Chapter V (2)

The “cosmological” proof, or “argument from the contingency of the world,” unlike the ontological, has the appearance, at first sight, of starting with given empirical fact. As summarised by Kant for purposes of criticism, it runs thus:—“If anything at all exists, there must be also an absolutely necessary being. Now, I exist myself; _ergo_, the absolutely necessary being exists.” To make the proof quite complete, it would be necessary to show that the being whose existence is affirmed in the minor premisses, to wit, myself, is not itself the “absolutely necessary being,” and the argument thus completed would become in principle identical with the second of the “proofs” given by Descartes in the third _Meditation_, where it is inferred that if I, a dependent being, exist, there must be a God on whom I and all things depend.[230] As Kant has pointed out, the whole force of this inference rests upon the previous admission of the ontological argument. By itself the cosmological proof only establishes the conclusion that if any dependent existence is real, independent existence of some kind must be real also. To convert this into a “proof of the existence of _God_” you must further go on to identify the “independent existence” thus reached with the “most real” or “most perfect” being of the ontological proof. For otherwise it might be suggested, as is done by one of the speakers in Hume’s dialogue, that the series of phenomenal events itself, taken as an aggregate, is the “necessary existence” upon which the “contingent existence” of each several event depends. “Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty. This is sufficiently explained in explaining the cause of the parts.”

To avoid this objection, we must go on to maintain that only the “most perfect being” can be an ultimately necessary being, and that its “necessary existence” is a consequence of its character. This, as we have seen, is the very assertion made in the ontological proof. Hence our criticisms of the ontological proof will be equally applicable to the cosmological. If we combine the two, restating them in accord with our previous remodelling of the former, the argument will take the following form. All propositions directly or indirectly refer to real existence. Hence it would be self-contradictory to assert that nothing exists. But existence itself is only conceivable as individual. Hence the absolutely individual must be really existent. And this is identical with the general principle of our own reasoning in Book II. of the present work. Clearly, if valid, it is valid simply as an argument for a metaphysical Absolute; it neither proves that Absolute itself to be what we mean in religion by God, nor affords any ground for asserting the existence of God as a finite individual within the Absolute.[231]

The _physico-theological_ argument, also known as the argument from _design_, or the _teleological_ proof, differs from the preceding two in being in its current forms honestly empirical. In the shape of an inference from the apparent presence of order and a regard for human good in the structure of nature to the existence of a wise and benevolent being or beings as the author or authors of nature, it has been the most popular of all theistic arguments both in the ancient world, where, according to Xenophon, it was specially insisted upon by Socrates, and in the modern defences of theological beliefs against rationalistic criticism. It must, however, be observed that the criticisms of Hume and Kant are absolutely fatal to the “argument from design,” when it is put forward as a proof of the existence of a God of _infinite_ goodness and wisdom. At best, as Kant says, the observed order and harmony of Nature would enable us to infer a finite degree of wisdom and goodness in its author. The assertion of the absolute harmoniousness and goodness of Nature, which we require to justify the inference to infinite wisdom and goodness in its author, goes far beyond the limits of the empirically verifiable, and can itself only be upheld by some form of the “ontological proof.” Hence the “argument from design” could at best prove a God whose wisdom and goodness are, so far as knowable, limited. As Hume forcibly puts the same point, if the empirically known facts of the partial adaptation of Nature to human purposes are valid, as they stand, to prove a wise and good intelligence, are not the equally well-ascertained facts of the partial want of adaptation equally valid to prove defective goodness or defective wisdom?[232]

There is a deeper metaphysical reason for this difference between the results of the physico-theological and of the other “proofs,” which may be briefly pointed out. The whole conception of the order and systematic unity of the world as due to preconceived “design” is only intelligible if we suppose the author of that “design” to be finite, and subject, like ourselves, to temporal mutability. For in the notion of design itself are implied the severance of the mentally conceived ideal from the actuality which waits to be brought into accord with it, and consequently also the time-process, which we have already found to be characteristic of all finitude. Hence the physico-theological proof, by itself, can at best be used to establish the reality of finite “gods,” not of “God,” because it works throughout with the categories of finitude.

Upon the logical force of the argument, as thus limited by its initial assumptions, only one observation need be made. What the reasoning asserts is not merely that “Nature” is in reality a system exhibiting individuality and purposive interest, or even “design,” but that it reveals the particular design of assisting and fostering human progress. Now, whether this is so or not would appear to be a question of empirical fact only capable of determination by the methods applicable to other problems of the same empirical kind. Probably the lines along which it will have to be decided in the future are of the following general kind. Evolutionary science seems clearly to have shown that in the influences it knows, _e.g._, as “natural” and again as “sexual selection,” we have processes which lead to beneficial results without being, so far as we can see, in the least directed by the conscious “design” of establishing those results.[233] We should have to ask, then, whether there is actual ground for holding that such influences are not of themselves sufficient to account for the development of human civilisation, so far as it is due to factors belonging to the “environment.” If they are so sufficient, the “physico-theological” argument for benevolent super-human agency in moulding the course of human development, becomes superfluous; if they are not, their failure is, so far, good ground for the recognition of finite “designing” intelligences of a non-human kind as forming a factor in our environment. In either case the question appears to be one of empirical fact, and to be incapable of determination in advance on general metaphysical grounds.[234] Nor are we justified in assuming that “design in nature,” supposing it to exist, must always be directed to securing ends which are either intelligible to us, or, if intelligible, “benevolent,” in the sense of furthering our own special human interests. And here I must be content to leave the subject.

_Consult further_:—F. H. Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, chaps. 25, 26; J. E. McTaggart, _Studies in Hegelian Cosmology_, chaps. 6, 8; J. Royce, _The World and the Individual_, Second Series, lects. 9, 10.

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Footnote 211:

To take a couple of concrete illustrations. It may be—I do not say it
is—conducive to moral goodness that there should be a general
conviction that in the long run our individual happiness is strictly
proportionate to our degree of virtue. But there is no means whatever
of showing that this belief is true, and, as Mr. Bradley once
pertinently argued against Professor Sidgwick, no philosopher is
entitled to assert its truth on moral grounds unless he is prepared to
maintain that he could produce more goodness and less badness by such
an exact proportioning of happiness to merit than without it. Again,
most of us would probably admit that ordinary moral rules, such as
that against wilful lying, have exceptions. But we are not bound to
hold it conducive to moral goodness that every one should be aware of
this.

Footnote 212:

I have not taken into account the argument from origins, because it
does not appear relevant. That our intellectual interest in “truth” is
historically a derivative from an interest in the “useful,” “science”
an offshoot of the arts, is, as we have seen for ourselves, true
enough, but it does not follow that the truth which is the ideal of
the developed intellect is the same thing as the “useful” from which
it has arisen. We rejected the claims of the mechanical postulate to
be final truth, not because of their origin in the needs of industrial
science, but because, as tested by the standard of final
self-consistency, they were unsatisfactory to the intellect.

Footnote 213:

ἐν μεταιχμίῳ σκότου, to use the poet’s phrase.

Footnote 214:

Not, of course, _pure_ progress. It does not require profound insight
to discover that moral progress, like everything else, has its price,
and that all “progressive evolution” implies “degeneration” as one of
its aspects. But the moral progress of society will be genuine if, on
the whole, our gain is—from the moralist’s special standpoint—more
than our loss. We have no reason to despair of our kind if the
impartial historian, comparing the facts—not the self-complacent
fictions of popular optimism—about our current social life with the
facts—not the fancies of Apologetics—about social life, say, in the
first century of the Roman Empire, can pronounce that there has been
advance on the whole.

Footnote 215:

The “religious” temperament is apparently shown by experience to be,
in its intenser manifestations, quite as much an idiosyncrasy of
congenital endowment as the “æsthetic.” There are persons, not
otherwise mentally defective, who seem to be almost devoid of it, just
as there are others who have little or no sense of humour or feeling
for beauty. As many of these persons are ethically excellent, some of
them exceptionally so, and as again the religious temperament is often
found strongly developed in persons of quite inferior ethical
development, there seems to be no _direct_ connection between
religious sensibility and moral excellence, though, of course,
religious feeling is the most powerful of moral influences when it is
conjoined in the same person with ethical fervour. For a masterly
description of some typical forms of religious feeling and belief the
reader should consult Professor James’s _Varieties of Religious
Experience_. He will find my own views as to the philosophical
interpretation of religion, if he cares to know them, in the final
chapter of my _Problem of Conduct_.

Footnote 216:

So Hegel insisted that the fundamental significance of the Christian
religion lies neither in the historical career nor in the moral
teaching of Jesus (which indeed contained little that had not already
been uttered in the form of precept or principle), but in the
recognition by the Christian community of the union of God and Man as
a fact already realised in individual form in the person of Christ.
See Dr. McTaggart’s essay on “Hegelianism and Christianity” in
_Studies in Hegelian Cosmology_.

Footnote 217:

So Plato suggested in the second book of the _Republic_, that God is
not the cause of all that happens to us, but only of the good things
that befall us. Perhaps, however, Plato is here consciously adapting
his expression to current theological doctrine of which he did not
fully approve. For a modern defence of the same conception of a finite
God, see Dr. Rashdall’s essay in _Personal Idealism_. Other reasons
which have often led to the same view, such as the desire to think of
God as a mutable being like ourselves, capable of being influenced in
His attitude toward us by our attitude towards Him, seem to rest too
much upon idiosyncrasies of private feeling to be of serious
philosophical weight. If private feeling is to count at all, one does
not see why that of those who would feel outraged by such a conception
of a finite changeable God should not be allowed an equal significance
with that of their opponents. It is a palpable mistake to treat
private feeling, whatever its worth may be, as all on one side in this
matter.

Footnote 218:

For if we once suppose that we know the universe, in which “God” is
only one finite being among others, to be so constituted as to
correspond to this demand, it will be the whole of which “God” is one
factor, and not “God” by Himself, which will become the supreme object
of religious emotion. Thus we may say, until God is thought of as the
individual whole, He is not fully God.

Footnote 219:

It should be scarcely necessary to point out that the Absolute, if it
can be worshipped at all, can be worshipped only as conceived as fully
individual. When it is falsely thought of as a “collection” or
“aggregate” or “totality” of independent things, it is no more divine
than any other collection. This is the fatal objection to vulgar
“Pantheism.” How far any of the serious thinkers who are popularly
charged with “Pantheism” have countenanced this view of the Absolute
as a mere collection, is another matter.

Footnote 220:

I am afraid that this essentially irreligious feeling has a great deal
to do with the complaints sometimes urged against the Absolute as a
poor substitute for a “living God.” Partly these complaints spring, no
doubt, from the mistaken notion that the Absolute is not a concrete
individual but a mere “collective concept.” But they seem also to be
motived by a suspicion that a finite Deity might be more amenable than
the Absolute to our wish to have our ideals gratified in our own
fashion. And so far as this is the motive of them, such complaints are
essentially impious.

Footnote 221:

The reader will naturally think of the famous Socratic paradox, that
“wrong doing is error,” “vice is ignorance.” If we interpret this to
mean that the fundamental advantage of the good man over the bad lies
in his truer insight into what he seriously wants, it seems to be
true.

Footnote 222:

_Enneads_, I. 8, 15 (quoted and translated in Whittaker, the
_Neoplatonists_, p. 83). Plotinus had just previously made the correct
observation that to deny the existence of evil in any and every sense
means to deny the existence of good. (κακόν γε εἴ τις λέγοι τὸ παράπαν
ἐν τοῖς οὖσι μὴ εἶναι, ἀνάγκη αὐτῷ καὶ τὸ ἀφαθὸν ἀναιρεῖν καὶ μηδὲ
ὀπεκτὸν μηδὲν εἶναι.) We might thus say, if good is to be at all, evil
must have some kind of relative or phenomenal existence as its
antecedent condition. But, as thus serving as a condition for the
realisation of good, evil is itself, from a more universal point of
view, good, and therefore its existence _as_ evil only apparent. On
the whole question of the position of evil in the world-order, see the
admirable essay on “Sin” in Dr. McTaggart’s _Studies in Hegelian
Cosmology_.

Footnote 223:

When it is said that the Absolute, if it exists, must be morally
indifferent, there is often a conscious or unconscious confusion of
thought. The Absolute must certainly be “indifferent” in the sense
that it does not feel the internal discord of hatred and animosity
against any of its constituents. Deus, as Spinoza says, neminem potest
odio habere. For the Absolute is not one of the two combatants; it is
at once both combatants and the field of combat. But to infer that the
Absolute, because devoid of the feelings of hatred and private
partisanship, must be indifferent in the sense that our goodness and
badness make no difference to our place in it, is a fallacy of
equivocation for which unconsciousness and _bona fides_ are scarcely
sufficient excuse.

Footnote 224:

Thus I do not understand why, apart from respect for the traditions of
Christianity, Dr. Rashdall should hold that God, in his sense of the
word, is one and not many. His argument appears to me to identify God
with the Absolute, where it is required to maintain God’s unity, and
to distinguish them as soon as it becomes a question of proving God’s
“Personality” (see his essay in _Personal Idealism_). Professor James
appears more logical in his obvious readiness to reckon with
polytheism as a possible consequence of his denial of God’s infinity
(_Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 524 ff.).

Footnote 225:

Kant’s famous onslaught will be found in the _Kritik der Reinen
Vernunft_, Transcendental Dialectic, bk. ii. div. 3 (“The Ideal of
Pure Reason”), §§ 3-7. Hume’s criticisms are contained in his
posthumous _Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_.

Footnote 226:

Kant’s criticism had been in part anticipated on the first circulation
of the _Meditations_ by both Mersenne and Gassendi. See particularly
Gassendi’s strictures on Descartes’ confusion of existence with
properties in the “Fifth Objections,” with Descartes’ unsatisfactory
reply. Leibnitz repeated the same objection, and proposed to amend the
Cartesian proof by a formal demonstration that God’s existence is
_possible_, _i.e._ does not imply a formal contradiction. He then
argues—If God’s existence is possible, He exists (by the Cartesian
proof). But God’s existence is possible, therefore God exists. See,
_e.g._, Leibnitz, Works, ed. Erdmann, p. 177; and Latta, _Monadology
of Leibniz_, p. 274. Hume’s comments are even more akin to Kant’s.
“Whatever we conceive as existent we can also conceive as
non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence
implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being whose
existence is demonstrable.” (_Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_,
part 9.)

Footnote 227:

_Appearance and Reality_, chap. 24.

Footnote 228:

No thought can be merely and absolutely false, any more than any act
can be merely and without qualification bad. Though _words_ may be
entirely meaningless, thoughts cannot be.

Footnote 229:

The appeal to experiment is no objection to the principle. For in
making the experiment we do not, of course, get out of the circle of
our thoughts, and the experiment only affords a criterion of truth in
so far as it leaves us with a new thought which can only be brought
into systematic harmony with our old ideas in one determinate way.
Except as interpreted by thought, the experiment has no bearing on our
knowledge.

Footnote 230:

This was also a favourite argument with Leibnitz, as Kant notes. For
an acute examination of Leibnitz’s use of it and the other “proofs,”
see B. Russell’s _Philosophy of Leibniz_ chap. 15. For Hume’s
objections to it, see the already quoted part 9 of the _Dialogue
concerning Natural Religion_. The other “proof” of the _Third
Meditation_, namely, that my possession of an idea of God, which I
could not have derived from empirical sources, proves the reality of
the idea’s object, is only a special form of the ontological argument
from idea to existence.

Footnote 231:

As thus remodelled, the double ontologico-cosmological argument might
be attacked on two grounds—(1) That it only proves, once more, that
_if_ we admit that all propositions are concerned with real existence,
either directly or remotely, we must admit the existence of the
Absolute, but does not demonstrate that all propositions _are_ so
concerned. (2) That in saying that existence is only _conceivable_ as
individual we fall back into the Cartesian misconception of existence
as a predicate. I should reply, (1) that the validity of the premiss
in question cannot be denied without being confirmed in the act of
denial. _I.e._ unless the suggested proposition that “some
propositions at least have no reference to a reality beyond their own
presence as psychical facts in my mind,” itself has the very objective
reference in question, it has no meaning, and is therefore no genuine
proposition; (2) that we must distinguish between the _what_ and the
_that_ of existence. The “that” of existence is not conceivable at
all, but our position is that this inconceivable _that_ is only
logically, not really, separable from a _what_, and that it is
precisely this inseparability of the _that_ and the _what_ which we
mean by “individuality.”

Footnote 232:

_Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_, part 11.

Footnote 233:

This is quite consistent with our own view, that all real processes
are teleological in the sense of being marked by subjective interest.
For (_a_) not by any means all teleological process is actual “design”
or “volition” (impulse, organic craving, habit, etc., are all cases in
point); and (_b_) actual volition need not always be volition for the
result it actually produces. Sexual selection in man would be an
instance of a process which may take the form of actual volition, but
in that case is rarely, if ever, volition for that improvement of the
stock which _de facto_ issues from it.

Footnote 234:

Cf. Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, pp. 200, 496-497 (1st ed.).
Professor Flint’s attempted reply to the Humian and Kantian criticism
of the theistic “proofs” (_Agnosticism_, chap. 4) has not induced me
to modify any of the opinions expressed in this chapter.

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