Chapter II: Corroborative Evidences Of God’s Existence (1)

Although the knowledge of God’s existence is intuitive, it may be explicated and confirmed by arguments drawn from the actual universe and from the abstract ideas of the human mind.

Remark 1. These arguments are probable, not demonstrative. For this reason they supplement each other, and constitute a series of evidences which is cumulative in its nature. Though, taken singly, none of them can be considered absolutely decisive, they together furnish a corroboration of our primitive conviction of God’s existence, which is of great practical value, and is in itself sufficient to bind the moral action of men.

Butler, Analogy, Introd., Bohn’s ed., 72—Probable evidence admits
of degrees, from the highest moral certainty to the lowest
presumption. Yet probability is the guide of life. In matters of
morals and religion, we are not to expect mathematical or
demonstrative, but only probable, evidence, and the slightest
preponderance of such evidence may be sufficient to bind our moral
action. The truth of our religion, like the truth of common
matters, is to be judged by the whole evidence taken together; for
probable proofs, by being added, not only increase the evidence,
but multiply it. Dove, Logic of Christ. Faith, 24—Value of the
arguments taken together is much greater than that of any single
one. Illustrated from water, air and food, together but not
separately, supporting life; value of £1000 note, not in paper,
stamp, writing, signature, taken separately. A whole bundle of
rods cannot be broken, though each rod in the bundle may be broken
separately. The strength of the bundle is the strength of the
whole. Lord Bacon, Essay on Atheism: “A little philosophy
inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth
men’s minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looketh
upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go
no further, but, when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate
and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.”
Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 221-223—“The proof of a God and
of a spiritual world which is to satisfy us must consist in a
number of different but converging lines of proof.”

In a case where only circumstantial evidence is attainable, many
lines of proof sometimes converge, and though no one of the lines
reaches the mark, the conclusion to which they all point becomes
the only rational one. To doubt that there is a London, or that
there was a Napoleon, would indicate insanity; yet London and
Napoleon are proved by only probable evidence. There is no
constraining efficacy in the arguments for God’s existence; but
the same can be said of all reasoning that is not demonstrative.
Another interpretation of the facts is _possible_, but no other
conclusion is so _satisfactory_, as that God is; see Fisher,
Nature and Method of Revelation, 129. Prof. Rogers: “If in
practical affairs we were to hesitate to act until we had absolute
and demonstrative certainty, we should never begin to move at
all.” For this reason an old Indian official advised a young
Indian judge “always to give his verdict, but always to avoid
giving the grounds of it.”

Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 11-14—“Instead of doubting everything
that can be doubted, let us rather doubt nothing until we are
compelled to doubt.... In society we get on better by assuming
that men are truthful, and by doubting only for special reasons,
than we should if we assumed that all men are liars, and believed
them only when compelled. So in all our investigations we make
more progress if we assume the truthfulness of the universe and of
our own nature than we should if we doubted both.... The first
method seems the more rigorous, but it can be applied only to
mathematics, which is a purely subjective science. When we come to
deal with reality, the method brings thought to a standstill....
The law the logician lays down is this: Nothing may be believed
which is not proved. The law the mind actually follows is this:
Whatever the mind demands for the satisfaction of its subjective
interests and tendencies may be assumed as real, in default of
positive disproof.”

Remark 2. A consideration of these arguments may also serve to explicate the contents of an intuition which has remained obscure and only half conscious for lack of reflection. The arguments, indeed, are the efforts of the mind that already has a conviction of God’s existence to give to itself a formal account of its belief. An exact estimate of their logical value and of their relation to the intuition which they seek to express in syllogistic form, is essential to any proper refutation of the prevalent atheistic and pantheistic reasoning.

Diman, Theistic Argument, 363—“Nor have I claimed that the
existence, even, of this Being can be demonstrated as we
demonstrate the abstract truths of science. I have only claimed
that the universe, as a great fact, demands a rational
explanation, and that the most rational explanation that can
possibly be given is that furnished in the conception of such a
Being. In this conclusion reason rests, and refuses to rest in any
other.” Rückert: “Wer Gott nicht fühlt in sich und allen
Lebenskreisen, Dem werdet ihr nicht ihn beweisen mit Beweisen.”
Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 307—“Theology depends on noetic
and empirical science to give the occasion on which the idea of
the Absolute Being arises, and to give content to the idea.”
Andrew Fuller, Part of Syst. of Divin., 4:283, questions “whether
argumentation in favor of the existence of God has not made more
sceptics than believers.” So far as this is true, it is due to an
overstatement of the arguments and an exaggerated notion of what
is to be expected from them. See Nitzsch, Christian Doctrine,
translation, 140; Ebrard, Dogmatik, 1:119, 120; Fisher, Essays on
Supernatural Origin of Christianity, 572, 573; Van Oosterzee, 238,
241.

“Evidences of Christianity?” said Coleridge, “I am weary of the
word.” The more Christianity was _proved_, the less it was
_believed_. The revival of religion under Whitefield and Wesley
did what all the apologists of the eighteenth century could not
do,—it quickened men’s intuitions into life, and made them
practically recognize God. Martineau, Types, 2:231—Men can “bow
the knee to the passing _Zeitgeist_, while turning the back to the
consensus of all the ages”; Seat of Authority, 312—“Our reasonings
lead to explicit Theism because they start from implicit Theism.”
Illingworth, Div. and Hum. Personality, 81—“The proofs are ...
attempts to account for and explain and justify something that
already exists; to decompose a highly complex though immediate
judgment into its constituent elements, none of which when
isolated can have the completeness or the cogency of the original
conviction taken as a whole.”

Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 31, 32—“Demonstration is only a
makeshift for helping ignorance to insight.... When we come to an
argument in which the whole nature is addressed, the argument must
seem weak or strong, according as the nature is feebly, or fully,
developed. The moral argument for theism cannot seem strong to one
without a conscience. The argument from cognitive interests will
be empty when there is no cognitive interest. Little souls find
very little that calls for explanation or that excites surprise,
and they are satisfied with a correspondingly small view of life
and existence. In such a case we cannot hope for universal
agreement. We can only proclaim the faith that is in us, in hope
that this proclamation may not be without some response in other
minds and hearts.... We have only probable evidence for the
uniformity of nature or for the affection of friends. We cannot
logically prove either. The deepest convictions are not the
certainties of logic, but the certainties of life.”

Remark 3. The arguments for the divine existence may be reduced to four, namely: I. The Cosmological; II. The Teleological; III. The Anthropological; and IV. The Ontological. We shall examine these in order, seeking first to determine the precise conclusions to which they respectively lead, and then to ascertain in what manner the four may be combined.

I. The Cosmological Argument, or Argument from Change in Nature.

This is not properly an argument from effect to cause; for the proposition that every effect must have a cause is simply identical, and means only that every caused event must have a cause. It is rather an argument from begun existence to a sufficient cause of that beginning, and may be accurately stated as follows:

Everything begun, whether substance or phenomenon, owes its existence to some producing cause. The universe, at least so far as its present form is concerned, is a thing begun, and owes its existence to a cause which is equal to its production. This cause must be indefinitely great.

It is to be noticed that this argument moves wholly in the realm
of nature. The argument from man’s constitution and beginning upon
the planet is treated under another head (see Anthropological
Argument). That the present form of the universe is not eternal in
the past, but has begun to be, not only personal observation but
the testimony of geology assures us. For statements of the
argument, see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Bohn’s transl.), 370;
Gillespie, Necessary Existence of God, 8:34-44; Bib. Sac.,
1849:613; 1850:613; Porter, Hum. Intellect, 570; Herbert Spencer,
First Principles, 93. It has often been claimed, as by Locke,
Clarke, and Robert Hall, that this argument is sufficient to
conduct the mind to an Eternal and Infinite First Cause. We
proceed therefore to mention

1. _The defects of the Cosmological Argument._

A. It is impossible to show that the universe, so far as its substance is concerned, has had a beginning. The law of causality declares, not that everything has a cause—for then God himself must have a cause—but rather that everything begun has a cause, or in other words, that every event or change has a cause.

Hume, Philos. Works, 2:411 _sq._, urges with reason that we never
saw a world made. Many philosophers in Christian lands, as
Martineau, Essays, 1:206, and the prevailing opinions of
ante-Christian times, have held matter to be eternal. Bowne,
Metaphysics, 107—“For being itself, the reflective reason never
asks a cause, unless the being show signs of dependence. It is
change that first gives rise to the demand for cause.” Martineau,
Types, 1:291—“It is not existence, as such, that demands a cause,
but the coming into existence of what did not exist before. The
intellectual law of causality is a law for phenomena, and not for
entity.” See also McCosh, Intuitions, 225-241; Calderwood, Philos.
of Infinite, 61. _Per contra_, see Murphy, Scient. Bases of Faith,
49, 195, and Habit and Intelligence, 1:55-67; Knight, Lect. on
Metaphysics, lect. ii, p. 19.

B. Granting that the universe, so far as its phenomena are concerned, has had a cause, it is impossible to show that any other cause is required than a cause within itself, such as the pantheist supposes.

Flint, Theism, 65—“The cosmological argument alone proves only
force, and no mere force is God. Intelligence must go with power
to make a Being that can be called God.” Diman, Theistic Argument:
“The cosmological argument alone cannot decide whether the force
that causes change is permanent self-existent mind, or permanent
self-existent matter.” Only intelligence gives the basis for an
answer. Only mind in the universe enables us to infer mind in the
maker. But the argument from intelligence is not the Cosmological,
but the Teleological, and to this last belong all proofs of Deity
from order and combination in nature.

Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 201-296—Science has to do with those
changes which one portion of the visible universe causes in
another portion. Philosophy and theology deal with the Infinite
Cause which brings into existence and sustains the entire series
of finite causes. Do we ask the cause of the stars? Science says:
Fire-mist, or an infinite regress of causes. Theology says:
Granted; but this infinite regress demands for its explanation the
belief in God. We must believe both in God, and in an endless
series of finite causes. God is the cause of all causes, the soul
of all souls: “Centre and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving
heart how near!” We do not need, as mere matter of science, to
think of any beginning.

C. Granting that the universe most have had a cause outside of itself, it is impossible to show that this cause has not itself been caused, _i. e._, consists of an infinite series of dependent causes. The principle of causality does not require that everything begun should be traced back to an uncaused cause; it demands that we should assign a cause, but not that we should assign a first cause.

So with the whole series of causes. The materialist is bound to
find a cause for this series, only when the series is shown to
have had a beginning. But the very hypothesis of an infinite
series of causes excludes the idea of such a beginning. An
infinite chain has no topmost link (_versus_ Robert Hall); an
uncaused and eternal succession does not need a cause (_versus_
Clarke and Locke). See Whately, Logic, 270; New Englander, Jan.
1874:75; Alexander, Moral Science, 221; Pfleiderer, Die Religion,
1:160-164; Calderwood, Moral Philos., 225; Herbert Spencer, First
Principles, 37—criticized by Bowne, Review of H. Spencer, 36.
Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:128, says that the causal principle is
not satisfied till by regress we come to a cause which is not
itself an effect—to one who is _causa sui_; Aids to Study of
German Theology, 15-17—Even if the universe be eternal, its
contingent and relative nature requires us to postulate an eternal
Creator; Diman, Theistic Argument, 86—“While the law of causation
does not lead logically up to the conclusion of a first cause, it
compels us to affirm it.” We reply that it is not the law of
causation which compels us to affirm it, for this certainly “does
not lead logically up to the conclusion.” If we infer an uncaused
cause, we do it, not by logical process, but by virtue of the
intuitive belief within us. So substantially Secretan, and
Whewell, in Indications of a Creator, and in Hist. of Scientific
Ideas, 2:321, 322—“The mind takes refuge, in the assumption of a
First Cause, from an employment inconsistent with its own nature”;
“we necessarily infer a First Cause, although the palætiological
sciences only point toward it, but do not lead us to it.”

D. Granting that the cause of the universe has not itself been caused, it is impossible to show that this cause is not finite, like the universe itself. The causal principle requires a cause no greater than just sufficient to account for the effect.

We cannot therefore infer an infinite cause, unless the universe
is infinite—which cannot be proved, but can only be assumed—and
this is assuming an infinite in order to prove an infinite. All we
know of the universe is finite. An infinite universe implies
infinite number. But no number can be infinite, for to any number,
however great, a unit can be added, which shows that it was not
infinite before. Here again we see that the most approved forms of
the Cosmological Argument are obliged to avail themselves of the
intuition of the infinite, to supplement the logical process.
_Versus_ Martineau, Study, 1:416—“Though we cannot directly infer
the infinitude of God from a limited creation, indirectly we may
exclude every other position by resort to its unlimited scene of
existence (space).” But this would equally warrant our belief in
the infinitude of our fellow men. Or, it is the argument of Clarke
and Gillespie (see Ontological Argument below). Schiller, Die
Grösse der Welt, seems to hold to a boundless universe. He
represents a tired spirit as seeking the last limit of creation. A
second pilgrim meets him from the spaces beyond with the words:
“Steh! du segelst umsonst,—vor dir Unendlichkeit”—“Hold! thou
journeyest in vain,—before thee is only Infinity.” On the law of
parsimony, see Sir Wm. Hamilton, Discussions, 628.

2. _The value of the Cosmological Argument_, then, is simply this,—it proves the existence of some cause of the universe indefinitely great. When we go beyond this and ask whether this cause is a cause of being, or merely a cause of change, to the universe; whether it is a cause apart from the universe, or one with it; whether it is an eternal cause, or a cause dependent upon some other cause; whether it is intelligent or unintelligent, infinite or finite, one or many,—this argument cannot assure us.

On the whole argument, see Flint, Theism, 93-130; Mozley, Essays,
Hist. and Theol., 2:414-444; Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, 148-154;
Studien und Kritiken, 1876:9-31.

II. The Teleological Argument, or Argument from Order and Useful Collocation in Nature.

This is not properly an argument from design to a designer; for that design implies a designer is simply an identical proposition. It may be more correctly stated as follows: Order and useful collocation pervading a system respectively imply intelligence and purpose as the cause of that order and collocation. Since order and useful collocation pervade the universe, there must exist an intelligence adequate to the production of this order, and a will adequate to direct this collocation to useful ends.

Etymologically, “teleological argument” = argument to ends or
final causes, that is, “causes which, beginning as a thought, work
themselves out into a fact as an end or result” (Porter, Hum.
Intellect, 592-618);—health, for example, is the final cause of
exercise, while exercise is the efficient cause of health. This
definition of the argument would be broad enough to cover the
proof of a designing intelligence drawn from the constitution of
man. This last, however, is treated as a part of the
Anthropological Argument, which follows this, and the Teleological
Argument covers only the proof of a designing intelligence drawn
from nature. Hence Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Bohn’s trans.),
381, calls it the physico-theological argument. On methods of
stating the argument, see Bib. Sac., Oct. 1867:625. See also
Hedge, Ways of the Spirit, 155-185; Mozley, Essays Hist. and
Theol., 2:365-413.

Hicks, in his Critique of Design-Arguments, 347-389, makes two
arguments instead of one: (1) the argument from _order_ to
_intelligence_, to which he gives the name Eutaxiological; (2) the
argument from _adaptation_ to _purpose_, to which he would
restrict the name Teleological. He holds that teleology proper
cannot prove _intelligence_, because in speaking of “ends” at all,
it must assume the very intelligence which it seeks to prove; that
it actually does prove simply the _intentional exercise_ of an
intelligence whose existence has been previously established.
“Circumstances, forces or agencies converging to a definite
rational result imply volition—imply that this result is
intended—is an end. This is the major premise of this new
teleology.” He objects to the term “final cause.” The end is not a
cause at all—it is a motive. The characteristic element of cause
is power to produce an effect. Ends have no such power. The will
may choose them or set them aside. As already assuming
intelligence, ends cannot prove intelligence.

With this in the main we agree, and count it a valuable help to
the statement and understanding of the argument. In the very
observation of _order_, however, as well as in arguing from it, we
are obliged to assume the same all-arranging intelligence. We see
no objection therefore to making Eutaxiology the first part of the
Teleological Argument, as we do above. See review of Hicks, in
Meth. Quar. Rev., July, 1883:569-576. We proceed however to
certain

1. _Further explanations._

A. The major premise expresses a primitive conviction. It is not invalidated by the objections: (_a_) that order and useful collocation may exist without being purposed—for we are compelled by our very mental constitution to deny this in all cases where the order and collocation pervade a system: (_b_) that order and useful collocation may result from the mere operation of physical forces and laws—for these very forces and laws imply, instead of excluding, an originating and superintending intelligence and will.

Janet, in his work on Final Causes, 8, denies that finality is a
primitive conviction, like causality, and calls it the result of
an induction. He therefore proceeds from (1) marks of order and
useful collocation to (2) finality in nature, and then to (3) an
intelligent cause of this finality or “pre-conformity to future
event.” So Diman, Theistic Argument, 105, claims simply that, as
change requires cause, so orderly change requires intelligent
cause. We have shown, however, that induction and argument of
every kind presupposes intuitive belief in final cause. Nature
does not give us final cause; but no more does she give us
efficient cause. Mind gives us both, and gives them as clearly
upon one experience as after a thousand. Ladd: “Things have mind
in them: else they could not be minded by us.” The Duke of Argyll
told Darwin that it seemed to him wholly impossible to ascribe the
adjustments of nature to any other agency than that of mind.
“Well,” said Darwin, “that impression has often come upon me with
overpowering force. But then, at other times, it all seems—;” and
then he passed his hands over his eyes, as if to indicate the
passing of a vision out of sight. Darwinism is not a refutation of
ends in nature, but only of a particular theory with regard to the
way in which ends are realized in the organic world. Darwin would
begin with an infinitesimal germ, and make all the subsequent
development unteleological; see Schurman, Belief in God, 193.

(_a_) Illustration of unpurposed order in the single throwing of
“double sixes,”—constant throwing of double sixes indicates
design. So arrangement of detritus at mouth of river, and warming
pans sent to the West Indies,—useful but not purposed. Momerie,
Christianity and Evolution, 72—“It is only within narrow limits
that seemingly purposeful arrangements are produced by chance. And
therefore, as the signs of purpose increase, the presumption in
favor of their accidental origin diminishes.” Elder, Ideas from
Nature, 81, 82—“The uniformity of a boy’s marbles shows them to be
products of design. A single one might be accidental, but a dozen
cannot be. So atomic uniformity indicates manufacture.”
Illustrations of purposed order, in Beattie’s garden, Tillotson’s
blind men, Kepler’s salad. Dr. Carpenter: “The atheist is like a
man examining the machinery of a great mill, who, finding that the
whole is moved by a shaft proceeding from a brick wall, infers
that the shaft is a sufficient explanation of what he sees, and
that there is no moving power behind it.” Lord Kelvin: “The
atheistic idea is nonsensical.” J. G. Paton, Life, 2:191—The
sinking of a well on the island of Aniwa convinces the cannibal
chief Namakei that Jehovah God exists, the invisible One. See
Chauncey Wright, in N. Y. Nation, Jan. 15, 1874; Murphy,
Scientific Bases of Faith, 208.

(_b_) Bowne, Review of Herbert Spencer, 231-247—“Law is _method_,
not _cause_. A man cannot offer the very fact to be explained, as
its sufficient explanation.” Martineau, Essays, 1:144—“Patterned
damask, made not by the weaver, but by the loom?” Dr. Stevenson:
“House requires no architect, because it is built by stone-masons
and carpenters?” Joseph Cook: “Natural law without God behind it
is no more than a glove without a hand in it, and all that is done
by the gloved hand of God in nature is done by the hand and not by
the glove. Evolution is a process, not a power; a method of
operation, not an operator. A book is not written _by_ the laws of
spelling and grammar, but _according_ to those laws. So the book
of the universe is not written by the laws of heat, electricity,
gravitation, evolution, but according to those laws.” G. F.
Wright, Ant. and Orig. of Hum. Race, lecture IX—“It is impossible
for evolution to furnish evidence which shall drive design out of
nature. It can only drive it back to an earlier point of entrance,
thereby increasing our admiration for the power of the Creator to
accomplish ulterior designs by unlikely means.”

Evolution is only the method of God. It has to do with the _how_,
not with the _why_, of phenomena, and therefore is not
inconsistent with design, but rather is a new and higher
illustration of design. Henry Ward Beecher: “Design by wholesale
is greater than design by retail.” Frances Power Cobbe: “It is a
singular fact that, whenever we find out _how_ a thing is done,
our first conclusion seems to be that _God_ did not do it.” Why
should we say: “The more law, the less God?” The theist refers the
phenomena to a cause that knows itself and what it is doing; the
atheist refers them to a power which knows nothing of itself and
what it is doing (Bowne). George John Romanes said that, if God be
immanent, then all natural causation must appear to be mechanical,
and it is no argument against the divine origin of a thing to
prove it due to natural causation: “Causes in nature do not
obviate the necessity of a cause in nature.” Shaler,
Interpretation of Nature, 47—Evolution shows that the direction of
affairs is under control of something like our own intelligence:
“Evolution spells Purpose.” Clarke, Christ. Theology, 105—“The
modern doctrine of evolution has been awake to the existence of
innumerable ends _within_ the universe, but not to the one great
end _for_ the universe itself.” Huxley, Critiques and Addresses,
274, 275, 307—“The teleological and mechanical views of the
universe are not mutually exclusive.” Sir William Hamilton,
Metaphysics: “Intelligence stands first in the order of existence.
Efficient causes are preceded by final causes.” See also Thornton,
Old Fashioned Ethics, 199-265; Archbp. Temple, Bampton Lect.,
1884:99-123; Owen, Anat. of Vertebrates, 3:796; Peirce, Ideality
in the Physical Sciences, 1-35; Newman Smyth, Through Science to
Faith, 96; Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Rev., 135.

B. The minor premise expresses a working-principle of all science, namely, that all things have their uses, that order pervades the universe, and that the methods of nature are rational methods. Evidences of this appear in the correlation of the chemical elements to each other; in the fitness of the inanimate world to be the basis and support of life; in the typical forms and unity of plan apparent in the organic creation; in the existence and coöperation of natural laws; in cosmical order and compensations.

This minor premise is not invalidated by the objections: (_a_) That we frequently misunderstand the end actually subserved by natural events and objects; for the principle is, not that we necessarily know the actual end, but that we necessarily believe that there is some end, in every case of systematic order and collocation. (_b_) That the order of the universe is manifestly imperfect; for this, if granted, would argue, not absence of contrivance, but some special reason for imperfection, either in the limitations of the contriving intelligence itself, or in the nature of the end sought (as, for example, correspondence with the moral state and probation of sinners).

The evidences of order and useful collocation are found both in
the indefinitely small and the indefinitely great. The molecules
are manufactured articles; and the compensations of the solar
system which provide that a secular flattening of the earth’s
orbit shall be made up for by a secular rounding of that same
orbit, alike show an intelligence far transcending our own; see
Cooke, Religion and Chemistry, and Credentials of Science,
23—“Beauty is the harmony of relations which perfect fitness
produces; law is the prevailing principle which underlies that
harmony. Hence both beauty and law imply design. From energy,
fitness, beauty, order, sacrifice, we argue might, skill,
perfection, law, and love in a Supreme Intelligence. Christianity
implies design, and is the completion of the design argument.”
Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:168—“A good definition of beauty
is immanent purposiveness, the teleological ideal background of
reality, the shining of the Idea through phenomena.”

Bowne, Philos. Theism, 85—“Design is never causal. It is only
ideal, and it demands an efficient cause for its realization. If
ice is not to sink, and to freeze out life, there must be some
molecular structure which shall make its bulk greater than that of
an equal weight of water.” Jackson, Theodore Parker,
355—“Rudimentary organs are like the silent letters in many
words,—both are witnesses to a past history; and there is
intelligence in their preservation.” Diman, Theistic Argument:
“Not only do we observe in the world the change which is the basis
of the Cosmological Argument, but we perceive that this change
proceeds according to a fixed and invariable rule. In inorganic
nature, general order, or _regularity_; in organic nature, special
order or _adaptation_.” Bowne, Review of H. Spencer, 113-115,
224-230: “Inductive science proceeds upon the postulate that the
reasonable and the natural are one.” This furnished the guiding
clue to Harvey and Cuvier; see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences,
2:489-491. Kant: “The anatomist must assume that nothing in man is
in vain.” Aristotle: “Nature makes nothing in vain.” On molecules
as manufactured articles, see Maxfield, in Nature, Sept. 25, 1873.
See also Tulloch, Theism, 116, 120; LeConte, Religion and Science,
lect. 2 and 3; McCosh, Typical Forms, 81, 420; Agassiz, Essay on
Classification, 9, 10; Bib. Sac., 1849:626 and 1850:613; Hopkins,
in Princeton Review, 1882:181.

(_a_) Design, in fact that rivers always run by large towns? that
springs are always found at gambling places? Plants made for man,
and man for worms? Voltaire: “Noses are made for spectacles—let us
wear them!” Pope: “While man exclaims ‘See all things for my use,’
‘See man for mine,’ replies the pampered goose.” Cherries do not
ripen in the cold of winter when they do not taste as well, and
grapes do not ripen in the heat of summer when the new wine would
turn to vinegar? Nature divides melons into sections for
convenience in family eating? Cork-tree made for bottle-stoppers?
The child who was asked the cause of salt in the ocean, attributed
it to codfish, thus dimly confounding final cause with efficient
cause. Teacher: “What are marsupials?” Pupil: “Animals that have
pouches in their stomachs.” Teacher: “And what do they have
pouches for?” Pupil: “To crawl into and conceal themselves in,
when they are pursued.” Why are the days longer in summer than in
winter? Because it is the property of all natural objects to
elongate under the influence of heat. A Jena professor held that
doctors do not exist because of disease, but that diseases exist
precisely in order that there may be doctors. Kepler was an
astronomical Don Quixote. He discussed the claims of eleven
different damsels to become his second wife, and he likened the
planets to huge animals rushing through the sky. Many of the
objections to design arise from confounding a part of the creation
with the whole, or a structure in the process of development with
a structure completed. For illustrations of mistaken ends, see
Janet, Final Causes.

(_b_) Alphonso of Castile took offense at the Ptolemaic System,
and intimated that, if he had been consulted at the creation, he
could have suggested valuable improvements. Lange, in his History
of Materialism, illustrates some of the methods of nature by
millions of gun barrels shot in all directions to kill a single
hare; by ten thousand keys bought at haphazard to get into a shut
room; by building a city in order to obtain a house. Is not the
ice a little overdone about the poles? See John Stuart Mill’s
indictment of nature, in his posthumous Essays on Religion,
29—“Nature impales men, breaks men as if on a wheel, casts them to
be devoured by wild beasts, crushes them with stones like the
first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them
with cold, poisons them with the quick or slow venom of her
exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve,
such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never
surpassed.” So argue Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann.

The doctrine of evolution answers many of these objections, by
showing that order and useful collocation in the system as a whole
is necessarily and cheaply purchased by imperfection and suffering
in the initial stages of development. The question is: Does the
system as a whole imply design? My opinion is of no value as to
the usefulness of an intricate machine the purpose of which I do
not know. If I stand at the beginning of a road and do not know
whither it leads, it is presumptuous in me to point out a more
direct way to its destination. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 20-22—“In
order to counterbalance the impressions which apparent disorder
and immorality in nature make upon us, we have to assume that the
universe at its root is not only rational, but good. This is
faith, but it is an act on which our whole moral life depends.”
Metaphysics, 165—“The same argument which would deny mind in
nature denies mind in man.” Fisher, Nat. and Meth. of Rev.,
264—“Fifty years ago, when the crane stood on top of the tower of
unfinished Cologne Cathedral, was there no evidence of design in
the whole structure?” Yet we concede that, so long as we cannot
with John Stuart Mill explain the imperfections of the universe by
any limitations in the Intelligence which contrived it, we are
shut up to regarding them as intended to correspond with the moral
state and probation of sinners which God foresaw and provided for
at the creation. Evil things in the universe are symbols of sin,
and helps to its overthrow. See Bowne, Review of H. Spencer, 264,
265; McCosh, Christ. and Positivism, 82 _sq._; Martineau, Essays,
1:50, and Study, 1:351-398; Porter, Hum. Intellect, 599; Mivart,
Lessons from Nature, 366-371; Princeton Rev., 1878:272-303; Shaw,
on Positivism.

2. _Defects of the Teleological Argument._ These attach not to the premises but to the conclusion sought to be drawn therefrom.

A. The argument cannot prove a personal God. The order and useful collocations of the universe may be only the changing phenomena of an impersonal intelligence and will, such as pantheism supposes. The finality may be only immanent finality.

There is such a thing as immanent and unconscious finality.
National spirit, without set purpose, constructs language. The bee
works unconsciously to ends. Strato of Lampsacus regarded the
world as a vast animal. Aristotle, Phys., 2:8—“Plant the
ship-builder’s skill within the timber itself, and you have the
mode in which nature produces.” Here we see a dim anticipation of
the modern doctrine of development from within instead of creation
from without. Neander: “The divine work goes on from within
outward.” John Fiske: “The argument from the watch has been
superseded by the argument from the flower.” Iverach, Theism,
91—“The effect of evolution has been simply to transfer the cause
from a mere external influence working from without to an immanent
rational principle.” Martineau, Study, 1:349, 350—“Theism is in no
way committed to the doctrine of a God external to the world ...
nor does intelligence require, in order to gain an object, to give
it externality.”

Newman Smyth, Place of Death, 62-80—“The universe exists in some
all-pervasive Intelligence. Suppose we could see a small heap of
brick, scraps of metal, and pieces of mortar, gradually shaping
themselves into the walls and interior structure of a building,
adding needed material as the work advanced, and at last
presenting in its completion a factory furnished with varied and
finely wrought machinery. Or, a locomotive carrying a process of
self-repair to compensate for wear, growing and increasing in
size, detaching from itself at intervals pieces of brass or iron
endowed with the power of growing up step by step into other
locomotives capable of running themselves and of reproducing new
locomotives in their turn.” So nature in its separate parts may
seem mechanical, but as a whole it is rational. Weismann does not
“disown a directive power,”—only this power is “behind the
mechanism as its final cause ... it must be teleological.”

Impressive as are these evidences of intelligence in the universe
as a whole, and increased in number as they are by the new light
of evolution, we must still hold that nature alone cannot prove
that this intelligence is personal. Hopkins, Miscellanies,
18-36—“So long as there is such a thing as impersonal and adapting
intelligence in the brute creation, we cannot necessarily infer
from unchanging laws a free and personal God.” See Fisher,
Supernat. Origin of Christianity, 576-578. Kant shows that the
argument does not prove intelligence apart from the world
(Critique, 370). We must bring mind to the world, if we would find
mind in it. Leave out man, and nature cannot be properly
interpreted: the intelligence and will in nature may still be
unconscious. But, taking in man, we are bound to get our idea of
the intelligence and will in nature from the highest type of
intelligence and will we know, and that is man’s. “Nullus in
microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus.” “We receive but
what we give, And in our life alone does Nature live.”

The Teleological Argument therefore needs to be supplemented by
the Anthropological Argument, or the argument from the mental and
moral constitution of man. By itself, it does not prove a Creator.
See Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 26; Ritter, Hist. Anc. Philos.,
bk. 9, chap. 6; Foundations of our Faith, 38; Murphy, Scientific
Bases, 215; Habit and Intelligence, 2:6, and chap. 27. On immanent
finality, see Janet, Final Causes, 345-415; Diman, Theistic
Argument, 201-203. Since righteousness belongs only to
personality, this argument cannot prove righteousness in God.
Flint, Theism, 66—“Power and Intelligence alone do not constitute
God, though they be infinite. A being may have these, and, if
lacking righteousness, may be a devil.” Here again we see the need
of the Anthropological Argument to supplement this.

B. Even if this argument could prove personality in the intelligence and will that originated the order of the universe, it could not prove either the unity, the eternity, or the infinity of God; not the unity—for the useful collocations of the universe might be the result of oneness of counsel, instead of oneness of essence, in the contriving intelligence; not the eternity—for a created demiurge might conceivably have designed the universe; not the infinity—since all marks of order and collocation within our observation are simply finite.

Diman asserts (Theistic Argument, 114) that all the phenomena of
the universe must be due to the same source—since all alike are
subject to the same method of sequence, _e. g._, gravitation—and
that the evidence points us irresistibly to some _one_ explanatory
cause. We can regard this assertion only as the utterance of a
primitive belief in a first cause, not as the conclusion of
logical demonstration, for we know only an infinitesimal part of
the universe. From the point of view of the intuition of an
Absolute Reason, however, we can cordially assent to the words of
F. L. Patton: “When we consider Matthew Arnold’s ‘stream of
tendency,’ Spencer’s ‘unknowable,’ Schopenhauer’s ‘world as will,’
and Hartmann’s elaborate defence of finality as the product of
unconscious intelligence, we may well ask if the theists, with
their belief in one personal God, are not in possession of the
only hypothesis that can save the language of these writers from
the charge of meaningless and idiotic raving” (Journ. Christ.
Philos., April, 1883:283-307).

The ancient world, which had only the light of nature, believed in
many gods. William James, Will to Believe, 44—“If there be a
divine Spirit of the universe, nature, such as we know her, cannot
possibly be its _ultimate word_ to man. Either there is no spirit
revealed in nature, or else it is inadequately revealed there; and
(as all the higher religions have assumed) what we call visible
nature, or _this_ world, must be but a veil and surface-show whose
full meaning resides in a supplementary unseen, or _other_ world.”
Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 234—“But is not
intelligence itself the mystery of mysteries?... No doubt,
intellect is a great mystery.... But there is a choice in
mysteries. Some mysteries leave other things clear, and some leave
things as dark and impenetrable as ever. The former is the case
with the mystery of intelligence. It makes possible the
comprehension of everything but itself.”

3. _The value of the Teleological Argument_ is simply this,—it proves from certain useful collocations and instances of order which have clearly had a beginning, or in other words, from the present harmony of the universe, that there exists an intelligence and will adequate to its contrivance. But whether this intelligence and will is personal or impersonal, creator or only fashioner, one or many, finite or infinite, eternal or owing its being to another, necessary or free, this argument cannot assure us.

In it, however, we take a step forward. The causative power which we have proved by the Cosmological Argument has now become an intelligent and voluntary power.

John Stuart Mill, Three Essays on Theism, 168-170—“In the present
state of our knowledge, the adaptations in nature afford a large
balance of probability in favor of causation by intelligence.”
Ladd holds that, whenever one being acts upon its like, each being
undergoes changes of state that belong to its own nature under the
circumstances. Action of one body on another never consists in
transferring the state of one being to another. Therefore there is
no more difficulty in beings that are unlike acting on one another
than in beings that are like. We do not transfer ideas to other
minds,—we only rouse them to develop their own ideas. So force
also is positively not transferable. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 49,
begins with “the conception of things interacting according to law
and forming an intelligible system. Such a system cannot be
construed by thought without the assumption of a unitary being
which is the fundamental reality of the system. 53—No passage of
influences or forces will avail to bridge the gulf, so long as the
things are regarded as independent. 56—The system itself cannot
explain this interaction, for the system is only the members of
it. There must be some being in them which is their reality, and
of which they are in some sense phases or manifestations. In other
words, there must be a basal monism.” All this is substantially
the view of Lotze, of whose philosophy see criticism in Stählin’s
Kant, Lotze, and Ritschl, 116-156, and especially 123.
Falckenberg, Gesch. der neueren Philosophie, 454, shows as to
Lotze’s view that his assumption of monistic unity and continuity
does not explain how change of condition in one thing should, as
equalization or compensation, follow change of condition in
another thing. Lotze explains this _actuality_ by the ethical
conception of an all-embracing Person. On the whole argument, see
Bib. Sac., 1849:634; Murphy, Sci. Bases, 216; Flint, Theism,
131-210; Pfleiderer, Die Religion, 1:164-174; W. R. Benedict, on
Theism and Evolution, in Andover Rev., 1886:307-350, 607-622.

III. The Anthropological Argument, or Argument from Man’s Mental and Moral Nature.

This is an argument from the mental and moral condition of man to the existence of an Author, Lawgiver, and End. It is sometimes called the Moral Argument.

The common title “Moral Argument” is much too narrow, for it seems
to take account only of conscience in man, whereas the argument
which this title so imperfectly designates really proceeds from
man’s intellectual and emotional, as well as from his moral,
nature. In choosing the designation we have adopted, we desire,
moreover, to rescue from the mere physicist the term
“Anthropology”—a term to which he has attached altogether too
limited a signification, and which, in his use of it, implies that
man is a mere animal,—to him Anthropology is simply the study of
_la bête humaine_. Anthropology means, not simply the science of
man’s physical nature, origin, and relations, but also the science
which treats of his higher spiritual being. Hence, in Theology,
the term Anthropology designates that division of the subject
which treats of man’s spiritual nature and endowments, his
original state and his subsequent apostasy. As an argument,
therefore, from man’s mental and moral nature, we can with perfect
propriety call the present argument the Anthropological Argument.

The argument is a complex one, and may be divided into three parts.

1. Man’s intellectual and moral nature must have had for its author an intellectual and moral Being. The elements of the proof are as follows:—(_a_) Man, as an intellectual and moral being, has had a beginning upon the planet. (_b_) Material and unconscious forces do not afford a sufficient cause for man’s reason, conscience, and free will. (_c_) Man, as an effect, can be referred only to a cause possessing self-consciousness and a moral nature, in other words, personality.

This argument is is part an application to man of the principles
of both the Cosmological and the Teleological Arguments. Flint,
Theism, 74—“Although causality does not involve design, nor design
goodness, yet design involves causality, and goodness both
causality and design.” Jacobi: “Nature conceals God; man reveals
him.”

Man is an effect. The history of the geologic ages proves that man
has not always existed, and even if the lower creatures were his
progenitors, his intellect and freedom are not eternal _a parte
ante_. We consider man, not as a physical, but as a spiritual,
being. Thompson, Christian Theism, 75—“Every true cause must be
sufficient to account for the effect.” Locke, Essay, book 4, chap.
10—“Cogitable existence cannot be produced out of incogitable.”
Martineau, Study of Religion, 1:258 _sq._

Even if man had always existed, however, we should not need to
abandon the argument. We might start, not from beginning of
existence, but from beginning of phenomena. I might see God in the
world, just as I see thought, feeling, will, in my fellow men.
Fullerton, Plain Argument for God: I do not infer you, as cause of
the _existence_ of your body: I recognize you as present and
_working_ through your body. Its changes of gesture and speech
reveal a personality behind them. So I do not need to argue back
to a Being who once _caused_ nature and history; I recognize a
_present_ Being, exercising wisdom and power, by signs such as
reveal personality in man. Nature is itself the Watchmaker
manifesting himself in the very process of making the watch. This
is the meaning of the noble Epilogue to Robert Browning’s Dramatis
Personæ, 252—“That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, Or
decomposes but to recompose, Become my universe that feels and
knows.” “That Face,” said Mr. Browning to Mrs. Orr, “That Face is
the face of Christ; that is how I feel him.” Nature is an
expression of the mind and will of Christ, as my face is an
expression of my mind and will. But in both cases, behind and
above the face is a personality, of which the face is but the
partial and temporary expression.

Bowne, Philos. Theism, 104, 107—“My fellow beings act _as if_ they
had thought, feeling, and will. So nature looks _as if_ thought,
feeling, and will were behind it. If we deny mind in nature, we
must deny mind in man. If there be no controlling mind in nature,
moreover, there can be none in man, for if the basal power is
blind and necessary, then all that depends upon it is necessitated
also.” LeConte, in Royce’s Conception of God, 44—“There is only
one place in the world where we can get behind physical phenomena,
behind the veil of matter, namely, in our own brain, and we find
there a self, a person. Is it not reasonable that, if we could get
behind the veil of nature, we should find the same, that is, a
Person? But if so, we must conclude, an infinite Person, and
therefore the only complete Personality that exists. Perfect
personality is not only self-conscious, but self-existent. _They_
are only imperfect images, and, as it were, separated fragments,
of the infinite Personality of God.”

Personality = self-consciousness + self-determination in view of
moral ends. The brute has intelligence and will, but has neither
self-consciousness, conscience, nor free-will. See Julius Müller,
Doctrine of Sin, 1:76 _sq._ Diman, Theistic Argument, 91,
251—“Suppose ‘the intuitions of the moral faculty are the slowly
organized results of experience received from the race’; still,
having found that the universe affords evidence of a supremely
intelligent cause, we may believe that man’s moral nature affords
the highest illustration of its mode of working”; 358—“Shall we
explain the lower forms of will by the higher, or the higher by
the lower?”

2. Man’s moral nature proves the existence of a holy Lawgiver and Judge. The elements of the proof are:—(_a_) Conscience recognizes the existence of a moral law which has supreme authority. (_b_) Known violations of this moral law are followed by feelings of ill-desert and fears of judgment. (_c_) This moral law, since it is not self-imposed, and these threats of judgment, since they are not self-executing, respectively argue the existence of a holy will that has imposed the law, and of a punitive power that will execute the threats of the moral nature.

See Bishop Butler’s Sermons on Human Nature, in Works, Bohn’s ed.,
385-414. Butler’s great discovery was that of the supremacy of
conscience in the moral constitution of man: “Had it strength as
it has right, had it power as it has manifest authority, it would
absolutely govern the world.” Conscience = the moral judiciary of
the soul—not law, nor sheriff, but judge; see under Anthropology.
Diman, Theistic Argument, 251—“Conscience does not lay down a law;
it warns us of the existence of a law; and not only of a law, but
of a purpose—not our own, but the purpose of another, which it is
our mission to realize.” See Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith,
218 _sq._ It proves personality in the Lawgiver, because its
utterances are not abstract, like those of reason, but are in the
nature of command; they are not in the indicative, but in the
imperative, mood; it says, “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not.” This
argues _will_.

Hutton, Essays, 1:11—“Conscience is an ideal Moses, and thunders
from an invisible Sinai”; “the Atheist regards conscience not as a
skylight, opened to let in upon human nature an infinite dawn from
above, but as a polished arch or dome, completing and reflecting
the whole edifice beneath.” But conscience cannot be the mere
reflection and expression of nature, for it represses and condemns
nature. Tulloch, Theism: “Conscience, like the magnetic needle,
indicates the existence of an unknown Power which from afar
controls its vibrations and at whose presence it trembles.” Nero
spends nights of terror in wandering through the halls of his
Golden House. Kant holds that faith in duty requires faith in a
God who will defend and reward duty—see Critique of Pure Reason,
359-387. See also Porter, Human Intellect, 524.

Kant, in his Metaphysic of Ethics, represents the action of
conscience as like “conducting a case before a court,” and he
adds: “Now that he who is accused before his conscience should be
figured to be just the same person as his judge, is an absurd
representation of a tribunal; since, in such an event, the accuser
would always lose his suit. Conscience must therefore represent to
itself always some other than itself as Judge, unless it is to
arrive at a contradiction with itself.” See also his Critique of
the Practical Reason, Werke, 8:214—“Duty, thou sublime and mighty
name, that hast in thee nothing to attract or win, but challengest
submission; and yet dost threaten nothing to sway the will by that
which may arouse natural terror or aversion, but merely holdest
forth a Law; a Law which of itself finds entrance into the mind,
and even while we disobey, against our will compels our reverence,
a Law in presence of which all inclinations grow dumb, even while
they secretly rebel; what origin is there worthy of thee? Where
can we find the root of thy noble descent, which proudly rejects
all kinship with the inclinations?” Archbishop Temple answers, in
his Bampton Lectures, 58, 59, “This eternal Law is the Eternal
himself, the almighty God.” Robert Browning: “The sense within me
that I owe a debt Assures me—Somewhere must be Somebody, Ready to
take his due. All comes to this: Where due is, there acceptance
follows: find Him who accepts the due.”