§ 21. Such, then, is the speculative basis on which, according to Sir W. Hamilton, our belief in a Deity can alone be grounded.
Those who at the present day are still confused enough in their notions regarding the Free-will question to suppose that any further rational question remains, may here be left to ruminate over thisbolus, and to draw from it such nourishment as they can in support of their belief in a God; but to those who can see as plainly as daylight that the doctrine of Determinism not only harmonises with all the facts of observation, but alone affords a possible condition for, and a satisfactory explanation of, the existence of our ethical faculty,—to such persons the question will naturally arise:—"Although Hamilton was wrong in identifying a known fact with a false theory, yet may he not have been right in the deductions which he drew from the fact?" In other words, granting that his theory of Free-will was wrong, does not his argument from the existence of a moral sense in man to the existence of a moral Governor of the Universe remain as intact as ever? Now, it is quite true that whatever degree of cogency the argument from the presence of the moral sense may at any time have had, this degree remains unaffected by the explosion of erroneous theories to account for such presence. We have, therefore, still to face the fact that the moral sense of man undoubtedly exists.
§ 22. The question we have to determine is, What evidence have we to show that the moral part of man was created in the image of God; and if there is any such evidence, what counter-existence is there to show that the moral existence of man may be due to natural causes? In deciding this question, just as in deciding any other question of a purely scientific character, we must be guided in our examination by the Law of Parcimony; we must not assume the agency of supernatural causes if we can discover the agency of natural causes; neither must we merge the supposed mystery directly into the highest mystery, until we are quite sure that it does not admit of being proximately explained by the action of proximate influences.
Now, whether or not Mr. Darwin's theory as to the origin and development of the moral sense be considered satisfactory, there can, I think, be very little doubt in any impartial mind which duly considers the subject, that insome way or otherthe moral sense has been evolved. The body of scientific evidence which has now been collected in favour of the general theory of evolution is simply overwhelming; and in the presence of so large an analogy, it would require a vast amount of contradictory evidence to remove the presumption that human conscience, like everything else, has been evolved. Now, for my own part, I am quite unable to distinguish any such evidence, while, on the other hand, in support of theà prioripresumption that conscience has been evolved, I cannot conceal from myself that there is a large amount ofà posterioriconfirmation. I am quite unable to distinguish anything in my sense of right and wrong which I cannot easily conceive to have been brought about during the evolution of my intelligence from lower forms of psychical life. On the contrary, everything that I can find in my sense of right and wrong is precisely what I should expect to find on the supposition of this sense having been moulded by the progressive requirements of social development. Read in the light of evolution, Conscience, in its every detail, is deductively explained.
And, as though there were not sufficient evidence of this kind to justify the conclusion drawn from the theory of evolution, the doctrine of utilitarianism—separately conceived and separately worked out on altogether independent grounds—the doctrine of utilitarianism comes in with irresistible force to confirm thatà prioriconclusion by the widest and most unexceptionable of inductions.[15]
In the supernatural interpretation of the facts, the whole stress of the argument comes upon the character of conscience as aspontaneously admonishing influence which acts independently of our own volition. For it is from this character alone that the inference can arise that conscience is the delegate of the will of another. Thus, to render the whole argument in the singularly beautiful words of Dr. Newman:—"If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened at transgressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is One to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the same tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one receiving praise from a father,—we certainly have within us the image of some person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we waste away. These feelings in us are such as require for their exciting cause an intelligent being; we are not affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel shame before a horse or a dog; we have no remorse or compunction in breaking mere human law. Yet so it is; conscience emits all these painful emotions, confusion, foreboding, self-condemnation; and, on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a resignation, and a hope which there is no sensible, no earthly object to elicit. 'The wicked flees when no one pursueth;' then why does he flee? whence his terror? Who is it that he sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart? If the cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is directed must be supernatural and divine; and thus the phenomena of conscience as a dictate avail to impress the imagination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive."[16]
Now I have quoted this passage because it seems to me to convey in a concise form the whole of the argument from Conscience. But how tremendous are the inferences which are drawn from the facts! As the first step in our criticism, it is necessary to point out that two very different orders of feelings are here treated by Dr. Newman. There is first the pure or uncompounded ethical feelings, which spring directly from the moral sense alone, and which all men experience in varying degrees. And next there are what we may term theethico-theologicalfeelings, which can only spring from a blending of the moral sense with a belief in a personal God, or other supernatural agents. The former class of feelings, or the uncompounded ethical class, have exclusive reference to the moral obligations that subsist between ourselves and other human beings, or sentient organisms. The latter class of feelings, or the ethico-theological class, have reference to the moral obligations that are believed to subsist between ourselves and the Deity, or other supernatural beings. Now, in order not to lose sight of this all-important distinction, I shall criticise Dr. Newman's rendering of the ordinary argument from Conscience in each of these two points of views separately. To begin, then, with the uncompounded ethical feelings.
Such emotions as attend the operation of conscience in those who follow its light alone without any theories as to its supernatural origin, are all of the character ofreasonableorexplicableemotions. Granting that fellow-feeling has been for the benefit of the race, and therefore that it has been developed by natural causes, certainly there is nothingmysteriousin the emotions that attend the violating or the following of the dictates of conscience. For conscience is, by this naturalistic supposition, nothing more than an organised body of certain psychological elements, which, by long inheritance, have come to inform us, by way of intuitive feeling, how we should act for the interests of society; so that, if this hypothesis is correct, there cannot be anything more mysterious or supernatural in the working of conscience than there is in the working of any of our other faculties. That the disagreeable feeling ofself-reproach, as distinguished fromreligiousfeeling, should follow upon a violation of such an organized body of psychological elements, cannot be thought surprising, if it is remembered that one of these elements is natural fellow-feeling, and the others the elements which lead us to know directly that we have violated the interests of other persons. And as regards the mere fact that the working of conscience is independent of the will, surely this is not more than we find, in varying degrees, to be true of all our emotions; and conscience, according to the evolution theory, has its root in the emotions. Hence, it is no more an argument to say that the irrepressible character of conscience refers us to a God of morality, than it would be to say that the sometimes resistless force of the ludicrous refers us to a god of laughter. Love, again, is an emotion which cannot be subdued by volition, and in its tendency to persist bears just such a striking resemblance to the feelings of morality as we should expect to find on the supposition of the former having played an important part in the genesis of the latter. Thedictatingcharacter of conscience, therefore, is clearly in itself of no avail as pointing to a superhuman Dictator. Thus, for example, to take Dr. Newman's own illustration, why should we feel such tearful, broken-hearted sorrow on intentionally or carelessly hurting a mother? We see no shadow of a reason for resorting to any supernatural hypothesis to explain the fact—love between mother and offspring being an essential condition to the existence of higher animals. Yet this is a simple case of truly conscientious feeling, where the thought of anypersonalcause of conscienceneednot be entertained, and is certainly not necessary to explain the effects. And similarly withallcases of conscientious feeling,except in cases where it refers directly to its supposed author. But these latter cases, or the ethico-theological class of feelings, are in no way surprising. If the moral sense has had a natural genesis in the actual relations between man and man, as soon as an ideal "image" of "a holy, just, powerful, all-seeing, retributive" God is firmly believed to have an objective existence, as a matter of course moral feelings must become transferred to the relations which are believed to obtain between ourselves and this most holy God. Indeed, it is these very feelings which, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, must be concluded, in accordance with the law of parcimony, to havegeneratedthis idea of God as "holy, just," and good. And the mere fact that, when the complex system of religious belief has once been built up, conscience is strongly wrought upon by that belief and its accompanying emotions, is surely a fact the very reverse of mysterious. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that the moral sense has been evolved from the social feelings, and should we not certainly expect that, when the belief in a moral and all-seeing God is superadded, conscience should be distracted at the thought of offending him, and experience a "soothing, satisfactory delight" in the belief that we are pleasing him? And as to the argument, "Why does the wicked flee when none pursueth? whence his terror?" the question admits of only too easy an answer. Indeed, the form into which the question is thrown would almost seem—were it not written by Dr. Newman—to imply a sarcastic reference to the power of superstition. "Who is it that," not only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the mediæval sorcerer, or the frightened child, "sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart?" Who but the "image" of his own thought? "If the cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his perception is directed must be supernatural and divine." Assuredly; but what an inference from what an assumption! Whether or not the moral sense has been developed by natural causes, "these emotions" of terror at the thought of offending beings "supernatural and divine" are not of such unique occurrence "in the visible world" as to give Dr. Newman the monopoly of his particular "Object." With a deeper meaning, therefore, than he intends may we repeat, "The phenomena of conscience as a dictateavailto impress theimaginationwith thepictureof a Supreme Governor." But criticism here is positively painful. Let it be enough to say that those of us who do not already believe in any such particular "Object"—be it ghost, shape, demon, or deity—are strangers, utter and complete, to any such supernatural pursuers. The fact, therefore, of these various religious emotions being associated with conscience in the minds of theists, can in itself be no proof of Theism, seeing that it is the theory of Theism which itselfengendersthese emotions; those who do not believe in this theory experiencing none of these feelings of personal dread, responsibility to an unknown God, and the feelings of doing injury to, or of receiving praise from, a parent. To such of us the violation of conscience is its own punishment, as the pursuit of virtue is its own reward. For we know that not more certainly than fire will burn, any violation of the deeply-rooted feelings of our humanity will leave a gaping wound which even time may not always heal. And when it is shown us that our natural dread of fire is due to a supernatural cause, we may be prepared to entertain the argument that our natural dread of sin, as distinguished from our dread of God, is likewise due to such a cause. But until this can be done we must, as reasonable men,whose minds have been trained in the school of nature, forbear to allow that the one fact is of any greater cogency than the other, so far as the question of a supernatural cause of either is concerned. For, as we have already seen, the law of parcimony forbids us to ascribe "the phenomena of conscience as a dictate" to a supernatural cause, until the science of psychology shall have proved that they cannot have been due to natural causes. But, as we have also seen, the science of psychology is now beginning, as quick and thoroughly as can be expected, to prove the very converse; so that the probability is now overwhelming that our moral sense, like all our other faculties, has been evolved. Therefore, while the burden of proof really lies on the side of Theism—or with those who account for the natural phenomena of conscience by the hypothesis of a supernatural origin—this burden is now being rapidly discharged by the opposite side. That is to say, while the proofs which are now beginning to substantiate the naturalistic hypothesis are all in full accord with the ordinary lines of scientific explanations, the vague and feeble reflections of those who still maintain that Conscience is evidence of Deity, are all such as run counter to the very truisms of scientific method.
In the face of all the facts, therefore, I find it impossible to recognise as valid any inference which is drawn from the existence of our moral sense to the existence of a God; although, of course, all inferences drawn from the existence of our moral sense to thecharacterof a God already believed to exist remain unaffected by the foregoing considerations.[17]
§ 23. The argument from Design, as presented by Mill, is merely a resuscitation of it as presented by Paley. True it is that the logical penetration of the former enabled him to perceive that the latter had "put the case much too strongly;" although, even here, he has failed to see wherein Paley's error consisted. He says:—"If I found a watch on an apparently desolate island, I should indeed infer that it had been left there by a human being; but the inference would not be from the marks of design, but because I already know by direct experience that watches are made by men." Now I submit that this misses the whole point of Paley's meaning; for it is evident that there would be no argument at all unless this author be understood to say what he clearly enough expresses, viz., that the evidence of design supposed to be afforded by the watch is supposed to be afforded by examination of its mechanism only, and not by any previous knowledge as to how that particular mechanism called a watch is made. Paley, I take it, only chose a watch for his example because he knew that no reader would dispute the fact that watches are constructed by design: except for the purpose of pointing out that mechanism is in some cases admitted to be due to intelligence, for all the other purposes of his argument he might as well have chosen for his illustration any case of mechanism occurring in nature. What the real fallacy in Paley's argument is, is another question, and this I shall now endeavour to answer; for, as Mill's argument is clearly the same in kind as that of Paley and his numberless followers, in examining the one I am also examining the other.
§ 24. In nature, then, we see innumerable examples of apparent design: are these of equal value in testifying to the presence of a designing intelligence as are similar examples of human contrivance, and if not, why not? The answer to the first of these questions is patent. If such examples were of the same value in the one case as they are in the other, the existence of a Deity would be, as Paley appears to have thought it was, demonstrated by the fact. A brief and yet satisfactory answer to the second question is not so easy, and we may best approach it by assuming the existence of a Deity. If, then, there is a God, it by no means follows that every apparent contrivance in nature is an actual contrivance, in the same sense as is any human contrivance. The eye of a vertebrated animal, for instance, exhibits as much apparent design as does a watch; but no one—at the present day, at least—will undertake to affirm that the evidence of divine thought furnished by one example is as conclusive as is the evidence of human thought furnished by the other—and this even assuming a Deity to exist. Why is this? The reason, I think, is, that we know by our personal experience what are our own relations to the material world, and to the laws which preside over the action of physical forces; while we can have no corresponding knowledge of the relations subsisting between the Deity and these same objects of our own experience. Hence, to suppose that the Deity constructed the eye by any such process of thought as we know that men construct watches, is to make an assumption not only incapable of proof, but destitute of any assignable degree of likelihood. Take an example. The relation in which a bee stands to the external world is to a large extent a matter of observation, and, therefore, no one imagines that the formation of its scientifically-constructed cells is due to any profound study on the bee's part. Whatever the origin of the cell-making instinct may have been, its nature is certainly not the same as it would have been in man, supposing him to have had occasion to construct honeycombs. It may be said that the requisite calculations have been made for the bees by the Deity; but, even if this assumption were true, it would be nothing to the point, which is merely that even within the limits of the animal kingdom the relations of intelligence to the external world are so diverse, that the same results may be accomplished by totally different intellectual processes. And as this example is parallel to the case on which we are engaged in everything save theobservabilityof the relations involved, it supplies us with the exact measure of the probability we are trying to estimate. Hence it is evident that so long as we remain ignorant of the element essential to the argument from design in its Paleyerian form—viz., knowledge or presumption of the relations subsisting between an hypothetical Deity and his creation—so long must that argument remain, not only unassignably weak, but incapable of being strengthened by any number of examples similar in kind.
§ 25. To put the case in another way. The root fallacy in Paley's argument consisted in reasoning from a particular to an universal. Because he knew that design was the cause of adaptation in some cases, and because the phenomena of life exhibited more instances of adaptation than any other class of phenomena in nature, he pointed to these phenomena as affording an exceptional kind of proof of the presence in nature of intelligent agency. Yet, if it is admitted—and of this, even in Paley's days, there was a strong analogical presumption—that the phenomena of life are throughout their history as much subject to law as are any other phenomena whatsoever,—that the method of the divine government, supposing such to exist, is the same here as elsewhere; then nothing can be clearer than that any amount of observable adaptation of means to ends within this class of phenomena cannot afford any different kind of evidence ofdesignthan is afforded by any other class of phenomena whatsoever. Either we know the relations of the Deity to his creation, or we do not. If we do, then we must know whether or noteveryphysical change which occurs in accordance with law—i.e., every change occurring within experience, and so, until contrary evidence is produced, presumably every change occurring beyond experience—was separately planned by the Deity. If we do not, then we have no more reason to suppose that any one set of physical changes rather than another has been separately planned by him, unless we could point (as Paley virtually pointed) to one particular set of changes and assert, These are not subject to the same method of divine government which we observe elsewhere, or, in other words, to law. If it is retorted thatin some way or otherall these wonderful adaptations must ultimately have been due to intelligence, this is merely to shift the argument to a ground which we shall presently have to consider: all we are now engaged upon is to show that we have no right to found arguments on the assumedmode,manner, orprocessby which the supposed intelligence is thought to have operated. We can here see, then, more clearly where Paley stumbled. He virtually assumed that the relations subsisting between the Deity and the universe were such, that the exceptional adaptations met with in the organised part of the latter cannot have been due to the same intellectualprocessesas was the rest of the universe—or that, if they were, still they yielded better evidence of having been due to these processes than does the rest of the universe. And it is easy to perceive that his error arose from his pre-formed belief in special creation. So long as a man regards every living organism which he sees as the lineal descendant of a precisely similar organism originally struck out by the immediate fiat of Deity, so long is he justified in holding his axiom, "Contrivance must have had a contriver." For "adaptation" then becomes to our minds the synonym of "contrivance"—it being utterly inconceivable that the numberless adaptations found in any living organism could have resulted in any other way than by intelligent contrivance, at the time when this organism was in the first instancesuddenlyintroduced into its complex conditions of life. Still, as an argument, this is of course merely reasoning in a circle: we adopt a hypothesis which presupposes the existence of a Deity as the first step in the proof of his existence. I do not say that Paley committed this error expressly, but merely that if it had not been for his pre-formed conviction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he would probably not have written his "Natural Theology."
§ 26. Thus let us take a case of his own choosing, and the one which is adduced by him as typical of "the application of the argument." "I know of no better method of introducing so large a subject than that of comparing a single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it. They are both made upon the same principles, both being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are regulated. I speak not of the origin of the laws themselves; but these laws being fixed, the construction in both cases is adapted to them. For instance: these laws require, in order to produce the same effect, that the rays of light, in passing through water into the eye, should be refracted by a more convex surface than when it passes out of air into the eye. Accordingly we find that the eye of a fish, in that part of it called the crystalline lens, is much rounder than the eye of terrestrial animals. What plainer manifestation of design can there be than this difference?" But what, let us ask, is the proximate cause of this difference? 'The immediate volition of the Deity, manifested in special creation,' virtually answers Paley; while we of to-day are able to reply, 'The agency of natural laws, to wit, inheritance, variation, survival of the fittest, and probably of other laws as yet not discovered.' Now, of course, according to the former of these two premises, there can be no more legitimate conclusion than that the difference in question is due to intelligent and special design; but, according to the other premise, it is equally clear that no conclusion can be more unwarranted; for, under the latter view, the greater rotundity of the crystalline lens in a fish's eye no more exhibits the presence of any special design than does the adaptation of a river to the bed which it has itself been the means of excavating. When, therefore, Paley goes on to ask:—"How is it possible, under circumstances of such close affinity, and under the operation of equal evidence, to exclude contrivance from the case of the eye, yet to acknowledge the proof of contrivance having been employed, as the plainest and clearest of all propositions, in the case of the telescope?" the answer is sufficiently obvious, namely, that the "evidence" in the two cases isnot"equal;"—any more than is the existence, say, of the Nile of equal value in point of evidence that it was designed for traffic, as is the existence of the Suez Canal that it was so designed. And the mere fact that the problem of achromatism was solved by "the mind of a sagacious optician inquiring how this matter was managed in the eye," no more proves that "this could not be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the optician the only effectual means of attaining that purpose," than would the fact, say, of the winnowing of corn having suggested the fanning-machine prove that air currents were designed for the purpose of eliminating chaff from grain. In short, the real substance of the argument from Design must eventually merge into that which Paley, in the above-quoted passage, expressly passes over—viz., "the origin of the laws themselves;" for so long as there is any reason to suppose that any apparent "adaptation" to a certain set of "fixed laws" is itself due to the influence of other "fixed laws," so long have we as little right to say that the latter set of fixed laws exhibit any better indications of intelligent adaptation to the former set, than the former do to that of the latter—the eye to light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive that Mill is entirely wrong when he says of Paley's argument, "It surpasses analogy exactly as induction surpasses it," because "the instances chosen are particular instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a real connection with an intelligent origin—the fact of conspiring to an end." Experience shows as this, but it shows us more besides; it shows us that there is nonecessaryoruniformconnection between an "intelligent origin" and the fact of apparent "means conspiring to an [apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to compare this quotation just made from Mill, and the long train of reasoning that follows, with an admirable illustration in Mr. Wallace's "Natural Selection," he will be well rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr. Mill's reasoning so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for the respective dates of publication, one might have thought the latter had an express reference to the former.[18]True, Mr. Mill closes his argument with a brief allusion to the "principle of the survival of the fittest," observing that "creative forethought is not absolutely the only link by which the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be connected with the fact of sight." I am surprised, however, that a man of Mr. Mill's penetration did not see that whatever view we may take as to "the adequacy of this principle (i.e., Natural Selection) to account for such truly admirable combinations as some of those in nature," the argument fromDesignis not materially affected. So far as this argument is concerned, the issue is not DesignversusNatural Selection, but it is DesignversusNatural Law. By all means, "leaving this remarkable speculation (i.e., Mr. Darwin's) to whatever fate the progress of discovery may have in store for it," and it by no means follows that "in the present state of knowledge the adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability in favour of creation by intelligence." For whatever we may think of this special theory as to themode, there can be no longer any reasonable doubt, "in the present state of our knowledge," as to the truth of the general theory ofEvolution; and the latter, if accepted, is as destructive to the argument fromDesignas would the former be if proved. In a word, it is thefactand not themethodof Evolution which is subversive of Teleology in its Paleyerian form.
§ 27. We have come then to this:—Apparent intellectual adaptations are perfectly valid indications of design, so long as their authorship is known to be confined to human intelligence; for then we know from experience what are our relations to these laws, and so in any given case can argueà posteriorithat such an adaptation to such a set of laws by such an intelligence can only have been due to such a process. But when we overstep the limits of experience, we are not entitled to argue anythingà prioriof any other intelligence in this respect, even supposing any such intelligence to exist. The analogy by which the unknown relations are inferred from the known is "infinitely precarious;" seeing that two of the analogous terms—to wit, the divine intelligence and the human—may differ to an immeasurable extent in their properties—nay, are supposed thus to differ, the one being supposed omniscient, omnipotent, &c., and the other not. And, as a final step, we may now see that the argument from Design, in its last resort, resolves itself into apetitio principii. For, ultimately, the only point which the analogical argument in question is adduced to prove is, that the relations subsisting between an Unknown Cause and certain physical forces are so far identical with the relations known to subsist between human intelligence and these same forces, that similar intellectual processes are required in the two cases to account for the production of similar effects—and hence that the Unknown Cause is intelligent. But it is evident that the analogy itself can have no existence, except upon the presupposition that these two sets of relationsarethus identical. The point which the analogy is adduced to prove is therefore postulated by the fact of its being adduced at all, and the whole argument resolves itself into a case ofpetitio principii.
§ 28. Turning now to an important error of Mr. Mill's in respect of omission, I firmly believe that all competent writers who have ever undertaken to support the argument from Design, have been moved to do so by their instinctive appreciation of the much more important argument, which Mill does not mention at all and which we now proceed to consider—the argument from General Laws. That is to say, I cannot think that any one competent writer ever seriously believed, had he taken time to analyse his beliefs, that the cogency of his argument lay in assuming any knowledge concerning theprocessof divine thought; he must have really believed that it lay entirely in his observation of theproductof divine thought—or rather, let us say, of divine intelligence. Now this is the whole difference between the argument from Design and the argument from General Laws. The argument from Design says, There must be a God, because such and such an organic structure must have been due to such and such an intellectualprocess. The argument from General Laws says, There must be a God, because such and such an organic structure mustin some way or other have been ultimately due tointelligence. Nor does this argument end here. Not only must such and such an organic structure have been ultimately due to intelligence, but every such structure—nay, every phenomenon in the universe—must have been the same; for all phenomena are alike subject to the same method of sequence. The argument is thus a cumulative one; for as there is no single known exception to this universal mode of existence, the united effect of so vast a body of evidence is all but irresistible, and its tendency is clearly to point us to someoneexplanatory cause. The scope of this argument is therefore co-extensive with the universe; it draws alike upon all phenomena with which experience is acquainted. For instance, it contains all the phenomena covered by the Design argument, just as a genus contains any one of its species; it being manifest, from what was said in the last section, that if the general doctrine of Evolution is accepted, the argument from Design must of necessity merge into that from General Laws. And this wide basis, we may be sure, must be the most legitimate one whereon to rest an argument in favour of Theism. If there is any such thing as such an argument at all, the most unassailable field for its display must be the universe as a whole, seeing that if we separate any one section of the universe from the rest, and suppose that we here discover a different kind of testimony to intelligence from that which we can discover elsewhere, we may from analogy be abundantly sure that on the confines of our division there must be second causes and general laws at work (whether discoverable or not), which are the immediate agents in the production of the observed results. Of course I do not deny that some classes of phenomena afford us more and better proofs of intellectual agency than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being more numerous, subtle, and complex; but it will be seen that this is a different interpretation of the evidence from that against which I am contending. Thus, if there are tokens of divine intention (as distinguished from design) to be met with in the eye,—if it is inconceivable that so "nice and intricate a structure" should exist without intelligence as itsultimatecause; then the discovery of natural selection, or of any other law, as themannerin which this intelligence wrought in no wise attenuates the proof as to the fact of an intelligent cause. On the contrary, it tends rather to confirm it; for, besides the evidence before existing, there is added that which arises from the conformity of the method to that which is observable in the rest of the universe.
Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and others have said, I cannot but feel that the ubiquitous action of general laws is, of all facts supplied by experience, the most cogent in its bearing upon teleology. If perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does not indicate the existence of a presiding intelligence, it becomes a question whether any other kind of method—short of the intelligently miraculous—could possibly do so; seeing that the further the divinemodus operandi(supposing such to exist) were removed from absolute uniformity, the greater would be the room for our interpreting it as mere fortuity. But forasmuch as the progress of science has shown that within experience the method of the Supreme Causality is absolutely uniform, the hypothesis of fortuity is rendered irrational; and let us think of this Supreme Causality as we may, the fact remains that from it there emanates a directive influence of uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous magnitude and exact precision, worthy of our highest possible conceptions of Deity.
§ 29. Had it been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I doubt not that I should have regarded the foregoing considerations as final: I should have concluded that there was an overwhelming balance of rational probability in favour of Theism; and I think I should also have insisted that this balance of rational probability would require to continue as it was till the end of time. I should have maintained, in some such words as the following, in which the Rev. Baden Powell conveys this argument:—"The very essence of the whole argument is the invariable preservation of the principle oforder: not necessarily such as we can directly recognise, but the universal conviction of the unfailing subordination of everything tosomegrand principles oflaw, however imperfectly apprehended in our partial conceptions, and the successive subordination of such laws to others of still higher generality, to an extent transcending our conceptions, and constituting the true chain of universal causation which culminates in the sublime conception of theCosmos.
"It is in immediate connection with this enlarged view of universal immutable natural order that I have regarded the narrow notions of those who obscure the sublime prospect by imagining so unworthy an idea as that of occasional interruptions in the physical economy of the world.
"The only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden supernatural origination of new species of organised beings in remote geological epochs. It is in relation to the broad principle of law, if once rightly apprehended, that such inferences are seen to be wholly unwarranted by science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and inadmissible in philosophy; while, even in those instances properly understood, the real scientific conclusions of the invariable and indissoluble chain of causation stand vindicated in the sublime contemplations with which they are thus associated.
"To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essential requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of thisone grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting the very idea of nature;—which forms the vital essence of the whole of inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher inferences from the inductive study of natural causes which are the vindications of a supreme intelligence and a moral cause.
"The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the admission of this grand principle. Those who are not prepared to embrace it in its full extent may probably not accept the conclusions; but they must be sent back to the school of inductive science, where alone it must be independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with the mind of the student in the first instance.
"On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and general results of inductive science,... we recognise the powers of intellect fitly employed in the study of nature,... pre-eminently leading us to perceivein nature, and in the invariable and universal constancy of its laws, the indications of universal, unchangeable, and recondite arrangement, dependence, and connection in reason....
"We thus see the importance of taking a more enlarged view of the great argument of natural theology; and the necessity for so doing becomes the more apparent when we reflect on the injury to which these sublime inferences are exposed from the narrow and unworthy form in which the reasoning has been too often conducted....
"The satisfactory view of the whole case can only be found in those more enlarged conceptions which are furnished by the grand contemplation of cosmical order and unity, and which do not refer to inferences from thepast, but to proofs of theever-presentmind and reason in nature.
"If we read a book which it requires much thought and exercise of reason to understand, but which we find discloses more and more truth and reason as we proceed in the study, and contains clearly more than we can at present comprehend, then undeniably we properly say that thought and reasonexist in that bookirrespectively of our minds, and equally so of any question as to its author or origin. Such a book confessedly exists, and is ever open to us in the natural world. Or, to put the case under a slightly different form:—When the astronomer, the physicist, the geologist, or the naturalist notes down a series of observed facts or measured dates, he is not anauthorexpressing his own ideas,—he is a mereamanuensistaking down the dictations of nature: his observation book is the record of the thoughts ofanother mind: he has but set down literally what he himself does not understand, or only very imperfectly. On further examination, and after deep and anxious study, he perhaps begins to decipher the meaning, by perceiving some law which gives a signification to the facts; and the further he pursues the investigation up to any more comprehensive theory, the more fully he perceives that there is a higher reason, of which his own is but the humbler interpreter, and into whose depths he may penetrate continually further, to discover yet more profound and invariable order and system, always indicating still deeper and more hidden abysses yet unfathomed, but throughout which he is assured the same recondite and immutable arrangement ever prevails.
"That which requires thought and reason to understand must be itself thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or express must be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained is but partial, then the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind and reason of the student. If the more it be studied the more vast and complex is the necessary connection in reason disclosed, then the more evident is the vast extent and compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested, and its reality, asexisting in the immutably connected order of objects examined, independently of the mind of the investigator.
"But considerations of this kind, just and transcendently important as they are in themselves, give us no aid in any inquiry into theoriginof the order of things thus investigated, or thenatureor other attributes of the mind evinced in them.
"The real argument for universalintelligence, manifested in the universality of order and law in the material world, is very different from any attempt to give a form to our conceptions, even by the language of analogy, as to thenatureormode of existenceor operation of that intelligence [i.e., as I have stated the case, the argument can only rest on a study of theproducts, as distinguished from theprocessesof such intelligence]: and still more different from any extension of our inference from whatisto whatmay have been, frompresentorder to a supposedorigination, first adjustment, or planning of that order.
"By keeping these distinctions steadily in view, we appreciate properly both the limits and the extent and compass of what we may appropriately callcosmotheology."[19]
I have quoted these passages at length, because they convey in a more forcible, guarded, and accurate manner than any others with which I am acquainted, the strictly rational standing of this great subject prior to the date at which the above-quoted passage was written. Therefore, as I have said, if it had been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I should certainly have rested in these "sublime conceptions" as in an argument supreme and irrefutable. I should have felt that the progress of physical knowledge could never exert any other influence on Theism than that of ever tending more and more to confirm that magnificent belief, by continuously expanding our human thoughts into progressively advancing conceptions, ever grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin of Things—the Mind of God. Such would have been my hope—such would have been my prayer. But now, how changed! Never in the history of man has so terrific a calamity befallen the race as that which all who look may now behold advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, resistless in might, uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and burying our highest life in mindless desolation. Science, whom erstwhile we thought a very Angel of God, pointing to that great barrier of Law, and proclaiming to the restless sea of changing doubt, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,"—even Science has now herself thrown down this trusted barrier; the flood-gates of infidelity are open, and Atheism overwhelming is upon us.
§ 30. All and every law follows as a necessary consequence from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter.[20]That this must be so is evident if we consider that, were it not so, force could not be permanent nor matter constant. For instance, if action and reaction were not invariably equal and opposite, force would not be invariably persistent, seeing that in no case can the formula fail, unless some one or other of the forces concerned, or parts of them, disappear. And as with a simple law of this kind, so with every other natural law and inter-operation of laws, howsoever complex such inter-operation may be; for it is manifest that if in any case similar antecedents did not determine similar consequents, on one or other of these occasions some quantum of force, or of matter, or of both, must have disappeared—or, which is the same thing, the law of causation cannot have been constant. Every natural law, therefore, may be defined as the formula of a sequence, which must either ensue upon certain forces of a given intensity impinging upon certain given quantities, kinds, and forms of matter, or else, by not ensuing, prove that the force or the matter concerned were not of a permanent nature.
§ 31. The argument, then, which was elaborated in§ 29, and which has so long and so generally received the popular sanction in the common-sense epitome, that in the last record there must be mind in external nature, since "that which it requires thought and reason to understand must itself be thought and reason,"—this argument, I say, must now for ever be abandoned by reasonable men. No doubt it would be easy to point to several speculative thinkers who have previously combated this argument,[21]and from this fact some readers will perhaps be inclined to judge, from a false analogy, that as the argument in question has withstood previous assaults, it need not necessarily succumb to the present one. Be it observed, however, that the present assault differs from all previous assaults, just as demonstration differs from speculation. What has hitherto been but mere guess and unwarrantable assertion has now become a matter of the greatest certainty. That the argument from General Laws is a futile argument, is no longer a matter of unverifiable opinion: it is as sure as is the most fundamental axiom of science. That the argument will long remain in illogical minds, I doubt not; but that it is from henceforth quite inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no question. For the sake, however, of impressing this fact still more strongly upon such readers as have been accustomed to rely upon this argument, and so find it difficult thus abruptly to reverse the whole current of their thoughts,—for the sake of such, I shall here add a few remarks with the view of facilitating the conception of an universal Order existing independently of Mind.
§ 32. Interpreting the mazy nexus of phenomena only by the facts which science has revealed, and what conclusion are we driven to accept? Clearly, looking to what has been said in the last two sections, that from the time when the process of evolution first began,—from the time before the condensation of the nebula had showed any signs of commencing,—every subsequent change or event of evolution wasnecessarily boundto ensue; else force and matter have not been persistent. How then, it will be asked, did the vast nexus of natural laws which is now observable ever begin or continue to be? In this way. When the first womb of things was pregnant with all the future, there would probably have been existent at any rate not more than one of the formulæ which we now call natural laws. This one law, of course, would have been the law of gravitation. Here we may take our stand. It does not signify whether there ever was a time when gravitation was not,—i.e., if ever there was a time when matter,as we now know it, was not in existence;—for if there ever was such a time, there is no reason to doubt, but every reason to conclude, that the evolution of matter, as we now know it, was accomplished in accordance with law. Similarly, we are not concerned with the question as to how the law of gravitation came to be associated with matter; for it is overwhelmingly probable, from the extent of the analogy, that if our knowledge concerning molecular physics were sufficiently great, the existence of the law in question would be found to follow as a necessary deduction from the primary qualities of matter and force, just as we can now see that, when present, its peculiar quantitative action necessarily follows from the primary qualities of space.
Starting, then, with these data,—matter, force, and the law of gravitation,—what must happen? We have the strongest scientific reason to believe that the matter of the solar system primordially existed in a highly diffused or nebulous form. By mutual gravitation, therefore, all the substance of the nebula must have begun to concentrate upon itself, or to condense. Now, from this point onwards, I wish it to be clearly understood that the mere consideration of the supposed facts not admitting of scientific proof, or of scientific explanation if true, in no wise affects the certainty of the doctrine which these facts are here adduced to establish. Fully granting that the alleged facts are not beyond dispute, and that, even if true, innumerable other unknown and unknowable facts must have been associated with them—fully admitting, in short, that our ideas concerning the genesis of the solar system are of the crudest and least trustworthy character; still, if it be admitted, what at the present day only ignorance or prejudice can deny, viz., that, as a whole, evolution has been the method of the universe; then it follows that the doctrine here contended for is as certainly true as it would be were we fully acquainted with every cause and every change which has acted and ensued throughout the whole process of the genesis of things.
Now, bearing this caveat in mind, we have next to observe that when once the nebula began to condense, new relations among its constituent parts would,for this reason, begin to be established. "Given a rare and widely diffused mass of nebulous matter,... what are the successive changes that will take place? Mutual gravitation will approximate its atoms, but their approximation will be opposed by atomic repulsion, the overcoming of which implies the evolution of heat." That is to say, the condensation of the nebula as a whole of necessity implies at least the origination of these new material and dynamical relations among its constituent parts. "As fast as this heat partially escapes by radiation, further approximation will take place, attended by further evolution of heat, and so on continuously: the processes not occurring separately, as here described, but simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and with increasing activity." Hence the newly established relations continuously acquire new increments of intensity. But now observe a more important point. The previous essential conditions remaining unaltered—viz., the persistence of matter and force, as well as, or rather let us say and consequently, the law of gravitation—these conditions, I say, remaining constant, and the newly established relations would necessarilyof themselvesgive origin tonewlaws. For whenever two given quantities of force and matter met in one of the novel relations, they would of necessity give rise to novel effects; and whenever, on any future occasion, similar quantities of force and matter again so met, precisely similar effects would of necessity require to occur: but the occurrence of similar effects under similar conditions is all that we mean by a natural law.
Continuing, then, our quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer's terse and lucid exposition of the nebular theory, we find this doctrine virtually embodied in the next sentences:—"Eventually this slow movement of the atoms towards their common centre of gravity will bring about phenomena of another order.
"Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, it will happen that, when the nebulous mass has reached a particular stage of condensation—when its internally situated atoms have approached to within certain distances, have generated a certain amount of heat, and are subject to a certain mutual pressure (the heat and pressure increasing as the aggregation progresses), some of them will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether the binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, which is possible, or whether they be of kinds simpler than any we know, which is more probable, matters not to the argument. It suffices that molecular combinations of some species will finally take place." We have, then, here a new and important change of relations. Matter, primordially uniform, has itself become heterogeneous; and in as many places as it has thus changed its state, it must, in virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto novel relations, and so, in many cases, to new laws.[22]
It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this genesis of natural law any further: indeed, it would be quite impossible so to trace it for any considerable distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes of relations renders all speculation as to the actual processes quite useless. This fact, however, as before insisted, in no wise affects the only doctrine which I here enunciate—viz., that the self-generation of natural law is a necessary corollary from the persistence of matter and force. And that this must be so is now, I hope, sufficiently evident. Just as in the first dawn of things, when the proto-binary compounds of matter gave rise to new relations together with their appropriate laws, so throughout the whole process of evolution, as often as matter acquired a hitherto novel state, or in one of its old states entered into hitherto novel relations, so often would non-existent or even impossible laws become at once possible and necessary. And in this way I cannot see that there is any reason to stop until we arrive at all the marvellous complexity of things as they are. For aught that speculative reason can ever from henceforth show to the contrary, the evolution of all the diverse phenomena of inorganic nature, of life, and of mind, appears to be as necessary and as self-determined as is the being of that mysterious Something which is Everything,—the Entity we must all believe in, which without condition and beyond relation holds its existence in itself.
§ 33. Does it still seem incredible that, notwithstanding it requires mental processes to interpret external nature, external nature may nevertheless be destitute of mind? Then let us look at the subject on its obverse aspect.
According to the theory of evolution—which, be it always remembered, is no mere gratuitous supposition, but a genuine scientific theory—human intelligence, like everything else, has been evolved. Now in what does the evolution of intelligence consist? Any one acquainted with the writings of our great philosopher can have no hesitation in answering: Clearly and only in the establishment of more and more numerous and complex internal or psychological relations. In other words, the law of intelligence being "that the strengths of the inner cohesions between psychical states must be proportionate to the persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it follows that the development of intelligence is "secured by the one simple principle that experience of the outer relationsproducesinner cohesions, and makes the inner cohesions strong in proportion as the outer relations are persistent." Now the question before us at present is merely this:—Must we not infer that these outer relations are regulated by mind, seeing that order is undoubtedly apparent among them, and that it requires mental processes on our part to interpret this order? The only legitimate answer to this question is, that these outer relationsmaybe regulated by mind, but that, in view of the evolution theory, we are certainly not entitled to infer that theyareso regulated,merelybecause it requires mental processes on our part to interpret their orderly character. For if it is true that the human mind was itself evolved by these outer relations—ever continuously moulded into conformity with them as the prime condition of its existence—then its process of interpreting them is but reflecting (as it were) in consciousness these outer relations by which the inner ones were originally produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an objective macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable that this objective macrocosm isof itselfsufficient to evolve a subjective microcosm, I do not see any the faintest reason for the latter to conclude that a self-conscious intelligence is inherent in the former, merely because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those orderly objective relations by which its own corresponding subjective relations were originally produced. If it is said that it is impossible to conceive how, apart from mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the ground of discussion to that which occupied us in the last section: all we are now engaged upon is,—Granting that the existence of such orderly relations is actual, whether with or without mind to account for them; and granting also that these relations areof themselvessufficient to produce corresponding subjective relations; then the mere fact of our conscious intelligence being able to discover numerous and complex outer relations answering to those which they themselves have caused in our intelligence, does not warrant the latter in concluding that the causal connection between intelligence and non-intelligence has ever been reversed—that these outer relations in turn are caused by a similar conscious intelligence. How such a thing as a conscious intelligence is possible is another and wholly unanswerable question (though not more so than that as to the existence of force and matter, and would not be rendered less so by merging the fact in a hypothetical Deity); but granting, as we must, that such an entity does exist, and supposing it to have been evolved by natural causes, then it would appear incontestably to follow, that whether or not objective existence is presided over by objective mind, our subjective mind wouldalikeandequallyrequire to read in the facts of the external world an indication, whether true or false, of some such presiding agency. The subjective mind being, by the supposition, but the obverse aspect of the sum total of such among objective relations as have had a share in its production, when, as in observation and reflection, this obverse aspect is again inverted upon its die, it naturally fits more or less exactly into all the prints.
§ 34. This last illustration, however, serves to introduce us to another point. The supposed evidence from which the existence of mind in nature is inferred does not always depend upon such minute correspondences between subjective method and objective method as the illustration suggests. Every natural theologian has experienced more or less difficulty in explaining the fact, that while there is a tolerably general similarity between the contrivances due to human thought and the apparent contrivances in nature which he regards as due to divine thought, the similarity is neverthelessonlygeneral. For instance, if a man has occasion to devise any artificial appliance, he does so with the least possible cost of labour to himself, and with the least possible expenditure of material. Yet it is obvious that in nature as a whole no such economic considerations obtain. Doubtless by superficial minds this assertion will be met at first with an indignant denial: they have been accustomed to accumulate instances of this very principle of economy in nature; perhaps written about it in books, and illustrated it in lectures,—totally ignoring the fact that the instances of economy in nature bear no proportion at all to the instances of prodigality. Conceive of the force which is being quite uselessly expended by all the wind-currents which are at this moment blowing over the face of Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dissipated during the secular cooling of this single planet. Feebly try to think of what the sun is radiating into space. If it is retorted that we are incompetent to judge of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this is but to abandon the argument from economy whenever it is found untenable: we presume to be competent judges of almighty purposes so long as they appear to imitate our own; but so soon as there is any divergence observable, we change front. By thus selecting all the instances of economy in nature, and disregarding all the vastly greater instances of reckless waste, we are merely laying ourselves open to the charge of an unfair eclecticism. And this formal refutation of the argument from economy admits of being further justified in a strikingly substantial manner; for if all the examples of economy in nature that were ever observed, or admit being observed, were collected into one view, I undertake to affirm that, without exception, they would be found to marshal themselves in one great company—the subjects whose law issurvival of the fittest. One question only will I here ask. Is it possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, after due consideration, to withstand the fact that the solitary exceptions to the universal prodigality so painfully conspicuous in nature are to be found where there is also to be found a full and adequate physical explanation of their occurrence?
But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars wherein the modes and the means of the supposed divine intelligence differ from those of its human counterpart. Comparative anatomists can point to organic structures which are far from being theoretically perfect: even the mind of man in these cases, notwithstanding its confessed deficiencies in respect both of cognitive and cogitative powers, is competent to suggest improvements to an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all-wise! And what shall we say of the numerous cases in which the supposed purposes of this intelligence could have been attained by other and less roundabout means? In short, not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is admitted, even by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties of reconciling, even approximately, the supposed processes of divine thought with the known processes of human thought are quite insuperable. The fact is expressed by such writers in various ways,—e.g., that it would be presumptuous in man to expect complete conformity in all cases; that the counsels of God are past finding out; that his ways are not as our ways, and so on. Observing only, as before, that in thus ignoring adverse cases natural theologians are guilty of an unfair eclecticism, it is evident that all such expressions concede the fact, that even in those provinces of nature where the evidence of superhuman intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance of its apparent products to those of human intelligence consists in a general approximation of method rather than in any precise similarity of particulars: the likeness is generic rather than specific.
Now this is exactly what we should expect to be the case, if the similarity in question be due to the cause which the present section endeavours to set forth. If all natural laws are self-evolved, and if human intelligence is but a subjective photograph of certain among their interrelations, it seems but natural that when this photograph compares itself with the whole external world from parts of which it was taken, its subjective lights and shadows should be found to correspond with some of the objective lights and shadows much more perfectly than with others. Still there would doubtless be sufficient general conformity to lead the thinking photograph to conclude that the great world of objective reality, instead of being thecauseof such conformity as exists, was itself theeffectof some common cause,—that it too was of the nature of a picture. Dropping the figure, if it is true that human intelligence has been evolved by natural law, then in view of all that has been said it must now, I think, be tolerably apparent,that as by the hypothesis human intelligence has always been required to think and to act in conformity with law, human intelligence must at last be in danger of confusing or identifying the fact of action in conformity with law with the existence and the action of a self-conscious intelligence. Reading then in external nature innumerable examples of action in conformity with law, human intelligence falls back upon the unwarrantable identification, and out of the bare fact that law exists in nature concludes that beyond nature there is an Intelligent Lawgiver.
§ 35. From what has been said in the last five sections, it manifestly follows that all the varied phenomena of the universe not only may, but must, depend upon the persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter.[23]Be it remembered that the object of the last three sections was merely to "facilitate conception" of the fact that it does not at all follow, because the phenomena of external nature admit of being intelligently inquired into, therefore they are due to an intelligent cause. The last three sections are hence in a manner parenthetical, and it is of comparatively little importance whether or not they have been successful in their object; for, from what went before, it is abundantly manifest that, whether or not the subjective side of the question admits of satisfactory elucidation, there can be no doubt that the objective side of it is as certain as are the fundamental axioms of science. It does not admit of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly true that all the exquisite beauty and melodious harmony of nature follow as necessarily and as inevitably from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter, as it is certainly true that force is persistent, or that matter is extended and impenetrable. No doubt this generalisation is too vast to be adequately conceived, but there can be equally little doubt that it is necessarily true. If matter and force have been eternal, so far as human mind can soar it can discover no need of a superior mind to explain the varied phenomena of existence. Man has truly become in a new sense the measure of the universe, and in this the latest and most appalling of his soundings, indications are returned from the infinite voids of space and time by which he is surrounded, that his intelligence, with all its noble capacities for love and adoration, is yet alone—destitute of kith or kin in all this universe of being.