 
 we have first satisfied ourselves, beyond a doubt, 
 that man is a moral creature, and that he recognizes 
 his responsibility to a moral law, we shall see human 
 aistory as a mere physical progression, such as that 
 which the slow growth of the oak, through centuries 
 of storm and sunshine shows, or the restless heaving 
 of an ocean, whose alternating ebb and flow show no 
 orderly progression. 
 
 The specific inquiry which presents itself, then, at 
 this stage of our argument, is this : whether the his- 
 tory of the race, considered as a whole, confirms the 
 testimony of the individual consciousness as to the 
 
268 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 existence of a moral order. But to reach a satisfac- 
 tory answer to this question, we have evidently first 
 to ascertain whether any conception of order, or uni- 
 formity, or law, can be applied to history. Unless 
 we can first demonstrate that such a conception of 
 human society as brings it within the domain of law 
 is not absurd or self-contradictory, it will be idle to 
 attempt to trace the presence of moral law. The 
 progress of science has accustomed us to recognize 
 the presence and reign of law throughout the nat- 
 ural world. Not only the orderly phenomena pre- 
 sented in the motions of the heavenly bodies, but 
 what seemed the most discordant and irregular and 
 abnormal processes of nature, are now seen to be 
 reduced under this common principle. Our charts 
 are no longer confined to the solid shore, but mark 
 out as well the windings of ocean currents, and we 
 turn with confidence to our morning papers for the 
 indications of the storm that is slowly gathering on 
 the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 But when we turn our gaze from external nature 
 to those voluntary acts of man which form the sum 
 and substance of human history, we shrink from ap- 
 plying this universal rule. At first sight it seems to 
 us that we have passed to a wholly different sphere, 
 where the principles which regulate the physical uni- 
 verse cannot apply. We are now dealing, not with 
 the phenomena of matter, but with the phenomena 
 of spirit ; and we instinctively refuse to submit our 
 consciousness of free agency to a principle which 
 seemingly reduces all human acts to inevitable fate. 
 The application of law to history seems to place the 
 phenomena of human consciousness on a level with 
 physical facts, and human life becomes like the flow- 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 269 
 
 ering of a plant, or like the certain evolution of the 
 tree from its seed. Hence the attempt to apply to 
 history the methods of science, the mere suggestion, 
 even, that the phenomena of history can be grouped 
 under general principles, that the movements of hu- 
 man society have conformed to any fixed and ascer- 
 tainable laws, has awakened in many quarters an 
 earnest opposition, on the ground that such a view 
 is inconsistent with any religious theory of human 
 life. 
 
 Yet, in spite of the repugnance at first awakened 
 by the suggestion that human history is thus gov- 
 erned by general laws, it cannot be denied that the 
 tendency of human thought, when earnestly applied 
 to the study of history, has been in this direction. 
 The human mind is so made that it instinctively re- 
 coils from the recognition, in any sphere, of nothing 
 but disorder and confusion. And when, by its more 
 profound and accurate study of physical phenomena 
 it had been trained in the habit of tracing every- 
 where the presence of law, it all the more shrank 
 from the conclusion that, in the highest sphere 
 of natural operations, law should not somehow be 
 found acting. The ancient observer, with his frag- 
 mentary and discordant view of nature, might rest 
 content with likening human history to a restless 
 waste of waters ; but the modern mind, by the intel- 
 lectual methods to which it has become habituated, 
 is forced to trace unity and order in all phenomena, 
 and reject as incredible the notion that a principle 
 so clearly and so universally manifested in all the 
 lower stages of creation, should be wholly suspended 
 or annulled when we turn our investigation to the 
 higher. 
 
270 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 The historic method has been aptly and truly de- 
 scribed as the characteristic intellectual habit of the 
 present age. We study facts, not simply as they 
 are presented to us at the present instant, but in the 
 whole course of their development. To know the 
 human functions in their full action we go back even 
 to man's embryonic life, and trace the successive 
 stages by which each part has come to be precisely 
 what it is. To comprehend the laws of speech, and 
 the subtle analogies of language, we are not content 
 to study the literature of a nation at its epoch of 
 supreme perfection, or even to trace the history of a 
 single tongue, but compare dialect with dialect, and 
 syntax with syntax, in all the successive stages of 
 their growth, till we go back beyond recorded time 
 and lift the mysterious veil that hides the beginnings 
 of nations and tribes. And, in doing this, we recog- 
 nize the great truth, that both the human frame and 
 human speech have passed through successive but 
 connected states, that each state has been, in turn, 
 a cause and an effect ; and a common law of growth 
 and evolution has bound them all together, leading 
 on to a definite result. 
 
 Comparative philology, with all the splendid infer- 
 ences derived from it respecting the early history 
 and migrations of the human family, rests upon the 
 postulate that language is an evolution, that this 
 evolution conforms to fixed laws, and that these laws 
 can be ascertained. But the growth of language is 
 a rational process, for the possession of language 
 is the universal characteristic which marks man as 
 a rational being. It is not a part of his physical 
 structure, but springs out of his supreme intellectual 
 endowments. The. growth of language is the most 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 2? I 
 
 evident and certain index of his rational develop- 
 ment, the delicacy and refinement and precision of 
 his modes of speech always keeping pace with his 
 mental stature. It follows, therefore, that man in 
 his intellectual growth is subject to law, and that his 
 mental, not less than his physical characteristics, 
 are evolved in regular succession, and in accordance 
 with definite methods. No other conclusion than this 
 can be reconciled with the facts which the history of 
 language, and the history of human society, alike 
 present. We trace everywhere the presence of uni- 
 formity, of order, of law. 
 
 And if, granting all this, it may be objected that 
 the law thus manifested in human actions, and in 
 human society, must be, after all, a wholly different 
 kind of law from that so clearly revealed in the oper- 
 ations of physical nature, we may ask in reply what 
 proof is there of this. For we have already seen, in 
 an earlier part of our discussion, that what we term 
 laws of physical nature are simply the operation of 
 forces, and that the tendency of science is to reduce 
 all these to the manifestations of a single force, of 
 which they are but modifications, and into which 
 they continually pass, and so far as we can see this 
 ultimate force may be simply will. So far as we can 
 see in nature, the principles of arrangement which 
 govern the relations of forces are purely mental, 
 and the most adequate conception we can form of 
 force is derived directly from our own consciousness 
 of vital power. If this be true, it follows that the 
 law which manifests itself in the phenomena of mat- 
 ter, and the law which manifests itself in the phe- 
 nomena of mind, may be the same law, or law in 
 precisely the same sense is equally present and 
 equally operative in either sphere. 
 
2/2 THE THEISTTC ARGUMENT. 
 
 The conclusion here reached is one of so much 
 importance that it may be well, before going further, 
 to indicate more fully the grounds on which it rests. 
 And here let me repeat what I have stated before, 
 that this whole argument in which we are engaged 
 proceeds from facts. I am not attempting an a pri- 
 ori, but an a posteriori, demonstration. My steady 
 aim from the beginning has been, not to reason from 
 abstract premises, but from the evident and acknowl- 
 edged phenomena of nature and of life, not from the 
 unknown to the known, but from the known to the 
 unknown. We began with the facts given in the ex- 
 ternal world ; from those we argued back to an in- 
 telligent cause ; we proceeded next to the facts of 
 human consciousness, and from those argued back 
 to a moral cause. We are now, in the same way, 
 dealing with the facts of human history, viewed on 
 a large scale, and in their manifest connections. But 
 our present starting-point, just as much as when we 
 fixed our gaze upon the uniform movements of the 
 heavenly bodies, or the arrangements of man's phys- 
 ical frame, is the domain of facts. Of these human 
 history, in its various forms of written annals, lit- 
 erature, art, institutions, manners, philosophy, relig- 
 ion, is simply the record. Not only is the history 
 of man, taken as a whole, a great fact, but it is the 
 greatest of all facts of which we can have any direct 
 knowledge. Without any disparagement of the nat- 
 ural sciences, and recognizing to the fullest extent 
 the enormous and splendid progress of physical dis- 
 covery in our own time, I still assert, with confi- 
 dence, that man and his achievements still form the 
 noblest and most interesting subject of human in- 
 quiry. As the highest product of nature is human 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 2/3 
 
 intelligence and human character, so the investiga- 
 tion of the phenomena presented in human life opens 
 the highest field of human research. We are borne, 
 in this generation, on a great wave of physical dis- 
 covery ; we are dazzled, for the moment, by the bril- 
 liancy of the results which modern methods of phys- 
 ical research have reached, yet the time can never 
 come when moral and spiritual problems will not 
 assert their rightful supremacy, and when, in our 
 sober moments of reflection, we shall not acknowl- 
 edge that man's destiny possesses for us a more 
 vital interest than any other question. 
 
 Now, contemplating human history as a whole, 
 we are shut up to one of two alternatives. We may 
 look at its successive phases simply as a series of 
 disconnected facts, without order or design, without 
 coherence or connection, without mutual dependence 
 or relation. We may regard the great events of 
 history as following one another in time, with no 
 connection or relation as causes or effects, with no 
 natural, or necessary, or designed antecedence or 
 consequence. According to this theory, we may 
 take any single event, or any given series of events, 
 and may suppose that the antecedent course of 
 events may have been wholly different, or even con- 
 trary, or we may take any event, or series of events, 
 and suppose that the consequences may have been 
 wholly different or contrary. Thus we may suppose 
 that our recent civil war may have broken out pre- 
 cisely as it did, even had slavery never existed on 
 this continent, and had these States never been com- 
 bined in a federal Union ; or that the American Rev- 
 olution may have pursued the precise course it did, 
 and yet the great republic of the New World nevei 
 
 18 
 
274 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 have been called into existence. For, according to 
 this view, all events are disconnected and independ- 
 ent, and one series of events has no causal relation 
 to another. A theory so directly in the face of the 
 manifest course of history might seem too absurd to 
 be seriously maintained, yet it has found, at times, 
 its theoretical defenders, and is practically main- 
 tained in some current maxims and recognized prac- 
 tices of society. And, at first sight, it must be 
 admitted that some facts go to establish it. As in 
 nature, so in human life there are many phenom- 
 ena which refuse to be brought under any established 
 theory ; and the story of man is the story of so much 
 suffering, so much crime, so much bloodshed, so 
 much oppression of the weak by the strong, so much 
 triumph of evil over good, of so much "disappoint- 
 ment of cherished hopes, and so much failure to 
 realize lofty ideals, that in hours of disappointment 
 and despondency and sorrow it is not strange that 
 even earnest souls have harbored the harrowing sus- 
 picion that while law rules the physical world, only 
 disorder and anarchy and blind chance control the 
 movements of that higher sphere where man is left 
 as a free agent to shape his own course. 
 
 But, if we refuse to rest in this comfortless con- 
 clusion, there is but one alternative remaining, and 
 that is to accept the view already stated, that law 
 pervades the spiritual as it pervades the natural 
 world. One of these two conclusions we must adopt 
 if we reflect upon human history and human des- 
 tiny at all. In accepting the alternative, we are not 
 required to define the precise sense in which we use 
 the term law, we only assert it as the denial of an- 
 archy and disorder. The choice is between chance 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 2?$ 
 
 or law ; how we are to interpret law is a question to 
 be considered later. Law is simply the contradic- 
 tion of chance ; it denies what the theory of chance 
 affirms, incoherence and disorder in the sequence 
 of events ; and it affirms what the theory of chance 
 denies, coherence and order in the sequence of 
 events. If, therefore, we accept this theory of human 
 history, events will be no longer viewed as discon- 
 nected and discontinuous, but as intimately related 
 to each other, as inseparably interwoven, and as mu- 
 tually dependent. It regards the successive phases 
 of human history, like the successive phases of indi- 
 vidual life, as issuing one from another, and as stand- 
 ing in the relation of cause and effect. 
 
 And, however in moments of despondency we 
 may be inclined to view the course of human history 
 as an unmeaning and aimless struggle of conflicting 
 forces, when we calmly review its successive phases 
 in the light of sober reason we cannot content our- 
 selves with anything short of this second view. We 
 are forced to regard the events of history in the 
 relation of cause and effect. And, if the study of 
 history has made any progress in modern times, it 
 has been precisely in the direction of viewing history 
 as a connected whole, where the phenomena of one 
 epoch find their rational explanation in the phenom- 
 ena of a preceding. We instinctively take this view. 
 In our habitual speech we talk of the growth of in-- 
 stitutions and of nations. He would, indeed, only 
 expose himself to contempt and ridicule who should 
 adopt any other language. We look upon the English 
 constitution as having its roots far back in feudal 
 society ; we account for the atrocities of the Reign 
 of Terror from the shameless immorality and unbe- 
 
2/6 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 lief of the old regime. Thus we recognize the prin- 
 ciple that the course of history is not swayed by 
 chance, but that each age is what it is because of 
 the ages that have gone before it. 
 
 The principal objection to this view of history 
 springs from its supposed antagonism to the free- 
 dom of the human will. Those who deny that the 
 course of human history and the successive phases 
 of human society show any regular sequence and 
 any trace of a pervading law, do so, for the most 
 part, on the ground that such a theory would inevi- 
 tably degrade human action to the level of mere 
 physical causation. Thus, for example, Goldwin 
 Smith, in combating the idea that any scientific 
 method can be applied to history, asserts that it 
 would make man a beast or a blade of grass, that 
 it establishes a contradiction between our outward 
 observation and our inner consciousness, and makes 
 us render up our personality, and become a mere 
 link in a chain of causation, a mere grain in a mass 
 of being. If history is governed by fixed laws, con- 
 science becomes an illusion, and any rule of right 
 action is rendered, in the nature of the case, impos- 
 sible. Such an objection, if well grounded, is a most 
 formidable one, and if consequences like these inev- 
 itably follow, it is not strange that so many have 
 revolted from the notion that there is a necessary 
 sequence in human events. 
 
 But no one will question for a moment that indi- 
 vidual character is a growth, and that from infancy 
 and youth to mature years there is in each one of 
 us a continuous process of development, where each 
 stage is the result of preceding stages, and where the 
 whole conforms to a uniform and regular order. AD 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 2// 
 
 our systems of education are based upon this princi- 
 ple. Yet, in thus developing according to a law of 
 growth, we do not suppose that the will is fettered, 
 or that personality suffers any invasion of its rights. 
 I do not design here to enter into any discussion of 
 the old problem, in what the freedom of the will 
 consists ; all that I wish to assert is, that whatever 
 view we may take of the freedom of the human will, 
 we do not view it as inconsistent with a develop- 
 ment of the individual such as is seen to be in ac- 
 cordance with uniform laws. And, when we turn 
 from the individual to the larger man which we term 
 society, there is no more reason to suppose that there 
 is any necessary conflict. In other words, if we 
 admit a sequence in the individual there is no rea- 
 son for denying it in the race. If the freedom of 
 the will is reconcilable with the one hypothesis, it 
 must be reconcilable with the other also. 
 
 But, in fact, the freedom of the will is a purely 
 metaphysical problem with which the student of his- 
 tory, as such, has nothing to do. His concern, as I 
 have said before, is simply with the facts that history 
 presents. If these facts, viewed on a large scale, are 
 seen to be connected, if they manifestly follow a cer- 
 tain order, if they are shown, beyond doubt, to be 
 connected as cause and effect, as antecedent and 
 consequent, the student of history has no right to 
 ignore, or to set aside, such phenomena simply for 
 the reason that he cannot reconcile them with his 
 theory of human freedom. He is bound to reason 
 from the facts as they are, not from the facts as he 
 would like to find them. And if he holds fast to the 
 testimony of his own consciousness that he is a free 
 and responsible agent, he is bound to believe that 
 
2/8 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 this is not irreconcilable with regular development 
 of historical events, even though he does not see 
 how such reconciliation can be effected. But the 
 immediate question is simply one of fact, and this 
 question must be answered, not by analyzing con- 
 sciousness, but by searching the broad page of his- 
 tory itself. Here we must look for the proof that 
 human affairs conform to law. 
 
 We may dismiss, then, without hesitation, as in- 
 conclusive and irrelevant, any objection to the doc- 
 trine that law pervades and controls the development 
 of human society that is derived from the supposed 
 conflict of such a theory with human freedom. And 
 not only may we take this negative ground, but we 
 may go further and assert without hesitation, that 
 as human character cannot be conceived of apart 
 from the shaping influence of law, so human society 
 cannot be conceived of if law, in the same way, does 
 not enter into it. For, as we have seen, there are 
 but two alternatives, chance or law ; no third hy- 
 pothesis is possible. So that, unless we are pre- 
 pared to admit that all the marvelous growth of hu- 
 man civilization is the product of blind chance, the 
 actual result being simply one out of countless myr- 
 iads of possible results that might have come to 
 pass but did not, we must adopt the only other hy- 
 pothesis, that the course of human society, from the 
 beginning, has been shaped by some guiding princi- 
 ple, and that even into those phenomena which seem 
 most wayward and anomalous, the causes of which 
 elude our closest scrutiny, law has also entered. 
 
 The question, then, whether the phenomena of 
 society, considered on a large scale, indicate a pres- 
 ence and operation of law analogous to that wit- 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 2?C) 
 
 nessed in the physical universe, is a question of fact, 
 to be determined simply by an investigation of the 
 phenomena themselves. And here it is needless to 
 remark that, in entering upon such an investigation, 
 we must be prepared to encounter difficulties far 
 more formidable than any which we encounter in the 
 study of mere physical phenomena. We not only 
 have presented a different class of facts, but facts 
 which submit themselves far less readily to analysis 
 and comparison. The facts comprised in this survey 
 are all the facts which relate to man as a spiritual 
 being. While in one sense, as facts of conscious- 
 ness, they lie before each one of us, in another sense, 
 as a series of historical phenomena, they lie far re- 
 moved from us, and cannot be accurately ascertained. 
 It is only, in fact, when we regard them in their 
 broadest aspects, and in their most general relations 
 and tendencies, that we can reason about them with 
 entire confidence. It is only to the larger phases 
 and aspects which humanity presents that we can 
 make our appeal. 
 
 Astronomy was the earliest science to become es- 
 tablished, and for the simple reason that astronomy 
 dealt with phenomena about which there could be no 
 dispute, and which were perpetually recurring. The 
 speech which one night uttered was repeated by the 
 next. The observer who was in doubt respecting 
 the movements of one of the heavenly bodies, had 
 but to turn again his optic glass to the same quarter, 
 and he saw the same movement a second time. So 
 in physical investigation, if there is any doubt re- 
 specting the result of an experiment, the same ex- 
 periment can be repeated. The chemist has on his 
 table all the conditions of his search. But in the 
 
280 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 evolution of society, neither do the phenomena re- 
 cur, nor can they be repeated at the will of the 
 observer. There is an endless succession of phe- 
 nomena, a stream of causes and effects, in whose 
 restless tide the observer himself is borne along. It 
 is therefore obvious that we cannot speak of the laws 
 of history in the same precise sense in which we 
 speak of mathematical or physical laws. What we 
 mean by social or historical laws are simply certain 
 tendencies seen when we view the events of history 
 on a larg scale and for long successive periods. 
 
 A favor te argument with those who reject the 
 doctrine that the movements of human society re- 
 veal the presence of general laws, is based on the 
 objection that the so-called science of history has 
 shown itself thus far unable to predict the course of 
 events. The astronomer, we are told, can predict 
 an eclipse ; if the study of history is capable of be- 
 ing reduced to scientific method, let the student of 
 history predict a revolution. Mr. Froude and Prof. 
 Goldwin Smith have both urged this objection as a 
 conclusive settlement of the dispute. Can you im- 
 agine a science, asks the former, which could have 
 foretold such movements as Mohammedanism or 
 Buddhism? 1 "Prediction," says the latter, "the 
 crown of all science, the new science of man and his- 
 tory has not yet ventured to put on. That preroga- 
 tive, which is the test of her legitimacy, she has not 
 yet ventured to exert." z But in the objection here 
 urged, there is a singular confusion of ideas. In 
 what sense is prediction the crown of science ? The 
 title of science will hardly be refused to geometry 
 
 1 \Short Studies on Great Subjects (The Science of History), p. 20. 
 
 2 [Lectures on the Study of History (New York : 1866), p. 56.] 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 28 1 
 
 yet in what sense does geometry predict ? Geology 
 is reckoned among the sciences ; but does geology 
 undertake to show what changes will be witnessed 
 hereafter in the structure of the earth ? And even 
 of astronomy, it is evident that prediction can be 
 affirmed only in a very limited and partial sense, 
 Strictly speaking, the astronomer predicts nothing ; 
 he only conditionally affirms that, if the conditions 
 of the physical universe continue to be, at some 
 future time, precisely what they are to-day, certain 
 results will follow. Thus he is able to say that, if 
 the solar system remains precisely as it now is, a 
 transit of Venus will take place a thousand years 
 from now ; but whether the solar system will remain 
 the same he has no means of knowing. We only 
 know that our whole solar system is -rushing with 
 inconceivable rapidity through space ; what danger 
 may await it as it approaches other constellations 
 the wisest astronomer will not venture to affirm. 
 When we turn to a science like biology, the range of 
 prevision is very small indeed. He would be a bold 
 physician who would undertake to tell the day and 
 hour when any one of us is destined to shuffle off 
 his mortal coil ; yet we do not doubt that physiology 
 is a science, that the modifications in our physical 
 frames are governed by fixed laws, and that the 
 causes are now in operation destined, sooner or later, 
 to bring about the death of every one of us. So 
 little is prediction the crown of science ! 
 
 All that can be fairly claimed for a science of his- 
 tory, or of human society, is that the phenomena of 
 history undeniably exhibit certain tendencies ; that 
 these tendencies are uniform and point to a definite 
 result, and that this can be rationally accounted for 
 
282 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 only on the hypothesis that certain fixed and uni- 
 form principles pervade and control the entire pro- 
 cess. Beyond this we cannot go. The pretentious 
 claims that have been put forward in certain quar- 
 ters, the crude generalizations that have been set up 
 as ascertained laws, the audacious assertion that the 
 course of human events can be dissected and anal- 
 yzed and set forth in its necessary relations with the 
 precision and certainty with which we determine the 
 movements of the heavenly bodies, or ascertain the 
 affinities of chemical elements, or trace the complex 
 phenomena of organic life, have served only to bring 
 the most elevated and inspiring of all studies into 
 the contempt of sober and cautious thinkers ; and 
 no one has contributed more to this unfortunate re- 
 sult than a writer with whom the scientific study of 
 history has been in our own time especially identi- 
 fied, the late Henry Thomas Buckle. 
 
 The simple question that we have to consider is 
 whether the history of the race, surveyed from its 
 beginning, shows a consecutive and onward move- 
 ment from one condition to another. In other 
 words, has there been any such thing as progress in 
 human history. Such an inquiry would seem to be 
 one that answers itself. How can we, it may be 
 asked, for a moment question that such is the fact. 
 How can we give the most cursory glance at human 
 history, and doubt that advancement has been its 
 constant and unmistakable characteristic ? The 
 problem is, however, less simple than at first sight 
 may appear. When we note, not simply the more 
 favored races, but the whole human family, not 
 progress, but stagnation, or even decline, seems to 
 be the rule. We see more signs of decay and of 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE, 283 
 
 death than of life. Social and intellectual move- 
 ment seems effectually checked. Sir Henry Maine 
 asserts that the corrimunities that have attained a 
 conspicuous degree of civilization are, after all, but 
 the minority of mankind. And when we survey 
 the whole course of history, we are struck with the 
 fact that certain memorable epochs were epochs of 
 undeniable decline. 
 
 When, therefore, we assert progress as the law of 
 human society, it is obvious that this cannot be as- 
 serted as a universal and constant characteristic. 
 Neither is progress characteristic of any one state 
 of society, considered as a whole, nor is it the uni- 
 form characteristic of each successive state. By 
 the side of progressive nations are seen nations 
 whose social state is stagnant, and between epochs 
 of onward movement come epochs of decline. By 
 some of the earliest in modern times who main- 
 tained man's progressive nature, progress was as- 
 serted as something necessary and universal, as an 
 occult tendency in society, always and everywhere 
 manifesting its presence. A more comprehensive 
 study of the history of the race has modified this 
 view. Man is no longer contemplated as moving 
 towards perfection in accordance with a uniform and 
 universal law, as in the dreams of some of the 
 social reformers of the last century. All that is 
 claimed is that, on the whole, there is a progress 
 from worse to better, and that, in "the long run, 
 the history of the race affords indubitable proof 
 that man has advanced, and that this progress is the 
 prominent feature, if not of the most numerous, yet 
 of the most conspicuous races of men. 
 
 In ascertaining, therefore, the fact of progress, it 
 
284 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 is not necessary to prove that progress has been the 
 characteristic of all races, or of all ages. Yet it 
 seems evident that these states of society which 
 now appear most fixed, where all onward movement 
 has been completely arrested, must at some time 
 have been progressive, simply to have reached the 
 present state. Hence the characteristic in which 
 they are now most conspicuously deficient they 
 must have unmistakably exhibited at some earlier 
 stage of their existence. And so, too, epochs of 
 decline may be conditions of new epochs of prog- 
 ress ; the receding wave only adding to the force 
 and volume of the next rush of waters. The fall of 
 the Western Empire paved the way for the new and 
 more vigorous civilization of the Middle Age, and 
 the corruptions of Latin Christianity furnished a 
 most powerful stimulus to the reform of the six- 
 teenth century. So that when we look at the his- 
 tory of the race as a whole, when we study its suc- 
 cessive epochs in their relation one to another, we 
 shall find little difficulty in assenting to the propo- 
 sition that progress has been the characteristic of 
 human society. 
 
 To furnish a proof of this broad proposition, even 
 in its merest outline, would carry me far beyond the 
 limits of the present discussion. The proof is the 
 whole history of man, viewed in every line of his 
 social, his political, or his intellectual life. And 
 not simply that brief portion of his career covered 
 by written records, or traditions preserved in litera- 
 ture, but all that has been recovered of his primeval 
 story by comparison of languages, and by the labo- 
 rious accumulation of the rude memorials that he 
 has left behind of his early presence on our earth. 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 285 
 
 From all this vast array of facts but one conclusion 
 can be derived, and that is that the human race has 
 reached its present high stage of civilization by a 
 slow and gradual process, a process not, indeed, 
 always uniform, nor always constant, but yet so 
 marked and evident in its results as to constitute 
 the great and decisive fact in human history. It is, 
 indeed, as a great writer, the late M. Guizot, has 
 truly said, what we mean by civilization. We can- 
 not disconnect the term from the idea of progress, 
 either in the individual or in society. Nor is there 
 any accounting for man's present state, save on this 
 hypothesis. 
 
 In thus asserting the fact of progress it is not 
 necessary for us to commit ourselves to any of the 
 explanations of it that have been attempted. How 
 much of truth there may be in any of these theories 
 is a question that should be kept distinct from the 
 main question that we are now considering. We may 
 dismiss without hesitation the theories of Vico and 
 Comte and Buckle, but that will not affect, in the 
 least, the great fact with which we are dealing. It 
 may be that the ultimate law of human progress lies 
 wholly beyond our reach, but this need not weaken 
 our conviction that there is a law. True, as has been 
 claimed, history is a process, a drama but partially 
 unfolded, whose conclusion we cannot even guess, 
 a perpetually flowing stream ; yet as we gaze at an 
 unfinished sketch, we may be convinced that every 
 stroke of the pencil had a purpose, though we can- 
 not guess what was the perfect picture which the 
 artist was aiming to represent ; and as we stand by 
 the bank of a broad river we may see that its cur- 
 rent is steadily moving in one direction, though we 
 
286 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 know not where are the mountain rills that feed it, 
 or where, at last, it loses itself in the far-sounding 
 sea. 
 
 But the question still remains to be considered 
 with which our present argument is directly con- 
 cerned, that is, whether this progress of society in- 
 volves a moral progress. One does not seem of ne- 
 cessity involved in the other, and the admission of 
 one does not carry with it, of course, the admission 
 of the other. The fact of a physical, a social, and 
 an intellectual progress is conceded by some who 
 deny that the history of the race furnishes evidence 
 of any moral progress. This, to go no farther, was 
 the view so strongly maintained by the late Mr. 
 Buckle. No one in our time has laid down so 
 broadly the doctrine that the evolution of society 
 is subject to laws, but these laws, he maintains, are 
 purely intellectual, and these intellectual forces are 
 the only motive power in the onward movement of 
 society. Moral truths are stationary, only intel- 
 lectual truths are progressive. And hence, as an 
 element in civilization, he argues the superiority of 
 intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling, and 
 claims that the development of humane sentiments 
 in modern times is due, not to any elevation of 
 moral tone, but to increased intelligence. Accord- 
 ing to this view, human progress affords no evi- 
 dence of moral growth. 
 
 Though Mr. Buckle has, perhaps, pushed this view 
 further than any other, he by no means stands alone 
 in it. Sir James Mackintosh went almost as far. 
 "Morality," he says, " admits of no discoveries. 
 More than three thousand years have elapsed since 
 the composition of the Pentateuch ; and let any man 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 287 
 
 if he is able, tell me in what important respect the 
 rule of life has varied since that distant period. The 
 fact is evident that no improvement has been made 
 in practical morality. From the countless variety 
 of the facts with which the physical and speculative 
 sciences are conversant, it is impossible to prescribe 
 any bounds to their future improvement. It is oth- 
 erwise with morals. They have hitherto been sta- 
 tionary, and, in my opinion, they are likely forever 
 to continue so." l And Lord Macaulay only echoed 
 these sentiments of Sir James Mackintosh in the 
 well-known essay upon the Church of Rome, in 
 which he sought to account for the fact that since 
 the Reformation the relative strength of Romanism 
 and Protestantism has remained essentially the same. 
 In a brilliant passage he essays to prove the propo- 
 sition that, with regard to the great problems of 
 man's spiritual nature, a highly educated European, 
 without revelation, is no more likely to be in the 
 right than a Blackfoot Indian. 2 
 
 I have no hesitation in dismissing this as a most 
 superficial and erroneous view of human progress, 
 and a view directly contradicted by some of the best 
 authenticated facts of history. As it is a most nar- 
 row theory that would interpret all the most impor- 
 tant social phenomena as due solely or chiefly to 
 physical causes, such as climate, race, soil, so is it an 
 equally narrow theory that would recognize in these 
 phenomena only an intellectual factor. Civilization 
 is a slow and complex process, a process involving 
 not only physical, but mental and moral elements, 
 
 1 [Life of Mackintosh, by his Son, vol. i., p. 120.] 
 
 2 [Review of Ranke's History of the Popes ; Works, Am. ed., vol. 
 iv., p. 303-1 
 
288 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 and in the progress of rational beings, these latter 
 are by far the most considerable. Mr. Buckle would 
 account for the change from the wandering Arab of 
 the desert homeless and uninstructed to the 
 cultivated race which has left the memorials of its 
 taste and intelligence in the structures of Delhi and 
 Granada, simply from the fact that they had changed 
 from a sandy and barren soil to fertile tracts, wholly 
 forgetting that what prompted to this change, and 
 launched the Arab race on this new course, was the 
 prodigious spiritual revolution effected in their ideas 
 of life and duty by the teachings of their great 
 prophet. 
 
 Would even Lord Macaulay, with all his love of 
 paradox, venture to assert that, in the general range 
 of their moral ideas, the Eskimo and the European 
 are on a level ? that the principles which regulate 
 family life and social and political duty, are not more 
 advanced in England, to-day, than on the day when 
 Hengist and Horsa landed. And if it be replied, that 
 what Sir James Mackintosh and Lord Macaulay had 
 in mind were simply those speculative problems re- 
 specting which unaided reason has been so little 
 able to reach a satisfactory answer, and not the 
 practical conceptions of moral duty, the further ques- 
 tion arises, whether the two can be divided, and 
 whether the practical conclusions, which men reach 
 at any time, are not shaped by their speculative 
 views. The physical, the intellectual, and the moral 
 elements in civilization are in fact always connected, 
 and what affects the one, sooner or later, affects the 
 other also. A mechanical invention, as the steam- 
 engine or the telegraph, may indirectly, but power- 
 fully, affect the moral relations of a community, and 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 289 
 
 the practical convictions of duty which sway a peo- 
 ple, or an age, always have their roots, more or less 
 distinctly recognized, in speculative opinion. 
 
 Here, again, let us remember that the question is 
 simply one of fact, to be determined by an investi- 
 gation of phenomena. Looking at the history of the 
 race in its broadest aspects, contrasting its most 
 widely separated periods, placing side by side the 
 controlling opinions and convictions of the most 
 primitive and rudest and of the latest and most civ- 
 ilized races, have'we any evidence afforded that the 
 general moral level has been raised ? The question 
 at first sight is intricate, but yet not really so diffi- 
 cult as it would seem. For the great facts in the 
 history of the race are always the most manifest 
 facts. We may dispute without arriving at any sat- 
 isfactory result, about the character of an individual, 
 or the value of a dynasty. Opinions are still divided 
 respecting Hildebrand, and Henry VIII., and Mary 
 Stuart. But the grand lineaments and characteris- 
 tics of an epoch, or of a man, are set forth in such a 
 variety of ways, and perpetuated in so many unde- 
 signed memorials and authentic monuments, that we 
 can be rarely in doubt respecting them. And the 
 moral characteristics, especially of a people or an 
 age, are illustrated in such a variety of ways that 
 there can be little dispute about them. 
 
 Let us take, for example, two such significant 
 epochs as those illustrated respectively in the Tro- 
 jan war and the Crusades. Both were European en- 
 terprises, undertaken against Asia, and both, in their 
 general tenor and characteristics, have been faithfully 
 mirrored in literature. For whatever may be our 
 theory respecting the origin of the Homeric poems, 
 19 
 
THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 whether we see in them the impress of one mind, or 
 view them as a collection of ballads, sung originally 
 by different bards, we cannot doubt that they faith- 
 fully picture the heroic age. They are in all re- 
 spects as authentic memorials of that early civiliza- 
 tion, as the chronicles of the Crusades, of Ville- 
 hardouin and Joinville, are memorials of mediaeval 
 life. At first sight those widely separated periods 
 seem equally periods of war and carnage, periods of 
 the exhibition of the cruel traits of human nature ; 
 but only a superficial examination* is needed to re- 
 veal the essential contrast between the two, to show 
 us how beneath the rudeness and ferocity of medi- 
 aeval war lurked the germs of the finer sentiments 
 that distinguish modern society ; how chivalry was 
 there, with its regard for the weak ; how the spirit of 
 brotherhood was there, destined at length to break 
 down the odious barriers of class. 
 
 The broad question as to the reality of a moral 
 progress of humanity may be best answered by se- 
 lecting some single conspicuous illustrations. Here, 
 as before, when speaking of intellectual progress, let 
 us bear in mind that the movement for which we 
 contend has been by no means universal, and has 
 been often intermitted, and has its periods of deca- 
 dence and relapse alternating with those of progress. 
 It is, only a progress on the whole that can be shown. 
 But let us glance, for example, at a relation in which 
 the play of moral sentiment is especially conspic- 
 uous, the relation of the family, and see, if 
 we can, whether the sentiments of civilized, show 
 any advance upon the sentiments of uncivilized 
 races. Take the notion of primitive marriage, which 
 we find so widely diffused ; which made the wife the 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 291 
 
 prize of conquest, or the result of purchase ; which 
 placed her completely in the power of her new mas- 
 ter, a household drudge, to be used or discarded at 
 his will, and then ask ourselves whether the relation 
 of the sexes, in modern times, does not show an im- 
 provement over this, an improvement not merely 
 in physical condition, but in the whole legal and 
 moral status. 
 
 Take another great characteristic feature of human 
 society, in its successive stages of development from 
 barbarism to civilization, the conception of criminal 
 legislation. Note how, in the early ages, crime is 
 always regarded as simply an injury done an individ- 
 ual, to be punished by personal vengeance, or, at 
 most, atoned for by compensation to the injured 
 party, with no attempt to measure the degree of 
 moral culpability, and no recognition of any relation 
 to the public weal ; and then contrast with this the 
 criminal legislation of the most civilized societies of 
 modern times ; note how crimes are discriminated, 
 how the motives and temptations of the offender are 
 carefully weighed, how his offense is looked at, not 
 as a mere private injury, but as a violation of public 
 order, to be punished, not by the injured party, but 
 by the authorized representative of the whole social 
 body ; how, above all, into criminal legislation a 
 wholly new idea has insinuated itself, and punish- 
 ment has been made a means for the reformation 
 of the offender, and then ask whether, in its long 
 onward march, the moral sentiments of the race 
 have not been modified and expanded. 
 
 But the most impressive evidence of the gradual 
 modification of the moral standard of the race will 
 be found in the contrast presented in the interna- 
 
292 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 tional relations of races and states. In the earliest 
 periods these will uniformly be found to be hostile. 
 Members of the same tribe were brethren, but mem- 
 bers of different tribes were enemies. They had no 
 relations, and could conceive of no relations, but re- 
 lations of hostility. A state of war was the state of 
 nature. This is the condition, to-day, of all savage 
 tribes. Those who are familiar with the recent vol- 
 umes of travel in Central Africa will need no descrip- 
 tion of what this condition is. The first step out 
 of this is where tribes, kindred in blood, or profess- 
 ing the same religion, are banded together. But all 
 outside this charmed circle are still regarded in the 
 light of foes. No leagues made with them are bind- 
 ing ; if resident without the confederacy they can 
 acquire no civil rights. These are still limited by 
 blood. The Hellenic states, in the epoch of their 
 palmiest civilization, did not get beyond this line. 
 The terms Greek and barbarian, expressed and per- 
 petuated the profound antithesis that ran through 
 their whole civilization. 
 
 First in the beneficent expansion of the Roman 
 code do we come in contact with a wider conception 
 of the relations of races and nations. The universal 
 empire of Rome inevitably prepared the way for this 
 by blending nations and races together, and by com- 
 pelling the recognition of mutual rights. Roman 
 law, as developed especially by the praetorian edict, 
 is the proud monument of this march of moral ideas. 
 That there was a universal right binding on all na- 
 tions alike now came to l^e recognized. And, on 
 this foundation of natural right, the modern science 
 of international law was first erected ; and step by 
 step a code of international ethics has been devel 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 293 
 
 oped, and a moral sentiment, common to civilized 
 nations, has come into being, and the great truth is 
 recognized, that the nations of the earth are made of 
 one blood and form one common family. But how 
 vast the interval between the relations of savage 
 tribes, which rested only on force and recognized no 
 law but the law of the strongest, and the humane 
 principles which regulate the relations of modern 
 states, which emphasize the peaceful rather than the 
 hostile relations of nations, and which, while permit- 
 ting war, have still done so much to remove or miti- 
 gate its horrors ! 
 
 These cursory statements are not adduced as proof 
 of the proposition that the history of the race is 
 marked by moral progress, but rather for the pur- 
 pose of illustrating the kind of proof that might be 
 presented did the limits of our discussion allow. I 
 have selected only a few of the most salient speci- 
 mens out of many. But enough has been- said to 
 show that the doctrine of the moral progress of the 
 race rests upon the same evidence as that of its intel- 
 lectual progress. The two are but different aspects 
 of the same subject, for in the complex movement of 
 civilization the moral and intellectual factors can no 
 more be separated than in the development of indi- 
 vidual character. The most recent school of histor- 
 ical science, in opposition to Comte and Buckle, 
 strongly emphasize the moral element in social 
 progress. According to Mr. Spencer, the essential 
 conditions of development in social progress are the 
 community and its environment. The environment 
 of a community comprises all the circumstances to 
 which the community is in any way obliged to con- 
 form its actions, including not only its physical 
 
294 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 conditions, such as climate, natural productions, geo- 
 graphical contour, but also the ideas, feelings, cus- 
 toms, and observances of past times, so far as they 
 are preserved by literature, by traditions, and by mon- 
 uments, as well as contemporary manners and opin- 
 ions, so far as they are regarded by the community. 
 The environment of a community, therefore, in- 
 cludes spiritual as well as physical factors ; and, as 
 civilization advances, the relative importance of the 
 former constantly increases. From age to age, the 
 environment of a community is slowly but inces- 
 santly changing, and to these gradual changes the 
 community is continually adapting itself. Thus the 
 entire organized experience of each generation adds 
 an element to the environment of the next genera- 
 tion, so that the circumstances to which each new 
 generation is required to conform are somewhat dif- 
 ferent from the circumstances to which the genera- 
 tion preceding was required to conform ; and thus, 
 by its own spiritual activity, the community is con- 
 tinually modifying its environment. The application 
 of the principle of evolution to social progress, there- 
 fore, recognizes civilization as a process in which 
 the whole nature of man is concerned, a process in 
 which the supreme and determining factors are not 
 ohysical but spiritual, and, therefore, must be re- 
 garded as showing a great advance, not only over 
 the view of Mr. Buckle, but over all views which 
 egard the moral conceptions of man as stationary. 
 
 The final conclusion to which we are brought in 
 this discussion is, that history, like nature and hu- 
 man life, constitutes a process, the successive parts 
 of which have a certain organ :c connection with 
 each other; that its successive stages show, both 
 
HISTORY AND A MORAL PURPOSE. 295 
 
 with regard to its intellectual and its moral features, 
 a tendency which can only be explained from the 
 presence and operation of some controlling princi- 
 ple. There is, on the whole, a movement, and that 
 movement is in the direction of improvement. And, 
 whatever theory we may adopt to account for these 
 phenomena, even though we should adopt to its full 
 extent the theory of social evolution so elaborately 
 marked out by Mr. Spencer, we have still, as in the 
 case of physical evolution, the process itself to ac- 
 count for. For, what we are pleased to term the 
 laws of history, like the laws of nature, are simply 
 abstract statements of a regular recurrence of facts. 
 The efficient cause must lie further back, the mere 
 conception of abstract law does not meet the diffi- 
 culty. Hence, alike in nature and in history, we 
 are led back to the conception of a supreme control- 
 ling will. 
 
 But, further, as the supreme fact revealed in his- 
 tory is moral progress, this order of the world, which 
 we have been brought to recognize, must be a moral 
 order, and thus the facts of human history, viewed 
 in their broadest aspect, go directly to confirm the 
 verdict already rendered by human consciousness. 
 In other words, when we sound the depths of our 
 own moral nature, or when we fly abroad on the 
 great stream and tendency of human affairs ; when 
 we look at ourselves as individuals, or when we look 
 at the race as a mighty whole, we find the same 
 great truth illustrated, that we are under a govern- 
 ment of moral laws ; and we are forced, as an inevi- 
 table consequence, to clothe the supreme cause with 
 moral attributes. Thus the twofold argument from 
 external nature and from man is completed. " No 
 
296 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 one can intelligently accept this truth without per- 
 ceiving that it is the key-stone of the great arch of 
 nature and life, of society, of polity, and of history. 
 The phenomena and laws of history can be under- 
 stood and explained only by the admission of this 
 great central conception of a supreme will embra- 
 cing, directing, and controlling all things, all beings, 
 and all events, in all space, and in all time." l 
 
 1 Adam, Theories of History, p. 314. 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 
 
 IN my argument thus far I have followed strictly 
 an inductive method. My attempt throughout has 
 been to reason from the known to the unknown, 
 from the seen to the unseen, from the undisputed 
 and accepted facts of external nature and conscious- 
 ness to the principles by which alone they can be 
 explained. We have considered the phenomena 
 presented in the universe around us, and the phe- 
 nomena attested in human consciousness and in the 
 history of the race, and have confined ourselves to 
 the evident logical inferences which these involved. 
 We found ourselves in the presence of facts, and 
 these facts demanded explanation. We have pushed 
 our conclusions no further than these explanations 
 required. And, if I have not been wholly astray in 
 my reasoning, I have succeeded in showing that 
 the physical universe, as a great fact or result, de- 
 mands for its explanation a cause ; that the vari- 
 ous and complicated arrangements of the universe 
 prove this cause to have been intelligent, and that 
 the phenomena of human consciousness and of hu- 
 man history, equally warrant us in ascribing to this 
 cause the attributes of a moral being. 
 
 And further, what has been the principal aim of 
 this whole discussion, I have sought to show that 
 these arguments have not been essentially affected 
 
298 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 by any of the recent speculations respecting the na- 
 ture of matter and force, or the process by which 
 the present universe has been evolved out of pre- 
 ceding conditions. We have seen that, whatever 
 theory we may adopt with regard to the method of 
 creation, the problem remains the same, and far 
 back as we may push our researches into the his- 
 tory of the physical universe, the same question 
 confronts us, a question which can neither be an- 
 swered nor set aside by any conclusions of physical 
 science. Conceding all that is claimed by the most 
 extreme advocates of evolution, and allowing its ap- 
 plication, not only in the sphere of physical nature, 
 but in the sphere of intellectual and moral action, 
 it is still, when rightly understood, simply a method, 
 a method implying the existence of suitable agents, 
 requiring constant and new adjustments, leading 
 logically back to an intelligent source, and hence 
 only adding new support to the arguments for a 
 supreme cause, which it was erroneously supposed 
 to contradict. 
 
 But if we now pause for a moment and carefully 
 review all that we have thus far sought to establish, 
 it will be seen at once that all this by no means com- 
 pletes the theistic argument. If we stop here we 
 stop very far short of the proposition which we set 
 out to establish. We have, in fact, laboriously 
 climbed up this lofty eminence, only to see more 
 clearly how far above us still rises the summit which 
 we are seeking to scale. For, even should it be 
 conceded that everything claimed in the foregoing 
 discussion has been established, it may still be ob- 
 jected, and objected with reason, that it does not 
 amount to a demonstration of the existence of God, 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 299 
 
 in the full sense in which that august term is com- 
 monly understood. Granted that the existence of 
 a material universe requires us to suppose a cause, 
 granted that to that supreme cause must be attrib- 
 uted the characteristics of intelligence and good- 
 ness, granted that the history of the world shows, 
 on the whole, such a tendency as implies a moral 
 government, still, it may be claimed, there is noth- 
 ing in all this that proves this first cause to be in- 
 finite, eternal,. and absolute in being and perfection ; 
 yet without this we do not reach the idea of God. 
 All our reasoning thus far has been from finite 
 phenomena, and when from the finite we argue to 
 the infinite, we take a great leap, for which we can 
 plead no logical justification. Our whole argument 
 has professed to rest on a basis of facts, and we 
 have no right to push our inferences a step beyond 
 the line which our facts mark out. The moment 
 we pass this line we leave the solid ground of proof, 
 and embark on the uncertain flood of fancy. What- 
 ever of force there may be in the argument for a 
 cause, still, it is claimed, this argument cannot lift 
 us above the region of the contingent and the finite. 
 All that we know of the connection of cause and ef- 
 fect comes from our observation of phenomena 
 within this sphere. And admitting the validity of 
 the argument of design, it is still an argument from 
 finite designs, and from an indefinite number of fi- 
 nite designs we cannot infer an infinite designer. 
 At best, we can only reach back to the idea of a 
 grand artificer. The only valid inference, it is urged, 
 from the phenomena of design would be that of 
 a phenomenal first cause. The evidences of design 
 do not warrant the inference of a being detached 
 from, and independent of, these designs. 
 
3OO THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 The difficulty that here presents itself seems, in- 
 deed, so insurmountable, the flaw in the argument 
 at this point appears so fatal, and all that has been 
 established falls so far short of the conclusion which 
 alone can satisfy the reason, that not a few of the 
 most devout and earnest advocates of theism have 
 been moved to cast aside all inductive and a pos- 
 teriori arguments, and to solve the problem in a 
 more direct and summary method. Belief in the 
 existence of God, it is claimed by those who adopt 
 this method of reasoning, is a primary instinct of 
 the soul which we can neither justify nor go behind. 
 The idea of God exists in the mind as one of its ul- 
 timate and ineradicable notions. Those who take 
 this view do not deny that from finite sequences we 
 may reason back to a first cause, but they deny that 
 this first cause can be identified with a personal 
 God. They do not, in the least, deny the proofs of 
 design in nature, but they claim that these proofs 
 of design have no theistic value until we have been 
 first led to recognize the existence of a supreme 
 mind in nature upon wholly different and indepen- 
 dent grounds. The book of nature becomes illu- 
 mined and radiant only to one who already be- 
 lieves in God. 
 
 It is not claimed by those who urge this argu- 
 ment from intuition that all men are equally en- 
 dowed with this faculty of immediately apprehend- 
 ing divine things. On the contrary, the instinct in 
 the soul to which this appeal is made, when it first 
 appears is crude, dim, and inarticulate. It is grad- 
 ually shaped into greater clearness by the myriad 
 influences of education and tradition. It is there- 
 fore no evidence against the reality or the trust- 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 301 
 
 worthiness of this intuition that its manifestations 
 are not uniform in different periods ; that it even 
 seems absent in some states of human consciousness, 
 or in certain grades of civilization. At times it may 
 seem wholly to slumber, not only in individuals, but 
 in a race or an era. But still it exists, and however 
 crude in its elementary forms, always manifests it- 
 self in its highest state as an act of intelligence and 
 faith, as a direct gaze with the inner eye into the 
 regions of spirit. While the God of the logical un- 
 derstanding is a mere projected shadow of the mind 
 itself, and while the argument of design is simply 
 finite man drawing his own portrait upon the can- 
 vas of infinity, to the eye of intuition is directly re- 
 vealed the presence, behind phenomena, of a great 
 and transcendent reality. 
 
 It will be observed that the intuition of the exist- 
 
 / 
 
 ence of God, which is here asserted, is direct and 
 immediate. It is not the product of knowledge or 
 reflection ; it does not come as the close, or comple- 
 tion, of a process of rational investigation, but is the 
 spontaneous impulse of the soul in presence of the 
 object whose existence it attests. As such if is, of 
 necessity, prior to any act of reflection. It cannot 
 be regarded as, in any sense, the product of experi- 
 ence. The main characteristic of this intuition is 
 that it proclaims a supreme existence without and 
 beyond the mind, which it apprehends in the act of 
 revealing itself. Yet it is not without certain crite- 
 rions of its trustworthiness. These are the persist- 
 ence with which this intuition appears and reap- 
 pears, the obstinacy with which it reasserts itself, 
 and the tenacity with which it clings to us ; and 
 further, its historical permanence, the confirmation 
 
3O2 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which it receives from ages and generations ; and 
 lastly, the inner harmony between this intuitive be- 
 lief and the whole realm of man's psychological na- 
 ture. An intuition which has raised and elevated 
 man, and led him to walk in increasing light, has 
 the most convincing evidence of trustworthiness. 
 
 This short and easy method of settling the vexed 
 problem of the divine existence would be satisfac- 
 tory if the existence of such universal and intuitive 
 belief in God could be established. But if we are 
 so made that we have a direct and immediate intui- 
 tion of the existence of a supreme being, an intuition 
 independent of all external evidence, a direct revela- 
 tion to the soul, we may well inquire why has the 
 question of the divine existence given rise to so 
 much discussion. If the idea of God is a first prin- 
 ciple, lying behind the earliest conscious exercise of 
 reflection, recognized as part of the primary concep- 
 tions which the mind forms, a spontaneous convic- 
 tion needing no proof, waiting for no evidence, why 
 should it have been so often called in question ? 
 The assertion that man knows God by immediate 
 intuition is, in fact, mere dogmatism. Those who 
 profess to hold this theory so explain it, in many 
 cases, as to show that they hold nothing of the kind. 
 All that is found to be innate is a sense of depend- 
 ence upon a higher power. None, in fact, but the 
 most extreme school of mystics have consistently 
 claimed an intuition of God independent of the ordi- 
 nary laws of cognition. 
 
 Such of you as have carefully followed the course 
 of my argument up to this point will not need to be 
 reminded that I have sedulously avoided drawing 
 the illogical inference to which those who advocate 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE 
 
 303 
 Vv 
 
 the theory of direct intuition so justly object. I have 
 
 ' 
 
 nowhere sought to make this leap from the 
 the infinite which is so strongly denounced. I have, 
 throughout, restrained myself from urging these 
 proofs from external nature, from human conscious- 
 ness, or from history, as affording any complete and 
 final demonstration of the divine existence and at- 
 tributes. I have only presented them as the prelim- 
 inary steps towards such a conclusion, and though I 
 earnestly maintain that all of them, when taken to- 
 gether, constitute a perfectly convincing argument, 
 up to a certain point, yet I have nowhere asserted, 
 or implied, that they yield the final result for which 
 we have all along been seeking. Our work up to this 
 stage has been preparatory ; we have been laying 
 the foundations of a structure which yet remains to 
 be finished ; we have laboriously reared an arch, 
 symmetrical and perfect indeed, but which will only 
 fall to the ground unless the key-stone be fitted in. 
 
 But, because all the arguments based on induction 
 are confessedly incomplete, they should not be re- 
 jected as illusory or worthless. Because they do 
 not yield us the full proof that we want, we need 
 not dismiss them as futile attempts to scale an in- 
 accessible height. Though insufficient, they yet 
 serve a most important purpose. They are the pre- 
 liminary conditions of the final step by which the 
 argument for the existence of God is completed. It 
 cannot be questioned that the human mind conceives 
 of the Supreme Being as absolute, as infinite, as eter- 
 nal, as perfect ; and that it can never rest satisfied 
 with a conception of deity that stops short of this. 
 Neither the intellect, nor the heart, will accept the 
 thought that the being whom they adore as God is 
 
304 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 dependent on any antecedent or on any higher be- 
 ing, that he is limited in his existence either in time 
 or space, or that he is lacking in any conceivable 
 perfection. The pfoblem, then, now before us is to 
 connect our conclusions thus far with this concep- 
 tion of infinite and absolute being, to show that these 
 attributes must be the attributes of the intelligent 
 and righteous author of all things, whose existence 
 the frame of nature and the constitution of man 
 alike attest. 
 
 To solve the problem here presented we shall be 
 obliged to turn our attention to a region which we 
 have not yet explored, and glance more closely than 
 we have yet done at our own mental processes. We 
 have thus far studied only the broad facts presented 
 in human consciousness, we have not investigated 
 the laws to which those phenomena are due. We 
 have traced the operations of mind up to a certain 
 point, but we have not yet asked how it reaches its 
 supreme conclusions. In proceeding to make this 
 further inquiry we not only do not need to cast 
 aside, as worthless, the results which we have al- 
 ready reached, but we do not even need to abandon 
 the sober and safe method of inquiry which we have 
 thus far followed. We are still dealing with facts, 
 and, in any conclusions that we may reach, still ad- 
 here to our inductive reasoning. Only, in the results 
 which we now reach, we shall discover that, in all 
 our reasoning, there are certain fundamental truths 
 involved which induction does not give us, truths 
 which we do not become possessed of by any logical 
 process, but truths which are the original and funda- 
 mental conditions of thought itself. 
 
 According to one school of thinkers, a school very 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 305 
 
 widely represented at the present day, the mind de- 
 rives all its knowledge, its maxims, and its prin- 
 ciples, solely from observation and experience. In 
 its modern form this doctrine dates from Locke, who 
 in laboring to prove that the mind possessed no idea 
 prior to experience, confounded the cause with the 
 occasion of ideas, and held that the mind, before it 
 received impressions through the senses, was a blank 
 sheet, on which the record of experience was yet to 
 be written. Thus all ideas were traced to a purely 
 empirical source. Another school, which recognizes 
 Leibnitz as its great leader, held that the mind is by 
 nature endowed with certain aptitudes, dispositions, 
 or faculties, by which it is put in immediate posses- 
 sion of necessary and absolute truths. Because of 
 a natural tendency the mind tends to grasp these 
 truths. As present in the mind, before all experi- 
 ence, these ideas may be termed innate. Carried to 
 an extreme by Kant, these inner aptitudes became 
 laws of thought, essential conditions of all intellec- 
 tual acts, having validity for the mind itself, but for 
 which no reality can be claimed when applied to the 
 external world. 
 
 What is the element of truth in this famous con- 
 troversy ? Abandoning without hesitation the claim 
 set up by the transcendental school, that the reason 
 gazes directly at the universal, eternal, and absolute, 
 that it lives in immediate communion with the true, 
 the beautiful, and the good, that without help, with- 
 out external stimulus, without an intellectual process 
 of any kind, it soars directly to this lofty sphere, let 
 c s ask whether between these two extremes of sen- 
 sationalism and transcendentalism there may not be 
 a middle ground. This controversy, like most con- 
 
 20 
 
306 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 troversies, has been complicated by the varying 
 senses in which the terms used have been employed. 
 Intuition is a word which modern science has been 
 eager to banish from its vocabulary, and the mere 
 mention of it may call forth a sneer from those who 
 pride themselves upon a rigid adherence to the meth- 
 ods of modern science. Mr. Spencer, while depart- 
 ing in many respects from the maxims of the sen- 
 sational school, still maintains that all our general- 
 ized notions have become forms of thought simply 
 from the fact that they have arisen from the organ- 
 ized and consolidated experiences of countless for- 
 mer generations. 
 
 Is the mind, then, let us ask, endowed with any 
 truth or principles, the recognition of which may 
 be fairly termed intuition ? The question is one to 
 be answered by an examination of our mental proc- 
 esses. What is the answer that consciousness gives 
 us to this inquiry ? At the outset we may concede 
 without hesitation, that the mind is not possessed of 
 innate ideas, in the sense in which that term is com- 
 monly understood. In his argument against this 
 view, Locke, it must be granted, gained the victory, 
 though whether the doctrine of innate ideas was 
 ever really maintained in the sense in which he de- 
 nied it, may be questioned. We may also concede 
 that the soul, at the outset of its conscious exist- 
 ence, is not endowed with abstract notions of any 
 kind. For all abstract notions, as, for example, the 
 notions of substance or space, are the result of a 
 mental process by which we separate the part from 
 the whole, the quality from the substance to which 
 it belongs. In the act of knowing the mind always 
 starts with the singular and the concrete, and all our 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 307 
 
 general notions are the result of an operation by 
 which we contemplate a number of separate objects 
 as possessed of common attributes. 
 
 Thus it must be granted, that however inaccurate 
 many of Locke's statements, he was undoubtedly 
 right in holding so strongly as he did that in the 
 formation of our general ideas an element of previ- 
 ous experience was always called into play. But this 
 experience was not a cause, it was simply a condi- 
 tion. It was not the primal source and fountain- 
 head of thought, but simply determined the channel 
 down which the stream of thought should flow. In 
 this process the mind was not passive, like a sheet 
 of paper, simply receiving and preserving the record 
 of experience, but had a capacity of reacting upon 
 the impressions of the senses. It was endowed 
 with an originating potency ; and this potency of 
 mind, like the potencies of matter, was not lawless 
 and capricious in its action, but was subject to cer- 
 tain laws and was controlled in its operation by fixed 
 methods. And further, by careful observation and 
 analysis, these laws can be arrived at, precisely as 
 we arrive at the laws of the external world. By 
 the operation of these laws the mind rises to the 
 perception of absolute and necessary truth. They 
 are a part of the mind ; their presence and control 
 are attested as clearly as the laws of the physical 
 universe. 
 
 Even that very experience on which so much 
 stress is laid, and which is, as we have seen, the es- 
 sential condition of all our knowing, would avail us 
 nothing but for this reaction of the mind upon the 
 phenomena which experience makes known to us. 
 Experience would, in fact, be nothing but a series of 
 
308 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 sensations or impressions, but for this generalizing 
 faculty which coordinates the facts of experience, 
 and enables us to contemplate them in a logical re- 
 lation. To learn aright the very lessons of experi- 
 ence, we need then, in the mind, something which 
 experience cannot furnish. In this lies the essential 
 distinction between the experience of man and the 
 experience of the lower animals. They are endowed, 
 in many cases, with keener perceptions than ours. 
 Their experience, in many directions, must be far 
 more acute. But there is, in them, no such power 
 of reaction upon experience as we see in man. The 
 vast fabric of human knowledge has been built up 
 in this way. All the inductive sciences are rested 
 upon this foundation. They imply and recognize 
 principles not derived from experience. Astronomy 
 rests on first truths respecting space and number 
 and time ; and physical science on first truths re- 
 specting force and matter. 
 
 Thus all our reasoning proceeds on principles 
 which cannot be found by reasoning, but must be 
 assumed as intuitive truths. We cannot construct 
 the simplest argument, we cannot convict an oppo- 
 nent of error, we cannot justify to ourselves, even, 
 the maxims which we hold to be true, without rec- 
 ognizing mental principles which are either accepted 
 as intuitive, or which lead us directly back to prin- 
 ciples which are. The primary convictions of the 
 mind are all of the nature of intuitions. These may 
 arise either in connection with some external object, 
 or in connection with some internal sentiment. 
 Thus, when I see this desk before me, I intuitively 
 recognize it as occupying space, though of space 
 itself I neither have had nor can have any actual 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 309 
 
 experience. So a succession of events awakens 
 the intuition of time, though time, like space, can 
 be revealed to me by no positive apprehension. Let 
 us notice, however, that these intuitions, though not 
 derived from experience, are yet never called into 
 existence without the help of experience. In other 
 words, an intuition is not gazing at the absolute, but 
 is always the perception of an object, or of some- 
 thing connected with an object. Hence we are 
 never directly conscious of the true, the beautiful, 
 and the good, simply as such, but just as after con- 
 templating a body that occupies space, we get the 
 abstract idea of space, so after contemplating actions 
 as good or evil, we get the notion of abstract moral 
 qualities. These intuitive convictions can be gener- 
 alized, and when generalized we are compelled to re- 
 gard them as necessary truths. For the laws of men- 
 tal action are analogous to the laws which regulate 
 external nature. Like the physiological processes of 
 the body, these intuitions depend on no action of the 
 will ; on the contrary, they are often in most perfect 
 action when we are most unconscious of their pres- 
 ence. Yet, while analogous in their operation to the 
 laws which we trace in external nature, they are of 
 a higher order than any generalizations from mere 
 external or physical facts. For they carry, in their 
 very nature, a character of necessity or universality, 
 and hence in an especial sense may claim to be re- 
 garded as first principles. They are truths pertain- 
 ing to our original constitution, and are the grounds 
 of all knowledge. And while the study of them is 
 more difficult and more delicate than the investiga- 
 tion of ordinary truth, this need not weaken our con- 
 viction of their reality, or cause our confidence to 
 waver in our methods of establishing them. 
 
3IO THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Let it be borne in mind that in all this we are 
 not claiming any such transcendent and complete 
 knowledge as carries with it an irrefragible assur- 
 ance, .nor supposing any such faculty of intuition as- 
 gives us direct cognizance of real existence. The 
 only knowledge possible to beings constituted as we 
 are is knowledge of the phenomena of conscious- 
 ness, and the inferences which we draw from them. 
 These necessary inferences from the phenomena of 
 consciousness are sometimes called intuitions and 
 sometimes primitive beliefs. Sir William Hamilton 
 employs the latter term. He says, " Our knowl- 
 edge rests ultimately on certain fa*cts of conscious- 
 ness, which as primitive, and consequently incom- 
 prehensible, are given less in the form of cogni- 
 tions than of beliefs. But if consciousness in its 
 last analysis, in other words, if our primary ex- 
 perience be a faith, the reality of our knowledge 
 turns on the veracity of our constitutive beliefs. 
 As ultimate the quality of these beliefs cannot be 
 inferred ; their truth, however, is in the first in- 
 stance to be presumed." The particular name by 
 which we describe them is, however, not a matter 
 of importance. The essential thing is to recognize 
 the fact that, without certain inferences transcend- 
 ing phenomena, which the mind draws, we cannot 
 conceive the external world, or make a distinction 
 between the present and the past. 
 
 And further, as we are simply dealing here with 
 facts of consciousness, it does not matter what the- 
 ory we adopt to account for these facts. As these 
 intuitions present themselves to us, they appear in 
 a completed state, and they have doubtless borne 
 that character as long as we have known anything 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 3 1 1 
 
 about them. But it seems probable that we inherit 
 natures which cannot but develop these results as 
 soon as they develop at all. To recognize the fact 
 that the present form of these intuitive convictions 
 has been gradually established, is simply to recog- 
 nize the fact that the rational history of their pro- 
 duction is similar to that which marks a large por- 
 tion of the universe as known to us. This is the 
 explanation of the origin of our intuitive beliefs 
 given by Mr. Spencer, that they are a habit of mind 
 engendered by the antecedent experience of an in- 
 definite series of ancestors. And for this explana- 
 tion it is claimed that it completely reconciles the op- 
 posing theories of the school of Locke and of Kant. 
 But this explanation of their origin does not, in the 
 least, affect the claim that to the human mind in its 
 present matured and perfected state, they bear the 
 character of immediate and necessary truths. The 
 doctrine of evolution does not detract from, but 
 truly considered, adds to their binding authority. 
 
 Among the most evident and undeniable of these 
 primary cognitions, or beliefs, which thus carry with 
 them the characteristic of intuition, must be reck- 
 oned our conviction of the infinite. This convic- 
 tion, like every other intuitive conviction, will be 
 found, on examination, not to exist in the mind as 
 an innate idea, but is always connected with some 
 positive cognition. That is, it does not appear 
 full-blown at the dawn of consciousness, but in all 
 cases arises after the mind has reached, through ex- 
 perience, the perception of certain other truths. It 
 is claimed by some that the finite mind can never 
 have a conception of infinity, and that we only 
 mock ourselves with words and phrases when we 
 
312 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 presume to talk about it. But while no one will 
 deny that the human mind can form no conception 
 of infinity, as we picture an object or recall a scene, 
 or construct a mental image, it by no means follows 
 that we can absolutely have no apprehension of the 
 infinite. We constantly apprehend things of which 
 we can distinctly frame no mental image, and while 
 it is perfectly true that we can have no proper or 
 adequate conception of infinity, and not less certain 
 that we can never rise to it by any process of gen- 
 eralization, it does not by any means follow from 
 this that we may not have a real and positive appre- 
 hension of it. We can have no conception, either of 
 infinite space or of infinite time, but if we take the 
 wings of morning and fly to the extremest verge of 
 the material universe, we cannot then cast from 
 us the conviction that immeasurable space still 
 stretches beyond our utmost vision, or if we go 
 back in time, through the illimitable periods of geo- 
 logic or cosmic history, the background of a fathom- 
 less eternity still rises up before us. Infinite space 
 and infinite time are necessities of thought. They 
 are conceptions which, indeed, we cannot grasp, 
 but which we are equally unable to cast aside. We 
 are persuaded of them not less irresistibly than we 
 are persuaded of our own existence. We can con- 
 ceive of neither, but we are equally unable to con- 
 ceive that both do not exist. While they are in- 
 exorable necessities of thought, they are not less 
 supreme characteristics of human intelligence. Sir 
 William Hamilton has represented this notion of 
 infinity as a result of mental impotency. But it is 
 not simply negative. It is in the truest sense a pos- 
 itive conviction, and though any attempt to grasp it 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 313 
 
 only heightens our own sense of inadequacy, yet 
 the mind is impelled by our active impulses to 
 stretch after what it can never reach. 
 
 If it be objected that, in making this inference, 
 we are passing wholly beyond the bounds of knowl- 
 edge, and the legitimate sphere of the human in- 
 tellect, I reply, that we are doing so no more than 
 when we arrive at the knowledge of anything out- 
 side of our personal consciousness. When the 
 man of science ascribes a real existence to any of 
 the phenomena of external nature about which he 
 reasons, he only infers that such is the fact. Rea- 
 son compels the belief that the stream of phenom- 
 ena, of which alone we are directly conscious, is 
 not self-sufficient, but that it involves the existence 
 of something not itself revealed to consciousness, 
 by which these phenomena must be explained. In 
 consciousness we have only the signs of external 
 things. But when science goes beyond this limit, 
 when she concedes, as she does, the real existence 
 of an external world, when she reasons of force 
 and matter as something more than conceptions 
 which the mind has formed, then she recognizes 
 the truth that the mind is compelled to make infer- 
 ences respecting a sphere into which experience 
 does not reach, and respecting which consciousness 
 has no direct information. The great physical doc- 
 trine of the persistence of energy all rests on this 
 admission. 
 
 " It is unquestionable, then," says Mr. Herbert, 
 " that the testimony of consciousness to much that 
 lies beyond the present phenomenon is accepted 
 without hesitation, that human life would be at a 
 standstill if credit was not continually given to in- 
 
314 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ferences from the symbols which present themselves 
 in consciousness. To read off the meaning of these 
 symbols is the very function of our intelligence ; 
 reason finds its occupation in the interpretation of 
 signs ; and that is preeminently its office in the ar- 
 duous and elaborate investigations of science. To 
 recognize the world as external is to assume a 
 power outside me working effects on me ; to affirm 
 that a phenomenon had an antecedent is to accept 
 the testimony of memory to a fact which is incapa- 
 ble of proof. Science, then, transcends phenomena 
 at every step ; the whole fabric of human knowl- 
 edge would collapse, unless the testimony of con- 
 sciousness were accepted to facts not found among 
 phenomena, but inferred from them. Yet those 
 who are indebted, at every turn, to such inferences, 
 boast of giving recognition to phenomena alone. 
 Nor is it a mere practical, as distinguished from a 
 philosophical recognition, that is given to such in- 
 ferences, for the entire edifice of their science re- 
 poses on them." l 
 
 Let us now proceed to connect this reasoning 
 with the results of our previous discussion. I have 
 wandered somewhat away from the direct line of my 
 argument for the purpose of making perfectly plain 
 an important principle. The proof that the first 
 cause is the infinite, eternal, and perfect being, has, 
 for the most part, been derived directly from princi- 
 ples and ideas held to be innate. Various methods 
 have been adopted for showing this, but they all 
 agree in attempting to demonstrate the divine exist- 
 ence and attributes by a process of purely deductive 
 reasoning. Thus arguments for the divine exist- 
 
 1 The Realistic Assumptions of Modern Science Examined, p. 344, 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 315 
 
 ence have been deduced from the nature of truth, 
 which implies a being as absolutely true, or from 
 the nature of the human mind, as united, through 
 its universal notions, with the divine mind, or from 
 the nature of knowledge, which is held to be possible 
 only through ideas which have their source in an 
 eternal reason, not derived from the senses but in- 
 herent in the divine nature. Anselm held that, from 
 the very idea of God, as the highest being, his neces- 
 sary existence might be strictly deduced, while Des- 
 cartes maintained that, in the very consciousness of 
 imperfection and limitation, was involved the idea 
 of an all-perfect and unlimited being. Others have 
 derived so-called demonstrations of the divine exist- 
 ence from the notions of existence and 'causality. 
 My present argument must not be confounded with 
 any of these. As I do not adopt them, I do not 
 need to explain or defend them. They are all at- 
 tempts to evolve, by a purely logical process, what 
 is involved in certain primary intuitions, or funda- 
 mental conditions of the mind, and it is claimed for 
 them that, unless we fall back upon the skeptical 
 alternative that the consciousness and reason of man 
 cannot be trusted, we must believe in the existence 
 of an eternal, infinite, and unconditional being. But 
 the fatal defect seems to me to lurk in all this rea- 
 soning that it proceeds, throughout, on a purely 
 ideal basis ; it is reasoning, not respecting the facts 
 of nature, but respecting the conceptions of the hu- 
 man mind. A purely subjective necessity of rea- 
 soning is projected outwards, and because logically 
 conclusive, is held to be conclusive in the realm of 
 objective reality. Under every one of its modifica- 
 tions this argument proceeds from the necessary 
 
3l6 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 idea of God to his necessary being ; it passes from 
 thought to reality precisely as we pass from prem 
 ise to conclusion. 
 
 But I propose to make no such application of our 
 intuitive beliefs. I am not arguing from our intu-- 
 ition of the infinite to the existence of an infinite 
 being, but having found the existence and attributes 
 of some being by a wholly different method, am now 
 asking whether we are not compelled to connect our 
 intuitions of the infinite with this existing being. 
 It may be thought, by some, that as soon as the idea 
 of the infinite is thus apprehended, the full theistic 
 inference goes with it, and that the inference of the 
 mind to the existence of the Deity is self-evident. 
 But an atheist does not deny infinity as an abstract 
 conception, and few will refuse to recognize the fact 
 that they apprehend immediately certain aspects of 
 infinity. What they refuse to acknowledge is that 
 the apprehension of the infinite implies anything 
 more than the boundlessness of space, the eternity 
 of time, or the self-existence of matter. Something, 
 then, is needed to complete the argument, and to 
 show that there is some being of whom such infinite 
 attributes are predicable. The proof that God is 
 infinite and absolute should, therefore, not precede, 
 but should follow, the proof of the existence of an 
 intelligent and righteous cause. We do not pass by 
 any illicit process from the ideal to the actual, but 
 have reasoned from facts to the existence and attri- 
 butes of a first cause, before we have undertaken to 
 apply to him our intuitive conceptions. We have 
 shown that the universe must have had an incon- 
 ceivably powerful and intelligent author, a supreme 
 framer and governor who has adjusted, throughout 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 317 
 
 its wondrous frame, means to ends with marvelous 
 exactness ; who has formed his creatures to recognize 
 a moral law, who has made the course of their his- 
 tory, through the ages, an increasing expression and 
 illustration and demonstration of a moral purpose. 
 We have, further, shown that we are so made, or 
 if another statement of the fact be preferred, have 
 grown so to be, that we have intuitions, which are 
 the very framework of all our thought, of infinity 
 and eternity. When we have reached this point the 
 idea of God spontaneously completes itself. We 
 irresistibly connect these intuitions with the first 
 cause. The author of the universe must be the be- 
 ing of whom these are predicable. When the mind 
 has been brought to admit the existence of a su- 
 preme intelligence and will it will not hesitate to 
 believe that this intelligence and will are also infinite 
 and eternal. 
 
 From what has been said the part which intuition 
 holds, in our present argument, has been made suffi- 
 ciently plain. While we had no hesitation in reject- 
 ing intuition as an exclusive and immediate source 
 of our belief in the divine existence, we recognize 
 intuition as essential to the completeness of the the- 
 istic argument. We recognize it, not as doing away 
 with the various inductive arguments, based on the 
 constitution of the universe and the nature of man, 
 but as completing those arguments, and carrying 
 them to the final stage, short of which they fail to 
 satisfy the mind. In other words, we regard intu- 
 ition, not as a distinct and independent faculty of 
 the mind, a faculty transcending all the ordinary and 
 recognized processes of intelligence, but as a part of 
 cognition, as the final and legitimate step to which 
 
318 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the intellectual process leads. And not the comple- 
 tion of one process, but the completion of all, so that 
 the final conviction to which the reason is brought 
 is the central truth towards which all the converg- 
 ing lines of inquiry lead. Hence, by whatever avenue 
 we approach the Deity, whether we view him as first 
 cause or as moral governor, we are brought at last 
 to this conclusion. 
 
 The theistic argument is completed at this poiLt. 
 All its threads are gathered up and woven together 
 by this supreme act of the mind. At the outset, we 
 saw that the argument was complex. The proof of 
 the divine existence was drawn from many sources. 
 It was not claimed that any one, taken by itself, 
 yielded a perfectly satisfactory result. The neces- 
 sity of supposing a first cause was not itself a proof 
 of the divine existence. The evidence of intelli- 
 gence in nature was not a proof of the divine exist- 
 ence ; the traces in history of a moral governor were 
 not proofs of the divine existence. But all these 
 were undeniable facts ; they all pointed in the same 
 direction, they all converged to a common centre, 
 they all brought us, at last, face to face with the 
 conviction of a being behind phenomena, transcend- 
 ing existence, endowed with wisdom and goodness 
 beyond anything that the imagination of man could 
 conceive. At this point, and by a strictly legitimate 
 process of intellection, a process implied in all knowl- 
 edge, and lying at the basis of every science, we 
 clothed this conception with the attributes of infin- 
 ity, and when this was done, the idea of God was 
 completed. 
 
 But at this stage in our argument we encounter a 
 new objection. Granting all that has been claimed, 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 319 
 
 it may now be urged that it proves too much ; that 
 when, by this appeal to intuition, we have succeeded 
 in establishing the existence of an infinite and abso- 
 lute being, we have at the same time destroyed all 
 the distinctive grounds of religious belief ; for this 
 infinite and absolute being must, in the nature of 
 the case, be incomprehensible, and we are only in- 
 volved in endless and inextricable contradictions if 
 we attribute to it any definite qualities. Above all, 
 it is said, are we debarred by this conclusion from 
 connecting with the infinite and absolute being the 
 idea of personality ; for we cannot at the same time 
 think of the Supreme Being as infinite and think of 
 him as personal. The two representations cannot 
 be reconciled, for personality, in its nature, is limit- 
 ation, and we cannot conceive of personality into 
 which some form of limitation does not enter. We 
 cannot transcend in thought our own personality, 
 and hence to speak of an infinite and absolute per- 
 son is simply to play with phrases that have no in- 
 telligible meaning. 
 
 This objection is a metaphysical one, and has been 
 made sufficiently familiar in the writings of Mr. 
 Mansel. It is a repetition of Spinoza's famous 
 maxim, " Determinatio est negatio," to define 
 God is to deny him. But it is also the view of Mr. 
 Spencer, in whose system science and metaphysics 
 are continually confounded. While Mr. Spencer as- 
 serts the existence of an all-pervading and all-sus- 
 taining power, eternally and everywhere manifested 
 in the phenomenal activity of the universe, alike the 
 cause of all and the essence of all, he holds, not less 
 strongly, that this cause and essence are, to us, in- 
 scrutable, and that the terms personality and infinity, 
 
320 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 especially, express ideas which are mutually incom- 
 patible. The most that we can do is to assert the 
 persistence of an unconditioned reality, transcending 
 our knowledge or conception, without beginning or 
 end. The axiomatic truths of physical science una- 
 voidably postulate this absolute Being as their ba- 
 sis ; but beyond this we cannot go. As soon as we 
 reason about it we are involved in contradictions. 
 So that the highest attainment of the human mind 
 is to ascertain the laws of phenomena, and then 
 bow down in humble recognition of the infinite un- 
 known. 
 
 Mr. Matthew Arnold, with more grace of style if 
 less scientific vigor, has unfolded the same doctrine. 
 Mr. Arnold tells us, with almost wearisome iteration, 
 that we must renounce forever the delusion " that God 
 is a person who thinks and loves." For this convic- 
 tion, endeared to so many generations of believing 
 souls, we are to substitute the idea of a " stream of 
 tendency by which all things fulfill the law of their 
 being ; " not a person who thinks and loves, but a 
 "power that lives and breathes and feels." We are 
 bidden to lift our eyes, not to a righteous ruler of 
 the world, but to "the eternal not-ourselves that 
 makes for righteousness ;" or, in other words, to sub- 
 stitute for a personal God a negative entity, of which 
 all that can be with certainty affirmed is, that it is- 
 " not we-our selves," and that it is, beyond us and 
 eternal. By what precise process we reach this con- 
 clusion is not clearly pointed out. No one, we are 
 told, " has discovered the nature of God to be per- 
 sonal, or is entitled to assert that he has conscious 
 intelligence;" but we are told to look to the "consti- 
 tution and history of things," where we shall find an 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. $21 
 
 eternal tendency at work, and that this eternal ten- 
 dency "makes for righteousness." 1 
 
 So far as this definition of Matthew Arnold is 
 an attempt to bring the conclusive evidence of the 
 divine existence within the range of human experi- 
 ence, so that it can be tested and verified, I cordially 
 accept it. It is wholly in the spirit of this discus- 
 sion, and is an affirmation of one essential part of 
 my argument, the argument from history. I en- 
 deavored to show that the course of history, with 
 whatever exceptions, yet on the whole, undeniably 
 "makes for righteousness." So far, too, as this view- 
 is a protest against the common tendency to identify 
 personality in God with personality in man, thus 
 assuming that human nature is an adequate measure 
 or representative of the divine, it may be accepted 
 as working a wholesome reaction. The old Hebrew 
 prophets said as much. But Mr. Arnold evidently 
 means more. His language, though not always 
 clear, must still be taken to imply that human per- 
 sonality not only inadequately represents the divine, 
 but that there is a radical inconsistency, or contra- 
 diction, between the two ideas ; so that if God be 
 infinite he cannot be a person, and if personal he 
 cannot be infinite. An infinite being must exclude 
 limitation and relation. 
 
 The question whether the Supreme Being is per- 
 sonal, or can be interpreted by us in terms in which 
 we interpret our own personality, is a very old one, 
 and it would be idle to disguise the difficulties which 
 surround it. From the universal instinct of the hu- 
 man race to recognize the Supreme Being as per- 
 sonal, the great majority of all forms of false religion 
 
 1 [See Arnold, Literature and Dog-ma.] 
 
322 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 have arisen. For the moment the mind proceeds 
 to clothe the Supreme Being with the attribute of 
 personality, the subtle process of anthropomorphiz- 
 ing begins, and, as experience shows, this process 
 carries in its train every form of idol worship, from 
 the loftiest to the most degraded. "The fair hu- 
 manities of old religion," whose passing away from 
 earth a great modern poet has deplored, and the low- 
 est fetish worship of an African savage, all had their 
 beginning here. It is not surprising that this result 
 should produce with some a deep revulsion of feel- 
 ing, and that, not in the name of science only, but 
 even in the name of religion, they should feel called 
 upon to utter a protest against what they stigmatize 
 as " anthropomorphic theism," as a mere survival of 
 the primitive fetishistic habit of thought. 
 
 Yet anthropomorphism, though evidently capable 
 of being carried to a ruinous extreme, represents a 
 universal tendency, and so, according to the maxim 
 of the evolution school, would seem to have its roots 
 in some great truth. That the human mind has 
 shown this instinctive tendency would seem a fact, 
 of itself, sufficient to suggest the question whether 
 there were not some reality corresponding to this 
 irrepressible instinct. "We must not fall down 
 and worship," we are told, " as the source of our life 
 and virtue, the image which our own minds have 
 set up. Why is such idolatry any better than that 
 of the old wood and stone ? If we worship the 
 creations of our minds, why not also those of our 
 hands ? The one is, indeed, a more refined self -ado- 
 ration than the other ; but the radical error remains 
 the same in both." Yet, clearly, because we can 
 recognize the Supreme Being as good and wise, it 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 323 
 
 does not follow that his goodness and his wisdom 
 are simply the creations of our thought ; and if we 
 can recognize him as personal, and if we instinct- 
 ively tend so to do, this of itself would furnish no 
 ground whatever for discrediting the reality of his 
 personality as distinct from our conceptions. 
 
 Mr. Spencer concedes, not only that we are com- 
 pelled to recognize the existence of something be- 
 hind phenomena, but we are compelled to recognize 
 that something as efficient cause. It is only when 
 we attempt to reason about it that we are involved 
 in contradictions. But, similar contradictions beset 
 us just as much when we attempt to reason about 
 other things. When we analyze the grounds for 
 believing in our own continuous existence, our own 
 personality or freedom, or when we attempt to frame 
 definite conceptions of notions so fundamental as 
 space, time, or motion, we are encompassed with 
 contradictions. There is nothing, whatever, excep- 
 tional in our experience when we lift our thoughts 
 to the Supreme Being. And the natural inference 
 is that our conceptions, derived directly or indirectly 
 from phenomena, are not inadequate to represent 
 realities transcending phenomena, which however 
 dimly shadowed forth are yet irresistibly suggested. 
 Absolute knowledge of these realities is confessedly 
 unattainable, yet the conviction of their existence is 
 irresistible ; and shall we rest with the blank admis- 
 sion of their existence, or may we proceed to explore, 
 even though imperfectly, their nature ? 
 
 Surely, if our ignorance of the Supreme Being 
 disqualifies us from affirming 01 denying anything 
 about him, it disqualifies us from ascribing to him 
 power. How, according to Mr. Spencer's view, we 
 
324 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 are "obliged to regard every phenomenon as a mani- 
 festation of some power," and yet are debarred from 
 regarding phenomena as manifestations of intelli- 
 gence, it is not easy to see. Are not power and 
 intelligence equally attributes ? Are we not forced 
 to the conviction of the reality of a power by the 
 existence of the universe, and are not the character- 
 istics of the universe as much phenomena demand- 
 ing explanation as its bare existence ? Clearly, to 
 be consistent with himself, Mr. Spencer should dis- 
 miss from his system, not only the idea of intelli- 
 gence, but the idea of power, and even of any reality 
 in the external universe. These attributes are as 
 perplexing and inscrutable as any that the mind can 
 connect with the Supreme Being. Thus, according 
 to this view, the only consistent and logical result 
 that can be reached with regard to this whole sub- 
 ject is, an utter paralysis of thought. We virtually 
 fall back upon the Hegelian conclusion, where pure 
 existence is identified with pure nothing. 
 
 All that I claim is that there are many concep- 
 tions which the mind is irresistibly prompted to 
 form, which, when logically followed out, are found 
 to involve contradictions. Such are our conceptions 
 of mind and thought, of matter and motion, of time 
 and space. In whatever direction our inquiries 
 move these conceptions quickly land us in contra- 
 dictions. All these conceptions involve inferences 
 that transcend phenomena, yet they are inferences 
 to which reason, when it investigates phenomena, is 
 inevitably led. What course, now, do we pursue ? 
 Do we, on account of these recognized and acknowl- 
 edged difficulties, dismiss such conceptions from our 
 minds, or doubt their reality ? Do we question the 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 325 
 
 existence of mind or matter, because an ideal or a 
 material conception of the universe cannot be recon- 
 ciled ; do we doubt the reality of time and of space, 
 because the attempt to conceive either involves us 
 in contradiction ? Do we not accept these concep- 
 tions as necessary, while we recognize them as im- 
 perfect ? And while we cannot attain absolute knowl- 
 edge respecting these inferences, do we not yet rest 
 in the firm conviction that, however imperfect, they 
 represent realities ? 
 
 To describe his distinctive position, Mr. Spencer 
 applies to his system the epithet " Transfigured Real- 
 ism." By this he affirms the reality of some objec- 
 tive existence, as a necessity of thought, but denies 
 that it is more than an unknown correlative of con- 
 sciousness. We can say that it is, but cannot say 
 what it is. But either this high-sounding phrase 
 means nothing, or it means much more than Mr. 
 Spencer is willing to admit. If he admits that the 
 mind is competent to recognize anything but mere 
 phenomena, he opens a door which he has no right 
 to close. The question is not, whether we can reason 
 back to the essence of the Supreme Being, no one 
 claims that ; the question is not whether we can fully 
 search out the attributes of the Supreme Being, no 
 one claims that we have more than a partial knowl- 
 edge even of the attributes which are revealed ; the 
 simple question is, whether, if we are competent to 
 recognize power, which Mr. Spencer admits, we are 
 not competent to recognize other attributes. By 
 Mr. Spencer's own admission, the middle wall of 
 partition between the seen and the unseen is broken 
 down, and the question what we know of the su- 
 preme cause becomes a question of degree. 
 
326 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 To ascribe personality to the Supreme Being is 
 often spoken of, as it were, in a peculiar way to 
 ascertain his essence, as though, in thus represent- 
 ing him, we claimed, more than in any other way, to 
 know him as he is. But has the attribute of personal- 
 ity any such precedence over other attributes ? When 
 we ascribe conscious life to our fellow-men, we do it 
 wholly on the ground that their bodies exhibit cer- 
 tain movements resembling the movements of our 
 own bodies when actuated by conscious impulses. 
 We know nothing whatever of the real nature, or 
 essence, of the power that produces these results 
 either in ourselves, or in them. In their case, we 
 have nothing but physical appearances, yet we do 
 not for a moment doubt that these movements are 
 guided by intelligence to a designed result. We are 
 justified in drawing the same inference respecting 
 nature distinct from human bodies, when we observe 
 certain phenomena. We do not hesitate to ascribe 
 these changing phenomena to some reality behind 
 them. We go even further. We find, in ourselves, 
 conscious intelligence ; we form plans and we have 
 power to realize them, and we ascribe the same char- 
 acteristics to other beings like ourselves. 
 
 We are following strictly the same process of rea- 
 soning when turning our gaze to external nature 
 and finding there far more elaborate and skillfully 
 contrived plans than we have ever been able to exe- 
 cute ; and remembering that man himself is but a 
 part of nature, and is included, as a conscious, ra- 
 tional, and voluntary being in the same great scheme, 
 we feel compelled to recognize the attributes of per- 
 sonal intelligence. In doing this, we no more pre- 
 tend to fathom the nature of the inscrutable reality 
 
PERSONALITY AND THE INFINITE. 327 
 
 thus revealed to us, than we pretend to understand 
 the personality revealed to us in our fellow-men. In 
 either case, we are directly dealing, with mere phe- 
 nomena, but as we cannot refuse to recognize per- 
 sonal intelligence in the minor facts which we term 
 human beings, we cannot consistently refuse to 
 recognize it in the stupendous phenomena of the 
 external world. We go no further in the one case 
 than in the other, and as we claim only to know 
 very imperfectly our fellow-beings, when we ascribe 
 to them the attributes of persons, so no more can it 
 be said, when we ascribe the same attribute to the 
 supreme cause, that we have found out the Almighty 
 to perfection. 
 
 It may still be urged that, even granting that this 
 process is legitimate, and that in reaching this con- 
 clusion we do no more than when we reason respect- 
 ing any phenomena, yet a reverent mind shrinks 
 back from it, since in thus ascribing personality to 
 the unsearchable power revealed in phenomena, we 
 only invest him with attributes which are but exag- 
 gerations of our own qualities, and thus degrade him 
 to our own level. This objection is urged as con- 
 clusive by those who love to express contempt for 
 what they are pleased to term "Anthropomorphic 
 Theism," yet, on examination, it will be found desti- 
 tute of real weight. For what are the alternatives 
 which are open to us ? Do we get a more adequate 
 and more exalted conception of the Supreme Being 
 by refusing to invest him with personality. There 
 may be, Mr. Spencer suggests, " a mode of being as 
 much transcending intelligence and will as these 
 transcend mechanical motion." This no one will 
 deny, for no one claims that the designation of the 
 
328 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 Supreme Being, as personal, is anything more than 
 a partial and inadequate description. But how shall 
 we make the nearest approach to a conception of 
 this transcendent being ? Is it by appealing to the 
 lowest conceptions that nature supplies us, or is it 
 by appealing to the highest ? Is it by expressing the 
 Supreme Being in terms of physical force, of matter 
 and motion, or is it by expressing him in terms of 
 spiritual action, of will, intelligence, and personal- 
 ity ? Granted that both are imperfect, which is 
 likely to be more adequate. Is it not obvious that 
 the former way of conceiving, or of describing, the 
 Supreme Being, instead of giving us a more ele- 
 vated, is to give us a more degrading conception ? 
 Our highest conception of existence is bound up 
 with personality. From this highest level of expe- 
 rience we must start to reach the most adequate 
 conception of the Supreme Being. Our argument, 
 in short, amounts to this ; that to refuse to form 
 any conception of Deity is to rest in utter vacancy, 
 and is the least satisfactory and least rational result 
 of all ; that to accept the existence of a reality be- 
 hind phenomena, and describe it under phrases de- 
 rived from physical causation, is to represent the 
 supreme cause as in reality inferior to ourselves ; 
 and that hence the only rational course, always bear- 
 ing in mind the inadequacy of our conclusions, is to 
 invest him with the highest attributes of which we 
 have any knowledge, the attributes of a personal 
 being. 
 
LECTURE XL 
 
 THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 
 
 I HAVE thus far aimed simply to present the posi- 
 tive grounds on which the theistic argument rests. 
 I have confined myself throughout the entire discus- 
 sion to rigid inductive reasoning. From the mani- 
 fest and undisputed facts presented in the external 
 world and in human consciousness, I have sought 
 to establish certain conclusions respecting the exist- 
 ence and attributes of a supreme cause. By a sim- 
 ilar method I ascertained the existence of certain 
 necessary intuitions of the mind, and proceeded to 
 connect these intuitions with the conclusions already 
 reached. At this point the argument was completed. 
 Whatever validity it has a right to claim, and what- 
 ever acceptance it ought to win, depend upon the 
 force of what has been presented. My aim has been 
 to set forth the rational grounds by which we are 
 .led to a belief in the divine existence, and the con- 
 clusion to which the discussion has brought us is 
 that no other intelligible explanation of the universe 
 is possible, save that it owes its existence and its 
 continuance in existence to a self-existent being who 
 is infinitely powerful, wise, and good. 
 
 A conclusion so solemn and momentous ought to 
 make its appeal to positive grounds, and on no other 
 could its acceptance be for a moment urged. If 
 these are not sufficient, nothing is left but to aban- 
 
33O THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 don the argument altogether. But the question may 
 be looked at in another light, and, before we leave 
 it, it may be useful and instructive so to do. If I 
 have not wholly failed in the task I have undertaken, 
 I have shown that these positive grounds are suffi- 
 cient, and that they have not been shaken by any of 
 the recent objections brought against them. Still, 
 without implying any doubt as to their sufficiency, 
 we may ask, before closing our discussion, what is 
 left us should the theistic conclusion be rejected. 
 Even if our argument for the divine existence has 
 not been carried to the point of absolute demonstra- 
 tion, it will hardly be denied that it reaches a high 
 degree of probability, and that it supplies a rational 
 explanation of the phenomena of the physical uni- 
 verse and of consciousness. The question which I 
 now propose to ask is : in case this conclusion be 
 rejected, what other explanation of the facts of na- 
 ture or of life shall be substituted for it ? 
 
 In presenting what seems to me the convincing 
 and overwhelming proofs of theism, I have already 
 been compelled to examine at considerable length 
 the leading antagonistic theories. For much of the 
 argument could not be fairly unfolded without keep- 
 ing constantly in view the objections that had been 
 brought against it. But this was mainly for the pur- 
 pose of warding off the attacks of those who deny 
 that theism rests on any sufficient foundation. The 
 treatment of these objections was defensive. So far 
 as the argument was concerned this would have been 
 sufficient, and the objections brought against theism 
 might well have been left alone after their inade- 
 quacy or irrelevancy had been made apparent. Our 
 discussion of the subject will, however, be more 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 331 
 
 complete and more satisfactory, if we go beyond 
 this, and inquire whether those who reject theism 
 have, themselves, any sufficient ground to stand 
 upon, and whether the various substitutes which 
 they offer meet those wants which have led the 
 great majority of mankind to crave with so much 
 earnestness some proof of the existence of a being 
 superior to themselves. 
 
 The time remaining at my disposal would not 
 allow anything like a complete review of anti-the- 
 istic theories, even were such a review in itself de- 
 sirable. For my present purpose it will be enough 
 to confine myself to the more prominent hypotheses 
 which are just now awakening discussion. The de- 
 nial of the divine existence has assumed a great 
 variety of forms, and has appealed, at different 
 times, to a great variety of arguments. Still each 
 successive age has had its distinctive type of unbe- 
 lief, and the phases of anti-theistic speculation may 
 be very readily discriminated. While these are often 
 closely connected, and pass one to the other by a 
 very gradual process of development, they may yet 
 be regarded as distinct, and as having a real relation 
 to the currents of contemporary thought. I propose 
 to pass in review, at present, only those aspects of 
 anti-theistic speculation which reflect our present 
 ways of looking. at nature or at man, and which have 
 sprung directly from the intellectual conditions of 
 our own time. This will furnish us with more than 
 enough for satisfactory examination during the hour 
 before us. 
 
 The negative of theism is atheism, but with athe- 
 ism, in the strict meaning of the term, we do not 
 need to concern ourselves. For if by atheism we 
 
332 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT 
 
 mean the absolute denial of the divine existence, 
 the theory is one that hardly calls for serious refu- 
 tation. It is true that some are found, even in our 
 own day, who make a bold profession of this dog- 
 matic atheism, who, if we may accept their own 
 statements, have reasoned themselves into the con- 
 viction that there is nothing in the universe higher 
 than man ; that there is no good which is not ma- 
 terial and perishable ; that there is nothing infinite 
 and nothing eternal in whom the soul may confide. 
 Thus Feuerbach says, " It is clear as the sun and 
 evident as the day that there is no God, and still 
 more that there can be none ; " and Flourens, in 
 language more offensive, asserts, " Hatred of God is 
 the beginning of wisdom. If mankind would make 
 true progress it must be on the basis of atheism." 
 When men meet us with declarations like these we 
 are bound to take them at their word, however in- 
 conceivable it may seem to us that a rational being 
 could be brought to utter such absurdity. 
 
 For the naked assertion that God does not exist 
 is evidently one that no finite being is capable of 
 making. Whatever may be the difficulty of proving 
 that there is a God, fo prove that there is not a 
 God is manifestly beyond the power of human in- 
 tellect. That God exists is a proposition, the truth 
 of which may be deduced from a circle of facts 
 lying within our immediate range ; but to prove that 
 God does not exist we must have sounded the uni- 
 verse in all its length and breadth. If he has left 
 no traces of his existence in the narrow field open to 
 our inspection, we yet cannot affirm that no such 
 trace exists in the measureless spaces which we 
 have never explored ; if he has never uttered a 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 333 
 
 voice during the brief space that we have existed, 
 we still cannot declare with certainty that he has 
 never revealed himself to other beings during the 
 eternal round of time. When, therefore, Von Hoi- 
 bach declares that the existence of God " is not a 
 problem, but simply an impossibility," the statement 
 may be dismissed as destitute of meaning. It is a 
 waste of time, to refute a proposition which the hu- 
 man mind, in the nature of things, has no capacity 
 for asserting. 
 
 Few allow themselves to be hurried, either by 
 passion or prejudice, to this irrational extreme. 
 Without going to the extent of denying absolutely 
 the divine existence, most of those who decline to 
 accept theism content themselves with denying that 
 there is any sufficient proof of the existence of a 
 supreme being, or that if he exists we are capable 
 of knowing it. To such as content themselves with 
 this more moderate conclusion the term atheist is 
 not commonly applied, and in some cases they have 
 taken express pains to disavow it. This is the form 
 of unbelief in the divine existence which prevails 
 most widely at the present day. Unlike the ex- 
 treme form of atheism, it cannot be dismissed as 
 perfectly irrational, but claims to ally itself with the 
 most certain conclusions of science. In distinction 
 from the dogmatic atheism, which absolutely denies 
 the divine existence, this is skeptical or critical. It 
 does not declare. that there is no God, but contents 
 itself with affirming that the human mind can never 
 know whether there is a God or not. The question 
 of the divine existence it regards as an insoluble 
 problem which the wise man will leave alone. For 
 a human mind it has no meaning. 
 
334 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 So far as the practical conclusion is concerned, 
 the difference between denying that there is a God 
 and denying that we can ever know whether there is 
 a God or not is so very slight that the two theories 
 might well be classed together. There is, however, 
 between them a broad distinction, and those who 
 hold to the latter are not bound, by any means, to 
 accept the former. One is atheism, the other is 
 agnosticism ; one denies, the other simply holds it- 
 self in suspense. While the former has never 
 gained any wide acceptance, and when averred 
 seems the hasty utterance of passionate enthusi- 
 asts, the latter has much in common with the calm, 
 even, cautious temper of modern times. It has, on 
 its face, the recommendation of a modest theory ; 
 it harmonizes with the temper which science en- 
 joins. Nor has it always been found associated 
 with unbelief. Some have supposed that the claims 
 of revealed religion could be more powerfully vindi- 
 cated, that the authority of divine truth could be 
 set in a clearer light, by first demonstrating the 
 utter incapacity of the finite intellect to deal with 
 any problems relating to the infinite and supersen- 
 suous sphere. 
 
 And here we are brought in contact with the 
 first of the alternative hypotheses which I propose 
 to consider, the system of thought which goes 
 under the general designation of positivism. In 
 using this phrase, let me premise that I do not use 
 it in its strict sense as designating a single school, 
 but rather as indicating a much more wide-spread 
 habit of mind. Nor do I propose to discuss the 
 question, how far this mental habit represents any- 
 thing original in the history of speculation. I shall 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 335 
 
 simply exhibit its recognized and acknowledged at- 
 titude towards religion. Respecting this there is 
 no room for dispute. According to the fundamen- 
 tal maxims of positivism, we know, and can know, 
 nothing except physical phenomena^and their laws. 
 The senses are the sole sources of thought, and be 
 yond the facts which they report, and the evident 
 relations of sequence and resemblance in which 
 these facts stand to each other, our intellectual 
 vision cannot extend. Only the laws under which 
 physical phenomena may be grouped present any 
 legitimate subject of inquiry. Any attempt to go 
 beyond this clearly defined line, any searching into 
 the causes of phenomena, whether final or efficient, 
 must be scouted as sheer folly. 
 
 Hence positivism lays of necessity an absolute 
 interdict on all religious speculation. It equally re- 
 jects theism and atheism, and denies the capacity of 
 human reason either to affirm or to deny the divine 
 existence. Belief or unbelief, with regard to a prob- 
 lem so fair transcending the legitimate range of hu- 
 man faculties is denounced as equally absurd, and 
 a sane mind will hold itself jealously aloof from 
 an inclination either to the one or to the other di- 
 rection. The question of the existence of a su- 
 preme being, a being in whom we may trust, to 
 whom we may look for guidance, whom we may 
 love and reverence and adore, is a question that has 
 for us no more significance than the question what 
 language is spoken in the stars. It is a waste of 
 time, a misuse of faculties, to busy ourselves with 
 such inquiries. The fact that we are interested in 
 such a question is simply proof that our intellects 
 are immature. Wherever such speculations are 
 
336 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 found thought is still in its infancy. We think as 
 children, and we talk as children, when we prattle 
 about a first cause or a Supreme Being. The best 
 proof that we have become men is forever putting 
 aside these childish things. 
 
 So far as the positive philosophy involved any- 
 thing distinctive or original, it has had its day, and 
 is now seldom mentioned but with contempt. It is 
 needless to dwell upon its misconceptions and incon- 
 sistencies, and show how, in professing to rest itself 
 upon an impregnable basis of fact, it either ignored 
 or denied the most universal and best attested facts 
 of human experience. As a mere theory, it is not 
 in harmony with itself. It is, to a considerable ex- 
 tent, a materialistic theory ; but so far as it involves 
 materialism it denies positivism. For positivism 
 asserts that we can know only phenomena ; but ma- 
 terialism implies that matter is more than a phenom- 
 enon. Again, if, as Comte asserted, we know merely 
 phenomena, we can have no warrant for saying that 
 phenomena which we call mental can be resolved 
 into phenomena which we call physical. We can 
 only say that they are coexistent or successive. We 
 have a direct and immediate knowledge of mental 
 phenomena. We are as sure of their existence as 
 we can be of any material phenomenon. A system 
 which asserts that objects of sense are the only phe- 
 nomena known contradicts the positive testimony 
 of human consciousness. 
 
 Not only is the positive philosophy inconsistent, 
 it is incomplete ; it does not follow into the logical 
 conclusions from its own premises. For if the 
 senses are our sole means of knowing, then our only 
 real knowledge must be sensations ; but sensations 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 337 
 
 are simply states of consciousness ; that is, they are 
 phenomena, not of matter, but of mind. Therefore, 
 if we know only phenomena, it is not material but 
 mental phenomena that we know; and hence if we 
 accept this system we are logically bound, to dis- 
 card not only belief in God, but belief in the reality 
 of any external world. A permanent possibility of 
 sensations is, in fact, all that we have left. Nor can 
 we stop even here ; for mind cannot be identified 
 with its phenomena. If we know only phenomena 
 we know only a series of states of consciousness. 
 We have no right to go beyond these. We have no 
 right to reason respecting the mysterious thread 
 which holds these states of consciousness together. 
 Hence positivism must give up both matter and 
 mind. So that the reasoning which undertakes to 
 prove that we can know nothing about God, if 
 pushed to its logical consequences, proves that we 
 cannot know anything at all. 
 
 The assertion of the positive philosophy, that be- 
 lief or disbelief in the divine existence is equally 
 absurd, can only be maintained upon one of two 
 grounds : either that there is no reason whatever in 
 favor of either, or that the arguments which can be 
 adduced for one are exactly counterbalanced by the 
 arguments which can be adduced for the other. But 
 to assert that there are absolutely no reasons which 
 can be adduced for belief in the divine existence, as 
 we have already seen, is to do what no finite mind 
 has a right to do. To prove that God cannot be 
 known, we must prove that there is something con- 
 tradictory in the very notion of the divine existence ; 
 but a system which rests rigidly upon the facts of 
 experience manifestly cannot do this. This can only 
 
338 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 be done by an appeal to those very metaphysical 
 ideas which the positive philosophy denounces as 
 worthless. It only remains, then, to show that the 
 arguments adduced in favor of the divine existence 
 are exactly counterbalanced by the arguments ad- 
 duced against it. But this can only be done by com- 
 parison and examination. And this examination 
 evidently ought to be most comprehensive and thor- 
 ough. 
 
 The only thing approaching such an examination 
 which the positive philosophy gives us is in the so- 
 called law of the three states. According to this, 
 human speculation has passed through three stages. 
 It was first theological, then metaphysical, and lastly, 
 in the ripened manhood of human intelligence, it has 
 become positive. Respecting this assumed law of 
 human progress, it is enough to say, not only that no 
 solid historical evidence was produced in its favor, 
 but the known facts of history all disprove it. These 
 coexistent states are here confounded with three suc- 
 cessive stages of thought, three aspects of things 
 with three epochs of time. Theology, metaphysics, 
 and science, instead of thus following one another 
 in successive epochs, have always existed side by 
 side, and exist side by side to-day. Neither one of 
 them has passed, or can pass, away. All positive 
 science rests on the recognition of metaphysical prin- 
 ciples, and theology lies behind both. History, in- 
 stead of showing that theology and metaphysics are 
 mere passing phases of thought, makes clearly evi- 
 dent that they are modes of conceiving truth which 
 are as permanent as human reason itself. 
 
 The fundamental objection of the positivist to 
 theism is, that it is based on the assumption that 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 339 
 
 man can attain to a knowledge of causes, while, ac- 
 cording to the positivist theory, causes are wholly 
 inaccessible to human intellect. They lie in a region 
 beyond that which his limited faculties can reach. 
 It deserves to be noted that Comte admits that if 
 reason can rise to the recognition of causes, belief in 
 a divine author of the world becomes inevitable. All 
 arguments of positivists against causes resolve them- 
 selves, at last, into this single one, that they cannot 
 be recognized by the senses. Our senses show us 
 simply succession, not causation, antecedents and 
 consequents, but not causes and effects ; and that 
 we know nothing, and have a right to believe noth- 
 ing, beyond what the senses teach. These arguments 
 ignore the fact that the mind itself is a factor in 
 knowledge, and that there are laws of thought as 
 well as a constitution of things. Could their doc- 
 trine be established there would evidently be no room 
 for religion. But the grounds on which Comte 
 sought to establish it would have given him equally 
 good reason for denying his own existence as for de- 
 nying the existence of God. The mind cannot know 
 itself as a cause if it cannot recognize cause in nature. 
 A most striking proof of the insufficiency of this 
 theory was furnished in the fact that the founder of 
 the positive philosophy, after proving that no relig- 
 ion was possible, became so conscious of his own 
 religious needs that he proceeded to invent one. 
 Having denounced " religiosity " as a mere weakness 
 and avowal of want of power, he afterwards devised 
 a creed presenting such a grotesque mixture of athe- 
 ism, fetishism, and ritualism, that it has done more 
 than all the arguments of his opponents to bring 
 him and his doctrines into contempt. The essence 
 
34O THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 of this new gospel lay in a radical transformation of 
 the meaning of the word religion. 1 With all man- 
 kind, and from the first day when the word had been 
 introduced into human language, religion had been 
 used to imply some sense of the supernatural. Be- 
 lief in God was the essence of all that men had been 
 accustomed to call religion. But according to Comte, 
 religion is "the synthetic idealization of our exist- 
 ence ; " or, in other words, the worship, not of God, 
 but of humanity. As expressed by Mill, it is " a be- 
 lief, or a set of beliefs, deliberately adopted, respect- 
 ing human destiny and duty, to which the believer 
 acknowledges that all his actions ought to be subor- 
 dinate." 
 
 But while, as a reasoned system, positivism hardly 
 calls for refutation at the present day, the mental 
 attitude which it represents, and which is really very 
 much older than any of the speculations of Comte, 
 still asserts itself, and forms the real groundwork of 
 much thinking which passes under another name. 
 Some of those, in fact, who have been most ready 
 to ridicule the French philosopher and his system 
 virtually accept what was really essential in it. One 
 of the most biting sarcasms uttered against positiv- 
 ism, as a specific system, has been uttered by Mr. 
 Huxley. Yet it would not be difficult to quote from 
 Mr. Huxley's writings passages which prove beyond 
 doubt that his general attitude of mind, with regard 
 to all truth beyond that which the senses cognize, 
 is identical with that of Comte. Though he may 
 scorn the name of a disciple, he is treading the same 
 path, and logically should arrive at the same goal. 
 And when Tyndall declares of the power manifested 
 
 1 [See Comte, Cattchisme Positiviste (Paris, 1852).] 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 341 
 
 in this universe, " I dare not call it mind ; I refuse 
 even to call it cause," whatever name he may give to 
 his speculations, he stands virtually upon the ground 
 of Comte. He refuses to accept as truth what the 
 _senses do not certify. 
 
 The ablest avowed disciple of this school was the 
 late Professor Clifford. With him human society is 
 the highest of all possible organisms. Sociology 
 becomes, therefore, the only foundation of morality, 
 and for the ethical basis of human action we do not 
 need to look beyond the confines of the present life. 
 In the same spirit Mr. Huxley tells us that " the true 
 city of God is where each man's moral faculty shall 
 be such as leads him to control all those desires which 
 run counter to the good of mankind." In other 
 words, man's moral nature can be completely devel- 
 oped without any reference to an invisible world, or 
 to an eternal destiny. Or, to quote Professor Hux- 
 ley again : " The assertion that morality is in any 
 way dependent on certain philosophical problems 
 produces the same effect on my mind as if one should 
 say that a man's vision depends on his theory of 
 sight, or that he has no business to say that ginger 
 is hot in his mouth unless he has formed definite 
 views as to the nature of ginger." If this means 
 anything, it means that the speculative opinions a 
 man may cherish with regard to God and immortal- 
 ity are of no account as influencing his conduct, and 
 hence that they are better let alone. 
 
 When positivism passes from the hands of men of 
 science and letters, and assumes a coarser garb, it be- 
 comes secularism. The two systems are so nearly 
 allied that one may be regarded as the practical the- 
 ory of life to which the other supplies the specula- 
 
342 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 tive basis. Like the positivists, the better class of 
 secularists refuse to be called atheists. They even 
 claim that literal theists, or literal believers in 
 another life, may consistently force themselves, for 
 practical ends, upon the secularist platform. As 
 stated by their most intelligent representative, Mr. 
 Holyoake, secularism starts with the study of nature, 
 and simply ignores religion. It is a study of life 
 and its duties, founded exclusively on a study of nat- 
 ural laws. With regard to the origin of these laws, 
 it commits itself to no hypothesis. They are ac- 
 cepted simply as facts. The present life, with its 
 duties, may be dealt with as a fact, without raising 
 the question whether there is a future life. But to 
 ignore is not to deny. As the chemist ignores archi- 
 tecture, but does not deny it, so the secularist con- 
 cerns himself simply with this world, without deny- 
 ing or discussing any other. As a secularist he is 
 not called upon to be either a theist or an atheist 
 
 This purely secular or non-religious system is as- 
 serted as sufficient for all the practical and worthy 
 ends of living. The man who guides himself by 
 this rule has enough for all the duties that concern 
 him as man. Secularism lays down as its leading 
 principle, that precedence should be given to the 
 duties of this life over those that pertain to another, 
 on the simple ground that the duties which pertain 
 to this life are known to us, while those which per- 
 tain to another are, at best, only matter of conjec- 
 ture. The gospel it preaches is summed up in the 
 maxim, " Be worldly-minded ; think much of this 
 life, and as little as possible of the next." Secular 
 .'ism scouts the idea that the future should influence 
 
 ^ 
 
 the present. It recognizes no Providence but sci- 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 343 
 
 ence, and affirms that it will go well with us simply 
 as we understand and learn to apply physical laws. 
 Morality, and not religion, it maintains, is the proper 
 business of life. In the general good we have a rule 
 of action independent of God, of immortality, of 
 revelation. In the practice of human duties, in the 
 seeking of ends compressed within the scope of hu- 
 man life, we have sufficient incitement and sufficient 
 reward. The foundation, the sanction, the inspira- 
 tion of conduct, are all qentred here. 
 
 I pass to consider the second of the alternative 
 hypotheses which have been presented as substitutes 
 for theism. Of all these substitutes it is the most 
 wide-spread and most formidable, and must be re- 
 garded at the present moment as forming, without 
 doubt, the central point from which anti-theistic 
 speculation springs. This is materialism. But it 
 would be a grave mistake to suppose that by this 
 designation is meant any single or definite theory. 
 On the contrary, it covers a variety of hypotheses, 
 by no means consistent with one another. Used in 
 its strict and proper sense, the term should denote 
 a theory that seeks to explain the universe by what 
 is known as matter; but no system of materialism 
 has ever undertaken to do this. And it is the dis- 
 tinctive characteristic of modern materialism that it 
 exalts matter far above anything that the senses can 
 certify ; it does not hesitate to ascribe to matter the 
 attribute of self-existence ; it endows it with a vague 
 potency of life ; it even goes so far, at times, as to 
 attribute to it sensation, volition, and intelligence. 
 The matter with which modern science deals is 
 something wholly different from the matter of the 
 old materialists. 
 
344 THE THE I STIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 We see from this how materialism passes beyond 
 the line which positivism essays to draw. Positiv- 
 ism asserts that we can go no further than to recog- 
 nize those orderly sequences in nature to which we 
 give the name of laws. It refuses to search for 
 causes, and hence denies philosophy. But materi- 
 alism is a boldly reasoned theory of the universe. 
 It sets itself up as an ultimate and complete ex- 
 planation of things. The claim for acceptance which 
 it most strongly urges is, that it meets, better than 
 any other system, the legitimate demand of the mind 
 for unity. It explores the ground of things, and 
 seeks to satisfy the intellectual need of a first cause. 
 Assuming that there can be but one ultimate solu- 
 tion of the problem of existence, rejecting every 
 form of dualism, it looks beyond all secondary and 
 coordinate causes for the supreme principle on 
 which they are all dependent. It is really a philos- 
 ophy of nature, of the boldest and most comprehen- 
 sive kind ; and whatever judgment we may pass upon 
 it and upon its claims, it is impossible not to recog- 
 nize the fact that, as a logical method, it is far more 
 adequate and satisfactory than positivism. 
 
 And, considered as a method, it is not one that 
 the human mind is likely very soon to outgrow. 
 There is much in nature to make it attractive, and 
 much in human life to lend it very strong apparent 
 support. It seems to be peculiarly allied with cer- 
 tain conditions of social life. It has special affin- 
 ities with any corrupt and disorganized society. It 
 found advocates in England in the reign of Charles 
 II. It was wide-spread in France in the period 
 preceding the Revolution. It is not less closely con- 
 nected with certain intellectual tendencies. It 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 345 
 
 would be a gross injustice to attribute the refined 
 materialism of the present day to any low standard 
 of morals, or pursuit of selfish and personal aims. 
 Modern materialism is partly a natural reaction 
 from the excessive idealism to which the transcend- 
 ental philosophy opened the door, but still more a 
 concomitant of the rapid and brilliant progress of 
 physical and especially of biological science. This 
 enormous advance in our knowledge of the organic 
 world has had a marked effect on the scientific 
 spirit. It has transferred science from the realm of 
 fact to the realm of speculation. 
 
 There was a time when the methods of science 
 were clearly defined, and when in practice they 
 were rigidly adhered to. Science professed to reach 
 her results by processes of induction or deduction, 
 and the line between an ascertained law and an un- 
 verified hypothesis was carefully observed. Noth- 
 ing was more common than to hear from the physi- 
 cist expressions of contempt for the metaphysician. 
 But with the recent rapid advance of the physical 
 sciences this has been very much changed. The 
 confident assertions that come to us from so many 
 quarters show conclusively that the notion of what 
 constitutes a proof has become extremely confused. 
 The Darwinian doctrine of natural selection, for ex- 
 ample, is, at best, but an hypothesis. It was so set 
 forth by the cautious student of nature from whom 
 it borrows its name. Yet by some it is asserted 
 as though established by evidence as conclusive 
 as that on which we accept the law of gravitation. 
 We have a school of metaphysical physics which 
 carries its conclusions far beyond anything that 
 a mere investigation of phenomena warrants. With 
 
346 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 this school modern scientific materialism is most 
 closely allied. 
 
 If we ask for a definition of materialism, it may 
 he stated as that system which essays to explain the 
 universe in terms of matter. Bearing always in 
 mind that it conceives of matter in that highly re- 
 fined and etherealized sense in which it can hardly 
 be distinguished from spirit, it resolves everything 
 in nature, order, organization, sensation, thought, 
 volition, into combinations and motions of matter. 
 Thus the universe is exhibited as a homogeneous 
 and coherent system. Without doubt this consti- 
 tutes, for many minds, the strongest attraction of 
 the system. It is a thorough system of monism, 
 and conforms to that rational principle which com- 
 pels us to admit as few causes as possible for a 
 given phenomenon. If we claim for ideas an ex- 
 istence distinct from matter, we are met with the re- 
 ply that we know nothing of ideas or thoughts ex- 
 cept as states of consciousness, that is, as special 
 phenomena in the life of men, which are simply the 
 last product of a long natural evolution. Man is 
 part of nature, and thought is simply part of man. 
 Hence we are compelled to seek the explanation 
 of man in the common source of all natural phe- 
 nomena, that is, in matter and motion. 
 
 " I take it to be demonstrable," says Professor 
 Huxley, who, if at times he is a positivist, at times 
 is no less a materialist, " that it is utterly impossi- 
 ble to prove that anything whatever may not be the 
 effect of a material and necessary cause, and that 
 human logic is equally incompetent to prove that 
 any act is really spontaneous. A really spontaneous 
 act is one which, by the assumption, has no cause ; 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 347 
 
 and the attempt to prove such a negation as this is, 
 on the very face of the matter, absurd. And while 
 it is thus a philosophical impossibility to demonstrate 
 that any given phenomenon is not the effect of a ma- 
 terial caus^, any one who is acquainted with the his- 
 tory of science will admit that its progress has, in all 
 ages, meant, and now more than ever means, the ex- 
 tension of the province of what we call matter and 
 causation, and the concomitant gradual banishment 
 from all regions of human thought of what we call 
 spirit and spontaneity. And as surely as every future 
 grows out of the past and present, so will the phys- 
 iology of the future gradually extend the realm of 
 matter and law until it is coextensive with knowl- 
 edge, with feeling, and with action." l This lucid 
 language can only mean that mind is but the high- 
 est development of force ; that motion, heat, and 
 light are but other names for sensation, emotion, 
 and thoughts ! 
 
 To this imposing hypothesis, however, an obvious 
 objection at once presents itself. The strongest in- 
 tellectual attraction of materialism consists in the 
 fact that it is a system of monism ; it apparently sat- 
 isfies the craving for unity which is so deeply planted 
 in the human mind, and which receives new support 
 with the progress of knowledge. We may assume, 
 without hesitation, that a monistic theory is the ex- 
 pression of rational thought. Human intelligence 
 instinctively conceives of all coordinate causes as 
 secondary. But the evident argument against ma- 
 terialism is that it does not meet this very want. 
 We need not discuss the question, how far we reach 
 any real unity by analysis of matter. How far sci- 
 
 1 Quoted by Prof. R. Flint, Anti-Theistic Theories, p. 131. 
 
348 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 ence may ultimately go in resolving the elements of 
 matter into a single one, we need not undertake to 
 decide. Certainly at present this goal is far enough 
 from being reached. But, supposing matter to have 
 been reduced to a single, pure, homogeneous phys- 
 ical element, we have still to explain the fact that, in 
 all the phenomena of the universe, matter is always 
 combined with force. It is not dead matter with 
 which we deal, but matter organized, and undergo- 
 ing incessant and universal transmutations. 
 
 The question at once arises, Is matter the cause 
 of force, or is force the cause of matter ? Unless 
 one of these questions be answered in the affirma- 
 tive, we have two original principles in the universe 
 instead of one, and thus, at the first step, sacrifice 
 that principle of unity on which scientific material- 
 ism so much prides itself. For evidently if force 
 and matter be conceived of as not related as cause 
 and effect, but as inseparable and coordinate, we 
 have two eternal principles instead of one, and 
 the boasted monism of materialism is merged in 
 dualism. The perplexity of the problem is not les- 
 sened, but increased. If, on the other hand, force 
 be conceived as the cause of matter, we preserve 
 unity, but we destroy materialism. For we trace 
 the existence of matter to an immaterial source ; 
 it becomes at once secondary and dependent. If 
 reason pursues its search for unity it cannot stop 
 with physical force, for a universe of physical force 
 would be simply an aggregate of forces. Behind 
 the multiplicity of natural forces there must reside 
 some single, original, and indivisible power. But 
 when we have reached this conclusion, we are on 
 the threshold of the great truth that the universe 
 had its origin in mind. 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 349 
 
 Thus, in this whole discussion of matter and force, 
 materialism is involved in fatal contradictions. As 
 a reasoned system of the universe it goes beyond its 
 own limits, and falsifies its own premises. For ma- 
 terialism, so far as it claims any logical basis, rests 
 on the postulate that all knowledge is attained 
 through the organs of sense, and that beyond what 
 the senses report, and the generalizations from this, 
 we know and can know nothing. The properties of 
 matter, it is claimed, are the sole, the direct, the im- 
 mediate objects of the senses ; and the facts of nat- 
 ure do not demand for their explanation anything 
 distinct' from matter. Materialism, of necessity, in- 
 volves sensationalism, and sensationalism necessarily 
 signifies that all knowledge of matter is dependent 
 on the particular constitution of the senses of the 
 individual. The materialist cannot pretend to any 
 knowledge of matter as it is in itself ; it can exist 
 for him only so far as his senses perceive it to exist. 
 " All our knowledge," says Professor Huxley, " is a 
 knowledge of states of consciousness. Matter and 
 force are, so far as we can know, mere names for 
 certain forms of consciousness. What we call the 
 material world is only known to us under the forms 
 of the ideal world." l 
 
 But if matter and force are mere names for cer- 
 tain states of consciousness, what right has the 
 materialist to ascribe to them any real existence 
 independent of thought. Yet the whole system of 
 scientific materialism is built up on the assumption 
 of the real and independent existence of force and 
 matter. We are told that force and matter are 
 
 1 Macmillan's Magazine, May, 1870. See Herbert, Modern Real' 
 ism, etc., p. 92. 
 
350 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 eternal, that they are absolutely incapable of in- 
 crease or diminution, of creation or annihilation. 
 On what evidence are these assertions made ? Is 
 the eternity of matter or of force anything which 
 the senses report to us ? or is it a legitimate gen- 
 eralization from anything that the senses report ? 
 When he ventures to make these assertions, the ma- 
 terialist asserts something that he could, by no pos- 
 sibility, have learned through his senses, and some- 
 thing that no experiment of science could have 
 demonstrated. Modern materialism rests through- 
 out upon a series of realistic hypotheses, and yet 
 these hypotheses, from its own stand-point, are 
 wholly untenable. Materialism claims to be a sys- 
 tem which appeals only to principles that are rigidly 
 scientific, yet it cannot reach one of the conclusions 
 on which it most strongly insists without setting 
 these principles aside. 
 
 It would be, doubtless, an injustice to Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer to term him a materialist, as that term 
 is commonly accepted. It is claimed, indeed, for 
 his system, that it has finally and completely demon- 
 strated the untenableness of the materialistic hy- 
 pothesis, and it is frankly conceded by his followers 
 that through no imaginable future advance in phys- 
 ical discovery can the materialists ever be enabled 
 to realize their desideratum of translating mental 
 phenomena in terms of matter and motion. The 
 latest results of scientific inquiry leave the gulf be- 
 tween mind and matter as wide as in the time of 
 Descartes. The attribute of one is thought, and 
 of the other extension, and there is nothing like 
 identity, or similarity, that can be traced between 
 them. In Mr. Spencer's view, physical and mental 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORI 
 
 processes form parallel series of chan 
 rable in fact, though refusing to be id 
 thought. In company with our mental 
 there is an unbroken sequence of physical 
 so that physical and mental phenomena, though dis- 
 tinct, are subjective and objective faces of the same 
 fact, or, in other words, manifestations of an ulti- 
 mate reality in which both are united. 
 
 By this highly metaphysical hypothesis, Mr. 
 Spencer seeks to extricate sensationalism from the 
 dilemma in which it is involved, and preserve those 
 realistic conceptions which seemed at first sight dis- 
 sipated. Without pausing to dwell upon the inherent 
 difficulties involved in this theory, it is enough for 
 our present purpose to ask what it accomplishes. 
 From the alleged fact that the order of its manifesta- 
 tions throughout all mental phenomena proves to be 
 the same as the order of its manifestations through- 
 out all material phenomena, we are authorized to 
 infer that it is one and the same ultimate reality that 
 is thus manifested to us in these two ways ; but be- 
 yond this we have no right to go. The nature of 
 that which is revealed under these two forms re- 
 mains forever inscrutable. Every hypothesis con- 
 cerning the essence or attributes of this unknown 
 reality can only illustrate our own mental impo- 
 tence. Asserting persistence of power is but another 
 mode of asserting an unconditioned reality without 
 beginning or end. But the materialist may well ask, 
 What advance in knowledge do we make by calling 
 an eternal force an inscrutable power ? 
 
 I pass to consider the third alternative hypothesis 
 which has been presented in our own time as a sub- 
 stitute for theism, the strange conception of the 
 
352 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 universe and man which passes under the name of 
 pessimism. Between materialism and pessimism 
 there is this broad distinction, that materialism, if 
 an insufficient explanation, at least claims to be a 
 rational explanation of the universe. It aims to 
 meet certain intellectual wants, and to answer the 
 questions that the mind instinctively puts itself 
 when it considers the wondrous framework of the 
 world. And it claims to exalt the motives of living, 
 so far at least as the present life is concerned. Pes- 
 simism, on the other hand, looks at the universe as 
 a stupendous illusion, and expresses unqualified con- 
 tempt for nature and life. It dismisses, as unworthy 
 of the slightest regard, the demands of the intellect 
 or the heart. Conscience it scorns as a chimera. 
 Regarding the universe as throughout irrational, it 
 makes no attempt to explain it. Good and evil are 
 laid under the same condemnation. Considering 
 existence itself an evil, it is brought logically to the 
 dreary issue, that the only satisfactory solution of 
 the problem of life is utter annihilation. 
 
 While, in its scientific form, this theory is one of 
 the most recent products of thought, in its funda- 
 mental conceptions it is one of the most ancient. 
 Without entering into the disputed question of the 
 Buddhist Nirvana, it may be safely asserted that 
 the Buddhist conception of life is essentially pessi- 
 mistic. Evil, according to Buddhism, is of the very 
 essence of existence. All sentient beings are made 
 to mourn ; the world is a vale of tears. The stream 
 of life bears on its tide nothing but uncertainty and 
 sorrow. All pleasure is rooted in delusion, and 
 dogged by pain. What are reckoned good things 
 are only seemingly good ; the best of all is not to be 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 353 
 
 It is as an escape from these evils that Nirvana is 
 promised. Whether by this is meant a state of ab- 
 solute extinction, or, as Max Miiller would have us 
 think, a state of blissful quiescence and repose, what 
 alone renders it alluring is the contrast it presents 
 to the evils of life. There is nothing in this present 
 life that should detain us, nothing that in the end 
 will not fail to satisfy, nothing that is not at war 
 with the highest good of the soul. In its estimate 
 of the nature and wants of mortal existence, Bud- 
 dhism is thoroughly pessimistic. 
 
 That such a gospel should have been eagerly em- 
 braced by so many millions of our race, would seem 
 to show that it conforms to some powerful instincts 
 of the human heart. We need not seek for such 
 instincts in the dreamy East alone. The tendency 
 has been wide-spread, and even Christianity has not 
 held wholly aloof from it. Many forms of Christian 
 mysticism have run very close to the Buddhist con- 
 ception of life ; and from hymns that are sung every 
 Sunday in our churches illustrations of a pessimistic 
 habit of looking at things might be easily culled. 
 Human life presents, in fact, a great variety of as- 
 pects, each of which may be viewed in a cheerful or 
 a despondent light ; and which of these two aspects 
 will present itself depends, for the most part, on 
 causes over which the individual has little or no con- 
 trol. There are few of us who have not known sea- 
 sons when life seemed a burden hard to be borne, 
 and when we have almost longed for the narrow 
 house where the weary are at rest. Pain, disap- 
 pointment, sorrow, these are the spectre shapes 
 that lurk by every pathway ; and few are so uni- 
 formly strong and healthy and prosperous that, at 
 
 23 
 
354 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 unbidden moments, we are not conscious of their 
 presence. Sunshine and shadow alternate on every 
 landscape. 
 
 Much of the most popular literature of every coun- 
 try derives its principal charm from voicing this dis- 
 content : "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher, 
 "all is vanity." " I have seen all the works that are 
 done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and vex- 
 ation of spirit." Classical literature abounds with 
 similar complaints. The sunny Homer falls into a 
 pessimistic vein when he says, " There is nothing 
 whatever more wretched than man," 1 and the maxim 
 of Menander is familiar to us all : " They whom the 
 gods love die young." Seneca praises death as the 
 best invention of nature, and the virtuous Marcus 
 Aurelius holds it up as a positive good. Modern 
 poetry is tinged with an absorbing sense of the sor- 
 rows of life. It colors the beautiful conceptions of 
 Shelley ; it utters itself, without restraint, in the 
 lines of Byron, 
 
 " Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
 
 Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
 And know, whatever thou hast been, 
 'T is something better not to be." a 
 
 The intense, and often bitter, melancholy that per- 
 vades the lines of Heine, the representation of all 
 earthly good as fleeting and unsatisfying, show how 
 strong is the hold of this view of life upon sensitive 
 spirits. 
 
 But it has been reserved for our time to elevate 
 an occasional mood to the rank of a logical sys- 
 tem, and to convert the laments of wearied and over- 
 wrought natures into established conclusions of 
 
 1 II. 17, 446. 2 [Euthanasia.] 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 355 
 
 science. Pessimism as a mere view of life is de- 
 pendent on temperament, on circumstances, on bod- 
 ily states ; but pessimism as presented in its most 
 recent and famous form claims to rest on a solid 
 basis of reasoned truth. The founder of pessimism, 
 in this sense, is Arthur Schopenhauer, whose early 
 career in letters was a disappointment, and whose 
 views of life were doubtless tinged with gloom 
 in consequence. According to Schopenhauer, the 
 world of phenomena exists only for our percipient 
 minds, and its essential character is therefore men- 
 tal representation. Yet this phenomenal world is 
 not the whole of existence. Behind it lies an un- 
 explored remainder, an absolute something, tran- 
 scending and enfolding all existence, which Schopen- 
 hauer conceived as will. With him, will is the one 
 universal substance : it appears in every blind force 
 of nature ; it manifests itself in every conscious act 
 of man. Thus will is the ultimate principle of all 
 things. Unlike the materialists, who reduce will to 
 force, Schopenhauer reverses the process, and re- 
 duces all the forces of the organic and inorganic 
 world to will. 
 
 It is in the nature of will that Schopenhauer finds 
 the basis of his pessimistic theory. Will is, in its 
 nature, striving. In its absolute existence, blind, un- 
 conscious, purposeless, it comes to self-conscious- 
 ness in life. It manifests itself in man and the lower 
 animals as will to live. Life is that for which every- 
 thing pants and labors. From this effort and strug- 
 gle, it results that life is a constant discontent, an 
 insatiable thirst. Permanent satisfaction is out of 
 the question. No sooner is any new stage reached 
 ihan new wants are created, and the longer the 
 
356 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 process is continued the more these wants are mul- 
 tiplied. For the misery of living, being thus es- 
 sentially connected with the nature of will, increases 
 in the direct ratio of consciousness, or intelligence. 
 In the lower order of creatures it is trifling ; it be- 
 comes intense in the vertebrates ; it reaches its 
 maximum in man. Man is simply the concrete em- 
 bodiment of a thousand needs. The more intelli- 
 gent he is the more acute his suffering, and the man 
 of genius suffers most acutely of all. Even habit, 
 which dulls pleasure, increases sensibility to pain. 
 Life is but a process of dying ; the history of the 
 race a " dream, long, heavy, and confused." 
 
 By Hartmann this theory is modified in form, but 
 with the same substantial result. Whatever his own 
 claims to be regarded as an independent thinker, his 
 system must be regarded as a development of Scho- 
 penhauer's main ideas. At all events, he reaches' 
 precisely the same conclusion. He accepts the same 
 pessimistic view of life, and, like Schopenhauer, sees 
 in the cessation of life the only ultimate relief for 
 rational beings. That absolute ground behind phe- 
 nomena which Schopenhauer defines as will, Hart- 
 mann defines as the unconscious. Everywhere, he 
 claims, in the processes of organic life, the action 
 of unconscious will and unconscious intelligence is 
 clearly recognizable. But in the phenomena of in- 
 stinct, this action of unconscious mind is much more 
 distinctly presented. These phenomena clearly in- 
 volve mental processes, and since they are not con- 
 scious they must result from a will and an intelli- 
 gence which are, in every sense, unconscious. But 
 the great region in which the unconscious reveals 
 itself is the human mind. In love, in feeling, in 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 357 
 
 pleasure and pain, in character, in artistic creation, 
 it may be distinctly noted ; so that all the conscious 
 acts of man may be traced back to an unconscious 
 presiding and directmg volition. 
 
 From this fundamental conception his view of life 
 springs. Since existence is thus due to the working 
 of unconscious and unintelligent will, it is essentially 
 irrational and incomplete. It is, in fact, a huge blun- 
 der. Like Schopenhauer, he regards the impulse 
 to will as the primary source of all the misery of life. 
 He holds that it is of the nature of will to be eter- 
 nally dissatisfied; and since, in consequence, the sum 
 of pain must always exceed the sum of pleasure, not 
 to be is better than to be. As a conclusion based on 
 a systematic examination of the facts of life, he does 
 not hesitate to assert, not only that pain preponder- 
 ates over pleasure as a general rule, but that, even 
 with the most highly-favored individuals, this is the 
 fact. If we look at the lauded results of progress 
 they dwindle to nothing. .Neither theoretical nor 
 practical science have effected much for human hap- 
 piness. Social and political progress may remove 
 negative evils, but do nothing to promote the posi- 
 tive pleasures of life. If we ask, What is the final 
 end of the world-process, of the long evolution of 
 life ? the only answer that Hartmann gives us is, that 
 the misery of life can be annihilated only by the 
 total denial of will. 
 
 So far as pessimism lays claim to any philosoph- 
 ical basis it need not detain us long. In the mere 
 conception of Schopenhauer, of the universe as hav- 
 ing its sole ground of existence in will, there is much 
 that is noble and elevated. It marks a great ad- 
 vance upon materialism, for it gives a direct and ab- 
 
358 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 solute denial to the theory that all phenomena can 
 be explained in terms of matter and motion. It car- 
 ries the mind far back of mere physical causation. 
 It insists that every object which is recognized by 
 our senses, that every change which takes place in 
 the universe, is but the manifestation of one infinite 
 will. Any materialistic hypothesis of nature is ren- 
 dered forever impossible by this theory. The result 
 here reached, as I have endeavored to show in a 
 former lecture, is one of vital import. But having 
 reached this result, why stop here ? If the universe 
 is only a manifestation to sense of the universal will, 
 which is the essence and internal nature of all things 
 which creates and sustains all things, why may we 
 not argue from the constitution of the universe back 
 to the characteristics of this will, which is precisely 
 what we have been doing throughout this whole dis- 
 cussion ? 
 
 Hartmann modifies the theory of Schopenhauer in 
 tracing the universe to two principles, will and intel- 
 lect, acting in inseparable but unconscious union. 
 Consciousness does not exist until these two prin- 
 ciples are partially divorced in man. He admits 
 design in nature, recognizes in its adjustments the 
 evidences of purpose ; but will not admit that the in- 
 telligence and will, thus clearly manifested, are attri- 
 butes of any conscious subject. The " Unconscious " 
 is the phrase with which he describes this principle 
 of all things. But Hartmann, to establish his the- 
 ory, follows the method of the physical sciences. 
 He rests his conclusion almost wholly upon induc- 
 tion from observed facts. The simple question, then, 
 that presents itself is, What do facts show ? This 
 question, too, we have endeavored to answer in the 
 
THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES. 359 
 
 preceding discussion. No one denies that nature 
 presents everywhere the evidence of unconscious ac- 
 tion. In some instances, as with instinct in the lower 
 animals, it is action with reference to an end. But 
 nature presents just as clearly facts of another class, 
 facts that prove conscious and intelligent action, 
 as illustrated in man. Shall we now explain the 
 lower by the higher, or the higher by the lower ? 
 
 Pessimism makes its main appeal to the facts of 
 life. From these facts it draws its conclusion re- 
 specting the value of life. And, in making such 
 appeal, it has not been without its use. In some 
 respects it supplies a wholesome protest against a 
 superficial optimism that has not been without its 
 advocates. It serves as a corrective of the too com- 
 placent view, which some have been inclined to take, 
 of human life and of human destiny. This distinct 
 vein of optimism runs through most of the moralists 
 of the last century. By those writers the pains and 
 evils of life are almost proved not to exist. Pessi- 
 mism has a use in calling attention to the darker 
 aspects of life. It will not let us lose sight of its 
 mystery. It brings home to us, with unrivaled 
 force, its solemn lessons. If it gives us no worthy 
 solution of the problem of life, it at least does not 
 evade, or set aside, or seek to misrepresent, those 
 distinctive aspects of life which invest it with so 
 much meaning. It forces upon the most thought- 
 less the great fact that life, limited to earthly condi- 
 tions, and looked at simply from a human point of 
 view, is full of perplexing and inexplicable contra- 
 dictions. 
 
 In undertaking to make an estimate of the value 
 of life, and give an answer to the question whether 
 
360 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 life is worth living, it is evident that all will depend 
 upon whether we regard life as a fleeting state of 
 consciousness, extinguished forever in the grave, or 
 whether we look upon this life as a preparation for 
 another. I am far from asserting that all the evils 
 and sorrows of life find their explanation in the doc- 
 trine of immortality, but it is plain that, in striking 
 a balance between the good and the evil of life, the 
 doctrine of a life to come, in which so much that 
 seems evil in this present life might be turned into 
 a means of good, would form a very important ele- 
 ment in the calculation. But this element pessi- 
 mism ignores, for it allows no future for man but the 
 annihilation of his conscious personality. It begs, 
 at the outset, one of the essential questions which 
 reasoning from the facts of life is meant to solve. 
 The true answer to the pessimistic theory will be 
 found, not in refusing to recognize the dark shadows 
 of life, but in looking through these dark shadows 
 to the light beyond. Faith in God furnishes the 
 only satisfactory solution. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 
 
 I HAVE now brought to a close the task which I 
 undertook. I trust that the manner in which the 
 subject has been handled, however imperfect, has 
 yet justified the claim which I made, at the outset, 
 that though the theme was old as human thought, 
 yet the altered phases of opinion respecting many 
 of its fundamental aspects furnished ample excuse 
 for giving it a fresh examination. With this con- 
 ception of my task, it has not been my aim to re- 
 view all the grounds of natural religion, but simply 
 to ascertain how far those grounds have been affected 
 by recent scientific theories. This has sometimes 
 required me to restate familiar truths, and enter upon 
 paths which have been frequently trodden ; but I 
 have only done so when a different course would 
 have left my argument obscure or incomplete. It 
 would be evidently impossible to decide, with any 
 satisfaction, how far the argument for theism has 
 been modified by modern speculation without deter- 
 mining the precise nature of the argument itself. 
 For there are some forms of the argument which I 
 would not undertake to defend. 
 
 By a certain class of writers it has been asserted 
 that the physical theories of the present day have 
 placed the problems of natural theology upon a 
 wholly new basis ; and that the more recent con- 
 
362 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 elusions of science, if they have not absolutely dis- 
 proved, have at least rendered wholly unnecessary 
 and gratuitous any hypothesis of a supernatural 
 origin of the universe. The universe, with all its 
 manifold phenomena of matter and of mind, can be 
 sufficiently accounted for, we are assured, in terms 
 of matter and motion ; and the conception, so long 
 cherished, of an intelligent author of nature must 
 give place to the doctrine of the persistence of en- 
 ergy, of natural selection, and of evolution. Evolu- 
 tion, especially, is the conjuring wand made use of 
 to explain the riddle of existence. It has been my 
 aim, throughout this whole discussion, to make evi- 
 dent that, even if we accept these hypotheses as 
 well established, they still do not touch the ultimate 
 problems with which natural theology deals. They 
 simply illustrate the method by which nature works ; 
 they belong to the sphere of second causes ; they 
 do not answer one of the questions which the mind 
 is forced to put itself in presence of the transcend- 
 ent mysteries of existence. 
 
 Before leaving the subject I am anxious to make 
 my views on this point perfectly clear. In the 
 course of my argument I have frequently contro- 
 verted theories which are classed as scientific, and 
 may have seemed to place myself in opposition to 
 the conclusions of science. I most earnestly dis- 
 claim any such interpretation of my position, for I 
 do not believe that there is, or that there can be, 
 any antagonism between science and religion. I 
 hold that so long as science confines herself to phe- 
 nomena and their laws, any conclusions that she 
 establishes are valid, and must be accepted without 
 dispute, and I hold that science is never required 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 363 
 
 to go beyond this. But I also hold that any satis- 
 factory conception which we can form of nature, or 
 life, involves inferences that go beyond phenomena, 
 and that the whole structure of human knowledge 
 rests on assumptions that science is ,not competent 
 to establish. Science calls on us to exercise faith 
 in many things not demonstrable by reason. In 
 fact, we transcend phenomena, and put faith in the 
 unseen when we infer the existence of a material 
 world, just as much as when we infer the presence 
 of a supernatural agency. 
 
 Deducing my inferences both from the facts of 
 the external world, as they are made clearly mani- 
 fest to unbiased observation, and from the less evi- 
 dent, but not less real, and more impressive facts of 
 the inner world of consciousness and moral action 
 in which we come nearest the mysterious source of 
 energy, of volition, of life, I reached the conclu- 
 sion that the most rational explanation that can be 
 given of the universe, with all its varied manifesta- 
 tions, both of matter and of mind, is the explana- 
 tion which recognizes a being of infinite wisdom 
 and power, in whose will all existence had its origin. 
 I have not claimed that this infinite being can be 
 more than imperfectly recognized by the limited in- 
 tellect of man ; nor have I claimed that the exist- 
 ence, even, of this being can be demonstrated as 
 we demonstrate the abstract truths of science. I 
 have only claimed that the universe, as a great fact, 
 demands a rational explanation, and that the most 
 rational explanation that can possibly be given is 
 that furnished in the conception of such a being. 
 In this conclusion reason rests, and refuses to rest 
 short of any other. 
 
364 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 In asserting this much let me not, however, be un- 
 derstood to imply that the conclusion here reached, 
 simply as a rational inference from the facts of ex- 
 ternal nature and of consciousness, is by any means 
 coextensive or identical with that belief in God 
 which is the essence of religion, and which has 
 been such a controlling factor in the shaping of 
 human character and of human society. The task 
 which I have attempted has a much humbler and 
 more limited scope than to account for such a phe- 
 nomenon. All that I have aimed at has been to es- 
 tablish the intellectual grounds for this belief, so far 
 as they exist in nature alone. All that we have 
 been able to reach by this process is a logical con- 
 clusion, a result far short of the practical convic- 
 tion by which men have been swayed. Such mere 
 logical conclusions may remain abstract and power- 
 less, with no vital relation to the deepest sources 
 of belief and action. Yet, while it is only a step 
 in establishing a positive theistic belief, it is an es- 
 sential step, and whatever further and fuller conclu- 
 sions we arrive at will be found to imply these pre- 
 liminary postulates. 
 
 And still less would I be thought to imply that 
 belief in God, as it actually exists, and as it actually 
 sways such countless multitudes of men, has had 
 its origin in any such process of reasoning as I 
 have here traced out. As a matter of fact, belief 
 in a Supreme Being is never arrived at in this way. 
 The great mass of mankind who sincerely accept 
 this great truth, and who show in their daily lives 
 that they are governed by it, have never reasoned 
 about final causes, or analyzed the intuitions of the 
 mind. If religion could only exist under this con 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 365 
 
 dition, atheism must be the dismal refuge of the 
 great majority of the race. It has been because 
 they have been possessed with this belief, because 
 they have been conscious of the mighty hold it had 
 upon them, because they have sought in vain to 
 break its bands asunder and cast it away from them, 
 that they have been prompted to analyze its rational 
 grounds. Belief in God is a great primary fact in 
 human nature, a fact which individual conscious- 
 ness establishes, and to which the experience of the 
 whole race bears witness. It is older and deeper 
 than any arguments about it. 
 
 The positive religious value of the conclusions 
 which we have thus far reached lies not in these 
 conclusions, taken by themselves, but in the further 
 inferences which we draw from them. The theistic 
 argument, the steps of which have been traced in 
 the foregoing lectures, if accepted as valid, estab- 
 lishes a fundamental truth, a truth, indeed, the 
 most fundamental in human thought ; a truth which 
 is the condition and ground of all religious belief; 
 but yet a truth which, by itself, may remain a barren 
 and abstract speculation. It is a truth which, dis- 
 connected from other truths, is too illimitable to be 
 grasped in human consciousness. That God exists, 
 that he is infinitely wise and good, that he is a per- 
 son, even, with affections analogous to those which 
 are felt by us, all these are statements which may 
 be accepted without hesitation by the speculative 
 intellect, but which yet can have little practical 
 meaning, unless it can be further shown that there 
 is some vital relation between this infinite being 
 and ourselves. It is in bringing us to this conclu- 
 sion that natural religion discharges its most impor- 
 tant function. 
 
366 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 The connection betwden natural and revealed re- 
 ligion, as I remarked in my opening lecture, is a 
 question on which opinions are by no means harmo- 
 nious ; 'and the line of distinction between them is 
 one that cannot be traced with entire precision ; but 
 it is clear that they must stand or fall together. 
 And this for the simple reason that the conclusions 
 of natural religion are the postulates on which re- 
 vealed religion rests. Hence, unless the results of 
 the preceding discussion are accepted ; unless we 
 concede that the material universe furnishes evi- 
 dence of the existence of an immaterial cause ; un- 
 less we concede that human faculties, though lim- 
 ited, can overleap the limits of the finite and the 
 sensible, that in nature they can recognize the pres- 
 ence of the supernatural, it is idle to make any ap- 
 peal to the teachings of revelation. And it is equally 
 true, that all the conclusions we have reached re- 
 specting the existence and attributes of a Supreme 
 Being remain an idle speculation, unless we proceed 
 to draw from these conclusions the further infer- 
 ences they involve respecting the relations of that 
 being to ourselves. 
 
 I am well aware that in any inferences from nat- 
 ural religion as to the possible nature, or contents, 
 of a revealed religion we should proceed with the 
 utmost caution. On subjects so much above the 
 ordinary range of our reasoning, any conclusions 
 must be accepted with hesitation. Unless we tread 
 warily on such a road we may prove more than we 
 intend. The most discreet and sober of theologians, 
 Bishop Butler, warns us that we are in no sort judges, 
 beforehand, by what laws or rules, or in what de- 
 gree, or by what means, God would- instruct us, 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 367 
 
 either by the use of our natural powers, or through a 
 supernatural revelation. Yet he gives us the exam- 
 ple, in his famous work, of the method of reasoning 
 by analogy from the truths of natural to the truths 
 of revealed religion. We cannot doubt that such 
 reasoning is legitimate, and that the inferences which 
 it involves must be accepted. And all that we have 
 ascertained with regard to uniformity of method in 
 the physical universe must dispose us to believe 
 that between the truths of natural and the truths of 
 revealed religion some close correspondence must 
 exist. 
 
 Throughout these lectures, as you cannot fail to 
 have observed, I have earnestly combated the opinion 
 that either the methods or the conclusions of mod- 
 ern science, when rightly comprehended, are antag- 
 onistic to religious truth. Still, it has fallen within 
 the scope of this discussion to show this simply with 
 reference to natural religion. My proper subject 
 did not go beyond this. But now I will go further, 
 and express my profound conviction that the meth- 
 ods of modern science and the new conceptions of 
 the physical universe which it has been the work of 
 modern science to render familiar not only are not 
 antagonistic to revealed truth, but will be ultimately 
 found to harmonize more completely with that truth 
 than the conceptions which they have displaced. In 
 other words, the dynamical conception of nature as 
 a plastic organism, pervaded by a system of corre- 
 lated forces, uniting at last in one supreme force, is 
 altogether more in harmony with the spirit and the 
 teachings of the gospel than the mechanical concep- 
 tion which prevailed a century ago, which insisted 
 on viewing nature as an intricate machine, fashioned 
 by a great artificer who stood wholly apart from it 
 
368 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 I proceed to trace some of the more obvious in- 
 ferences that follow from the theistic conclusion 
 which has been established. The inquiry must have 
 pressed itself upon many among us during the course 
 of the preceding discussion : If all this be true, 
 if there exists-, as is claimed, a being of infinite wis- 
 dom and goodness ; a being whose will created and 
 whose power sustains all that we see around us ; a 
 being, above all, who has caused to come into ex- 
 istence a creature capable of recognizing these attri- 
 butes, and yearning for communion with the unseen 
 source of his existence, why should a truth so fun- 
 damental, so impressive, so consoling, be left veiled 
 in so much obscurity ? With the earliest impulses 
 of conscious life the child learns to recognize its 
 earthly parent ; the mother's fond caress is the first 
 convincing evidence of something outside itself ; 
 why should the existence of a heavenly parent re- 
 main to be demonstrated by such laborious argu- 
 mentation ? Why should the human soul be left in 
 any doubt and uncertainty respecting the existence 
 and character of the being in whom all things con- 
 sist ? 
 
 If it be true that such a being exists, if it be true 
 that there is a Go'd, that he is endowed with moral 
 attributes, that all human creatures are subject to a 
 moral law, that to this law their actions must be con- 
 formed, that the end of their creation can be realized 
 only so far as this conformity is attained, no one can 
 doubt that the knowledge of this being and of this 
 moral government is more essential to the welfare 
 of man than any other knowledge. No knowledge 
 of mere natural things can for a moment be weighed 
 with it. We can understand that a sincere and in* 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 369 
 
 genuous mind may be haunted with doubts of the 
 divine existence. If we accept the assurances of 
 some sober thinkers, it is possible to look abroad 
 over the creation ; possible to recognize, to the full- 
 est extent, the wonderful harmony and intricate 
 adaptations of the physical world ; possible to study 
 the impressive workings of man's moral nature, and 
 not be convinced of the divine existence. But it is 
 impossible to conceive that any one can concede the 
 fact of that existence, and not regard the knowledge 
 of God as the most excellent of all knowledge. 
 
 It does not matter in the least how human nature, 
 as such, came to exist. We take it simply as a fact, 
 as a fact just as real, just as indubitable, with the 
 same claim to our attention, and as capable of being 
 examined and understood as any fact of the physical 
 universe. No matter how man began his career. 
 We may accept, if you please, the most extreme hy- 
 pothesis, which explains not only his physical but his 
 intellectual and even his moral being from a long 
 process of evolution, reaching back to the fiery cloud 
 which, we are told, was once the sole thing floating 
 in space ; still, with his present endowments and at- 
 tributes and yearnings, he remains just as much a 
 fact, and just as much the supreme result which the 
 travailing creation has thus far brought forth. He 
 is the marvelous world-child ; in him the whole effort 
 of nature is summed up. And it cannot be denied 
 that the characteristic thing about him is his appe- 
 tency for the invisible. Creature of time and sense, 
 he instinctively strives to pass these barriers. With 
 large discourse of reason, he longs to lift the veil 
 and solve the great mystery of life and death. 
 
 According to the view which has been strenuously 
 
370 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 insisted on throughout these lectures, the existence 
 of such a rational being can only be explained as the 
 result of a divine purpose. Evolution itself becomes 
 a rational explanation of the universe and a working 
 hypothesis only on this admission. Evolution, by 
 itself, is a mere process, which, in turn, needs to be 
 accounted for. We cannot conceive of evolution 
 out of nothing, nor can we conceive of orderly and 
 progressive evolution save with the admission of di- 
 recting intelligence behind it. So that man, how- 
 ever we may explain the method by which he came 
 to exist, must be regarded as a divine product ; and 
 not only this, but, so far as we know, as the highest 
 product of creative power. He is the image of his 
 Maker. In his moral freedom and power of choice 
 and capacity of originating acts, he supplies us with 
 the most adequate commentary on the power by 
 which the worlds were made. Nor can we admit all 
 this, and not proceed to draw the conclusion that 
 such a being must have been meant for a more inti- 
 mate communion with his Maker than mere nature 
 affords. 
 
 It seems to me beyond a doubt that the truths of 
 natural religion not only furnish the basis for re- 
 vealed religion, but that they render the fact of a 
 revelation in the highest degree probable ; or, in 
 other words, that revelation is not only a historical 
 fact, capable of being brought into harmony with 
 the doctrines of natural religion, but that natural 
 religion furnishes the antecedent grounds from 
 which the fact of a revelation might be inferred. 
 In truth, revelation is a postulate of human nature, 
 when we,jjse the term in the large and adequate 
 sense which alone covers the facts in the case. All 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 371 
 
 human history shows that man is not satisfied with 
 his present surroundings. He looks before and 
 after ; he asks himself the question, Whence am I, 
 and whither shall I go ? He instinctively reaches 
 after the source of things. The centuries ring with 
 his cry, " If a man die shall he live again ? " Man 
 is as distinctively a religious animal as he is a social 
 animal, and by the whole make and strain of his 
 being he is forced to murmur, "Oh, that I knew 
 where I might find Him ! " 
 
 When I thus claim that revelation is a postulate 
 of human nature, I mean the fact of a revelation, not 
 its specific contents. I am aware that it may be 
 objected that this claims too much ; that if revela- 
 tion be thus accepted as a postulate of human nat- 
 ure, we are logically led to the conclusion that rev 
 elation must have been primeval and universal. But 
 this is a conclusion from which I not only do not 
 shrink, but one which, on every account, I am in- 
 clined to accept. Such a" conclusion seems to me 
 not only in the highest degree probable when we 
 reason from the truths of natural religion, but to be 
 in accordance with the traditions of the past. All 
 these preserve the memory of an early guidance 
 of the race, and tell us of the day when man was 
 cheered with divine communications. And, however 
 we may suppose that these primeval traditions have 
 been overlaid with myth and legend, and however 
 difficult it may be, at the present day, to separate 
 the original germ from the subsequent accretion, 
 the fact seems attested beyond doubt. And to this 
 great truth of a primeval revelation, I need hardly 
 add, the Hebrew Scriptures bear impressive testi- 
 mony. 
 
3/2 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 I by no means assert that, on the grounds sup- 
 plied by natural religion, we can demonstrate a pri- 
 ori the contents of a revelation, for were that possi- 
 ble the need of a revelation would no longer exist. 
 Could we foretell with certainty the precise import 
 of the message, we should need no further informa- 
 tion respecting its source. In the very idea of rev- 
 elation is involved the existence of truth which we 
 could arrive at in no other way. It would cease 
 to be revelation if it contained nothing more than 
 the unaided reason could search out. As a mani- 
 festation of the absolute truth, it must contain ele- 
 ments out-side the bounds of finite inquiry. All 
 that I insist on is that human nature, in the course 
 of its development, and as a necessary result of that 
 development, reaches a point where it is no longer 
 satisfied with the conditions of its existence ; where, 
 like a child that has come to man's estate, and is 
 no longer capable of being pleased with childish 
 things, it demands a new environment, and yearns 
 for a fuller knowledge, and is haunted with the 
 larger problems that spread out before it. 
 
 Now if we concede that the human soul has been 
 brought to this stage by a normal development ; that 
 these yearnings, instincts, appetences, whatever 
 they may be called are inseparable from the ad- 
 vanced state of progress to which it has been 
 brought ; that they are the logical consequence of 
 a process of moral and spiritual evolution, no matter 
 at what point that process began, or by what agen- 
 cies or methods it has been carried on, then I claim 
 that the accepted teachings of modern science war- 
 rant the inference that these new wants and new 
 capacities would be provided for by some modifica 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 373 
 
 tion of the conditions of its existence. We may 
 safely assert this much, and assert no more than is 
 asserted by those who claim that the physical, the 
 moral, the social condition of man, as he exists to- 
 day, in the highest stage of his development, is 
 the consequence of a correlation between the inner 
 growth and the external environment. A revela- 
 tion to waiting, expecting, yearning man of spirit- 
 ual truth would be the most complete, the most im- 
 pressive, the most beautiful illustration of this law. 
 
 If, in answer to this, it be said that revelation, if 
 we regard it thus as a continuation of a great sys- 
 tem of development, reaching back to the very be- 
 ginning of things, should itself bear the marks of 
 progress, and show a continuous unfolding, I reply 
 that such is undoubtedly the fact. All that natural 
 religion can do is to render a revelation probable, 
 and show that such illumination of man's spiritual 
 life, from a source outside himself, is strictly in 
 analogy with the whole method of nature ; the pre- 
 cise scope of a revelation can only be learned from 
 a study of the revelation itself. Here we revert to 
 the facts of history. That a revelation is reason- 
 able, that a revelation is probable, the instincts of 
 the soul and the methods by which the universe 
 has been produced unite to show ; but to learn how 
 it was really made, to ascertain how far the actual 
 fact conforms to this anticipation, we must study the 
 records of human experience. From an investiga- 
 tion of the actual course of these divine illumina- 
 tions, as they cast their radiant light across the 
 page of history, must we trace their correspondence 
 with natural laws. 
 
 Now, if we look at that revelation which asserts 
 
3/4 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 itself as the supreme communication to man from 
 the spiritual world, we find it marked by nothing 
 more indubitably than by this very characteristic of 
 progressive adaptation, both to human capacities 
 and to human wants. First the blade, then the ear, 
 then the full corn in the ear ; this is the note of 
 revelation, from the simple faith of the patriarchs 
 on to the fuller day when man was taught the great 
 lesson that he is a son of God. But the Old and 
 New Testaments are vocal with this truth. And 
 nothing in the New Testament is more marked and 
 more significant than the constant assertion of the 
 organic connection between the earliest simple com- 
 munication and the final complete manifestation. 
 It has passed to a maxim that what was hid in the 
 Old Testament is brought to light in the New, and 
 that lawgivers, prophets, and apostles, how dimly 
 soever they may have realized the fact, were en- 
 gaged in one great work, and were the ministers 
 of one organic, ever advancing revelation. In the 
 apostle's phrase, " they drank of that [same] spirit- 
 ual rock." 
 
 In a natural desire to emphasize the claims of rev- 
 elation, it has been too much the custom, to draw a 
 sharp line of distinction between natural and re- 
 vealed religion ; and hence, as a consequence, to 
 represent the latter as something in its nature ex- 
 ceptional and wholly out of the common course. 
 Thus the argument from miracles has been assigned 
 a wholly disproportioned prominence among Chris- 
 tian evidences. Such reasoning is of the same kind 
 with that which leads a savage to see a more evident 
 token of the divine presence in an eclipse than in 
 the orderly movements of Orion and Arcturus. If 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 375 
 
 as we have seen, the creation is controlled by uni- 
 form laws, the instructed mind sees in the regular 
 sequence of phenomena, in the harmonious move- 
 ments of the heavenly bodies, in the unfailing suc- 
 cession of seed-time and harvest, the most striking 
 testimony to the existence of an intelligent cause. 
 Such a mind is most conscious of the presence of 
 God, not in the earthquake, nor in the whirlwind, 
 but in the still voice in which day utters to day and 
 night shows to night the power and wisdom of the 
 Creator. 
 
 So it seems to me that the most convincing proof 
 of the truth of any revelation is to be found, not in 
 the fact that it stands apart from nature, still less in 
 the fact that it seemingly contradicts or suspends 
 any of the laws of nature ; but rather in the fact 
 that it corresponds with nature, and that while going 
 beyond it, while disclosing truths which mere exter- 
 nal nature could not suggest, and which it never 
 even entered into the heart of man to conceive, it 
 still, in its supreme disclosures, conforms to the anal- 
 ogy of nature, and follows the method which nature 
 in a lower sphere has indicated. Thus it is that rev- 
 elation carries with it the irresistible conviction that 
 the truths of nature and the truths of revelation 
 have proceeded from the same source, and that all 
 the testimony which has been furnished by one to 
 the divine existence and the divine attributes is not 
 contradicted, but confirmed, by the other. Such a 
 revelation does not perplex reason and confuse the 
 inferences drawn by the mind from nature, but 
 stands in harmony with the whole system of things. 
 
 In the very idea of revelation as the communica- 
 tion of truth above the ordinary level of human 
 
376 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 knowledge, and not attainable in the normal exercise 
 of the human faculties, there is involved not only 
 the possibility, but the anterior probability, that it 
 would be accompanied with unusual phenomena. 
 These phenomena are not, however, so much an es- 
 sential part of the revelation as its incidental con- 
 comitant. They would not so much demonstrate its 
 truth to those disposed to doubt or reject it, as con- 
 firm its truth to those already inclined to accept it. 
 And however exceptional or abnormal such phe- 
 nomena might seem, it is clear that they derive this 
 character solely from the point of view from which 
 they might be considered ; since our knowledge of 
 the powers of nature and of the relations of matter 
 and spirit is far too limited to warrant any one of us 
 in affirming that what seem to us the most excep- 
 tional facts and most contrary to our own experi- 
 ences may not be the natural and necessary result of 
 some higher potencies of which we know nothing. 
 
 It would, however, be a most natural and possible 
 anticipation that these exceptional phenomena at- 
 tending a revelation would be most marked at its 
 earlier stages, and that, with its progressive recep- 
 tion, they would either wholly disappear or become 
 its normal operation. To borrow an imperfect illus- 
 tration from physical science, revelation in this 
 respect may be likened to the transformation of en- 
 ergy. In the familiar case of heat, this transforma- 
 tion takes place between two bodies that differ in 
 temperature. We get no work from heat unless part 
 of it can fall from a higher to a lower grade. When 
 two bodies differ greatly in temperature the trans- 
 formation is violent ; but as the level of the one ap- 
 proaches that of the other, the transformation is 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 377 
 
 more gentle and unobserved. So a revelation of 
 spiritual truth to a race whose light was darkened 
 would be attended with marvels, while to a race 
 whose moral level had been raised precisely the same 
 truth might be communicated without giving any 
 violent wrench to their previous conceptions. 
 
 This course of reasoning derives a striking con- 
 firmation from the recorded history of revelation. 
 Such a record, I need hardly say, is peculiarly liable 
 to become tinctured, in the course of time, with hu- 
 man elements, and hence can only claim acceptance 
 as subject to sound canons of historical criticism. 
 With this qualification, the record of revelation 
 shows one manifest and undeniable characteristic : 
 that the most surprising phenomena belong always 
 'to its beginning, while, in its highest stage, the 
 merely marvelous is always subordinated to the 
 spiritual element. This feature, which is characteris- 
 tic of the history of revelation as a whole, is further 
 exemplified in the career of Jesus. His most sur- 
 prising works were always witnessed in his contact 
 with those who were just drawn to him, and with 
 whom faith was undeveloped. With the inner circle 
 of his disciples he ceases to be a wonder-worker, and 
 in the last and loftiest revelation of himself to them, 
 on the night before he was betrayed, he is simply 
 the divine teacher, the true bread of life. 
 
 In the recorded miracles of Jesus I note two un- 
 varying characteristics, characteristics which have 
 been far too much lost sight of by many of the most 
 zealous defenders of his claims. In the first place, 
 he always refused to work miracles simply as mar- 
 velous displays of power. He never made use of 
 miracles as a means of convincing unbelief ; on the 
 
378 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 contrary, when unbelief was present, he steadfastly 
 refused to do any of his mighty works. The doubts 
 respecting his mission seem to have arisen mainly 
 from his persistent refusal to work miracles simply 
 to attest his mighty power. In him the miraculous 
 was always secondary and incidental. In the sec- 
 ond place, when his miraculous power was exercised 
 it was always exercised not as something excep- 
 tional and strained, but as the purely normal and 
 easy exercise of a power belonging to him. In the 
 midst of his most wonderful works he seems to be 
 pursuing the perfectly even tenor of his way, and 
 when putting in play his most astounding powers 
 betrays no consciousness that he was lifted in the 
 least above his ordinary level, His resurrection is 
 represented as a natural result. 
 
 In the record of miracles the greatest of all mir- 
 acles is Jesus himself. The more closely and dis- 
 passionately we study his career, the more pro- 
 foundly shall we be convinced of this. I do not 
 now refer to him in any of the dogmatic or ecclesi- 
 astical aspects in which he is usually presented, and 
 in which the most significant features of his char- 
 acter are too often obscured, but I refer to him sim- 
 ply as an authentic fact of human history. What- 
 ever interpretation we may choose" to put upon him, 
 whatever degree of obedience we may choose to 
 accord to him, respecting his purely historical posi- 
 tion, his actual relation to the cause of man's spir- 
 itual development, there is no room for dispute. 
 The most obdurate skeptic must recognize him as 
 the most significant fact with which the student 
 of history has to deal. In him centres, beyond 
 doubt, the most complete revelation in the inner 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 379 
 
 life of man of which the human race has had any 
 experience, and to him, as their source and fountain- 
 head, reach back the most commanding influences 
 that fashion modern civilization. 
 
 Yet what must strike every one of us most for- 
 cibly, as we study this marvelous career, is its per- 
 fect simplicity and naturalness. Asserting himself 
 as a revelation in human life of the divine nature, 
 he was the most intensely human of all religious 
 teachers. Separate from men in the sinless purity 
 of his life, he drew the outcast, and forsaken, and 
 contemned to him with a might as irresistible as it 
 was gentle and mild. He entered into the springs 
 of human life, and touched its sympathies, and kin- 
 dled its hopes, and drew forth its confidence and 
 love, as could only be done by one who was himself 
 in full sympathy with human wants. He taught 
 transcendent truths, truths that man had never 
 conceived ; but he taught these truths in words that 
 were heard gladly by common people, and set them 
 forth in illustrations and parables drawn from the 
 most familiar incidents of every-day life. He did 
 mighty works ; he restored sight to the blind, he 
 raised the dead, but he constantly reminded his 
 hearers that better and greater than these wonders 
 was the practice of the common duties of life, to 
 love our neighbor, to do good to such as despitefully 
 use us. 
 
 In further illustration of this, let us not omit to 
 note the significant declarations which Jesus makes 
 respecting himself. At the beginning of his min- 
 istry he speaks with the authority of a master. He 
 calls on his hearers to give up all that they have 
 and follow him, and he calls in a tone of authority 
 
380 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 which they are constrained to recognize and obey. 
 His relation to them is external. He stands above 
 them as their lord and king. So filled are they 
 with the sense of his superiority that, in their rever- 
 ence, they cast their very garments in the way before 
 him. But when, at the close of his career, he comes 
 to the deepest and truest and most inmost revela- 
 tion of himself, his relation is represented, not as 
 official and external, but as essential and internal. 
 In that wonderful discourse in which he set forth" 
 most adequately the true nature of his spiritual 
 kingdom, he describes himself under the most sim- 
 ple analogies of the natural world. He is the true 
 vine of which they are the branches ; he is the liv- 
 ing bread which is given to them. He is no longer 
 a mere teacher, but he abides in them, and they are 
 made perfect as they abide in him. 
 
 Who can fail to notice the striking analogy be- 
 tween these highest teachings of Jesus and the 
 latest results of our study of the natural world ? 
 As physical science has brought us to the conclu- 
 sion that, back of all the phenomena of the material 
 universe, there lies an invisible universe of forces, 
 and that these forces may ultimately be reduced to 
 one all-pervading force, in which the unity of the 
 physical universe consists, and as philosophy has 
 advanced the rational conjecture that this ultimate, 
 all-pervading force is simply will-force, so the great 
 Teacher holds up to us the spiritual world as per- 
 vaded by one omnipresent life, a life which was 
 revealed in him as its highest manifestation, but 
 which is shared by all who by faith become par- 
 takers of his nature. When we are told that the 
 Word, by whom all things were made, was made 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 381 
 
 flesh and dwelt among us, that the eternal reason 
 abode in human form, we are not only told nothing 
 that science contradicts, but have revealed to us a 
 law of the spiritual world with which all the latest 
 conclusions of science stand up in mighty and im- 
 pressive parallel. 
 
 When we separate Christianity from its mere ex- 
 ternal circumstances, when we strip it of the dress 
 which it wears of necessity as a historical event, 
 related to a particular age and social state, and look 
 at it in its deeper meaning, nothing about it seems 
 to me so striking as this feature of which I now 
 speak. It is a larger and fuller illustration of what 
 nature everywhere shows. For not only does nat- 
 ural religion, considered fairly, make antecedently 
 probable the fact of a revelation ; not only does all 
 that it reveals of the existence and nature of a Su- 
 preme Being, and of man's spiritual aptitudes and 
 wants, prepare us to anticipate a time when man 
 and his Maker would be brought into some closer 
 contact and communion, but all that we learn of the 
 processes of nature, of its progressive evolution, and 
 of the presence of an all-pervading force shaping its 
 phenomena still further prepares us for a revelation 
 which is not a mere system of external laws and or- 
 ^dinances, but a spiritual force dwelling in man, and 
 operating directly upon the human will. 
 
 The last and highest conclusion to which the re- 
 searches of physical science have brought us is that 
 there is a power behind nature making itself mani- 
 fest through all natural phenomena. The highest, 
 and at the same time the simplest, aspect in which 
 Christianity is revealed to us is that of a new spirit- 
 ual power imparted to human society. That stu- 
 
382 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 pendous fact which we term the incarnation was 
 simply this. It was the dwelling in human nature 
 of a divine life and energy, the lifting of man to 
 a higher level of spiritual activity. When Jesus 
 chose for his favorite designation of himself the 
 title " Son of Man," he hinted this great analogy 
 between the natural and the spiritual spheres. As 
 Son of Man he expressed and illustrated the crown- 
 ing result of a human development, for in him hu- 
 manity reached its highest level. Even when as- 
 serting his most intimate relations with the Father, 
 he still spoke of himself as Son of Man. And, as 
 Son of Man, he expressed the further truth that 
 what he claimed for himself he claimed for his fol- 
 lowers. They were his brethren. They, too, had 
 power given them to become sons of God ! The 
 incarnation meant all this. 
 
 We are too much accustomed to look at the 
 manifestation of God in Christ as something excep- 
 tional and apart ; as something having no precedent, 
 or analogy, or hint in any other modes of the divine 
 working. Hence, as too often presented, the doc- 
 trine of the incarnation perplexes human reason. 
 But there is no justification whatever for such a view. 
 Not only is the incarnation in harmony with the 
 method of nature, but it is uniformly described in 
 Scripture as something wholly within the natural 
 course and tendency of things. It was heralded by 
 a long historical preparation ; it is represented as the 
 crowning result of a connected series of social and 
 political changes ; it came in the fullness of times. 
 Everything about it shows that it was part of a pur 
 pose which had long been ripening, realization, in 
 fact, of a plan formed from the foundation of the 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 383 
 
 world. All this, while it does not in the least de- 
 tract from the divine origin or authority of the Son 
 of Man, yet sets him in the line of other historical 
 phenomena, and reveals him, in his highest and 
 truest aspect, as part and parcel of the whole sys- 
 tem of things. 
 
 Hence it seems to me that the mode of conceiv- 
 ing the operations of nature which is most widely 
 accepted to-day, which goes under the general des- 
 ignation of evolution, instead of rendering the great 
 cardinal truths of the gospel less credible, only ren- 
 ders them more credible. Such a revelation of God 
 as is given us in Jesus Christ is precisely the kind 
 of revelation which the methods of divine operation, 
 revealed in nature, would lead us to expect. It is a 
 revelation throughout natural, simple, prepared for, 
 coming as the result of a process, and illustrating in 
 its coming all the antecedent steps and features of 
 that process. The Son of Man did not separate 
 himself from what had gone before, but ever claimed 
 that he was only the complete fulfillment of what the 
 law and the prophets had imperfectly taught. Most 
 of all, the excellence of the gospel consisted in the 
 fact that it was an inner dispensation ; not an out- 
 ward kingdom, not a system of external laws and 
 ordinances, but a spiritual principle working in the 
 soul, like the leaven which a woman took and hid 
 in three measures of meal till the whole was leav- 
 ened. 
 
 But we may trace this close analogy between nat- 
 ural and spiritual methods, not only in the great cen- 
 tral fact of revelation, the manifestation of the eter- 
 nal Word. What is so clearly illustrated at the 
 beginning of the new dispensation is not less clearly 
 
384 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 shown in its whole subsequent history. Not simply 
 in the career of Christ himself, but in all that he 
 teaches respecting the spiritual kingdom which he 
 came to establish, we have the great truth set forth 
 that the natural and the spiritual are not antagonis- 
 tic, but that they proceed according to the same 
 method and illustrate similar laws. As we rise from 
 the realm of nature to the realm of spirit, we do not 
 enter a strange and unfamiliar region. The same 
 divine power is manifest in both, and is manifest in 
 analogous ways of working. In his last sayings to 
 his disciples, the Son of Man most urgently insisted 
 on this truth. When he likened himself to a vine 
 of which, He declared, they were the branches, he 
 hinted to them the nature of that profound law by 
 which the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of 
 spirit are bound together. 
 
 When we look at external nature we are every- 
 where struck with the presence of two great princi- 
 ples, to which all the phenomena of the external 
 world conform. These two, as I have already had 
 occasion repeatedly to remark, are the law of unity 
 and the law of progress. There is, through all the 
 material universe, an organic connection, by virtue 
 of which nothing stands apart and alone, but all 
 things are members one of another ; and precisely 
 as we rise in the scale of being this organic unity 
 and completeness are more apparent. It is by virtue 
 of this organic relation that all the forces of nature 
 are resolved, at last^ into one force. And not less 
 striking is the other law, everywhere manifest, by 
 which the phenomena of nature follow an orderly 
 succession, and constantly rise from a less perfect 
 to a more perfect state. The physical history of 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 385 
 
 creation, so far as the curious eye of science has 
 traced it back, is an illustration of this principle. 
 Each stage of inorganic or organic being has led to 
 another and better, and evolution from a lower to a 
 higher has been the universal law. 
 
 Who can fail to note the fact that, in all that the 
 Son of Man taught respecting the future growth and 
 influence of that gospel which he so aptly likened to 
 a grain of mustard-seed, we have these two princi- 
 ples continually set forth. He made organic unity 
 the fundamental and essential condition of the new 
 dispensation. This unity was set forth under the 
 most expressive figures. Not only was he the true 
 vine, but except his followers should abide in him 
 they could bear no fruit. Christian life was not 
 something sporadic and individual, having its source 
 in the personal conviction of each disciple; it im- 
 plied a real connection with Christ as the head. A 
 spiritual power was promised to dwell in them 
 which proceeded from one source, and should make 
 itself felt in all as one and the same power. In 
 other words, we have here repeated the great princi- 
 ple which physical nature everywhere presents ; and 
 just as back of all the phenomena of nature we have 
 one pervading force, so behind all the varieties of 
 Christian life and of Christian character we have 
 one spiritual power. The truth is no more myste- 
 rious in the one case than in the other. 
 
 Furthermore, as nature shows everywhere a con- 
 stant progress from the lower to the higher, so the 
 Son of Man taught that his kingdom would be gov- 
 erned by the same law. In the very nature of the 
 new dispensation this was involved ; for this new dis- 
 pensation was always described as a new life, and 
 
 *5 
 
386 THE THE IS TIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 the unfailing characteristic of life is progress and 
 growth. When growth stops, decay and death be- 
 gin. The gospel of Jesus was a proclamation of 
 life ; in him was life, and the aim of his coming was 
 that men might have it more abundantly. And he 
 taught, unmistakably, that this life would be pro- 
 gressive, not only in the individual, but in the larger 
 scope and result of history. All the analogies and 
 figures under which the Son of Man describes the 
 future history of his church conform to the great 
 law written on every page of the volume of nature. 
 This new life should pervade human society as 
 leaven leavens the loaf ; it should spread among the 
 nations as a seed grows to be a tree. That pressing 
 toward the mark of an unrealized perfection, which 
 was the characteristic of a genuine disciple, would 
 be, not less the characteristic of the whole body of 
 Christ. 
 
 These truths received their complete expression 
 in the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit. In 
 this doctrine which in its scope and bearings is far 
 too much neglected, we have set forth the permanent 
 relation of divine truth, both to the individual soul 
 and to human society. It reveals the method by 
 which the divine Spirit makes itself effectual in the 
 life of man. According to the latest teachings of the 
 Son of Man, his own personal mission was simply 
 meant as preparatory to another, a higher and a 
 permanent dispensation. His own departure would 
 be the signal for the outpouring of a new spiritual life 
 which would abide with his followers as their organ- 
 izing, directing, and controlling principle. It would 
 be a force behind them, a force working through 
 them, a force making itself manifest in their livea 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 387 
 
 This indwelling life and power would at once sup- 
 ply the pervading principle of unity, by which, 
 though many, they should always remain one, and 
 the principle of progress, by which they should be 
 brought to the mark of their high calling. 
 
 In the doctrine of the Holy Spirit we have, there- 
 fore, the most complete revelation of the harmony 
 of the natural and the spiritual world. Here the 
 methods of physical nature and the methods by 
 which the divine Spirit directly teaches and illumi- 
 nates human souls are made to illustrate and con- 
 firm each other. They are seen to be, not antago- 
 nistic, but harmonious ; and we recognize the same 
 power working in all things and through all things, 
 and bringing all things to pass, whether we look at 
 the works of nature or look at the spiritual life of 
 man. These two revelations lend to each other 
 a convincing and overwhelming support. As we 
 accept in its fullness the Christian doctrine of the 
 Spirit, we shall learn to look on all nature, not as a 
 mass of inert matter, but as everywhere pervaded by 
 a living presence ; and so too, just as much, if we 
 accept the modern conclusions of science respecting 
 the force behind all phenomena, to which organiza- 
 tion and life are due, we shall be disposed to accept 
 the teaching of revelation respecting the work of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 My limits allow me to glance only in the most 
 superficial way at a few aspects of a great and sol- 
 emn theme. Of course in the general idea at the 
 bottom of my discussion there is nothing new. The 
 analogy between the truths of natural and of revealed 
 religion is an old and familiar theme. We have all 
 "earned it from one of the wisest masters of English 
 
388 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 theology. " Men," says Bishop Butler, " are impa- 
 tient and for precipitating things ; but the author of 
 nature appears deliberate throughout his operations, 
 accomplishing his natural ends by slow successive 
 steps. And there is a plan of things beforehand 
 laid out, which, from the nature of it, requires vari- 
 ous systems of means, as well as length of time, in 
 order to the carrying on its several parts into execu- 
 tion. Thus, in the daily course of natural provi- 
 dence, God operates in the same manner as in the 
 dispensation of Christianity : making one thing sub- 
 servient to another ; this to something further ; and 
 so on through a progressive series of means, which 
 extend, both backward and forward, beyond our ut- 
 most view. Of this everything in nature is as much 
 an instance as any part of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion." i 
 
 But the special point on which I insist is this : 
 that this reasoning of Butler, instead of being weak- 
 ened, has been greatly extended and enlarged by 
 the results of modern science. From the obvious 
 course of natural phenomena he reasoned to the 
 more obvious teachings of revelation. What I claim 
 is, that the modified views of nature to which modern 
 science has accustomed us, views which were not 
 accepted in Butler's time, have brought out, in a still 
 more striking manner, the analogy between the 
 methods of nature and the most distinctive and spir- 
 itual teachings of revelation. Modern science rests 
 throughout on realistic assumptions. It tends to 
 recognize in all nature a pervading unity. Behind 
 phenomena it discovers what no phenomena directly 
 reveal. It regards the universe as a process foi 
 
 1 {Analogy, P. II., ch. iv.] 
 
THE INFERENCES FROM THEISM. 389 
 
 which matter cannot account ; and in all this I am 
 glad to welcome a habit of mind, a mode of con- 
 ceiving truth, which, whatever its present attitude, 
 must ultimately tend to harmonize with the highest 
 teachings of revelation. 
 
 And now, at the risk of what may seem to you a 
 wearisome repetition, let me sum up in few words 
 the results of this whole discussion. I have sought 
 to show not only that the rational grounds on 
 which we believe in the existence of God have not 
 been affected by any of the recent conclusions of 
 science, but that these conclusions lead us to a 
 point where this belief is forced upon us with irre- 
 sistible power ; that the new conceptions of nature, 
 with which science makes us familiar, render the 
 presence and constant operation of God a most rea- 
 sonable postulate ; and that the modes of operation 
 on which science insists, instead of making the 
 mind averse to revelation, in reality harmonize 
 with the most distinctive teachings of our holy re- 
 ligion. Whatever the personal attitude of some 
 men of science, the bent and tendency of scientific 
 thought is in a wholesome direction, and can only 
 result in the fuller confirmation of that truth of. 
 which the church is the pillar and ground. 
 
 The term " evolution " need not disturb us in the 
 least. In laying so much stress on this truth mod- 
 ern science simply repeats what was taught by 
 Thomas Aquinas centuries ago, that one increasing 
 purpose runs through the successive stages of cre- 
 ation up to man. The more carefully we study the 
 process of creation, the more profoundly must we 
 be convinced that this mighty process had its ori- 
 
390 THE THEISTIC ARGUMENT. 
 
 gin in mind ; and the more devoutly shall we ac- 
 cept the teaching of Holy Writ, " In the beginning 
 was the Word : " " all things were made by Him, 
 and without Him was not anything made that was 
 made." 
 
INDEX OF NAMES. 
 
 Anselm, 80, 87, 97. 
 
 Aquinas, 389. 
 
 Argyle, Duke of, in, 149, 150, 
 
 1 60, 179. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 320. 
 Austin, J., 106. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 138. 
 Berkeley, 42, 45. 
 Bowen, Prof. F., 14. 
 Buckle, 61, 106, 282, 285. 
 Butler, Joseph, 388. 
 Byron, 71. 
 
 Carpenter, Dr., 221. 
 Channing, W. E., 44. 
 Clark, Dr. S., 83. 
 Comte, 50, 60, 61, 219, 257, 285, 
 286, 336 seq. 
 
 Darwin, 158, 162, 163, 166, 180, 
 181, 188, 189, 195, 199. 
 
 Democritus, 121, 204. 
 
 Descartes, 6, 97, 80, 81, 87, 139, 
 175. 350- 
 
 Epicurus, 121. 
 
 Feuerbach, 332. 
 
 Fiske, J., 17, 195, 240. 
 
 Flint, Prof. R., 74, 77, 106, 148, 
 
 183, 203, 347. 
 Fraser, Prof. A., 44. 
 Froude, J. A., 280. 
 
 Goethe, 10. 
 Gray, A., 167. 
 Guizot, 285. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir W., 97, 244, 310, 
 312. 
 
 Harrison, F., 63. 
 Hartmann, 214 set?., 356 seq. 
 Hegel, 206, 214. 
 Heine, 354. 
 Helmholtz, 146. 
 Heraclitus, 204. 
 Herbert, T. M., 313, 349. 
 Hooker, 106. 
 Homer, 354. 
 
 Hume, 7, 8, 10, 12, 57, 84. 
 Huxley, 6, 9, 61, 181, 182, 220 
 232, 340 seq., 346, 349- 
 
 Janet, 106, 137, 142, 143, 156, 159, 
 160, 185. 
 
 Kant, 45, 46, 48, 57, 76, 85, 220, 
 
 237, 35- 
 Kepler, 103, 108, 109. 
 
 Lamarck, 187. 
 
 La Place, 66, 191. 
 
 Leibnitz, 220, 236. 
 
 Lewes, G. H., 38, 55, 58, 131, 139. 
 
 Locke, 6, 7, 45, 93, 305, 307. 
 
 Lucretius, 130, 156, 166. 
 
 Macaulay, I, 27, 287 seq. 
 
 Mackintosh, Sir J., 8, 286. 
 
 Maine, Sir H., 283. 
 
 Mallock, 21. 
 
 Mansel, H. L., 319. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 354. 
 
 Menander, 354. 
 
 Mill, J. S., 14, 17, 5, S7> 60, 77, 
 
 84,88, 90, 92, 93, 118, 137, 142, 
 
 163, 220. 
 Moliere, 81. 
 Morell, J. D., 9. 
 Mozley, 85, 140. 
 Miiller, John, 143. 
 
392 
 
 INDEX OF NAMES. 
 
 Newman, J. H., 64, 65, 245. 
 Newton, 37, 103, 108, 109, 169, 
 
 177. 
 
 Paley, I, 209. 
 
 " Physicus," 19, 116, 125, 127. 
 
 Porter, N., 136. 
 
 Powell, Baden, 115, 122. 
 
 Schelling, 206, 231. 
 
 Schleiermacher, 206. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 214, 355. 
 
 Shakespeare, 25, 117, 191. 
 
 Shelley, 71. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, 276, 280. 
 
 Socrates, I. 
 
 Spencer, H., 51 seq., 60, 117, 124, 
 
 128, 169, 172, 176, 191, 192 seq., 
 220, 239, 252, 293 seq., 311, 319, 
 323 seq., 350. 
 
 Spinoza, 204, 319. 
 
 Symonds, 71. 
 
 Trelawny, 70. 
 Tyndall, 94, 220. 
 
 Ulpian, 106. 
 
 Vico, 285. 
 Voltaire, 155. 
 Von Holbach, 333. 
 
 Wordsworth, 207. 
 Wright, Chauncey, 33. 
 

 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY