CHAPTER II: THEISM.

THEISM.

Theism is the doctrine of an extra-mundane, personal God, the creator, preserver, and governor of the world. The design of all arguments on this subject is to show that the facts around us, and the facts of consciousness, necessitate the assumption of the existence of such a Being. The arguments usually urged on this subject are the Ontological, the Cosmological, the Teleological, and the Moral. __________________________________________________________________

§ 1. The Ontological Argument.

This is a metaphysical à priori argument. It is designed to show that the real objective existence of God is involved in the very idea of such a Being. It is commonly made to include all arguments which are not à posteriori; that is, which do not proceed from effect to cause. It has, therefore, been presented in different forms. The principal of which are the following: --

1. That in which it is presented by Anselm in his "Monologium," and more fully and definitely in his "Proslogium." The argument is substantially this. That which exists in re is greater than that which exists only in the mind. We have an idea of an infinitely perfect Being; but actual existence is included, in infinite perfection. Because, if actual existence be a perfection, and if God is not actually existent, then we can conceive of a Being greater than God. His words [134] are, "Et certe id, quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest esse in intellectu solo. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et in re, quod majus est. . . . . Existit ergo procul dubio aliquid, quo majus cogitari non valet, et in intellectu et in re." This argument assumes that existence is of the nature of a perfection. It adds, however, nothing to the idea. The idea in itself may be complete, although there be no objective existence to answer to it. Anselm regarded the negation of the existence of God as impossible; for God is the highest truth, the highest being, the highest good, of whom all other truth and good are the manifestations. Necessity of existence is included, according to this doctrine, in the idea or absolute perfection. In other words, it is included in the idea of God. And as every man has the idea of God, he must admit his actual existence; for what is necessary is of course actual. It does not follow from our idea of a man, that he actually exists, because man is not necessarily existent. But it is absurd to say that a necessarily existing Being, does not exist. If this argument has any validity, it is unimportant. It is only saying that what must be actually is. If the idea of God as it exists in every man's mind includes that of actual existence, then so far as the idea goes, he who has the one has the other. But the argument does not show how the ideal implies the real.
[135]

Des Cartes' Argument.

2. Des Cartes' argument was in this form. We have the idea of an infinitely perfect Being. As we are finite, that idea could not have originated with us. As we are conversant only with the finite, it could not have originated from anything around us. It must, therefore, have come from God, whose existence is thus a necessary assumption. "Habemus ideam Dei, hujusque ideæ realitas objectiva nec formaliter nec eminenter in nobis continetur, nec in ullo alio præterquam in ipso Deo potest contineri; ergo hæc idea Dei, quæ in nobis est, requirit Deum pro causa; Deusque proinde existit." [136] It is true we have many ideas or conceptions to which there is no answering existence. But in such cases the ideas are arbitrary, or voluntary creations of our own minds. But the idea of God is necessary; we cannot help having it. And having it, there must be a Being who answers to it. Des Cartes illustrates his argument by saying, that as it is included in our idea of a triangle, that its angles are equal to two right angles, it is so in fact. The cases, however, are not parallel. It is only saying that a triangle is what it is, namely, a three-sided figure, whose angles are equal to two right angles. But the existence of God as a fact is not included in the definition of Him. Kant expresses this in philosophical language, saying that if the predicate be removed, the subject is removed; because an analytic judgment is a mere analysis, or full statement of what is in the subject. The judgment that the angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, is only an analysis of the subject. It is a simple statement of what a triangle is; and therefore, if you take away the equality of the angles, you take away the triangle. But in a synthetic judgment, there is a synthesis, a putting together. Something is added in the judgment which is not in the subject. In this case that something is actual existence. We may infer from the idea of a perfect being, that he is wise and good; but not that he actually is; because reality is something added to the mere idea.

The only difference between the argument of Des Cartes and that of Anselm, appears to be merely formal. The one infers the existence of God, in order to account for the idea; the other argues that actual existence is included in the idea. The same illustration, therefore, is employed by the advocates of both. The argument of Anselm is the same as that derived from the definition of a triangle. You cannot think of a triangle without thinking of it as having three angles; so you cannot think of God without thinking of Him as actually existent; because actual existence enters as essentially into the idea of God, as "triangularity" enters into that of a triangle. There are, doubtless, minds which are affected by this kind of reasoning; but it has no power over the generality of men.

Dr. Samuel Clarke's Argument.

3. Dr. Samuel Clarke, equally distinguished as a mathematician, as a linguist, and as a metaphysician, published in 1705, his celebrated "Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God." So far as the Being of God is concerned his argument is à priori. Nothing, he says, is necessarily existent, the non-existence of which is conceivable. We can conceive of the non-existence of the world; therefore the world is not necessarily existing and eternal. We cannot, however, conceive of the non-existence of space and duration; therefore space and duration are necessary and infinite. Space and duration, however, are not substances; therefore, there must he an eternal and necessary substance (i.e., God), of which they are the accidents. This argument at best gives us only the idea of a necessary and infinite something; which no class of anti-theists are disposed to deny. To determine what this eternal substance is, what attributes belong to it, reference must be made to the phenomenal world, and the argument becomes à posteriori. It has been objected to Dr. Clarke's argument that it is not properly à priori. It infers from the existence of the and space the existence of a substantial Being.

Cousin's Argument.

4. Cousin, in his "Elements of Psychology," repeats continually the same argument in a somewhat different form. The idea of the infinite, he says, is given in that of the finite. We cannot have the one without having the other. "These two ideas are logical correlatives; and in the order of their acquisition, that of the finite and imperfect precedes the other; but it scarcely precedes it. It is not possible for the reason, as soon as consciousness furnishes the mind with the idea of the finite and imperfect, not to conceive the idea of the infinite and perfect. Now, the infinite and perfect is God." [137] Here again the argument is, that that is real of which we have an idea. This is not indeed assumed as a general proposition. We can imagine, says Cousin, a gorgon, or centaur, and we can imagine them not to exist; but it is not in our power, when the finite and imperfect are given, not to conceive of the infinite and perfect. This is not a chimera, he says, it is the necessary product of reason; and, therefore, it is a legitimate product. The idea of the finite and imperfect is a primitive idea, given in the consciousness; and therefore, the correlative, idea of the infinite and perfect given by necessity and by the reason, must also be primitive. [138] At other times he presents this subject in a different light. He teaches that, as the mind in perception takes cognizance of the object as a real existence, distinct from itself, so the reason has an apprehension, or immediate cognition of the Infinite, with a necessary conviction of its reality as distinguished (in one sense) from itself. Self, nature, and God are alike and equally involved in the intuitive apprehension of the mind; and they are inseparable. This is very different from the common doctrine of the knowledge of God as innate, or intuitive. The latter doctrine only assumes that such is the nature of the human soul that it is intuitively convinced of its dependence on, and responsibility to a Being other than, and higher than itself. The former assumes, with the German philosophers, especially Schelling, the immediate cognition of the Infinite by the reason.

Admitting with Cousin that the ideas of the finite and infinite are correlative; that we cannot have the one without having the other; and that the mind by a rational necessity is convinced that if there be a finite, there must be an infinite; it remains to be asked. What that Infinite is? With Cousin, the Infinite is the All. Theism therefore gains nothing from these metaphysical arguments. __________________________________________________________________

[134] Proslogium ii. Opera, Paris, 1721, p. 30 b.

[135] On this argument are Ritter's Geschicte der Christlichen Philosophie, vol. iii, pp. 334-340. Sneed's History of Doctrine, i. pp. 229-237. Baur's Dreieinigkeitslehre ii. 374.

[136] Meditationes de Prima Philosophia prop. ii. p 89, edit. Amsterdam, 1685.

[137] Elements of Psychology, p. 375. Translated by Prof. Henry, New York, 1856.

[138] Page 376. __________________________________________________________________

§ 2. The Cosmological Argument.

This is founded on the principle of a sufficient cause. Syllogistically stated, the argument stands thus: Every effect must have an adequate cause. The world is an effect. Therefore the world must have had a cause outside of itself and adequate to account for its existence.

A. Causation.

The validity and the meaning of this argument, depend on the sense given to the words effect and cause. If an effect be correctly defined to be an event, or product, not due to anything in itself, but produced by something out of itself; and if by cause be understood, an antecedent to whose efficiency the effect is due; then the conclusion is inevitable, that the existence of the world supposes the existence of a cause adequate to its production, provided it can be proved that the world is an effect, i.e., that it is not self-caused or eternal.

It is well known, however, that since Hume propounded his theory, all efficient causes have been discarded by a large class of philosophers. The senses take cognizance of nothing but the sequence of events. One follows another. That which uniformly precedes, we call cause; that which uniformly follows, we call the effect. As sequence is all the senses detect, that is all we have any right to assume. The idea that there is anything in the antecedent which determines the effect to be as it is and no otherwise, is altogether arbitrary. A cause, therefore, is nothing but an invariable antecedent, and an effect an invariable consequent.

Mr. Stuart Mill [139] modified Hume's definition of cause as Dr. Brown of Edinburgh had done before him. The former says, "It is necessary to our using the word cause, that we should believe not only that the antecedent always has been followed by the consequent, but that, as long as the present constitution of things endures, it always will be so." So Dr. Brown [140] says, "A cause in the fullest definition which it philosophically admits of, may be said to be that which immediately precedes any change, and which, existing at any time in similar circumstances, has been always, and will be always immediately followed by a similar change." It is obvious that this definition is not only arbitrary, but that it is inconsistent with the fundamental principles of Hume's philosophy, and that of his followers, namely, that all our knowledge is founded on experience. Experience relates to the past. It cannot guarantee the future. If we believe that a given consequent always will follow a given antecedent, there must be some other ground for that conviction than that it always has done so. Unless there be something in the nature of the antecedent to secure the sequence of the effect, there is no rational ground for the belief that the future must be like the past.

The Common Doctrine on the Subject.

The common doctrine on this subject includes the following points. (1.) A cause is something. It has a real existence. It is not merely a name for a certain relation. It is a real entity, a substance. This is plain because a nonentity cannot act. If that which does not exist can be a cause, then nothing can produce something, which is a contradiction. (2.) A cause must not only be something real, but it must have power or efficiency. There must be something in its nature to account for the effects which it produces. (3.) This efficiency must be adequate; that is, sufficient and appropriate to the effect. That this is a true view of the nature of a cause is plain. (1.) From our own consciousness. We are causes. We can produce effects. And all three of the particulars above mentioned are included in our consciousness of ourselves as cause. We are real existences; we have power; we have power adequate to the effects which we produce. (2.) We can appeal to the universal consciousness of men. All men attach this meaning to the word cause in their ordinary language. All men assume that every effect has an antecedent to whose efficiency it is due. They never regard mere antecedence, however uniform in the past, or however certain in the future, as constituting a causal relation. The succession of the seasons has been uniform in the past, and we are confident that it will continue uniform in the future; yet no man says that winter is the cause of summer. Every one is conscious that cause expresses an entirely different relation from that of mere antecedence. (3.) This view of the nature of causation is included in the universal and necessary belief, that every effect must have a cause. That belief is not that one thing must always go before another thing; but that nothing can occur, that no change can be produced, without the exercise of power or efficiency somewhere; otherwise something could come out of nothing.

This subject is discussed by all the metaphysicians from Aristotle downwards, and especially since the promulgation of the new doctrine adopted by Hume [141] It is one of the great services rendered by Dr. McCosh to the cause of truth, that he has defended the authority of those primary beliefs which lie at the foundation of all knowledge.

Intuitive Conviction of the Necessity of a Cause.

But admitting a cause to be not merely an invariable antecedent, but that to whose power the effect is due, "Ens quod in se continet rationem, cur aliud existat," [142] as it is defined by Wolf, it remains to be asked, What is the foundation of the universal belief that every effect must have a cause? Hume says it is founded on experience, and therefore is limited by it. We see that every effect within the sphere of our observation is preceded by a cause, and we may reasonably expect that the same is true beyond the sphere of our observation. But of this we know nothing. It would be presumptuous to determine from what takes place on our little globe, what must be the law of the universe. The fact that, as far as we see, every effect has a cause, gives us no right to assume that the universe must have had a cause. Kant says that the law of cause and effect is only in our minds. Men view things in that relation; but they have no assurance that that relation holds in the world outside of themselves.

The common doctrine of the schools is, that it is an intuitive truth, a first, or self-evident principle. That is, that it is something which all men do believe, and which all men must believe. There are no self-evident, intuitive truths, if the fact that they have been denied by one or more speculative philosophers be considered proof that they are not matters of universal and necessary belief. Personal identity, the real existence of the external world, the essential distinction between right and wrong, have all been denied. Nevertheless, all men do, and all men must believe these truths. The denial of them is forced and temporary. Whenever the mind reverts to its normal state, the belief returns. So the principle of causation has been denied; yet every man is forced by the constitution of his nature to admit it, and constantly to act upon it. A man may believe that the universe is eternal; but that it began to be without a cause -- that it sprang out of nothing -- it is impossible to believe.

We are reduced, therefore, to this alternative. The universe is. It therefore either has been from all eternity, or it owes its existence to a cause out of itself, adequate to account for its being what it is The theistical argument is, that the world is an effect; that it has not the cause of existence in itself, that it is not eternal, and therefore we are necessitated to assume the existence of a great First Cause to whose efficiency the existence of the universe is to be referred.

B. The World is an Effect.

1. The first argument to prove that the world as a whole is not self-existent and eternal, is, that all its parts, everything that enters into its composition, is dependent and mutable. A whole cannot be essentially different from its constituent parts. An infinite number of effects cannot be self-existent. If a chain of three links cannot support itself, much less can a chain of a million of links. Nothing multiplied by infinity is nothing still. If we do not find the cause of our existence in ourselves, nor our parents in themselves, nor their progenitors in themselves, going back ad infinitum is only adding nothing to nothing. What the mind demands is a sufficient cause, and no approach to it is made by going back indefinitely from one effect to another. We are forced, therefore, by the laws of our rational nature, to assume the existence of a self-existent cause, i.e., a Being endued with power adequate to produce this ever-changing phenomenal world. In all ages thinking men have been forced to this conclusion. Plato and Aristotle argued from the existence of motion, that there must be an aeikineton heauto kinoun, an eternal self-moving power, or primum movens, as it was called by the Schoolmen. The validity of this argument is acknowledged by almost all classes of philosophers, at least so far as to admit that we are forced to assume the existence of an eternal and necessary Being. The theistical argument is, that if everything in the world be contingent, this eternal and necessary Being must be an extramundane First Cause.

B. Historical Argument.

2. The second argument is the historical one. That is, we have historical evidence that the race of man, for example, has existed only a few thousand years. That mankind has existed from eternity is absolutely incredible. Even if we adopt the development theory, it affords no relief. It only substitutes millions for thousands of years. Both are equally insignificant when compared to eternity. Darwin's germ-cell as necessarily demands a self-existing cause out of itself, as a fully developed man, or the whole race of man, or the universe itself. We are shut up to the conclusion that the universe sprang out of nothing, or that there is a self-existing, eternal extramundane Being.

Geological Argument.

3. The geological argument is to the same effect. Geologists as a class agree as to the following facts: (1.) That the extant genera of plants and animals inhabiting our earth, began to be within a comparatively short period in the history of our globe. (2.) That neither experience nor science, neither fact nor reason, justify the assumption of spontaneous generation. That is, there is no evidence that any living organism is ever produced by mere physical causes. Every such organism is either immediately created, or is derived from some other organism having life, already existing. (3.) Genera and species are permanent. One never passes into another. A fish never becomes a bird, nor a bird a quadruped. Modern theorists have indeed questioned these facts; but they still are admitted by the great body of scientific men, and the evidence in their favour is overwhelming to the ordinary mind. If these principles be conceded, it follows that all the extant plants and animals on the earth began to be. And if they began to be, they were created, and therefore there must be a Creator. These considerations are merely collateral. The main argument is the one first mentioned, namely, the absolute impossibility of conceiving either of an infinite succession of contingent events, or of the origin of the universe out of nothing.

C. Objections. Hume's Doctrine.

There are only two objections to this cosmological argument which need be noticed. The one is directed to the principle on which it is founded, and the other to the conclusion drawn from it. Hume begins his "Treatise on Human Nature," by laying down the principle that the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into impressions and ideas. By impressions he means "all our sensations, passions, and emotions, as they make their first appearance in the soul." By ideas is meant "the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning." [143] There can, therefore, be no idea which is not derived from some previous impression. This is the fundamental principle of his whole system. From this it follows that all our knowledge is founded on experience. We have certain impressions made by external things, and certain passions and emotions; these are the only sources of our ideas, and therefore of our knowledge. When [144] he comes to apply this principle to the nature and origin of our idea of causation, he says, all we can know on the subject is that one object or event is contiguous and antecedent to another. This is all we perceive; all of which we can have an "impression." We have no impression of power, efficacy, energy, force, or whatever equivalent term we may choose to use. Therefore, there is no such thing. There is no such thing as efficacy or power either in mind or matter. When we use such words we have, he says, "really no distinct meaning." [145] When we see events or changes in uniform sequence, we get the habit, or, as he says, "we feel the determination," [146] to expect the consequent when we see its accustomed antecedent. Necessity, force, power, efficacy, therefore, are nothing but "a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another." [147] "The necessity of power, which unites causes and effects, lies in the determination of the mind to pass from the one to the other. The efficacy or energy of causes is neither placed in the causes themselves, nor in the Deity, nor in the concurrence of these two principles; but belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the union of two or more objects in all past instances." [148] Hume was fully aware of the paradoxical character of his view of causation and of its far-reaching consequences, although he insisted that his argument in its support was unanswerable. In immediate connection with the preceding quotation, he says: "I am sensible, that of all the paradoxes which I have had, or shall hereafter have, occasion to advance in the course of this treatise, the present one is the most violent, and that 'tis merely by dint of solid proof and reasoning I can ever hope it will have admission, and overcome the inveterate prejudices of mankind" [149] What he calls inveterate prejudices, are really laws of belief which God has impressed on our nature, and which all the sophistry of philosophers can never subvert.

The conclusions which Hume draws from his doctrine show his appreciation of its importance. (1.) It follows, he says, from his principle that there is no difference between causes as efficient, formal, material, exemplary, or final; nor between cause and occasion. (2.) "That the common distinction betwixt moral and physical necessity is without any foundation in nature." "The distinction which we often make betwixt power and the exercise of it, is equally without foundation." (3.) "That the necessity of a cause to every beginning of existence is not founded on any arguments either demonstrative or intuitive." (4.) "We can never have reason to believe that any object exists, of which we cannot form an idea." [150] By this fourth corollary, he has reference to such things as substance, from which we receive no impression, and consequently of which we can have no idea, and therefore cannot rationally believe to exist. The same may be said of God.

In the beginning of the following section, [151] Hume with a boldness almost unparalleled says: "According to the precedent doctrine, there are no objects which, by the mere survey, without consulting experience, we can determine to be the causes of any other; and no objects which we can certainly determine in the same manner not to be causes. Anything may produce anything. Creation, annihilation, motion, reason, volition, all these may arise from one another, or from any other object we can imagine. Nor will this appear strange if we compare two principles explained above, that the constant conjunction of objects determines their causation; and that, properly speaking, no objects are contrary to each other but existence and non-existence. Where objects are not contrary, nothing hinders them from having that constant conjunction on which the relation of cause and effect totally depends."

If there be any such argument as the reductio ad absurdum, surely this theory of Hume refutes itself. (1.) He admits the trustworthiness of consciousness so far as "impressions" are concerned; then how can he reject the intuitions of sense, reason, and conscience? (2.) If we have no knowledge which is not derived from impressions, and no right to believe in the existence of anything of which we have not an idea derived from an impression, then we cannot believe in substance, soul, or God. (3.) For the same reason we cannot believe that there is any such thing as power or efficiency, or any difference between efficient and final causes, i.e., between the expansive force of steam and the intention of the mechanist who makes a steam-engine. (4.) In like manner, we must believe that something can come out of nothing, that there is no reason that what begins to be should have a cause, even an antecedent; and, therefore, that "anything can produce anything," e.g., a human volition, the universe. (5.) He cannot even state his theory without contradicting himself. He speaks of one thing "producing" another. But according to his doctrine there is no such thing as production, because he denies that there is any such thing as power or efficiency.

It is universally admitted that we have no foundation for knowledge or faith, but the veracity of consciousness. This principle must be kept constantly in view, and must be often reiterated. Any doctrine, therefore, which contradicts the facts of consciousness, or the laws of belief which God has impressed on our nature, must be false. If, therefore, it can be shown that there are certain truths which men are constrained by the constitution of their nature to believe, those truths are to be retained in despite of all the arts of sophistry. If, therefore, it be a fact of consciousness that we ourselves are something, an ens, a substance, and that we have power, that we can produce effects, then it is certain that there is such a thing as power, and efficient cause. If, moreover, it be an intuitive and necessary truth that every effect must have a cause, that ex nihilo nihil fit, then it is absolutely certain that if the world began to be, it had an adequate cause of its existence out of itself. And, therefore, if the arguments to prove that the world is not self-existing and eternal be sound, the cosmological argument is valid and conclusive.

The Second Objection.

The other form of objection is directed not against the premises on which the cosmological argument is founded, but against the conclusion which Theists draw from them. It is admitted that something now exists; that nonentity cannot be the cause of real existence; therefore, something must have existed from eternity. It is also admitted that a regressus ad infinitum, or an eternal series of effects, is impossible. There must, therefore, be an eternal, self-existing Being. This is all the cosmological argument fairly proves. It does not prove that this necessary Being is extramundane, much less that it is a personal God. It may be an eternal substance of which things mutable are the phenomena. [152]

The cosmological argument is not intended to prove all that Theists hold to be true concerning God. It is enough that it proves that we must admit the existence of an eternal and necessary Being. Other arguments prove that that Being is self-conscious and intelligent. The argument, moreover, fairly proves that this Being is extramundane; for the principle of causation is that everything contingent must have the cause of its existence out of itself. __________________________________________________________________

[139] Logic, p. 203.
[140] Inquiry, p. 17. Edinburgh, 1818.

[141] See Reid's Intellectual Powers; Stewart's Philosophical Essays; Brown's Inquiry, and Essay on Cause and Effect; Sir William Hamilton's Works; Dr. McCosh's Intuitions of the Mind.

[142] See his Ontologia, II. iii. 2. § 881.

[143] Treatise of Human Nature, Part i. § 1; Works, vol. i. Edinburgh, 1826.

[144] In Part iii. § 14.
[145] Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. p. 216.
[146] Page 219.
[147] Page 219.
[148] Page 220.
[149] Page 220.

[150] Treatise of Human Nature, vol. i. pp. 226-228.

[151] § 15.

[152] See Strauss' Dogmatik, vol. i. p. 382. __________________________________________________________________

§ 3. The Teleological Argument.
A. Its Nature.

This argument also admits of being stated in a syllogistic form. Design supposes a designer. The world everywhere exhibits marks of design. Therefore the world owes its existence to an intelligent author.

By design is intended, -- (1.) The selection of an end to be attained. (2.) The choice of suitable means for its attainment. (3.) The actual application of those means for the accomplishment of the proposed end.

Such being the nature of design, it is a self-evident truth, or, even an identical proposition, that design is indicative of intelligence, will, and power. It is simply saying that intelligence in the effect implies intelligence in the cause.

It is moreover true that the intelligence indicated by design is not in the thing designed. It must be in an external agent. The mind indicated in a book is not in the book itself, but in the author and printer. The intelligence revealed by a calculating machine, or any similar work of art, is not in the material employed, but in the inventor and artist. Neither is the mind indicated in the structure of the bodies of plants and animals, in them, but in Him who made them. And in like manner the mind indicated in the world at large must be in an extramundane Being. There is, indeed, this obvious difference between the works of God and the works of man. In every product of human art dead materials are fashioned and united to accomplish a given end; but the organized works of nature are animated by a living principle. They are fashioned as it were from within outward. In other words, they grow; they are not constructed. In this respect there is a great difference between a house and a tree or the human body. But, nevertheless, in both cases, the mind is external to the thing produced; because the end, the thought, is prior to the product. As the thought or idea of a machine must be in the mind of the mechanist, before the machine is made; so the idea or thought of the eye must be anterior to its formation. "It is a simple and pregnant conclusion," says Trendelenburg, [153] "that so far as design is realized in the world, thought as its ground has preceded it." And this thought, he goes on to say, is not dead, as a figure or model, it is connected with will and power. It is, therefore, in the mind of a person who has the ability and purpose to carry it out. He further says, "tiefsinnige Zweckmässigkeit bewustlos und blind," cannot be imagined, i.e., a blind and unconscious adaptation of means to an end is inconceivable.

As the conviction that design implies an intelligent agent is intuitive and necessary, it is not limited to the narrow sphere of our experience. The argument is not, Every house, ship, telescope, or other instrument or machine, we ever saw had an intelligent maker, therefore we may take it for granted that any similar work of art was not formed by chance or by the operation of blind, unconscious forces. The argument rather is, Such is the nature of design, that it of necessity implies an intelligent agent; and, therefore, where ever, or whenever we see evidence of design we are convinced that it is to be referred to the operation of mind. On this ground we not only authorized, but compelled to apply the argument from design far beyond the limits of experience, and to say: It is just as evident that the world had an intelligent creator, as that a book had an author. If a man can believe that a book was written by chance, or by blind, unconscious force, then, and not otherwise, can he rationally deny the validity of the argument from design in proof of the existence of a personal God.

B. Evidences of Design in the World.

This is a boundless subject. One of the most important and valuable of the "Bridgewater Treatises," the volume by Dr. Charles Bell, is devoted to "The Hand, its mechanism and vital endowments as evincing design." Hundreds of volumes would not be sufficient to exhibit the evidence of the intelligent adaptation of means to an end, which the world everywhere affords. In the few pages now at command all that can be attempted, is an indication of the nature of this evidence. [154]

Design in Single Organs.

1. No work of human art can compare with the nicety and completeness of the separate organs of organized bodies for the purpose for which they are designed. In the eye, for example, there is the most perfect optical instrument constructed in accordance with the hidden laws of light. We find there the only nerve in the body susceptible of the impressions of light and color. That nerve is spread out on the retina. The light is admitted through an orifice in the ball, which opening by the most delicate arrangement of muscles is enlarged or contracted, according to the degree of light which falls on the retina, which enlargement or contraction is not dependent on the will, but on the stimulus of the light itself. Light, however, merely passing through an orifice would make no image of the object from which it was reflected. It is, therefore, made to pass through lenses perfect in form so to refract the rays as to bring them to a proper focus on the retina. If the inner chamber of the eye were white, it would so reflect the rays entering the pupil at every angle as to render vision impossible. That chamber, and that alone, is lined with a black pigment. By a delicate muscular arrangement the eye is enabled to adapt itself to the distance of external objects so that the proper focus may be preserved. These are a small part of the wonders exhibited by this single organ of the body. This organ was fashioned in th darkness of the womb, with a self-evident reference to the nature and properties of light, of which the creature for whose use it was fashioned had neither knowledge or experience. If the eye, therefore, does not indicate the intelligent adaptation of means to an end, no such adaptation can be found in any work of human ingenuity.

The same remarks apply to the ear. In its cavity lies the auditory nerve. A tortuous passage is formed in the bony structure of the skull. The orifice of that passage is covered by a membrane to receive the vibration of the air; on the centre of that membrane rests the termination of a small bone so connected as to convey those vibrations to the only nerve capable of receiving or interpreting them, or of transmitting them to the brain. It is by this organ, constructed according to the recondite principles of acoustics, that our intercourse with our fellow-men is principally kept up; through which the marvels of speech, all the charms of music and eloquence become possible for man.

We cannot live without a constant supply of oxygen, which must every moment be brought to act upon the blood, to vitalize it, and by combining with the carbon it contains fit it for renewed use. The infant, therefore, comes into the world with an apparatus prepared for that purpose. In its formative state, it did not breathe. Yet it had lungs. They were given for a foreseen necessity. Nothing can exceed the intricacy, complication, or beauty of the organ or system of organs thus prepared, for the absolutely necessary and continuous purification of the blood, and for its distribution in an uninterrupted flux and reflux to every part of the body. This process goes on without our supervision. It is as regular during sleep as during our waking hours.

Food is as necessary for our support as air. The unborn infant needs no food. It is included in the circulation of its mother. In the state on which it is soon to enter food will be a necessity. Full provision is made beforehand for its reception and use. Teeth are embedded in the jaw for its mastication; salivary glands to furnish the fluid for its chemical preparation for the stomach; an oesophagus to convey it to the stomach, where it meets with a fluid found nowhere else, capable of dissolving and digesting it. It then comes into contact with a set of absorbent vessels which select from it the elements suited for the wants of the body and reject all the rest. The valuable portion is poured into the blood by which it is distributed, each constituent going to its own place and answering its predestined purpose; carbon to be consumed to keep up the vital heat, lime to the bones, fibrine to the muscles, phosphorus to the brain and nerves.

The child before birth has no need of organs for locomotion or for apprehending external objects. But it was foreseen that it would need them, and therefore they are prepared beforehand. The bones are grooved for the reception of muscles, and have projections for points of support; joints of all kinds, hinge and ball and socket, for the flexure of the limbs; the instruments for motion, the contractile fibres, arranged and attached, according to the strict laws of mechanics, so as best to secure the two ends of symmetry and power. Thus the body is a perfect marvel of mechanical contrivances. The several organs, therefore, of the animal frame, viewed separately, present the most incontestible evidence of foresight, intelligence, and wisdom. This, however, is only a small part of the evidence of design furnished even by the body.

Design in the Relation of one Organ to Another.

2. Every animal is a complete whole. Each part has a designed and predetermined reference to every other part. The organs of sight, hearing, breathing, nutrition, locomotion, etc., are so arranged and adjusted as to answer a common purpose to the best advantage. Besides, these organs, although common to all animals (at least to all above the lowest), are modified in each genus and species to meet its peculiar necessities. If the animal is to live on the land all its organs are adapted to that condition. If it is to live in the water or move through the air, all is prepared beforehand for that destination. And more than this, if one organ be designed for some special use, all the rest are modified in accordance with that purpose. If the stomach is suited for the digestion of flesh, then the teeth, the limbs, the claws, are all adapted to secure and prepare the proper aliment. So complete is the adaptation that the anatomist can determine from a single bone the genus or species to which the animal belonged. Birds which wade in the water have long legs and long necks. Those which float on the surface, have web feet, and feathers impenetrable by water; two things which have causal relation, and which are united by a kind of intelligence external to the animal itself. Birds which fly in the air are fitted for their destiny by hollow bones, wide-spread wings, and great accumulation of muscles on the breast. Those which climb trees have feet and tail adapted for that purpose, and, as in the case of the wood-pecker, a sharp bill for boring the tree and a barbed tongue to seize its food. These modifications of animal structure are endless, all showing an external intelligence cognizant of the necessities of every distinct species.

The Adaptation of the Organs to the Instinct of Animals

3. There is a correspondence between the organs of every animal and the instincts by which it is endowed. Beasts and birds of prey having the instinct to feed on flesh have all the organs requisite to satisfy this inward craving. Those having an instinct for vegetable food, have teeth and stomachs adapted for that purpose. The bee whose body secretes wax, has the instinct to build cells; the spider furnished with the peculiar viscid matter, and apparatus for spinning it, makes a web and watches for its prey. So it is throughout all animated nature. Here then are two very distinct things: instinct and corporeal organs; the instinct cannot account for the organs nor the organs for the instinct; and yet they are never found the one without the other. They of necessity, therefore, imply an intelligence which implants the instinct and furnishes the appropriate organs.

Argument from Prevision.

4. There cannot be a more decisive proof of intelligence than prevision; preparation for an event in the future. The world is full of evidence of such prevision. It is seen not only in the preparation of the organs of sight, hearing, breathing, nutrition, etc. for necessities still future; but still more strikingly in the provision made for the support of young animals as soon as they are born. In the mammalia before the birth of the offspring, the breast or udder begins to swell; it commences the secretion of milk, so that the moment the young animal enters the world he finds prepared the most nutritious and suitable food the world contains. The egg furnishes a still more instructive illustration. It consists of albumen and the yolk. To the yolk is attached a minute germ or cell. When by heat the germ begins to develop, if nourishment were not provided and at hand, it would of necessity perish. But the yolk is there to supply the needed material out of which the future animal is fashioned. If this does not indicate a foreseeing mind and a providing power, then the most skilful productions of human skill and kindness do not prove the intelligence of man, Where then is this intelligence? Not in the parent bird, for it understands nothing about it. Not in mere blind forces of nature. There may possibly be room for question where to place it; but to deny that these provisions indicate an intelligent agency somewhere, is altogether irrational.

Vegetable Organisms.

5. The vegetable kingdom is as full of the indications of benevolent design as the animal. Plants have their organism and their physiology. Their structure, in their organs for growth and reproduction, is quite as marvellous as that of most species of the animal kingdom. They constitute an essential part in the great system of nature, without which there could be no sentient life on our globe. Animals cannot live on inorganic matter. It is the province of the plant to reduce this matter into such a state as to be fit for the support of animal life. If it were not therefore for the functions of the leaf which transmutes the inorganic into the organic, there could be no sentient life on our earth. Is there no design here? Is there no intelligent adaptation of one part of the great system of nature to another?

From the Adaptations of Nature.

6. This leads to another department of the subject. The evidences of design are not confined to the separate organs of the plant or animal; nor to the relations of these organs to each other, nor, in the case of animals, to the instinct which impels to the proper use of those organs; they are to be found just as abundantly in the adaptation of external nature to the necessities of animal and vegetable life. Neither plants nor animals could exist without light, air, heat, water, and soil, to produce the common food of all living things. Who created the light and heat and diffuses them over the whole earth? Who made the sun from which they radiate? Who constituted the atmosphere with its chemical adjustments, precisely what is necessary for the support of life, everywhere and always the same, and poured it round our globe? How is it that water at a certain temperature evaporates, rises in mist, is gathered into clouds, is carried everywhere by the winds, and falls in rain to fertilize the earth? The eye supposes light, as the lungs suppose air; the appetite of hunger supposes food, and the power of digestion. Food supposes soil, light, heat, and water. Surely this is one great system. There is unity and mutual relation in all its parts. It must have had one author, and He must be infinite in intelligence and goodness.

All living Creatures on the Earth have Organic Relations.

7. The design indicated in nature is, however, not confined to the individual organisms and to their relations to the world around them, but it has in the progress of science been discovered, that the whole vegetable and animal world has been constructed on one comprehensive plan. As there is a relation of one organ of a given plant or animal to all others and to the whole, so the whole race of plants, and the whole race of animals are related. There are certain typical forms of which all the infinite variety of plants are modifications; and certain other types of which the innumerable genera, species, and varieties of animals are only modifications; and these modifications are precisely of the kind to suit each species for its end, and for the circumstances in which it is to live. So obviously is this the case that Professor Agassiz's "Essay on Classification," is, to say the least, as strong an argument for the being of God as any of the "Bridgewater Treatises." And it is so regarded by its illustrious author. On page 10 of his "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States," he says, "I know those who hold it to be very unscientific to believe that thinking is not something inherent in matter, and that there is an essential difference between inorganic and living and thinking beings. I shall not be prevented by any such pretensions of a false philosophy from expressing my conviction that as long as it cannot be shown that matter or physical forces do actually reason, I shall consider any manifestation of thought as evidence of the existence of a thinking Being as the author of such thought, and shall look upon an intelligent and intelligible connection between the facts of nature as direct proof of the existence of a thinking God, as certainly as man exhibits the power of thinking, when he recognizes their natural relation."

Evidence that the Earth was designed for Man.

8. It is not only, however, the living organisms inhabiting our earth, which exhibit such evidence of an intelligent creator, but also the earth itself. If a father, who when he provides a home for his children, fits it up with all the necessities and all the luxuries which they can possibly need, gives indisputable evidence of intelligence and love, then are those attributes to be ascribed to Him who fitted up this world to be the home of his creatures. This is seen, as already intimated, in the constitution of the atmosphere, in the distribution of light and heat, of electricity and magnetism, in the establishment of those laws which secure the regular succession of the seasons, in the preparation of soil by the disintegration of rocks, the falling of rain, the deposition of dew which falls gently with life-giving power on the thirsty earth; in innumerable other provisions and dispositions of the forces of nature without which neither vegetable nor animal life could be sustained. There are many special provisions of this kind which fill the mind with gratitude and wonder. It is a general law that bodies contract as they become colder. Water, however, when it freezes expands and becomes lighter. If it were not for this benevolent exception to the general law, not only would the inhabitants of all our rivers perish, but the greater part of the temperate zone would be uninhabitable. It is no answer to this argument to say that there are a few other exceptions to this law. We may not know the final cause why bismuth should expand on cooling; but this does not prevent our knowing why ice is made lighter than water. Our not understanding one sentence in a book, does not prove that it has no meaning, nor that we cannot understand another sentence.

The whole configuration of the earth, its position in relation to the sun, and the inclination of its axis, are obviously intended to render it a suitable residence for the creatures by which it is inhabited. Their well-being depends on the distribution of land and water on its surface; on the elevation of its mountain ranges and plateaus, and on the ocean currents which are determined by the configuration of its coasts. If North and South America were not connected by the narrow Isthmus of Darien, Great Britain and the northwestern portions of Europe would be uninhabitable. They owe the moderate temperature which they enjoy to the immense body of warm water, which is prevented by that Isthmus from flowing into the Pacific, being floated in a northeasterly direction across the Atlantic. When we see such benevolent arrangements among men, we refer them instinctively and by a rational necessity to a benevolent and intelligent agent. No rational ground exists for refusing to ascribe like arrangements in nature to a similar source. Is it any more an evidence of prudent or benevolent foresight that a man should store away abundant fuel for himself or others, knowing that winter is approaching, than that God has laid up inexhaustible stores of coal in the bowels of the earth, for the use of his children on the earth?

Cosmical Arrangements.

9. The argument for design founded on cosmical arrangements is so vast a subject that it seems absurd even to refer to it, in a single paragraph. The simple facts are, that our globe is one of eight primary planets which revolve round the sun. The most distant of these planets is some three thousand millions of miles from the central luminary. These planets all move in the same direction, in nearly circular orbits, in nearly the same plane, and with so equable a motion that each performs its revolutions in the proper time. The stability of the system depends on these circumstances. To secure these results matter must attract matter according to its quantity and the square of its distance. The central body must be of such mass as to hold the planets in their course. The centrifugal and centripetal forces must be exactly balanced, to prevent the planets from flying off into space, or falling into the sun. Each planet must have been projected with a precise definite velocity to secure its orbit being nearly a circle, rather than any other curve. The central body alone, in accordance with the evident plan, is luminous and heat-producing. All the others are opaque and cold. These are facts, which Sir Isaac Newton says he is "forced to ascribe to the counsel and contrivance of a voluntary agent." [155] Since the time of Newton, indeed, it has been the commonly received theory that the planets were at one time fluid, highly heated, and luminous; and that they have become opaque in the process of cooling. But this only puts the argument one step back. The fact is that a most wonderful and beneficent result has been accomplished. The question How? is of minor importance. It is the beneficence of the result which indicates mind, and this indication of mind implies a "voluntary agent."

Our solar system itself, therefore, is vast, varied, and well ordered. Our system, however, is one of probably hundreds of millions. At least astronomers assert their knowledge of a hundred million of suns, some of which are incalculably larger than ours. Sirius is calculated to shine with a light equal to two hundred and fifty of our suns; Alcyone with that of twelve thousand suns. The nearest of these stars is separated from the outer planet of our system twenty-one billions of miles. These millions of stars are not scattered equally through space, but are gathered into groups, the members of which bear an obvious relation to each other.

Besides these systems in which planets are assumed to revolve around suns, there are others in which suns revolve around suns, at distances proportioned to their magnitude. The light emanating from these great luminaries is of different colors, white, red, blue.

Then more distant in space float the unresolved nebulæ. Whether these nebulæ are vast continents of stars too distant to be distinguishable, or cosmical matter in a formative state, is still an open question with astronomers. Two thousand have been counted in the northern hemisphere, and one thousand in the southern. They assume every variety of form; some are spherical, some fan-shaped, some spiral, some in circular rings. It is estimated that the light of some of the stars has been many thousand years in reaching our earth, although travelling at the rate of more than ten millions of miles a minute.

Throughout this vast universe order reigns. In the midst of endless variety, there is unity. The same laws of gravitation, of light, and of heat everywhere prevail. Confusion and disorder are the uniform result of chance or blindly operating forces. Order is the sure indication of mind. What mind! what wisdom! what power! what beneficence! does this all but infinite universe display!

"The result of our whole experience," said Sir Gilbert Eliot, writing to Hume himself, "seems to amount to this: -- There are but two ways in which we have ever observed the different parcels of matter to be thrown together, -- either at random, or with design and purpose. By the first, we have never seen produced a regular complicated effect, corresponding to a certain end; by the second, we uniformly have. If, then, the works of nature and the productions of men resemble each other in this one general characteristic, will not even experience sufficiently warrant us to ascribe to both a similar, though proportionable, cause." [156]

This argument from design is constantly urged in the Old Testamcnt, which appeals to the heavens and the earth as revealing the being and perfections of God. The Apostle Paul says that the living God, who made heaven and earth, and the sea and all that is therein, hath not left himself without a witness. (Acts xiv. 15-17.) He demonstrated to the Athenians the nature of God from his works and from our relation to him as his offspring. (Acts xvii. 23-31.) To the Romans he said that the eternal power and Godhead of the Supreme Being, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. (Rom. i. 20.) The ancient philosophers drew the same conclusion from the same premises. Anaxagoras argued that nous, mind, must be admitted as controlling everything in the world, because everything indicates design. Socrates constantly dwells on this as the great proof of the being of God. Cicero [157] says that it is as impossible that an ordered world could be formed by the fortuitous concurrence of atoms, as that a book should be composed by the throwing about letters at random. Trendelenburg,
[158] after referring to that passage, says: "It is perhaps more difficult to assume, that by the blind combination of chemical and physical elements and forces, any one even of the organs of the body should be formed, -- the eye, for example, so clear, sharp, and all-seeing, -- much less the harmonious union of organs which make up the body, than that a book should be made by chance, by throwing types about."

Philo presents the argument in its simplest syllogistic form. "No work of art is self-made. The world is the most perfect work of art. Therefore, the world was made by a good and most perfect Author. Thus we have the knowledge of the existence of God." [159] All the Christian fathers and subsequent theologians have reasoned in the same way. Even Kant, although denying its conclusiveness, says that the teleological argument should always be treated with respect. It is, he says, the oldest, the clearest, and the best adapted to the human mind. __________________________________________________________________

[153] Log. Untersuchungen, 2d edit. Leipzig, 1862, vol. ii. p. 28.

[154] It may be well to give the titles of the valuable series of the Bridgewater Treatise devoted to this subject, besides the work of Dr. Bell mentioned in the text. The volumes are, The Adaption of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constituion of Man, by Dr. Thomas Chalmers; On the Adaption of External Nature to the Physical Constitution of Man, by John Kidd; Astronomy and General Physics treated in Reference to Natural Theology, by William Whewell; Animal and Vegetable Physiology considered in Reference to Natural Theology, by Peter Mark Roget; Geology and Mineralogy considered in Reference to Natural Theology, by William Buckland; The Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation of Animals, by William Kirby; Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion considered in Reference to Natural Theology, by William Prout. The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, by C. Babbage; Footprints of the Creator, by Hugh Miller; Théologie de la Nature, by H. Durkheim (1852, 3 vols. 8vo.); Butler's Analogy of Religion and Nature; Paley's Natural Theology; Dr. McCosh's Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation; Dr. James Buchanan's Faith in God and Modern Atheism compared, 2 vols. 3vo; and Dr. John Tulloch's (Principal of St. Mary's College, St. Andrew's) Theism; The Witness of Reason and Nature to an All-Wise and Beneficient Creator, may also be mentioned.

[155] Newton's First Letter to Bentley, quoted by Tulloch, Theism, edit. N.Y. 1855, p. 109.

[156] Dr. Buchanan's Analogy a Guide to Truth and an Aid to Faith, edit. Edinburgh, 1864, p. 414.

[157] De Natura Deorum, ii. 37.
[158] Logische Untersuchungen, vol. ii. p. 64.

[159] De Monarchia, i. § 4, edit. Leipsig, 1828, vol. iv. p. 290. __________________________________________________________________

§ 4. Objections to the Argument from Design.
A. The Denial of Final Causes.

The doctrine of final causes in nature must stand or fall with the doctrine of a personal God. The one cannot be denied without denying the other. And the admission of the one involves the admission of the other. By final cause is not meant a mere tendency, or the end to which events either actually or apparently tend; but the end contemplated in the use of means adapted to attain it. The contemplation of an end, is a mental act. The selection and use of means adapted to attain such end, are both intelligent and voluntary acts. But an intelligent voluntary agent is a person. [160] In other words, the use of means to accomplish a contemplated end is a function of personality, or at least of intelligent agency.

Such being the nature of final causes, they are of course denied, (1.) By the positivist, who believes nothing but facts of which the senses take cognizance; and who admits of no other causation than regularity of sequence. As efficiency, intention, and mind are not perceived by the senses, they are not, and cannot be philosophically admitted. (2.) By those who, while they admit such a thing as force, and, therefore, in that sense, a cause, allow of no distinction between physical, vital, and mental causes, or forces; and who maintain that the one can be resolved into either of the others. The advocates of this theory make thought a product of the brain; and have as their watch-word, "Ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke." Of course phosphorus must be before thought, and therefore there can be no final cause in the production of phosphorus, or of anything else. (3.) Final causes are denied by those who regard the universe as the development of the infinite Being under the operation of necessary law. Of that Being no intelligence, consciousness, or will can be predicated. Consequently there can be no preconceived design to be accomplished, either by the universe as a whole, or any of its parts. According to Spinoza, therefore, final causes are "humana figmenta et deliria."

If you should ask a peasant, where a tree or the body of an animal came from, he would probably answer, "Why, it grew." That for him is the final fact. And so it is for all the advocates of the above-named theories. Thus it is that extremes (the peasant's thought and the savant's theory) meet. What more, what deeper thought is found in the words of Stuart Mill than in the peasant's answer, when the logician says: "Sequences entirely physical and material, as soon as they had become sufficiently familiar to the human mind, came to be thought perfectly natural, and were regarded not only as needing no explanation themselves, but as being capable of affording it to others, and even of serving as the ultimate explanation of things in general." [161]

B. Objections of Hume and Kant.

Hume's answer to the argument from design, or final causes, is, that our knowledge is limited by experience. We have often seen houses, ships, engines, and other machines made, and therefore, when we see similar products of human skill we are authorized to infer that they too were constructed by an intelligent author. But the world belongs to an entirely different category; we have never seen a world made; and therefore we have no rational ground for assuming that this world had a maker. "When two species of objects," says Hume, [162] "have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one whenever I see the existence of the other, and this I call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art, like the human, because we have experience of it? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient surely that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance." What experience teaches is that design implies intelligence; i.e., that we never see the adaptation of means to an end without having evidence that such adaptation is the work of an intelligent agent. And, therefore, even under the guidance of experience we infer that wherever we see design, whether in nature or in art, there must be an intelligent agent. But experience is not the ground or limit of this conviction. It is an intuitive truth, self-evident from its nature, that design cannot be accounted for on the ground of chance or necessity. Let any man try to persuade himself that a watch is the product of chance, and he will see how futile is the attempt.

Kant presents substantially the same objection as Hume when he says that the concatenation of cause and effect is confined to the external world, and therefore that it is illogical to apply the principle of causation to account for the existence of the external world itself. He further objects that the evidences of design in nature would prove only a demiurgus, or world-builder, and not an extramundane God. It is further urged against the sufficiency of the teleological argument, that even if it proved the author of the world to be distinct from it, it would not prove him to be infinite, because the world is finite, and we cannot infer an infinite cause from a finite effect.

Answer to the Objections.

In answer to these objections it may be remarked that what the argument from design is intended to prove, and what it does prove, is, (1.) That the Author of the universe is an intelligent and voluntary agent. (2.) That He is extramundane and not merely the life, or soul of the world, for the design is shown not simply or chiefly by the moulding of organized bodies by a principle acting from within outward; but by the adaptation of things external to such organisms, to their various necessities; and by the disposition and orderly arrangement of immense bodies of matter, separated by millions, or even billions of miles. (3.) The immensity of the universe through the whole of which design is manifest, proves that its cause must be adequate to the production of such an effect; and if the effect be, as it is to us, incomprehensibly great, the cause must be so also. And incomprehensibly great and infinitely great, are practically equivalent. But besides, the cosmological argument proves that God is not only maker, but creator. And creation implies the possession of infinite power. Not only because the difference between existence and non-existence is infinite, but because in Scripture creation is always represented as the peculiar work of the infinite God. So far as we know all creature power is limited to self-action, or to the more or less limited control of what already exists.

What has already been said may be a sufficient answer to the objection that while design does indeed prove intelligence, yet that intelligence may be in matter itself, or in nature (a vis insita), as in the soul of the world. These points, as they are generally presented, concern more properly the relation of God to the world, than his existence. They involve the admission of the existence of an intelligence somewhere, adequate to account for all the phenomena of the universe. They involve consequently the denial that these phenomena are to be referred either to chance, or the action of mere physical laws. Where that intelligence is placed, is not the question. Wherever placed it must be a person; and not merely an unintelligent force acting according to necessary law. For the evidence of voluntary action and of benevolence is as clear as that of intelligence. And the considerations already urged prove that this voluntary, intelligent Being must be extramundane; a conclusion which is rendered still more evident from our relation to Him as responsible and dependent.

C. Miscellaneous Objections.

1. It is objected that both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms there are malformations, abnormal productions, which are inconsistent with the idea of the control of an infinite intelligence. This is at best merely an argument from our ignorance. Admitting that there are in nature some things which we cannot account for, this does not invalidate the argument drawn from the innumerable cases of benevolent design. If Mr. Babbage's calculating machine should once in many million of times present the wrong number, this would not prove that there was no intelligence manifested in its construction. It is not necessary even to assume that such apparently irregular action is to be referred to the imperfection of the machine. For what we know, its maker may have a reason for such action, which we cannot discover. In every extended piece of music, discords here and there occur, which pain the ear, and which those unskilled in music cannot account for, but which the competently instructed perceive are taken up and resolved into a higher harmony. If a prince should give us a chest containing millions in coin and jewels, we should not question his kind intention, even should we find among them a spurious dime for whose presence we could not account. It would be insane to reject the Bible with all its sublime and saving truths, because there may be in it a few passages which we cannot understand, and which in themselves seem inconsistent with the perfection of its author. No man refuses to believe in the sun and to rejoice in its light because there are dark spots on its surface for which he cannot account. Ignorance is a very healthful condition of our present state of being.

Useless Organs.

2. A second objection of much the same kind is founded on the fact that we find members in organized bodies for which they have no use. For example, men have mammæ; the whale has teeth which are never developed and which the animal does not need; animals have bones which they never use; birds and crocodiles have their skulls formed of separate bones as well as viviparous animals, although in their case there seems to be no utility in such arrangement. Even Professor Owen urges this objection. In his work on "Limbs," [163] he says, "I think it will be obvious that the principle of final adaptation fails to satisfy all the conditions of the problem. That every segment and almost every bone which is present in the human hand and arm should exist in the fin of the whale," where they are not needed, does not appear consistent with the principle. Again, in another place, he says, [164] "The cranium of the bird, which is composed in the adult of a single bone, is ossified from the same number of points as in the human embryo, without the possibility of a similar purpose being subserved thereby, in the extrication of the chick from the fractured egg-shell . . . . These, and a hundred such facts force upon the contemplative anatomist the inadequacy of the teleological hypothesis."

On this it may be remarked: (1.) That the objection bears only on the individual organism of plants or animals, whereas the evidences of design are scattered over the whole universe. (2.) This objection also is founded on our ignorance. The argument is that because we cannot see the reason for a certain arrangement, no such reason exists. (3.) It takes the lowest view of utility, namely, that which contemplates the immediate wants of the individual organism. Things which are not needed for its necessities may answer a much higher end. In a great building use is not the only end contemplated; there are symmetry and unity, æsthetic ends of as much value as mere comfort or convenience. Scientific men have demonstrated that all animals are in their structure only modifications of four typical forms. These forms are preserved in all the genera and species included under these general classes. The presence therefore, of these characteristic features of the type, even where not needed for the individual, serve to indicate the unity of the plan on which the whole animal kingdom is constructed We must remember that what we do not see, cannot disprove the realty of what we do see.

Instinct.

3. A third objection is sometimes derived from the operations of Instinct. Instinct, according to Dr. Reid, is "a natural blind impulse to certain actions, without having any end in view, without deliberation, and very often without any conception of what we do."
[165] Dr. Whately also says: "An instinct is a blind tendency to a mode of action independent of any consideration on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads." Paley defines it to be "a propensity prior to experience and independent of instruction." [166] The argument is that as "a blind impulse" contemplating no end, effects all the marvellous contrivances which we see in the works of irrational animals, similar contrivances in nature cannot prove intelligence in the author of nature. The answer to this argument is: --

1. That it is founded on a wrong definition of instinct. It is not a blind impulse. It is that measure of intelligence given to animals which enables them to sustain their lives, to continue their race, and to answer the necessities of their being. Within certain limits this form of intelligence, both in man and in irrational animals, acts blindly. The impulse which leads the young of all animals to seek their nourishment in the appropriate way and in the proper place, is no doubt blind. The same is also probably true of the impulse which leads many animals to make provision in summer for the necessities of winter. Neither can it be supposed that the bee has always and everywhere constructed its cell according to the nicest mathematical principles, under the guidance of an intelligent apprehension of those principles. These operations which are performed without instructions, and always from age to age in the same way, indicate a guidance which may be called blind in so far that those under its influence do not devise the plan on which they act, although they may know the end they have in view. But the intelligence of animals goes far beyond these narrow limits. Not only does the beaver construct his dam according to the nature of the locality and the force of the stream on which he fixes his habitations, but we constantly see it, as well as other animals, varying its mode of operation to suit special emergencies. Instinct, therefore, as designating the principle which controls the action of irrational animals, is not blind, but intelligent. It admits of the contemplation of an end, and of the selection and application of means appropriate for its accomplishment. Even admitting, therefore, that the intelligence manifested in nature is of the same kind as that manifested by animals, yet the difference in degree is infinite.

2. No measure, however, of intellect of the grade or character of instinct is sufficient to account for the phenomena of the universe. Instinct is concerned with the wants of individual organism. But who adapts the organs of an animal to its instincts? Who adapts external nature, air, light, heat, water, food, etc., etc., to its necessities? What relation has instinct to the stellar universe?

3. Moreover, these instincts themselves are among the phenomena to be accounted for. If they are blind impulses, can they be accounted for, in all their variety and in all their accommodation to the nature and wants of animals, by a blind impulse pervading all things? The fact is that the adaptation of external nature to the instincts of the different classes of animals, and of their instincts to external nature, affords one of the most convincing proofs of an intellect exterior to both, and ordering the one in relation to the other.

4. It is to be remembered, although the topic of a separate argument, that the soul of man with all its wonderful powers and capacities, intellectual, moral, and religious, is one of the facts to be accounted for. To trace the existence of the soul of man to "a blind impulse," is to assume that the effect immeasurably transcends its cause, which is assuming an effect without a cause.

5. All these objections take for granted the eternal existence of matter, and the eternity of physical forces. As these are, they must have existed from eternity, or have begun to be. If they began to be they must have had a cause outside of themselves. That cause cannot be nonentity. It must be a self-existing, eternal substance, having the intelligence, power, will, and benevolence adequate to account for the universe and all that it contains. That is, the cause of the universe must be a personal God. __________________________________________________________________

[160] This is in accordance with the accepted theological definition of a person as a "suprositum intelligens."

[161] Logic, edit. London, 1851, vol. i. pp. 366.

[162] "Dialogues on Natural Religion," Works, edit. Edinburgh, 1826, vol. ii. p. 449.

[163] Page 39.
[164] Homologies, p. 73.

[165] Active Powers, III. i. 2, vol. iv. p. 48: edit. Charlestown, 1815.

[166] Natural Theology, chap. xviii. __________________________________________________________________

§ 5. The Moral, or Anthropological Argument.
A. Nature of the Argument.

As the image of the sun reflected from a mirror, or the smooth surface of a lake, reveals to us that the sun is, and what it is; so the soul of man, just as clearly, and just as certainly, reveals that God is and what He is. The reflection of the sun does not teach us everything that is true concerning that luminary; it does not reveal its internal constitution, nor tell us how its light and heat are maintained from age to age. In like manner the soul, as the image of God, does not reveal all that God is. In both cases, and equally in both cases, what is revealed is true, that is, trustworthy.

It answers to the objective reality. As we know that the sun really is what its reflection represents him as being, so we know that God is what the nature of the human soul declares Him to be. Doubt in the one case is just as unreasonable, and we may say, just as impossible as in the other.

It has been shown in the preceding chapter that every human has in his own nature the evidence of the existence of God, an evidence which never can be obliterated, and which will force conviction on the most unwilling. It is no less true that every man has in himself the same irresistible evidence that God is an extramundane personal Being; that He is intelligent, voluntary, and moral; that He knows; that He has the right to command; and that He can punish and can save.

It may naturally be asked, If this be so; if every man has in his own nature a witness whose competency he cannot question, and whose testimony he cannot ignore, What is the use of arguing about the matter? For three reasons, first, because even self-evident truths are often denied; and secondly, because men, in their present moral state, are under a strong temptation to deny the existence of a holy and just God; and thirdly, because efforts are constantly made to pervert or contradict the testimony of our nature to the existence and nature of God.

B. Argument from the Existence of the Mind.

Every man has in his own consciousness the evidence of the existence of mind. He knows that he is an intelligent, personal being. He knows that his personality does not reside in his body, but in his soul. It is included in the facts of consciousness that the soul and body are distinct, that they are different substances having not only different but incompatible attributes. That such is the general conviction of men is plain from all languages recognizing the distinction; and from the fact that it is never denied except by speculative or theoretical writers. The common consciousness of men as revealed by their forms of speech, and by their avowals, and by the universal belief, in some form, of a state of conscious existence after death, bears witness to the truth that the soul is something different from, and far superior to the body. How is the existence of this immaterial, thinking, immortal substance which we call self, to be accounted for? That it has not always existed is undeniable. If it began to be, it must have the cause of its existence out of itself. That cause cannot be the soul of the parent, for that also is an effect. It began to be. And it is universally admitted that an infinite series of effects is unthinkable. If the soul cannot be accounted for by derivation in unending series of steps from those who preceded us, neither can it be conceived of as a product of the body, or of physical forces and combinations. It would seem to be a self-evident proposition, that the effect cannot contain in it more than is in its cause; that intelligence cannot be the product of what is unintelligent. This also is confirmed by all experience.

We are conversant in our present state, first, with matter, with its properties and laws or forces; secondly, with vegetable life; thirdly, with animal life; and fourthly, with mind, endowed with a life of a much higher order. These different elements, or kinds of existence, although marvellously combined and intermingled, are distinct. As a fact of experience, mere matter with its physical forces never originates vegetable life; vegetable life of itself never originates or passes over into animal life; and animal life never originates, and is never developed into intellectual or spiritual life. There is an impassable gulf between these several departments of being. As soon as the principle of life leaves a plant or animal, the physical forces belonging to matter work its dissolution. These are facts indelibly impressed on the convictions of the mass of mankind. They are conclusions to which universal experience has led the minds of all men. They are indeed denied by certain scientific men; but the theory on which that denial is founded involves the denial of so many intuitive and necessary truths; it does such violence to the laws of belief impressed upon our nature, and on the validity of which all knowledge depends, that it can never be more than a precarious and temporary belief on the part of those who adopt it, and can never have control over the minds of men. This is not the place to enter upon the discussion of the theory of materialism. We have a right to appeal to the general conviction of mankind that mind cannot be the product of matter. If this be so, as our minds are not self-existent and eternal, it must be true, as even the heathen believed, that our spirits owe their existence to Him who is the Father of spirits.

C. From the Nature of the Soul.

There are two laws, or general facts, which seem to characterize all the works of nature. By nature is here meant all things out of God. The first of these laws is, that whatever capacities, necessities, or desires exist, or are found in any organism, adequate provision is made to meet and satisfy them all. This is obviously true with regard to the vegetable world. Plants have organs for the selection of the materials necessary for their growth and maturity, from the soil; organs for the absorption of carbon from the atmosphere; the capacity of being appropriately affected by light and heat; organs of propagation designed for the continuance of each after its kind. All these necessities are met. Soil, atmosphere, light, heat, and water, are all provided. The same is no less true with regard to the animal world in all its endless variety of forms. Food, light, heat, air, and water, are suited to their several necessities to their organs, and to their instincts. If they have the appetite of hunger, they have organs for the appropriation of their food, and for its digestion; the instinct for its selection, and food suited to each, is ever at hand. So of all the other necessities of their nature.

The second law, or general fact is, that all these living organisms reach perfection, and fully accomplish the end of their being. That is, they become all they are capable of being. All that belongs to their nature is fully developed. All their capacities are fully exercised, and all their wants fully satisfied.

These two things are true of every living creature within the compass of human knowledge, except Man. So far as his body is concerned, they are true in regard to him also. His physical necessities are all met by the present circumstances of his being. His body becomes all that it is capable of being, in this stage of existence. But these things are not true with regard to his soul. It has capacities which are not fully developed in this world, and never can be. It has desires, aspirations, and necessities for which the world does not furnish the appropriate objects. It is, therefore, as evidently designed and adapted for a higher and spiritual state of existence, as his body is adapted to the present order of things. The soul of man has, in the first place, intellectual powers capable of indefinite expansion, which in this world never reach their utmost limit. With these is connected a desire of knowledge which is never satisfied. In the second place, the soul of man has a capacity for happiness which nothing in the world, nor the whole world could it be attained, can by possibility fill. The animal is satisfied. Its capacity for happiness is here fully provided for. In the third place, the soul has aspirations to which nothing in this life corresponds. It longs for fellowship with what is far above itself; what is boundless, and eternal. In the fourth place, with all these powers, desires, and aspirations, it is conscious of its weakness, insufficiency, and dependence. It must have an object to worship, to love, to trust; a Being who can satisfy all its necessities, and under whose guardianship it can be safe from those powers of evil to which it knows that it is on all sides and at all times exposed; a Being whose existence, and whose relation to itself, can explain all the mysteries of its own being, and secure its felicity in the future, on which it knows it must soon enter. Just as certainly as hunger in the animal supposes that there is food adapted to still its cravings, so certainly does this hunger of the soul suppose that there is some Being in the universe to satisfy its necessities. In both cases the craving is natural, universal, and imperative.

It cannot be that man is an exception to the laws above-mentioned; that he alone, of all that lives, has capacities, desires, necessities, for which no provision has been made. God is the correlative of man, in the sense that the existence of such a creature as man necessitates the assumption of such a Being as God.

D. From the Moral Nature of Man.

The familiar facts of consciousness on this subject are, --

1. That we have, by the constitution of our nature, a sense of right and wrong; we perceive or judge some things to be right, and others to be wrong. This perception is immediate. As the reason perceives some things to be true, and others false; and as the senses take immediate knowledge of their appropriate objects, so the soul takes immediate cognizance of the moral character of feelings and acts. The reason, the senses, and the conscience are alike infallible within certain limits, and liable to error beyond those limits.

2. Our moral perceptions or judgments are sui generis. They have their peculiar, distinctive character, which belongs to no other of our states of consciousness. The right is as distinct from the true, the proper, the agreeable, or the expedient, as these latter are from our sensations. The right is that which we are bound to do and to approve; the wrong is that which we are bound to avoid and to disapprove. Moral obligation, as expressed by the word "ought," is a simple and primary idea. It can be understood only by those who have felt it. And it can be confounded with nothing else.

3. These moral judgments are independent. They are not under the control of the understanding of of the will. No man can will to regard an axiom as false, or think that black is white, or white black. Nor can any sophistry of the understanding lead him to such false judgment. In like manner, no man can will to believe that to be right which his conscience tells him to be wrong; nor can he argue himself into the conviction that he has done right, when his conscience tells him he has done wrong.

4. Our moral judgments, or, in other words, the conscience, has an authority from which we cannot emancipate ourselves. We can neither deny nor ignore it. It has a lordship. It commands, and it forbids. And we are bound to obey. It has power also to enforce its decisions. It can reward and punish. Its rewards are among the greatest blessings we can enjoy. Its punishments are the most intolerable agony the human soul can endure.

5. Our moral judgments involve the idea of law, i.e., of a rule or standard to which we are bound to be conformed. When we judge a thing to be right, we judge it to be conformed to the moral law; when we judge it to be wrong, we judge that is not conformed to that law.

6. This law has an authority which it does not derive from us. It is essentially different from a sense of propriety, or perception of expediency. It is something imposed upon us, and to which we are required to be conformed by an authority out of ourselves.

7. Our moral nature involves, therefore, a sense of responsibility. We must answer for what we are, and for what we do. This responsibility is not to ourselves, not to society, nor to being in general. It must be to a person; that is, to a Being who knows what we are, what we do, and what we ought to be and do; who approves of the right, and disapproves of the wrong; and who has the power and the purpose to reward and punish us according to our character and conduct. Sin, from its very nature, as it reveals itself in our consciousness, involves not only a sense of pollution, or moral degradation, but also a sense of guilt; i.e., a conviction that we deserve punishment, that we ought to be punished, and, therefore, that punishment is inevitable.

If such be the facts of our moral nature, it is plain that we are under the necessity of assuming the existence of an extramundane, personal God, on whom we are dependent, and to whom we are responsible. This is undoubtedly the ground for the conviction of the being of God, which has universally prevailed among men. Having the idea given in the constitution of their nature, or being under an inward necessity of believing in such a Being, cultivated men have sought and found evidence of his existence in the world without them. But these external proofs have neither been as general nor as operative as those derived from what we ourselves are, and from what we know that we deserve. Such men, therefore, as Kant, and Sir William Hamilton, while denying the validity of all other arguments for the existence of God, admit that our nature forces us to believe that He is, and that He is a person.

Our Moral Feelings not due to Education.

It is indeed objected that these phenomena of our moral nature are due to education or to superstition. To this it is answered, first, that moral truths have a self-evidencing light. They can no more be denied than the intuitions of sense and reason. It may even be said that our moral judgments have greater certainty than any other of our convictions. Men believe absurdities. They believe what contradicts the evidence of their senses. But no man ever has, or ever can believe that malignity is a virtue. In the second place, what is universal cannot be accounted for by peculiarities of culture. All men are moral beings; all have this sense of moral obligation, and of responsibility; and no man can free himself from these convictions. The Apostle, therefore, speaking out of the common consciousness of men, as well as under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, speaks of sinners as "knowing the judgment of God" (Rom i. 32); that is, a sense of sin involves the knowledge of a righteous God.

We then are placed in the midst of a vast universe, of which we constitute a part. We are forced not merely by the desire of knowledge, but from the necessities of our nature, to ask, How did this universe originate? How is it sustained? To what does it tend? What are we? Whence did we come? Whither are we going? These questions must be answered. This complicated problem must be solved. To refer everything to chance, is no solution. It is a frivolous denial that any solution is necessary, that such questions need any answer. To refer everything to necessity, is to say that the existence of things as they are is the ultimate fact. The universe is, and always has been, and always must be. It is the evolution of necessary being by necessary laws. This is all we can know, and all that need be known. This, however, is no solution. It is merely the denial that any solution is possible. Could this theory be accepted with regard to the outward world, it leaves all the phenomena of man's nature -- intellectual, moral, and religious -- unaccounted for. Theism is a solution. It assumes the existence of an eternal and necessary Being; a Spirit, and therefore intelligent, voluntary, self-conscious, and endowed with moral perfections. This hypothesis accounts for the origin of the universe. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This is a satisfactory answer to the first question. It accounts for all the universe is, its immensity, its variety, its order, its numberless organisms, the adaptation of external nature to the wants of all living things. It accounts for the nature of man. It gives what that nature demands, -- an infinite object of love, confidence, and adoration. It reveals who it is to whom we are responsible, and on whom we are dependent. We know that this solution is true, because it is a solution. It meets all the facts of the case. And it so meets them that it cannot fail to be accepted as true, either intelligently or blindly. The God whom all men ignorantly worship, the Scriptures reveal, not only in the certainty of his existence, but in the plenitude of his perfections. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________