I.They are all created beings--"GENERATED DEITIES,"who are dependent on, and subject to, the will of one supreme God.
II.They are theAGENTSemployed by God in the creation of, at least some parts of, the universe, and in the movement and direction of the entire cosmos; and they are also theMINISTERSandMESSENGERSof that universal providence which he exercises over the human race.
These subordinate deities are, 1. the greater parts of the visible mundane system animated by intelligent souls, and called "sensible gods"--the sun, the moon, the stars, and even the earth itself, and known by the names Helios, Selena, Kronos, Hermes, etc.
2. Some areinvisible powers, having peculiar offices and functions and presiding over special places provinces and departments of the universe;--one ruling in the heavens (Zeus), another in the air (Juno), another in the sea (Neptune), another in the subterranean regions (Pluto); one god presiding over learning and wisdom (Minerva), another over poetry, music, and religion (Apollo), another over justice and political order (Themis), another over war (Mars), another over corn (Ceres), and another the vine (Bacchus).
3. Others, again, areetherealandaërialbeings, who have the guardianship of individual persons and things, and are calleddemons, genii, andlares; superior indeed to men, but inferior to the gods above named.
"Wherefore, since there were no other gods among the Pagans besides those above enumerated, unless their images, statues, and symbols should be accounted such (because they were also sometimes abusively called 'gods'), which could not be supposed by them to have been unmade or without beginning, they being the workmanship of their own hands, we conclude, universally, that all that multiplicity of Pagan gods which make so great a show and noise was really either nothing but several names and notions of one supreme Deity, according to his different manifestations, gifts, and effects upon the world personated, or else many inferior understanding beings,generated or created by one supreme: so that one unmade, self-existent Deity, and no more, was acknowledged by the more intelligent Pagans, and, consequently, the Pagan Polytheism (or idolatry) consisted not in worshipping a multiplicity of unmade minds, deities, and creators, self-existent from eternity, and independent upon one Supreme, but in mingling and blending some way or other, unduly, creature-worship with the worship of the Creator."203
Footnote 203:(return)Cudworth, "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 311.
That the heathen regard the one Supreme Being as the first and chief object of worship is evident from the apologies which they offered for worshipping, besides Him, many inferior divinities.
1. They claimed to worship themonlyas inferior beings, and that therefore they were not guilty of giving them that honor which belonged to the Supreme. They claimed to worship the supreme God incomparably above all. 2. That this honor which is bestowed upon the inferior divinities does ultimately redound to the supreme God, and aggrandize his state and majesty, they being all his ministers and attendants. 3. That as demons are mediators between the celestial gods and men, so those celestial gods are also mediators between men and the supreme God, and, as it were, convenient steps by which we ought with reverence to approach him. 4. That demons or angels being appointed to preside over kingdoms, cities, and persons, and being many ways benefactors to us, thanks ought to be returned to them by sacrifice. 5. Lastly, that it can not be thought that the Supreme Being will envy those inferior beings that worship or honor which is bestowed upon them; nor suspect that any of these inferior deities will factiously go about to set up themselves against the Supreme God.
The Pagans, furthermore, apologized for worshipping God in images, statues, and symbols, on the ground that these were only schetically worshipped by them, the honor passing from them to the prototype. And since we live in bodies, and canscarcely, conceive of any thing without having some image or phantasm, we may therefore be indulged in this infirmity of human nature (at least in the vulgar) to worship God under a corporeal image, as a means of preventing men from falling into Atheism.
To the Christian conscience the above reasons assigned furnish no real justification of Polytheism and Idolatry; but they are certainly a tacit confession of their belief in the one Supreme God, and their conviction that, notwithstanding their idolatry, He only ought to be worshipped. The heathen polytheists are therefore justly condemned in Scripture, and pronounced to be "inexcusable." They had the knowledge of the true God--" theyknew God" and yet "they glorified him not as God." "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into a likeness of corruptible man." And, finally, they ended in "worshipping and serving the creaturemorethan the Creator."204
Footnote 204:(return)Romans i. 21, 25.
It can not, then, with justice be denied that the Athenians had some knowledge of the true God, and some just and worthy conceptions of his character. It is equally certain that a powerful and influential religious sentiment pervaded the Athenian mind. Their extreme "carefulness in religion" must be conceded by us, and, in some sense, commended by us, as it was by Paul in his address on Mars' Hill. At the same time it must also be admitted and deplored that the purer theology of primitive times was corrupted by offensive legends, and encrusted by polluting myths, though not utterly defaced.205The Homeric gods were for the most part idealized, human personalities, with all the passions and weaknesses of humanity. They had their favorites and their enemies; sometimes they fought in one camp, sometimes in another. They were susceptible of hatred, jealousy, sensual passion. It would be strange indeed if their worshippers were not like unto them. Theconduct of the Homeric heroes was, however, better than their creed. And there is this strange incongruity and inconsistency in the conduct of the Homeric gods,--they punish mortals for crimes of which they themselves are guilty, and reward virtues in men which they do not themselves always practise. "They punish with especial severity social and political crimes, such as perjury (Iliad, iii. 279), oppression of the poor (Od. xvii. 475), and unjust judgment in courts of justice (Iliad, xvi. 386)." Jupiter is the god of justice, and of the domestic hearth; he is the protector of the exile, the avenger of the poor, and the vigilant guardian of hospitality. "And with all the imperfections of society, government, and religion, the poem presents a remarkable picture of primitive simplicity, chastity, justice, and practical piety, under the three-fold influence of moral feeling, mutual respect, and fear of the divine displeasure; such, at least, are the motives to which Telemachus makes his appeal when he endeavors to rouse the assembled people of Ithaca to the performance of their duty (Od. ii. 64)."206
Footnote 205:(return)"There was always a double current of religious ideas in Greece; one spiritualist, the other tainted with impure legends."--Pressensé.
Footnote 206:(return): Tyler, "Theology of Greek Poets," pp. 167, 168; Pressensé, "Religion before Christ," p. 77.
The influence of the religious dramas of Æschylus and Sophocles on the Athenian mind must not be overlooked. No writer of pagan antiquity made the voice of conscience speak with the same power and authority that Æschylus did. "Crime," he says, "never dies without posterity." "Blood that has been shed congeals on the ground, crying out for an avenger." The old poet made himself the echo of what he called "the lyreless hymn of the Furies," who, with him, represented severe Justice striking the guilty when his hour comes, and giving warning beforehand by the terrors which haunt him. His dramas are characterized by deep religious feeling. Reverence for the gods, the recognition of an inflexible moral order, resignation to the decisions of Heaven, an abiding presentiment of a future state of reward and punishment, are strikingly predominant.
Whilst Æschylus reveals to us the sombre, terror-strickenside of conscience, Sophocles shows us the divine and luminous side. No one has ever spoken with nobler eloquence than he of moral obligation--of this immortal, inflexible law, in which dwells a God that never grows old--
"Oh be the lot forever mineUnsullied to maintain,In act and word, with awe divine,What potent laws ordain."Laws spring from purer realms above:Their father is the Olympian Jove.Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."207
"Oh be the lot forever mineUnsullied to maintain,In act and word, with awe divine,What potent laws ordain."Laws spring from purer realms above:Their father is the Olympian Jove.Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."207
"Oh be the lot forever mine
Unsullied to maintain,
In act and word, with awe divine,
What potent laws ordain.
"Laws spring from purer realms above:
Their father is the Olympian Jove.
Ne'er shall oblivion veil their front sublime,
Th' indwelling god is great, nor fears the wastes of time."207
The religious inspiration that animates Sophocles breaks out with incomparable beauty in the last words of Œdipus, when the old banished king sees through the darkness of death a mysterious light dawn, which illumines his blind eyes, and which brings to him the assurance of a blessed immortality.208
Footnote 207:(return)"Œdipus Tyran.," pp. 863-872.
Footnote 208:(return)Pressensé, "Religion before Christ," pp. 85-87.
Such a theology could not have been utterly powerless. The influence of truth, in every measure and degree, must be salutary, and especially of truth in relation to God, to duty, and to immortality. The religion of the Athenians must have had some wholesome and conserving influence of the social and political life of Athens.209Those who resign the government ofthis lower world almost exclusively to Satan, may see, in the religion of the Greeks, a simple creation of Satanic powers. But he who believes that the entire progress of humanity has been under the control and direction of a benignant Providence, must suppose that, in the purposes of God, even Ethnicism has fulfilled some end, or it would not have been permitted to live. God has "never left himself without a witness" in any nation under heaven. And some preparatory office has been fulfilled by Heathenism which, at least, repealed thewant, and prepared the mind for, the advent of Christianity.
Footnote 209:(return)The practice, so common with some theological writers, of drawing dark pictures of heathenism, in which not one luminous spot is visible, in order to exalt the revelations given to the Jews, is exceedingly unfortunate, and highly reprehensible. It is unfortunate, because the skeptical scholar knows that there were some elements of truth and excellence, and even of grandeur, in the religion and civilization of the republics of Greece and Rome; and it is reprehensible, because it is a one-sided and unjust procedure, in so far as it withholds part of the truth. This species of argument is a two-edged sword which cuts both ways. The prevalence of murder, and slavery, and treachery, and polygamy, in Greece and Rome, is no more a proof that "the religions of the pagan nations were destructive of morality" (Watson, vol. i. p. 59), than the polygamy of the Hebrews, the falsehoods and impositions of Mediaeval Christianity, the persecutions and martyrdoms of Catholic Christianity, the oppressions and wrongs of Christian England, and the slavery of Protestant America, are proofs that the Christian religion is "destructive of morality." What a fearful picture of the history of Christian nations might be drawn to-day, if all the lines of light, and goodness, and charity were left out, and the crimes, and wrongs, and cruelties of the Christian nations were alone exhibited!How much more convincing a proof of the truth of Christianity to find in the religions of the ancient world a latent sympathy with, and an unconscious preparation for, the religion of Christ. "The history of religions of human origin is the most striking evidence of the agreement of revealed religion with the soul of man--for each of these forms of worship is the expression of the wants of conscience, its eternal thirst for pardon and restoration--rather let us say, its thirst for God."--Pressensé, p. 6.
How much more convincing a proof of the truth of Christianity to find in the religions of the ancient world a latent sympathy with, and an unconscious preparation for, the religion of Christ. "The history of religions of human origin is the most striking evidence of the agreement of revealed religion with the soul of man--for each of these forms of worship is the expression of the wants of conscience, its eternal thirst for pardon and restoration--rather let us say, its thirst for God."--Pressensé, p. 6.
The religion of the Athenians was unable to deliver them from the guilt of sin, redeem them from its power, and make them pure and holy. It gave the Athenian no victory over himself, and, practically, brought him no nearer to the living God. But it awakened and educated the conscience, it developed more fully the sense of sin and guilt, and it made man conscious of his inability to save himself from sin and guilt; and "the day that humanity awakens to the want of something more than mere embellishment and culture, that day it feels the need of being saved and restored from the consequences of sin" by a higher power. Æsthetic taste had found its fullest gratification in Athens; poetry, sculpture, architecture, had been carried to the highest perfection; a noble civilization had been reached; but "the need of something deeper and truer was written on the very stones." The highest consummation of Paganism was an altar to "the unknown God," the knowledge of whom it needed, as the source of purity and peace.
The strength and the weakness of Grecian mythologyconsisted in the contradictory character of its divinities. It was a strange blending of the natural and the supernatural, the human and the divine. Zeus, the eternal Father,--the immortal King, whose will is sovereign, and whose power is invincible,--the All-seeing Jove, has some of the weaknesses and passions of humanity. God and man are thus, in some mysterious way, united. And here that deepest longing of the human heart is met--the unconquerable desire to bring God nearer to the human apprehension, and closer to the human heart. Hence the hold which Polytheism had upon the Grecian mind. But in this human aspect was also found its weakness, for when philosophic thought is brought into contact with, and permitted critically to test mythology, it dethrones the false gods. The age of spontaneous religious sentiment must necessarily be succeeded by the age of reflective thought. Popular theological faiths must be placed in the hot crucible of dialectic analysis, that the false and the frivolous may be separated from the pure and the true. The reason of man demands to be satisfied, as well as the heart. Faith in God must have a logical basis, it must be grounded on demonstration and proof. Or, at any rate, the question must be answered,whether God is cognizable by human reason? If this can be achieved, then a deeper foundation is laid in the mind of humanity, upon which Christianity can rear its higher and nobler truths.
"As I passed by, and beheld your sacred objects, I found an altar with this inscription,To the Unknown God."--ST. PAUL.
"That which can beknownof God is manifested in their hearts, God himself having shown it to them" [the heathen nations].--ST. PAUL.
Having now reached our first landing-place, from whence we may survey the fields that we have traversed, it may be well to set down in definite propositions the results we have attained. We may then carry them forward, as torches, to illuminate the path of future and still profounder inquiries.
The principles we have assumed as the only adequate and legitimate interpretation of the facts of religious history, and which an extended study of the most fully-developed religious system of the ancient world confirms, may be thus announced:
I. A religious nature and destination appertain to man, so that the purposes of his existence and the perfection of his being can only be secured in and through religion.
II. The idea of God as the unconditioned Cause, the infinite Mind, the personal Lord and Lawgiver, and the consciousness of dependence upon and obligation to God, are the fundamental principles of all religion.
III. Inasmuch as man is a religious being, the instincts and emotions of his nature constraining him to worship, there must also be implanted in his rational nature some originalà prioriideas or laws of thought which furnish the necessary cognition of the object of worship; that is, some native, spontaneous cognition of God.
A mere blind impulse would not be adequate to guide man to the true end and perfection of his being without rational ideas; a tendency or appetency, without a revealed object,would be the mockery and misery of his nature--an "ignis fatuus" perpetually alluring and forever deceiving man.
That man has a native, spontaneous apperception of a God, in the true import of that sacred name, has been denied by men of totally opposite schools and tendencies of thought--by the Idealist and the Materialist; by the Theologian and the Atheist. Though differing essentially in their general principles and method, they are agreed in asserting that God is absolutely "the unknown;" and that, so far as reason and logic are concerned, man can not attain to any knowledge of the first principles and causes of the universe, and, consequently, can not determine whether the first principle or principles be intelligent or unintelligent, personal or impersonal, finite or infinite, one or many righteous or non-righteous, evil or good.
The various opponents of the doctrine that God can be cognized by human reason may be classified as follows: I.Those who assert that all human knowledge is necessarily confined to the observation and classification of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance. Man has no faculty for cognizing substances, causes, forces, reasons, first principles--no power by which he canknowGod. This class may be again subdivided into--
1. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification ofmentalphenomena (e. g., Idealists like J. S. Mill).
2. Those who limit all knowledge to the observation and classification ofmaterialphenomena (e. g., Materialists like Comte).
II.The second class comprises all who admit that philosophic knowledge is the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes, and of qualities as inherent in substances; but at the same time assert that "all knowledge is of the phenomenal." Philosophy can never attain to a positive knowledge of the First Cause. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, we know nothing. The infinitecan not by us be comprehended, conceived, or thought.Faithis the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond knowledge. We believe in the existence of God, but we can notknowGod. This class, also, may be again subdivided into--
1. Those who affirm that our idea of the Infinite First Cause is grounded on anintuitionalor subjective faith, necessitated by an "impotence of thought"--that is, by a mental inability to conceive an absolute limitation or an infinite illimitation, an absolute commencement or an infinite non-commencement. Both contradictory opposites are equally incomprehensible and inconceivable to us; and yet, though unable to view either as possible, we are forced by a higher law--the "Law of Excluded Middle"--to admit that one, and only one, is necessary (e. g., Hamilton and Mansel).
2. Those who assert that our idea of God rests solely on anhistoricalor objective faith in testimony--the testimony of Scripture, which assures us that, in the course of history, God has manifested his existence in an objective manner to the senses, and given verbal communications of his character and will to men; human reason being utterly incapacitated by the fall, and the consequent depravity of man, to attain any knowledge of the unity, spirituality, and righteousness of God (e. g., Watson, and Dogmatic Theologians generally).
It will thus be manifest that the great question, the central and vital question which demands a thorough and searching consideration, is the following, to wit:Is God cognizable by human reason? Can man attain to a positive cognition of God--can heknowGod; or is all our supposed knowledge "a learned ignorance,"210an unreasoning faith? We venture to answer this question in the affirmative. Human reason is now adequate to the cognition of God; it is able, with the fullest confidence, to affirm the being of a God, and, in some degree, to determine his character. The parties and schools above referred to answer this question in the negative form. Whether Theologiansor Atheists, they are singularly agreed in denying to human reason all possibility ofknowingGod.
Footnote 210:(return)Hamilton's "Philosophy," p. 512.
Before entering upon the discussion of the negative positions enumerated in the above classification, it may be important we should state our own position explicitly, and exhibit what we regard as the true doctrine of the genesis of the idea of God in the human intelligence. The real question at issue will then stand out in clear relief, and precision will be given to the entire discussion.
(i.)We hold that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal human intelligence. It is found in all minds where reason has had its normal and healthy development; and no race of men has ever been found utterly destitute of the idea of God. The proof of this position has already been furnished in chap, ii.,211and needs not be re-stated here. We have simply to remark that the appeal which is made by Locke and others of the sensational school to the experiences of infants, idiots, the deaf and dumb, or, indeed, any cases wherein the proper conditions for the normal development of reason are wanting, are utterly irrelevant to the question. The acorn contains within itself the rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature and perfect development depends on the exterior conditions of moisture, light, and heat. By these exterior conditions it may be rendered luxuriant in its growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant thought, but the infant thought is not yet matured. The deaf and dumb are certainly not in that full and normal correlation to the world of sense which is a necessary condition of the development of reason. Language, the great vehiculum and instrument of thought, is wanting, andreason can not develop itself without words. "Words without thought are dead sounds,thoughts without words are nothing. The word is the thought incarnate."212Under proper and normal conditions, the idea of God is the natural and necessary form in which human thought must be developed. And, with these explanations, we repeat our affirmation that the idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal human intelligence.
Footnote 211:(return)Pp. 89,90.
Footnote 212:(return)Müller, " Science of Language," p. 384.
(ii.)We do not hold that the idea of God, in its completeness, is a simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independent of all experience, and all knowledge of the external world. The idea of God is a complex idea, and not a simple idea. The affirmation, "God exists," is asyntheticandprimitivejudgment spontaneously developed in the mind, and developed, too, independent of all reflective reasoning. It is a necessary deduction from the facts of the outer world of nature and the primary intuitions of the inner world of reason--a logical deduction from the self-evident truths given in sense, consciousness, and reason. "We do notperceiveGod, but weconceiveHim upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves."213Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate idea" of God, nor with the definite proposition, "there is a God," written upon his soul; but we do say that the mind is pregnant with certain natural principles, and governed, in its development, by certain necessary laws of thought, which determine it, by aspontaneous logic, to affirm the being of a God; and, furthermore, that this judgment may be calledinnatein the sense, that it is the primitive, universal, and necessary development of the human understanding which "is innate to itself and equal to itself in all men."214
Footnote 213:(return)Cousin, "True, Beautiful and Good," p.102.
Footnote 214:(return)Leibnitz.
As the vital and rudimentary germ of the oak is contained in the acorn; as it is quickened and excited to activity by the external conditions of moisture, light, and heat, and is fully dedeveloped under the fixed and determinative laws of vegetable life--so the germs of the idea of God are present in the human mind as the intuitions of pure reason (Rational Psychology); these intuitions are excited to energy by our experiential and historical knowledge of the facts and laws of the universe (Phenomenology); and these facts and intuitions are developed into form by the necessary laws of the intellect (Nomology, orPrimordial Logic).
Thelogical demonstrationof the being of God commences with the analysis of thought. It asks, What are the ideas which exist in the human intelligence? What are their actual characteristics, and what their primitive characteristics? What is their origin, and what their validity? Having, by this process, found that some of our ideas are subjective, and some objective that some are derived from experience, and that some can not be derived from experience, but are inherent in the very constitution of the mind itself, asà prioriideas of reason; that these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all its conceptions of the universe; it has formulated these necessary judgments, and presented them as distinct and articulate propositions. Theseà priori, necessary judgments constitute the major premise of the Theistic syllogism, and, in view of the facts of the universe, necessitate the affirmation of the existence of a God as the only valid explanation of the facts.
Thenaturalorchronological orderin which the idea of God is developed in the human intelligence, is the reverse process of the scientific or logical order, in which the demonstration of the being of God is presented by philosophy; the latter isreflectiveandanalytic, the former isspontaneousandsynthetic.The natural order commences with the knowledge of the facts of the universe, material and mental, as revealed by sensation and experience. In presence of these facts of the universe, theà prioriideas of power, cause, reason, and end are evoked into consciousness with greater or less distinctness; and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic, free from allreflection, and consequently from all possibility of error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and theà prioriideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary and almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition of a God found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness, in all rational minds. Theà posteriori, or empirical knowledge of the phenomena of the universe, in their relations to time and space, constitute the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism.
The Theistic argument is, therefore, necessarily composed of both experiential andà priorielements. Anà posteriorielement exists as a condition of the logical demonstration The rationalà priorielement is, however, the logical basis, the only valid foundation of the Theistic demonstration. The facts of the universe alone would never lead man to the recognition of a God, if the reason, in presence of these facts, did not enounce certain necessary and universal principles which are the logical antecedents, and adequate explanation of the facts. Of what use would it be to point to the events and changes of the material universe as proofs of the existence of aFirst Cause,unless we take account of the universal and necessary truth that "every change must have an efficient cause;" that all phenomena are an indication ofpower; and that "there is an ultimate and sufficient reason why all things exist, and are as they are, and not otherwise." There would be no logical force in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation which literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of anIntelligent Creator, if the mind did not affirm the necessary principle that "facts of order, having a commencement in time, suppose mind as their source and exponent." There is no logical conclusiveness in the assertion of Paley, "thatexperienceteaches us that a designer must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is narrowed down to a mere point, "and can not be a rule for a universe;" but there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason, that "intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarilyconstitute personality." A multiplicity of different effects, of which experience does not always reveal the connection, would not conduct to a single cause and tooneGod, but rather to a plurality of causes and a plurality of gods, did not reason teach us that "all plurality implies an ultimate indivisible unity," and therefore there must be aFirst Causeof all causes, aFirst Principleof all principles,the Substanceof all substances,the Beingof all beings--a God"of whom, in whom, and to whom are all things" (πάντα ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, ἐν τῷ θεῷ, εἰς τὸν θεόν).
The conclusion, therefore, is, that, as the idea of God is a complex idea, so there are necessarily a number of simpleà prioriprinciples, and a variety of experiential facts conspiring to its development in the human intelligence.
(iii.)The universe presents to the human mind an aggregation and history of phenomena which demands the idea of a God--a self-existent, intelligent, personal, righteous First Cause--as its adequate explanation.
The attempt of Positivism to confine all human knowledge to the observation and classification of phenomena, and arrest and foreclose all inquiry as to causes, efficient, final, and ultimate, is simply futile and absurd. It were just as easy to arrest the course of the sun in mid-heaven as to prevent the human mind from seeking to pass beyond phenomena, and ascertain the ground, and reason, and cause of all phenomena. The history of speculative thought clearly attests that, in all ages, the inquiry after the Ultimate Cause and Reason of all existence--the ἀρχή, or First Principle of all things--has been the inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which, skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as Leibnitz and Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in some physical element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still, howeverimperfect and inadequate the method, and however unsatisfactory the results, humanity has never lost its positive and ineradicable confidence that the problem of existence could be solved. The resistless tide of spontaneous and necessary thought has always borne the race onward towards the recognition of a great First Cause; and though philosophy may have erred, again and again, in tracing the logical order of this inevitable thought, and exhibiting the necessary nexus between the premises and conclusion, yet the human mind has never wavered in the confidence which it has reposed in the natural logic of thought, and man has never ceased to believe in a God.
We readily grant that all our empirical knowledge is confined to phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance. "To our objective perception and comparison nothing is given but qualities and changes; to our inductive generalization nothing but the shifting and grouping of these in time and space." Were it, however, our immediate concern to discuss the question, we could easily show that sensationalism has never succeeded in tracing the genetic origin of our ideas of space and time to observation and experience; and, without theà prioriidea ofspace, as the place of bodies, and oftime, as the condition of succession, we can not conceive of phenomena at all. If, therefore, we know any thing beyond phenomena and their mutual relations; if we have any cognition of realities underlying phenomena, and of the relations of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be given by some faculty distinct from sense-perception, and in some process distinct from inductive generalization. The knowledge of real Being and real Power, of an ultimate Reason and a personal Will, is derived from the apperception of pure reason, which affirms the necessary existence of a Supreme Reality--an Uncreated Being beyond all phenomena, which is the ground and reason of the existence--the contemporaneousness and succession--the likeness and unlikeness, of all phenomena.
The immediate presentation of phenomena to sensation is theoccasionof the development in consciousness of theseàprioriideas of reason: the possession of these ideas or the immanence of these ideas, in the human intellect, constitutes the originalpowerto know external phenomena. The ideas of space, time, power, law, reason, and end, are the logical antecedents of the ideas of body, succession, event, consecution, order, and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as distinct notions without the former. The former will not be revealed in thought without the presentation to sense, of resistance, movement, change, uniformity, etc. All actual knowledge must, therefore, be impure; that is, it must involve bothà prioriandà posteriorielements; and between these elements there must be a necessary relation.
This necessary relation between theà prioriandà posteriorielements of knowledge is not a mere subjective law of thought. It is both a law of thought and a law of things. Between theà posteriorifacts of the universe and theà prioriideas of the reason there is an absolute nexus, a universal and necessary correlation; so that the cognition of the latter is possible only on the cognition of the former; and the objective existence of the realities, represented by the ideas of reason, is the condition,sine qua non, of the existence of the phenomena presented to sense. If, in one indivisible act of consciousness, we immediately perceive extended matter exterior to our percipient mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension exists objectively, then Space, itsconditio sine qua non, also exists objectively. And if a definite body reveals to us theSpacein which it is contained, if a succession of pulsations or movements exhibit the uniformTimebeneath, so do the changeful phenomena of the universe demand a livingPowerbehind, and the existing order and regular evolution of the universe presupposeThought--prevision, and predetermination, by an intelligent mind.
If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught, the world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which dwell in the uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas whichdwell in the human reason, as the offspring of God, are "copies" of the ideas of the Infinite Reason--if the universe be "the autobiography of the Infinite Spirit which has also repeated itself in miniature within our finite spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through illimitable space--the more do we comprehend the divine Thought. The inductive generalization of science graduallyascendstowards the universal; the pure, essential,à priorireason, with its universal and necessary ideas,descendsfrom above to meet it. The general conceptions of science are thus a kind ofideœ umbratiles--shadowy assimilations to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason, as possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are participated in by rational man as the offspring and image of God.
Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy, we offer the following tentative classification of the facts of the universe, material and mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall venture to classify these facts as indicative of some fundamental relation; (i.) to Permanent Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and Thought; (iii.) to Moral Ideas and Ends.
(i.)Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Permanent Being or Reality.
1.QualitativePhenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the predicates of asubject; which phenomena, being characterized by likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison and classification, and thus of revealing something as to the nature of thesubject.
2.DynamicalPhenomena (protension, movement,succession)--events transpiring intime, having beginning, succession, and end, which present themselves to us as the expression ofpower, and throw back their distinctive characteristics on theirdynamicsource.
3.QuantitativePhenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative unity)--a multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity, which suggests some relation to an absolute and indivisibleunity.
4.StaticalPhenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies co-existing inspacewhich are limited, conditioned, relative, dependent, and indicate some relation to that which is self-existent, unconditioned, and absolute.
(ii.)Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Reason or Thought.
1.Numerical and Geometrical Proportion.--Definite proportion of elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of parts (Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical Astronomy), all of which are capable of exact mathematical expression.
2.Archetypal Forms.--The uniform succession of new existences, and the progressive evolution of new orders and species, conformable to fixed and definite ideal archetypes, the indication of a comprehensiveplan(Morphological Botany, Comparative Anatomy).
3.Teleology of Organs.--The adaptation of organs to the fulfillment of special functions, indicatingdesign(Comparative Physiology).
4.Combination of Homotypes and Analogues.--Diversified homologous forms made to fulfill analogous functions, or special purposes fulfilled whilst maintaining a general plan, indicatingchoiceandalternativity.
(iii.)Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Moral Ideas and Ends.
1.Ethical Distinctions.--The universal tendency to discriminate between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicating some relation to animmutable moral standard of right.
2.Sense of Obligation.--The universal consciousness of dependence and obligation, indicating some relation to SupremePower, an AbsoluteAuthority.
3.Feeling of Responsibility.--The universal consciousness of liability to be required to give account for, and endure the consequences of our action, indicating some relation to a SupremeJudge.
4.Retributive Issues.--The pleasure and pain resulting from moral action in this life, and the universal anticipation of pleasure or pain in the future, as the consequence of present conduct, indicate anabsolute Justiceruling the world and man.
Now, if the universe be acreated effect, it must, in some degree at least, reveal the character of its Author and cause. We are entitled to regard it as a created symbol and image of the Deity; it must bear the impress of hispower; it must reveal his infinitepresence; it must express histhoughts; it must embody and realize hisideals, so far, at least, as material symbols will permit. Just as we see the power and thought of man revealed in his works, his energy and skill, his ideal and his taste expressed in his mechanical, artistic, and literary creations, so we may see the mind and character of God displayed in his works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and Stephenson were exhibited in their mechanical productions. The pure, the intense, the visionary impersonation of the soul which the artist had conjured in his own imagination was wrought out in Psyché. The colossal grandeur of Michael Angelo's ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's were realized upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even when the author's name is not affixed. And so the "eternal Power" of God is "clearly seen" in the mighty orbs which float in theillimitable space. The vastness of the universe shadows forth the infinity of God. The indivisible unity of space and the ideal unity of the universe reflect the unity of God. The material forms around us are symbols of divine ideas, and the successive history of the universe is an expression of the divine thought; whilst the ethical ideas and sentiments inherent in the human mind are a reflection of the moral character of God.
The reader can not have failed to observe the form in which the Theistic argument is stated; "ifthe finite universe is a created effect, it must reveal something as to the nature of its cause:ifthe existing order and arrangement of the universe had a commencement in time, it must have an ultimate and adequate cause." The question, therefore, presents itself in a definite form: "Is the universe finite or infinite; had the order of the universe a beginning, or is it eternal?"
It will be seen at a glance that this is the central and vital question in the Theistic argument. If the order and arrangement of the universe iseternal, then that order is an inherent law of nature, and, as eternal, does not imply a causeab extra:if it is not eternal, then the ultimate cause of that order must be a power above and beyond nature. In the former case the minor premise of the Theistic syllogism is utterly invalidated; in the latter case it is abundantly sustained.
Some Theistic writers--as Descartes, Pascal, Leibnitz, and Saisset--have made the fatal admission that the universe is, in some sense,infiniteandeternal. In making this admission they have unwittingly surrendered the citadel of strength, and deprived the argument by which they would prove the being of a God of all its logical force. That argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being."215But if "the world is infinite and eternal,"216may not nature, or the totality of all existence (τὺ πᾶν), be the necessary, infinite, and perfect Being? Aninfinite and eternal universe has the reason of its existence in itself, and the existence of such a universe can never prove to us the existence of an infinite and eternal God.
Footnote 215:(return)"Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. p. 205.
Footnote 216:(return)Ibid, p. 123.
A closer examination of the statements and reasonings of Descartes, Pascal, and Leibnitz, as furnished by Saisset, will show that these distinguished mathematicans were misled by the false notion of "mathematicalinfinitude." Their infinite universe, after all, is not an "absolute," but a "relative" infinite; that is, the indefinite. "The universe must extendindefinitelyin time and space, in the infinite greatness, and in the infinite littleness of its parts--in the infinite variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence. The finite can not express the infinite but by beingmultipliedinfinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the finite, asmultipliedinfinitely,217ages upon ages, spaces upon spaces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression of the Infinite Being. Does it follow, because the universe has no limits,--that it must therefore be eternal, immense, infinite as God himself? No; that is but a vain scruple, which springs from the imagination, and not from the reason. The imagination is always confounding what reason should ever distinguish, eternity and time, immensity and space,relativeinfinity andabsoluteinfinity. The Creator alone is eternal, immense, absolutely infinite."218
Footnote 217:(return)"The infinite is distinct from the finite, and consequently from the multiplication of the finite by itself; that is, from theindefinite. That which is not infinite, added as many times as you please to itself, will not become infinite."--Cousin, "Hist, of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 231.
Footnote 218:(return)Saisset, "Modern Pantheism," vol. ii. pp. 127, 128.
The introduction of the idea of "the mathematical infinite" into metaphysical speculation, especially by Kant and Hamilton, with the design, it would seem, of transforming the idea of infinity into a sensuous conception, has generated innumerable paralogisms which disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is grounded in the common fallacy of supposing thatinfinityandquantityare compatible attributes, and susceptible of mathematical synthesis. This insidious andplausible error is ably refuted by a writer in the "North American Review."219We can not do better than transfer his argument to our pages in an abridged form.
Footnote 219:(return)"The Conditioned and the Unconditioned," No. CCV. art. iii. (1864).
Mathematics is conversant with quantities and quantitative relations. The conception of quantity, therefore, if rigorously analyzed, will indicateà priorithe natural and impassable boundaries of the science; while a subsequent examination of the quantities called infinite in the mathematical sense, and of the algebraic symbol of infinity, will be seen to verify the results of thisá priorianalysis.
Quantity is that attribute of things in virtue of which they are susceptible of exact mensuration. The questionhow much, orhow many(quantus), implies the answer,so much, orso many(tantus); but the answer is possible only through reference to some standard of magnitude or multitude arbitrarily assumed. Every object, therefore, of which quantity, in the mathematical sense, is predicable, must be by its essential naturemensurable.Now mensurability implies the existence of actual, definite limits, since without them there could be no fixed relation between the given object and the standard of measurement, and, consequently, no possibility of exact mensuration. In fact, since quantification is the object of all mathematical operations, mathematics may be not inaptly defined asthe science of the determinations of limits. It is evident, therefore, that the termsquantityandfinitudeexpress the same attribute, namely,limitation--the former relatively, the latter absolutely; for quantity is limitation considered with relation to some standard of measurement, and finitude is limitation considered simply in itself. The sphere of quantity, therefore, is absolutely identical with the sphere of the finite; and the phraseinfinite quantity, if strictly construed, is a contradiction in terms.
The result thus attained by considering abstract quantity is corroborated by considering concrete and discrete quantities. Such expressions asinfinite sphere, radius, parallelogram, line,and so forth, are self-contradictory. A sphere is limited by itsown periphery, and a radius by the centre and circumference of its circle. A parallelogram of infinite altitude is impossible, because the limit of its altitude is assigned in the side which must be parallel to its base in order to constitute it a parallelogram. In brief, all figuration is limitation. The contradiction in the terminfinite lineis not quite so obvious, but can readily be made apparent. Objectively, a line is only the termination of a surface, and a surface the termination of a solid; hence a line can not exist apart from an extended quantity, nor an infinite line apart from an infinite quantity. But as this term has just been shown to be self-contradictory, an infinite line can not exist objectively at all. Again, every line is extension in one dimension; hence a mathematical quantity, hence mensurable, hence finite; you must therefore, deny that a line is a quantity, or else affirm that it is finite.
The same conclusion is forced upon us, if from geometry we turn to arithmetic. The phrasesinfinite number, infinite series, infinite process, and so forth, are all contradictory when literally construed. Number is a relation among separate unities or integers, which, considered objectively as independent of our cognitive powers, must constitute an exact sum; and this exactitude, or synthetic totality, is limitation. If considered subjectively in the mode of its cognition, a number is infinite only in the sense that it is beyond the power of our imagination or conception, which is an abuse of the term. In either case the totality is fixed; that is, finite. So, too, ofseriesandprocess. Since every series involves a succession of terms or numbers, and every process a succession of steps or stages, the notion of series and process plainly involves that ofnumber, and must be rigorously dissociated from the idea of infinity. At any one step, at any one term, the number attained is determinate, hence finite. The fact that, by the law of the series or of the process,wemay continue the operationas long as we please, does not justify the application of the term infinite to the operation itself; if any thing is infinite, it is the will which continues the operation, which is absurd if said of human wills.