Chapter XIV (2)

And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our race as revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous and unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness of God, but could not or did not attempt a rational explanation of his instinctive faith. He saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind. His smile nourished the corn, and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the flashes of his vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But the unity of God was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity seemed divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations of power, and wisdom, and goodness, and retribution, which nature presented. Then plastic art, to aid and impress the imagination, created its symbols of these separate powers and principles, chiefly in human form, and gods were multiplied. But all this polytheism still rested on a dim monotheistic background, and all the gods were subordinated to Zeus--"the Father of gods and men." Humanity had still the sense of the dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head of Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated gods" were the subjects and ministers of that One Supreme. This was the childhood of humanity so vividly represented in Homeric poetry.

Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative thought, in which the attention of man is drawn outward to the study of nature, of which he can yet only recognize himself as an integral part. He searches for some archê--some first principle, appreciable to sense, which in its evolution shall furnish an explanation of the problem of existence. He tries the hypothesis of "_water_" then of "_air_" then of "_fire_" as the primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital transformation, all things else are produced. But here he failed to find an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied. Then he sought his first principle in "_numbers_" as symbols, and, in some sense, as the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and harmony,--God is the original _monas_--unity--One;--or else he sought it in purely abstract "_ideas_" as unity, infinity, identity, and all things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited _migma_--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the _nous_ of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle; "he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as _causes_ for the ordering of all things."[876] And after repeated attempts and failures, he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.

[Footnote 876: Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phædo," § 108.]

The problem of existence still waits for and demands a solution. The heart of man, also, still cries out for the living God. The Socratic maxim, "know thyself," introverts the mental gaze, and self-reflection now becomes the method of philosophy. The Platonic analysis of thought reveals elements of knowledge which are not derived from the outer world. There are universal and necessary principles revealed in consciousness which, in their natural and logical development, transcend consciousness, and furnish the cognition of a world of Real Being, beyond the world of sense. There are absolute truths which bridge the chasm between the seen and the unseen, the fleeting and the permanent, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal. There are necessary laws of thought which are also found to be laws of things, and which correlate man to a living, personal, righteous Lord and Lawgiver. From absolute ideas Plato ascends to an _absolute Being_, the author of all finite existence. From absolute truths to an _absolute Reason_, the foundation and essence of all truth. From the principle of immutable right to an _absolutely righteous Being_. From the necessary idea of the good to a being of _absolute Goodness_--that is, to _God_. This is the maturity of humanity, the ripening manhood of our race which was attained in the Socratic age.

The inevitable tendency of this effort of speculative thought, spread over ages, and of the intellectual culture which necessarily resulted, was to undermine the old polytheistic religion, and to purify and elevate the theistic conception. The school of Elea rejected the gross anthropomorphism of the Homeric theology. Xenophanes, the founder of the school, was a believer in

"_ One God_, of all beings divine and human the greatest,
Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in ideas."

And he repels with indignation the anthropomorphic representations of the Deity.

"But men foolishly think that gods are born as men are, And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice, and their figure: But if oxen and lions had hands like ours, and fingers, Then would horses like unto horses, and oxen to oxen, Paint and fashion their god-forms, and give to them bodies Of like shape to their own, as they themselves too are fashioned."[877]

Empedocles also wages uncompromising war against all representations of the Deity in human form--

"For neither with head adjusted to limbs, like the human,
Nor yet with two branches down from the shoulders outstretching,
Neither with feet, nor swift-moving limbs,....
He is, wholly and perfectly, _mind_, ineffable, holy,
With rapid and swift-glancing thought pervading the world."[878]

[Footnote 877: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 431, 432.]

[Footnote 878: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 495, 496.]

When speaking of the mythology of the older Greeks, Socrates maintains a becoming prudence; he is evidently desirous to avoid every thing which would tend to loosen the popular reverence for divine things.[879] But he was opposed to all anthropomorphic conceptions of the Deity. His fundamental position was that the Deity is the Supreme Reason, which is to be honored by men as the source of all existence and the end of all human endeavor. Notwithstanding his recognition of a number of subordinate divinities, he held that the Divine is one, because Reason is one. He taught that the Supreme Being is the immaterial, infinite Governor of all;[880] that the world bears the stamp of his intelligence, and attests it by irrefragable evidence;[881] and that he is the author and vindicator of all moral laws.[882] So that, in reality, he did more to overthrow polytheism than any of his predecessors, and on that account was doomed to death.

[Footnote 879: Xenophon, "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iii. § 3.]

[Footnote 880: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. iv. §§ 17, 18.]

[Footnote 881: Id., ib., bk. i. ch. i. § 19.]

[Footnote 882: Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 63; Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 359.]

It was, however, the matured dialectic of Plato which gave the death-blow to polytheism. "Plato, the poet-philosopher, sacrificed Homer himself to monotheism. We may measure the energy of his conviction by the greatness of the sacrifice. He could not pardon the syren whose songs had fascinated Greece, the fresh brilliant poetry that had inspired its religion. He crowned it with flowers, but banished it, because it had lowered the religious ideal of conscience." He was sensible of the beauty of the Homeric fables, but he was also keenly alive to their religious falsehood, and therefore he excluded the poets from his ideal republic. In the education of youth, he would forbid parents and teachers repeating "the stories which Hesiod and Homer and the other poets told us." And after instancing a number of these stories "which deserve the gravest condemnation," he enjoins that God must be represented as he is in reality. "God," says he, "is, beyond all else, good in reality, and therefore so to be represented;" "he can not do evil, or be the cause of evil;" "he is of simple essence, and can not change, or be the subject of change;" "there is no imperfection in the beauty or goodness of God;" "he is a God of truth, and can not lie;" "he is a being of perfect simplicity and truth in deed and word."[883] The reader can not fail to recognize the close resemblance between the language of Plato and the language of inspiration.

The theistic conception, in Plato, reaches the highest purity and spirituality. God is "_the Supreme Mind_," "incorporeal," "unchangeable," "infinite," "absolutely perfect," "essentially good," "unoriginated and eternal." He is "the Father and Maker of the world," "the efficient Cause of all things," "the Monarch and Ruler of the world," "the Sovereign Mind that orders all things," and "pervades all things." He is "the sole principle of all things," "the beginning of all truth," "the fountain of all law and justice," "the source of all order and beauty;" in short, He is "the beginning, middle, and end of all things."[884]

[Footnote 883: "Republic," bk. ii. §§ 18-21.]

[Footnote 884: See _ante_, ch. xi. pp. 377, 378, where the references to Plato's writings are given.]

Aristotle continued the work of undermining polytheism. He defines God as "the Eternal Reason"--the Supreme Mind. "He is the immovable cause of all movement in the universe, the all-perfect principle. This principle or essence pervades all things. It eternally possesses perfect happiness, and its happiness consists in energy. This primeval mover is immaterial, for its essence is energy--it is pure thought, thought thinking itself--the thought of thought."[885] Polytheism is thus swept away from the higher regions of the intelligence. "For several to command," says he, "is not good, there should be but one chief. A tradition, handed down from the remotest antiguity, and transmitted under the veil of fable, says that all the stars are gods, and that the Divinity embraces the whole of nature. And round this idea other mythical statements have been agglomerated, with a view to influencing the vulgar, and for political and moral expediency; as for instance, they feigned that these gods have human shape, and are like certain of the animals; and other stories of the kind are added on. Now, if any one will separate from all this the first point alone, namely, that they thought the first and deepest grounds of existence to be Divine, he may consider it a divine utterance."[886] The popular polytheism, then, was but a perverted fragment of a deeper and purer "Theology." This passage is a sort of obituary of polytheism. The ancient glory of paganism had passed away. Philosophy had exploded the old theology. Man had learned enough to make him renounce the ancient religion, but not enough to found a new faith that could satisfy both the intellect and the heart. "Wherefore we are not to be surprised that the grand philosophic period should be followed by one of incredulity and moral collapse, inaugurating the long and universal _decadence_ which was, perhaps, as necessary to the work of preparation, as was the period of religious and philosophic development."

[Footnote 885: "Metaphysics," bk. xii.]

[Footnote 886: "Metaphysics," bk. xi. ch. viii. § 19.]

The preparatory office of Greek philosophy in the region of speculative thought is seen--

2. _In the development of the Theistic argument in a logical form._--Every form of the theistic proof which is now employed by writers on natural theology to demonstrate the being of God was apprehended, and logically presented, by one or other of the ancient philosophers, excepting, perhaps, the "moral argument" drawn from the facts of conscience.

(I.) _The_ ÆTIOLOGICAL _proof_, or the argument based upon the principle of causality, which may be presented in the following form:

All genesis or becoming supposes a permanent and uncaused
Being, adequate to the production of all phenomena.

The sensible universe is a perpetual genesis, a succession
of appearances: it is "always becoming, and never really
is."

Therefore, it must have its cause and origin in a permanent
and unoriginated Being, adequate to its production.

The major premise of this syllogism is a fundamental principle of reason--a self-evident truth, an axiom of common sense, and as such has been recognized from the very dawn of philosophy. [Greek: Adounaton ginesthai ti ek mêdenos prouparxonios]--_Ex nihilo nihil_--_Nothing which once was not, could ever of itself come into being_. Nothing can be made or produced without an efficient cause, is the oldest maxim of philosophy. It is true that this maxim was abusively employed by Democritus and Epicurus to disprove a Divine creation of any thing out of nothing, yet the great body of ancient philosophers, as Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, and Aristotle, regarded it as the announcement of an universal conviction, that nothing can be produced without an efficient cause;--order can not be generated out of chaos, life out of dead matter, consciousness out of unconsciousness, reason out of unreason. A first principle of life, of order, of reason, must have existed anterior to all manifestions of order, of life, of intelligence, in the visible universe. It was clearly in this sense that Cicero understood this great maxim of the ancient philosophers of Greece. With him "_De nihilo nihil fit"_ is equivalent to "_Nihil sine causa_"--nothing exists without a cause. This is unquestionably the form in which that fundamental law of thought is stated by Plato: "Whatever is generated is necessarily generated from a certain cause, for it is wholly impossible that any thing should be generated without a cause."[887] And the efficient cause is defined as "a power whereby that which did not previously exist was afterwards made to be."[888] It is scarcely needful to remark that Aristotle, the scholar of Plato, frequently lays it down as a postulate of reason, "that we admit nothing without a cause."[889] By an irresistible law of thought, "_all phenomena present themselves to us as the expression of power_, and refer us to a causal ground whence they issue."

[Footnote 887: "Timæus," ch. ix.; also "Philebus," § 45.]

[Footnote 888: "Sophist," § 109.]

[Footnote 889: "Post. Analytic," bk. ii. ch. xvi.; "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. i. § 3.]

The major premise of this syllogism is a fact of observation.

To the eye of sense and sensible observation, to scientific induction even in its highest generalizations, the visible universe presents nothing but a history and aggregation of phenomena--a succession of appearances or effects having more or less resemblance. It is a ceaseless flow and change, "a generation and corruption," "a becoming, but never really _is_;" it is never in two successive moments the _same_.[890] All our cognitions of sameness, uniformity, causal connection, permanent Being, real Power, are purely rational conceptions _given in thought_, supplied by the spontaneous intuition of reason as the correlative prefix to the phenomena observed.[891]

[Footnote 890: "Timæus," ch. ix.]

[Footnote 891: Ibid.]

Therefore the ancient philosophers concluded justly, there must be something [Greek: agênnêton]--something which was never generated, something [Greek: autophyês] and [Greek: authypostaton]--self-originated and self-existing, something [Greek: tauton] and [Greek: aiônion]--immutable and eternal, the object of rational apperception--which is the real ground and efficient cause of all that appears.

(2.) The COSMOLOGICAL proof, or the argument based upon the principle of order, and thus presented:

Order, proportion, harmony, are the product and expression
of Mind.

The created universe reveals order, proportion, and harmony.

Therefore, the created universe is the product of Mind.

The fundamental law of thought which underlies this mode of proof was clearly recognized by Pythagoras. All harmony and proportion and symmetry is the result of _unity_ evolving itself in and pervading _multiplicity_. Mind or reason is unity and indivisibility; matter is diverse and multiple. Mind is the determinating principle; matter is indeterminate and indefinite. Confused matter receives form, and proportion, and order, and symmetry, by the action and interpenetration of the spiritual and indivisible element. In presence of facts of order, the human reason instinctively and necessarily affirms the presence and action of Mind.

"Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea of Order. To his mind it seemed as the presiding genius of the serene and silent world. He had from his youth dwelt with delight upon the eternal relations of space and number, in which the very idea of proportion seems to find its first and immediate development, until at length it seemed as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these mysterious correspondences. The world, in all its departments, moral and material, is a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose; it is a '_cosmos_' (for the word is Pythagorean), the expression of harmony, the manifestation to sense of everlasting order; and the science of _numbers_ is the truest representation of its eternal laws." Therefore, argued Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, as the reason of man can perceive the relations of an eternal order in the proportions of extension and number, the laws of proportion, and symmetry, and harmony must inhere in a Divine reason, an intelligent soul, which moves and animates the universe. The harmonies of the world which address themselves to the human mind must be the product of a Divine mind. The world, in its real structure, must be the image and copy of that divine proportion which the mind of man adores. It is the sensible type of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the Eternal Unity, the Eternal One--that is, God.

The same argument is elaborated by Plato in his philosophy of beauty. God is with him the last reason, the ultimate foundation, the perfect ideal of all beauty--of all the order, proportion, harmony, sublimity, and excellence which reigns in the physical, the intellectual, and the moral world. He is the "Eternal Beauty, unbegotten and imperishable, exempt from all decay as well as increase--the perfect--the Divine Beauty"[892] which is beheld by the pure mind in the celestial world.

[Footnote 892: "Banquet," § 35.]

(3.) The Teleological proof, or the argument based upon the principle of intentionality or Final Cause, and is presented in the following form:

The choice and adaptation of means to the accomplishment of
special ends supposes an intelligent purpose, a Designing
Mind.

In the universe we see such choice and adaptation of means
to ends.

Therefore, the universe is the product of an intelligent,
personal Cause.

This is peculiarly the Socratic proof. He recognized the necessity and the irresistibility of the conviction that the choice and adaptation of means to ends is the effect of Purpose, the expression of Will.[893] There is an obviousness and a directness in this mode of argument which is felt by every human mind. In the "Memorabilia" Xenophon has preserved a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus in which he develops this proof at great length. In reading the dialogue[894] in which Socrates instances the adaptation of our organization to the external world, and the examples of design in the human frame, we are forcibly reminded of the chapters of Paley, Whewell, and M'Cosh. Well might Aristodemus exclaim: "The more I consider it, the more it is evident to me that man must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and favor of Him who has thus formed it." The argument from Final Causes is pursued by Plato in the "Timæus;" and in Aristotle, God is the Final Cause of all things.[895]

[Footnote 893: "Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?"--"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 894: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 895: Aristotle clearly recognizes that an end or final cause implies Intelligence. "The appearance of ends and means is a proof of Design."--"Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]

(4.) The Ontological or Ideological proof, or the argument grounded on necessary and absolute ideas, which may be thrown into the following syllogism:

Every attribute or quality implies a subject, and absolute
modes necessarily suppose an Absolute Being. Necessary and
absolute truths or ideas are revealed in human reason as
absolute modes.

Therefore universal, necessary, and absolute ideas are modes
of the absolute subject--that is, God, the foundation and
source of all truth.

This is the Platonic proof. Plato recognized the principle of substance ([Greek: ousia ypokeimenon]), and therefore he proceeds in the "Timæus" to inquire for the real ground of all existence; and in the "Republic," for the real ground of all truth and certitude.

The universe consists of two parts, permanent existences and transient phenomena--being and genesis; the one eternally constant, the other mutable and subject to change; the former apprehended by the reason, the latter perceived by sense. For each of these there must be a principle, subject, or substratum--a principle or subject-matter, which is the ground or condition of the sensible world, and a principle or substance, which is the ground and reason of the intelligible world or world of ideas. The subject-matter, or ground of the sensible world, is "the receptacle" and "nurse" of forms, an "invisible species and formless receiver (which is not earth, or air, or fire, or water) which receives the immanence of the intelligible."[896] The subject or ground of the intelligible world is that in which ideal forms, or eternal archetypes inhere, and which impresses form upon the transitional element, and fashions the world after its own eternal models. This eternal and immutable substance is God, who created the universe as a copy of the eternal archetypes--the everlasting thoughts which dwell in his infinite mind.

[Footnote 896: "Timæus," ch. xxiv.]

These copies of the eternal archetypes or models are perceived by the reason of man in virtue of its participation in the Ultimate Reason. The reason of man is the organ of truth; by an innate and inalienable right, it grasps unseen and eternal realities. The essence of the soul is akin to that which is real, permanent, and eternal;--_It is the offspring and image of God_; therefore it has a true communion with the realities of things, by virtue of this kindred and homogeneous nature. It can, therefore, ascend from the universal and necessary ideas, which are apprehended by the reason, to the absolute and supreme Idea, which is the attribute and perfection of God. When the human mind has contemplated any object of beauty, any fact of order, proportion, harmony, and excellency, it may rise to the notion of a quality common to all objects of beauty--from a single beautiful body to two, from two to all others; from beautiful bodies to beautiful sentiments, from beautiful sentiments to beautiful thoughts, until, from thought to thought, we arrive at the highest thought, which has no other object than the perfect, absolute, _Divine Beauty_.[897] When a man has, from the contemplation of instances of virtue, risen to the notion of a quality common to all these instances, this quality becomes the representative of an ineffable something which, in the sphere of immutable reality, answers to the conception in his soul. "At the extreme limits of the intellectual world is the _Idea of the Good_, which is perceived with difficulty, but, in fine, can not be perceived without concluding that it is the source of all that is beautiful and good; that in the visible world it produces light, and the star whence light directly comes; that in the invisible world it directly produces truth and intelligence."[898] This _absolute Good is God_.

[Footnote 897: "Banquet," § 34.]

[Footnote 898: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]

The order in which these several methods of proof were developed, will at once present itself to the mind of the reader as the natural order of thought. The first and most obvious aspect which nature presents to the opening mind is that of movement and change--a succession of phenomena suggesting the idea of _power_. Secondly, a closer attention reveals a resemblance of phenomena among themselves, a uniformity of nature--an order, proportion, and harmony pervading the _cosmos_, which suggest an _identity and unity of power and of reason_, pervading and controlling all things. Thirdly, a still closer inspection of nature reveals a wonderful adaptation of means to the fulfillment of special ends, of organs designed to fulfill specific functions, suggesting the idea of _purpose_, _contrivance_, and _choice_, and indicating that the power which moves and determines the universe is a _personal_, _thinking_, and _voluntary_ agent. And fourthly, a profounder study of the nature of thought, an analysis of personal consciousness, reveals that there are necessary principles, ideas, and laws, which universally govern and determine thought to definite and immovable conceptions--as, for example, the principles of causality, of substance, of identity or unity, of order, of intentionality; and that it is only under these laws that we can conceive the universe. By the law of substance we are compelled to regard these ideas, which are not only laws of thought but also of things, as inherent in a subject, or Being, who made all things, and whose ideas are reflected in the reason of man. Thus from universal and necessary ideas we rise to the _absolute Idea_, from immutable principles to a _First Principle of all principles_, a _First Thought_ of all thoughts--that is, to _God_. This is the history of the development of thought in the individual, and in the race--_cause_, _order_, _design_, _idea_, _being_, GOD.