CHAPTER X.Of the Induction of Causes.AphorismLX.In theInduction of Causesthe principal Maxim is, that we must be careful to possess, and to apply, with perfect clearness, the Fundamental Idea on which the Induction depends.AphorismLXI.The Induction of Substance, of Force, of Polarity, go beyond mere laws of phenomena, and may be considered as the Induction of Causes.AphorismLXII.The Cause of certain phenomena being inferred, we are led to inquire into the Cause of this Cause, which inquiry must be conducted in the same manner as the previous one; and thus we have the Induction of Ulterior Causes.AphorismLXIII.In contemplating the series of Causes which are themselves the effects of other causes, we are necessarily led to assume a Supreme Cause in the Order of Causation, as we assume a First Cause in Order of Succession.1.WE formerly53stated the objects of the researches of Science to be Laws of Phenomena and Causes; and showed the propriety and the necessity of not resting in the former object, but extending our248inquiries to the latter also. Inductions, in which phenomena are connected by relations of Space, Time, Number and Resemblance, belong to the former class; and of the Methods applicable to such Inductions we have treated already. In proceeding to Inductions governed by any ulterior Ideas, we can no longer lay down any Special Methods by which our procedure may be directed. A few general remarks are all that we shall offer.53B. ii. c. vii.The principal Maxim in such cases of Induction is the obvious one:—that we must be careful to possess and to apply, with perfect clearness and precision, the Fundamental Idea on which the Induction depends.We may illustrate this in a few cases.2.Induction of Substance.—The Idea of Substance54involves this axiom, that the weight of the whole compound must be equal to the weights of the separate elements, whatever changes the composition or separation of the elements may have occasioned. The application of this Maxim we may term theMethod of the Balance. We have seen55elsewhere how the memorable revolution in Chemistry, the overthrow of Phlogiston, and the establishment of the Oxygen Theory, was produced by the application of this Method. We have seen too56that the same Idea leads us to this Maxim;—thatImponderable Fluidsare not to be admitted aschemicalelements of bodies.54Hist. Sc. Ideas, Book vi. c. iii.55Ibid.b. vi. c. iv.56Ibid.Whether those which have been termedImponderable Fluids,—the supposed fluids which produce the phenomena of Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism,—really exist or no, is a question, not merely of theLaws, but of theCausesof Phenomena. It is, as has already been shown, a question which we cannot help discussing, but which is at present involved in great obscurity. Nor does it appear at all likely that we shall obtain a true view of the cause of Light, Heat, and Electricity, till we have discovered precise and general laws connecting optical, thermotical, and249electricalphenomenawith those chemical doctrines to which the Idea of Substance is necessarily applied.3.Induction of Force.—The inference ofMechanical Forcesfrom phenomena has been so abundantly practised, that it is perfectly familiar among scientific inquirers. From the time of Newton, it has been the most common aim of mathematicians; and a persuasion has grown up among them, that mechanical forces,—attraction and repulsion,—are the only modes of action of the particles of bodies which we shall ultimately have to consider. I have attempted to show that this mode of conception is inadequate to the purposes of sound philosophy;—that the Particles of crystals, and the Elements of chemical compounds, must be supposed to be combined in some other way than by mere mechanical attraction and repulsion. Dr. Faraday has gone further in shaking the usual conceptions of the force exerted, in well-known cases. Among the most noted and conspicuous instances of attraction and repulsion exerted at a distance, were those which take place between electrized bodies. But the eminent electrician just mentioned has endeavoured to establish, by experiments of which it is very difficult to elude the weight, that the action in these cases does not take place at a distance, but is the result of a chain of intermediate particles connected at every point by forces of another kind.4.Induction of Polarity.—The forces to which Dr. Faraday ascribes the action in these cases arePolar Forces57. We have already endeavoured to explain the Idea of Polar Forces; which implies58that at every point forces exactly equal act in opposite directions; and thus, in the greater part of their course, neutralize and conceal each other; while at the extremities of the line, being by some cause liberated, they are manifested, still equal and opposite. And the criterion by which this polar character of forces is recognized, is implied in the reasoning of Faraday, on the question of one or two electricities, of which we250formerly spoke59. The maxim is this:—that in the action of polar forces, along with every manifestation of force or property, there exists a corresponding and simultaneous manifestation of an equal and opposite force or property.57Researches, 12th series.58B. v. c. i. [For this and the following note, please see the Transcriber’sNotes.]59Book v. c. i.5. As it was the habit of the last age to reduce all action to mechanical forces, the present race of physical speculators appears inclined to reduce all forces to polar forces. Mosotti has endeavoured to show that the positive and negative electricities pervade all bodies, and that gravity is only an apparent excess of one of the kinds over the other. As we have seen, Faraday has given strong experimental grounds for believing that the supposed remote actions of electrized bodies are really the effects of polar forces among contiguous particles. If this doctrine were established with regard to all electrical, magnetical, and chemical forces, we might ask, whether, while all other forces are polar, gravity really affords a single exception to the universal rule? Is not the universe pervaded by an omnipresent antagonism, a fundamental conjunction of contraries, everywhere opposite, nowhere independent? We are, as yet, far from the position in which Inductive Science can enable us to answer such inquiries.6.Induction of Ulterior Causes.—The first Induction of a Cause does not close the business of scientific inquiry. Behind proximate causes, there are ulterior causes, perhaps a succession of such. Gravity is the cause of the motions of the planets; but what is the cause of gravity? This is a question which has occupied men’s minds from the time of Newton to the present day. Earthquakes and volcanoes are the causes of many geological phenomena; but what is the cause of those subterraneous operations? This inquiry after ulterior causes is an inevitable result from the intellectual constitution of man. He discovers mechanical causes, but he cannot rest in them. He must needs ask, whence it is that matter has its universal power of attracting matter. He discovers polar forces: but even251if these be universal, he still desires a further insight into the cause of this polarity. He sees, in organic structures, convincing marks of adaptation to an end: whence, he asks, is this adaptation? He traces in the history of the earth a chain of causes and effects operating through time: but what, he inquires, is the power which holds the end of this chain?Thus we are referred back from step to step in the order of causation, in the same, manner as, in the palætiological sciences, we were referred back in the order of time. We make discovery after discovery in the various regions of science; each, it may be, satisfactory, and in itself complete, but none final. Something always remains undone. The last question answered, the answer suggests still another question. The strain of music from the lyre of Science flows on, rich and sweet, full and harmonious, but never reaches a close: no cadence is heard with which the intellectual ear can feel satisfied.Of the Supreme Cause.—In the utterance of Science, no cadence is heard with which the human mind can feel satisfied. Yet we cannot but go on listening for and expecting a satisfactory close. The notion of a cadence appears to be essential to our relish of the music. The idea of some closing strain seems to lurk among our own thoughts, waiting to be articulated in the notes which flow from the knowledge of external nature. The idea of something ultimate in our philosophical researches, something in which the mind can acquiesce, and which will leave us no further questions to ask, ofwhence, andwhy, andby what power, seems as if it belongs to us:—as if we could not have it withheld from us by any imperfection or incompleteness in the actual performances of science. What is the meaning of this conviction? What is the reality thus anticipated? Whither does the developement of this Idea conduct us?We have already seen that a difficulty of the same kind, which arises in the contemplation of causes and effects considered as forming an historical series, drives us to the assumption of a First Cause, as an Axiom252to which our Idea of Causation in time necessarily leads. And as we were thus guided to a First Cause, in order of Succession, the same kind of necessity directs us to a Supreme Cause in order of Causation.On this most weighty subject it is difficult to speak fitly; and the present is not the proper occasion, even for most of that which may be said. But there are one or two remarks which flow from the general train of the contemplations we have been engaged in, and with which this Work must conclude.We have seen how different are the kinds of cause to which we are led by scientific researches.Mechanical Forcesare insufficient withoutChemical Affinities; Chemical Agencies fail us, and we are compelled to have recourse toVital Powers; Vital Powers cannot be merely physical, and we must believe in something hyperphysical, something of the nature of aSoul. Not only do biological inquiries lead us to assume an animal soul, but they drive us much further; they bring before usPerception, andWillevoked by Perception. Still more, these inquiries disclose to usIdeasas the necessary forms of Perception, in the actions of which we ourselves are conscious. We are aware, we cannot help being aware, of our Ideas and our Volitions as belonging tous, and thus we pass fromthingstopersons; we have the idea ofPersonalityawakened. And the idea of Design andPurpose, of which we are conscious in our own minds, we find reflected back to us, with a distinctness which we cannot overlook, in all the arrangements which constitute the frame of organized beings.We cannot but reflect how widely diverse are the kinds of principles thus set before us;—by what vast strides we mount from the lower to the higher, as we proceed through that series of causes which the range of the sciences thus brings under our notice. Yet we know how narrow is the range of these sciences when compared with the whole extent of human knowledge. We cannot doubt that on many other subjects, besides those included in physical speculation, man has made out solid and satisfactory trains of253connexion;—has discovered clear and indisputable evidence of causation. It is manifest, therefore, that, if we are to attempt to ascend to the Supreme Cause—if we are to try to frame an idea of the Cause of all these subordinate causes;—we must conceive it as more different from any of them, than the most diverse are from each other;—more elevated above the highest, than the highest is above the lowest.But further;—though the Supreme Cause must thus be inconceivably different from all subordinate causes, and immeasurably elevated above them all, it must still include in itself all that is essential to each of them, by virtue of that very circumstance that it is the Cause of their Causality. Time and Space,—Infinite Time and Infinite Space,—must be among its attributes; for we cannot but conceive Infinite Time and Space as attributes of the Infinite Cause of the universe. Force and Matter must depend upon it for their efficacy; for we cannot conceive the activity of Force, or the resistance of Matter, to be independent powers. But these are its lower attributes. The Vital Powers, the Animal Soul, which are the Causes of the actions of living things, are only the Effects of the Supreme Cause of Life. And this Cause, even in the lowest forms of organized bodies, and still more in those which stand higher in the scale, involves a reference to Ends and Purposes, in short, to manifest Final Causes. Since this is so, and since, even when we contemplate ourselves in a view studiously narrowed, we still find that we have Ideas, and Will and Personality, it would render our philosophy utterly incoherent and inconsistent with itself, to suppose that Personality, and Ideas, and Will, and Purpose, do not belong to the Supreme Cause from which we derive all that we have and all that we are.But we may go a step further;—though, in our present field of speculation, we confine ourselves to knowledge founded on the facts which the external world presents to us, we cannot forget, in speaking of such a theme as that to which we have thus been led, that these are but a small, and the least significant254portion of the facts which bear upon it. We cannot fail to recollect that there are facts belonging to the world within us, which more readily and strongly direct our thoughts to the Supreme Cause of all things. We can plainly discern that we have Ideas elevated above the region of mechanical causation, of animal existence, even of mere choice and will, which still have a clear and definite significance, a permanent and indestructible validity. We perceive as a fact, that we have a Conscience, judging of Right and Wrong; that we have Ideas of Moral Good and Evil, that we are compelled to conceive the organization of the moral world, as well as of the vital frame, to be directed to an end and governed by a purpose. And since the Supreme Cause is the cause of these facts, the Origin of these Ideas, we cannot refuse to recognize Him as not only the Maker, but the Governor of the World; as not only a Creative, but a Providential Power; as not only a Universal Father, but an Ultimate Judge.We have already passed beyond the boundary of those speculations which we proposed to ourselves as the basis of our conclusions. Yet we may be allowed to add one other reflection. If we find in ourselves Ideas of Good and Evil, manifestly bestowed upon us to be the guides of our conduct, which guides we yet find it impossible consistently to obey;—if we find ourselves directed, even by our natural light, to aim at a perfection of our moral nature from which we are constantly deviating through weakness and perverseness; if, when we thus lapse and err, we can find, in the region of human philosophy, no power which can efface our aberrations, or reconcile our actual with our ideal being, or give us any steady hope and trust with regard to our actions, after we have thus discovered their incongruity with their genuine standard;—if we discern that this is our condition, how can we fail to see that it is in the highest degree consistent with all the indications supplied by such a philosophy as that of which we have been attempting to lay the foundations, that the Supreme Cause, through whom man exists as255a moral being of vast capacities and infinite Hopes, should have Himself provided a teaching for our ignorance, a propitiation for our sin, a support for our weakness, a purification and sanctification of our nature?And thus, in concluding our long survey of the grounds and structure of science, and of the lessons which the study of it teaches us, we find ourselves brought to a point of view in which we can cordially sympathize, and more than sympathize, with all the loftiest expressions of admiration and reverence and hope and trust, which have been uttered by those who in former times have spoken of the elevated thoughts to which the contemplation of the nature and progress of human knowledge gives rise. We can not only hold with Galen, and Harvey, and all the great physiologists, that the organs of animals give evidence of a purpose;—not only assert with Cuvier that this conviction of a purpose can alone enable us to understand every part of every living thing;—not only say with Newton that ‘every true step made in philosophy brings us nearer to the First Cause, and is on that account highly to be valued;’—and that ‘the business of natural philosophy is to deduce causes from effects, till we come to the very First Cause, which certainly is not mechanical;’—but we can go much farther, and declare, still with Newton, that ‘this beautiful system could have its origin no other way than by the purpose and command of an intelligent and powerful Being, who governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of the Universe; who is not only God, but Lord and Governor.’When we have advanced so far, there yet remains one step. We may recollect the prayer of one, the master in this school of the philosophy of science: ‘This also we humbly and earnestly beg;—that human things may not prejudice such as are divine;—neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything may arise of incredulity or intellectual night towards divine mysteries; but rather that by our minds thoroughly256purged and cleansed from fancy and vanity, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the divine oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are faith’s.’ When we are thus prepared for a higher teaching, we may be ready to listen to a greater than Bacon, when he says to those who have sought their God in the material universe, ‘Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.’ And when we recollect how utterly inadequate all human language has been shown to be, to express the nature of that Supreme Cause of the Natural, and Rational, and Moral, and Spiritual world, to which our Philosophy points with trembling finger and shaded eyes, we may receive, with the less wonder but with the more reverence, the declaration which has been vouchsafed to us:ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ΗΝ Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ, ΚΑI Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΗΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΘΕΟΝ, ΚΑI ΘΕΟΣ ΗΝ Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ.
CHAPTER X.Of the Induction of Causes.
AphorismLX.
In theInduction of Causesthe principal Maxim is, that we must be careful to possess, and to apply, with perfect clearness, the Fundamental Idea on which the Induction depends.
AphorismLXI.
The Induction of Substance, of Force, of Polarity, go beyond mere laws of phenomena, and may be considered as the Induction of Causes.
AphorismLXII.
The Cause of certain phenomena being inferred, we are led to inquire into the Cause of this Cause, which inquiry must be conducted in the same manner as the previous one; and thus we have the Induction of Ulterior Causes.
AphorismLXIII.
In contemplating the series of Causes which are themselves the effects of other causes, we are necessarily led to assume a Supreme Cause in the Order of Causation, as we assume a First Cause in Order of Succession.
1.WE formerly53stated the objects of the researches of Science to be Laws of Phenomena and Causes; and showed the propriety and the necessity of not resting in the former object, but extending our248inquiries to the latter also. Inductions, in which phenomena are connected by relations of Space, Time, Number and Resemblance, belong to the former class; and of the Methods applicable to such Inductions we have treated already. In proceeding to Inductions governed by any ulterior Ideas, we can no longer lay down any Special Methods by which our procedure may be directed. A few general remarks are all that we shall offer.
53B. ii. c. vii.
The principal Maxim in such cases of Induction is the obvious one:—that we must be careful to possess and to apply, with perfect clearness and precision, the Fundamental Idea on which the Induction depends.
We may illustrate this in a few cases.
2.Induction of Substance.—The Idea of Substance54involves this axiom, that the weight of the whole compound must be equal to the weights of the separate elements, whatever changes the composition or separation of the elements may have occasioned. The application of this Maxim we may term theMethod of the Balance. We have seen55elsewhere how the memorable revolution in Chemistry, the overthrow of Phlogiston, and the establishment of the Oxygen Theory, was produced by the application of this Method. We have seen too56that the same Idea leads us to this Maxim;—thatImponderable Fluidsare not to be admitted aschemicalelements of bodies.
54Hist. Sc. Ideas, Book vi. c. iii.
55Ibid.b. vi. c. iv.
56Ibid.
Whether those which have been termedImponderable Fluids,—the supposed fluids which produce the phenomena of Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, Magnetism,—really exist or no, is a question, not merely of theLaws, but of theCausesof Phenomena. It is, as has already been shown, a question which we cannot help discussing, but which is at present involved in great obscurity. Nor does it appear at all likely that we shall obtain a true view of the cause of Light, Heat, and Electricity, till we have discovered precise and general laws connecting optical, thermotical, and249electricalphenomenawith those chemical doctrines to which the Idea of Substance is necessarily applied.
3.Induction of Force.—The inference ofMechanical Forcesfrom phenomena has been so abundantly practised, that it is perfectly familiar among scientific inquirers. From the time of Newton, it has been the most common aim of mathematicians; and a persuasion has grown up among them, that mechanical forces,—attraction and repulsion,—are the only modes of action of the particles of bodies which we shall ultimately have to consider. I have attempted to show that this mode of conception is inadequate to the purposes of sound philosophy;—that the Particles of crystals, and the Elements of chemical compounds, must be supposed to be combined in some other way than by mere mechanical attraction and repulsion. Dr. Faraday has gone further in shaking the usual conceptions of the force exerted, in well-known cases. Among the most noted and conspicuous instances of attraction and repulsion exerted at a distance, were those which take place between electrized bodies. But the eminent electrician just mentioned has endeavoured to establish, by experiments of which it is very difficult to elude the weight, that the action in these cases does not take place at a distance, but is the result of a chain of intermediate particles connected at every point by forces of another kind.
4.Induction of Polarity.—The forces to which Dr. Faraday ascribes the action in these cases arePolar Forces57. We have already endeavoured to explain the Idea of Polar Forces; which implies58that at every point forces exactly equal act in opposite directions; and thus, in the greater part of their course, neutralize and conceal each other; while at the extremities of the line, being by some cause liberated, they are manifested, still equal and opposite. And the criterion by which this polar character of forces is recognized, is implied in the reasoning of Faraday, on the question of one or two electricities, of which we250formerly spoke59. The maxim is this:—that in the action of polar forces, along with every manifestation of force or property, there exists a corresponding and simultaneous manifestation of an equal and opposite force or property.
57Researches, 12th series.
58B. v. c. i. [For this and the following note, please see the Transcriber’sNotes.]
59Book v. c. i.
5. As it was the habit of the last age to reduce all action to mechanical forces, the present race of physical speculators appears inclined to reduce all forces to polar forces. Mosotti has endeavoured to show that the positive and negative electricities pervade all bodies, and that gravity is only an apparent excess of one of the kinds over the other. As we have seen, Faraday has given strong experimental grounds for believing that the supposed remote actions of electrized bodies are really the effects of polar forces among contiguous particles. If this doctrine were established with regard to all electrical, magnetical, and chemical forces, we might ask, whether, while all other forces are polar, gravity really affords a single exception to the universal rule? Is not the universe pervaded by an omnipresent antagonism, a fundamental conjunction of contraries, everywhere opposite, nowhere independent? We are, as yet, far from the position in which Inductive Science can enable us to answer such inquiries.
6.Induction of Ulterior Causes.—The first Induction of a Cause does not close the business of scientific inquiry. Behind proximate causes, there are ulterior causes, perhaps a succession of such. Gravity is the cause of the motions of the planets; but what is the cause of gravity? This is a question which has occupied men’s minds from the time of Newton to the present day. Earthquakes and volcanoes are the causes of many geological phenomena; but what is the cause of those subterraneous operations? This inquiry after ulterior causes is an inevitable result from the intellectual constitution of man. He discovers mechanical causes, but he cannot rest in them. He must needs ask, whence it is that matter has its universal power of attracting matter. He discovers polar forces: but even251if these be universal, he still desires a further insight into the cause of this polarity. He sees, in organic structures, convincing marks of adaptation to an end: whence, he asks, is this adaptation? He traces in the history of the earth a chain of causes and effects operating through time: but what, he inquires, is the power which holds the end of this chain?
Thus we are referred back from step to step in the order of causation, in the same, manner as, in the palætiological sciences, we were referred back in the order of time. We make discovery after discovery in the various regions of science; each, it may be, satisfactory, and in itself complete, but none final. Something always remains undone. The last question answered, the answer suggests still another question. The strain of music from the lyre of Science flows on, rich and sweet, full and harmonious, but never reaches a close: no cadence is heard with which the intellectual ear can feel satisfied.
Of the Supreme Cause.—In the utterance of Science, no cadence is heard with which the human mind can feel satisfied. Yet we cannot but go on listening for and expecting a satisfactory close. The notion of a cadence appears to be essential to our relish of the music. The idea of some closing strain seems to lurk among our own thoughts, waiting to be articulated in the notes which flow from the knowledge of external nature. The idea of something ultimate in our philosophical researches, something in which the mind can acquiesce, and which will leave us no further questions to ask, ofwhence, andwhy, andby what power, seems as if it belongs to us:—as if we could not have it withheld from us by any imperfection or incompleteness in the actual performances of science. What is the meaning of this conviction? What is the reality thus anticipated? Whither does the developement of this Idea conduct us?
We have already seen that a difficulty of the same kind, which arises in the contemplation of causes and effects considered as forming an historical series, drives us to the assumption of a First Cause, as an Axiom252to which our Idea of Causation in time necessarily leads. And as we were thus guided to a First Cause, in order of Succession, the same kind of necessity directs us to a Supreme Cause in order of Causation.
On this most weighty subject it is difficult to speak fitly; and the present is not the proper occasion, even for most of that which may be said. But there are one or two remarks which flow from the general train of the contemplations we have been engaged in, and with which this Work must conclude.
We have seen how different are the kinds of cause to which we are led by scientific researches.Mechanical Forcesare insufficient withoutChemical Affinities; Chemical Agencies fail us, and we are compelled to have recourse toVital Powers; Vital Powers cannot be merely physical, and we must believe in something hyperphysical, something of the nature of aSoul. Not only do biological inquiries lead us to assume an animal soul, but they drive us much further; they bring before usPerception, andWillevoked by Perception. Still more, these inquiries disclose to usIdeasas the necessary forms of Perception, in the actions of which we ourselves are conscious. We are aware, we cannot help being aware, of our Ideas and our Volitions as belonging tous, and thus we pass fromthingstopersons; we have the idea ofPersonalityawakened. And the idea of Design andPurpose, of which we are conscious in our own minds, we find reflected back to us, with a distinctness which we cannot overlook, in all the arrangements which constitute the frame of organized beings.
We cannot but reflect how widely diverse are the kinds of principles thus set before us;—by what vast strides we mount from the lower to the higher, as we proceed through that series of causes which the range of the sciences thus brings under our notice. Yet we know how narrow is the range of these sciences when compared with the whole extent of human knowledge. We cannot doubt that on many other subjects, besides those included in physical speculation, man has made out solid and satisfactory trains of253connexion;—has discovered clear and indisputable evidence of causation. It is manifest, therefore, that, if we are to attempt to ascend to the Supreme Cause—if we are to try to frame an idea of the Cause of all these subordinate causes;—we must conceive it as more different from any of them, than the most diverse are from each other;—more elevated above the highest, than the highest is above the lowest.
But further;—though the Supreme Cause must thus be inconceivably different from all subordinate causes, and immeasurably elevated above them all, it must still include in itself all that is essential to each of them, by virtue of that very circumstance that it is the Cause of their Causality. Time and Space,—Infinite Time and Infinite Space,—must be among its attributes; for we cannot but conceive Infinite Time and Space as attributes of the Infinite Cause of the universe. Force and Matter must depend upon it for their efficacy; for we cannot conceive the activity of Force, or the resistance of Matter, to be independent powers. But these are its lower attributes. The Vital Powers, the Animal Soul, which are the Causes of the actions of living things, are only the Effects of the Supreme Cause of Life. And this Cause, even in the lowest forms of organized bodies, and still more in those which stand higher in the scale, involves a reference to Ends and Purposes, in short, to manifest Final Causes. Since this is so, and since, even when we contemplate ourselves in a view studiously narrowed, we still find that we have Ideas, and Will and Personality, it would render our philosophy utterly incoherent and inconsistent with itself, to suppose that Personality, and Ideas, and Will, and Purpose, do not belong to the Supreme Cause from which we derive all that we have and all that we are.
But we may go a step further;—though, in our present field of speculation, we confine ourselves to knowledge founded on the facts which the external world presents to us, we cannot forget, in speaking of such a theme as that to which we have thus been led, that these are but a small, and the least significant254portion of the facts which bear upon it. We cannot fail to recollect that there are facts belonging to the world within us, which more readily and strongly direct our thoughts to the Supreme Cause of all things. We can plainly discern that we have Ideas elevated above the region of mechanical causation, of animal existence, even of mere choice and will, which still have a clear and definite significance, a permanent and indestructible validity. We perceive as a fact, that we have a Conscience, judging of Right and Wrong; that we have Ideas of Moral Good and Evil, that we are compelled to conceive the organization of the moral world, as well as of the vital frame, to be directed to an end and governed by a purpose. And since the Supreme Cause is the cause of these facts, the Origin of these Ideas, we cannot refuse to recognize Him as not only the Maker, but the Governor of the World; as not only a Creative, but a Providential Power; as not only a Universal Father, but an Ultimate Judge.
We have already passed beyond the boundary of those speculations which we proposed to ourselves as the basis of our conclusions. Yet we may be allowed to add one other reflection. If we find in ourselves Ideas of Good and Evil, manifestly bestowed upon us to be the guides of our conduct, which guides we yet find it impossible consistently to obey;—if we find ourselves directed, even by our natural light, to aim at a perfection of our moral nature from which we are constantly deviating through weakness and perverseness; if, when we thus lapse and err, we can find, in the region of human philosophy, no power which can efface our aberrations, or reconcile our actual with our ideal being, or give us any steady hope and trust with regard to our actions, after we have thus discovered their incongruity with their genuine standard;—if we discern that this is our condition, how can we fail to see that it is in the highest degree consistent with all the indications supplied by such a philosophy as that of which we have been attempting to lay the foundations, that the Supreme Cause, through whom man exists as255a moral being of vast capacities and infinite Hopes, should have Himself provided a teaching for our ignorance, a propitiation for our sin, a support for our weakness, a purification and sanctification of our nature?
And thus, in concluding our long survey of the grounds and structure of science, and of the lessons which the study of it teaches us, we find ourselves brought to a point of view in which we can cordially sympathize, and more than sympathize, with all the loftiest expressions of admiration and reverence and hope and trust, which have been uttered by those who in former times have spoken of the elevated thoughts to which the contemplation of the nature and progress of human knowledge gives rise. We can not only hold with Galen, and Harvey, and all the great physiologists, that the organs of animals give evidence of a purpose;—not only assert with Cuvier that this conviction of a purpose can alone enable us to understand every part of every living thing;—not only say with Newton that ‘every true step made in philosophy brings us nearer to the First Cause, and is on that account highly to be valued;’—and that ‘the business of natural philosophy is to deduce causes from effects, till we come to the very First Cause, which certainly is not mechanical;’—but we can go much farther, and declare, still with Newton, that ‘this beautiful system could have its origin no other way than by the purpose and command of an intelligent and powerful Being, who governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of the Universe; who is not only God, but Lord and Governor.’
When we have advanced so far, there yet remains one step. We may recollect the prayer of one, the master in this school of the philosophy of science: ‘This also we humbly and earnestly beg;—that human things may not prejudice such as are divine;—neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything may arise of incredulity or intellectual night towards divine mysteries; but rather that by our minds thoroughly256purged and cleansed from fancy and vanity, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the divine oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are faith’s.’ When we are thus prepared for a higher teaching, we may be ready to listen to a greater than Bacon, when he says to those who have sought their God in the material universe, ‘Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.’ And when we recollect how utterly inadequate all human language has been shown to be, to express the nature of that Supreme Cause of the Natural, and Rational, and Moral, and Spiritual world, to which our Philosophy points with trembling finger and shaded eyes, we may receive, with the less wonder but with the more reverence, the declaration which has been vouchsafed to us:
ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ΗΝ Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ, ΚΑI Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΗΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΘΕΟΝ, ΚΑI ΘΕΟΣ ΗΝ Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ.