Chapter XXXVIII: Some a Priori Arguments, 425 (5)

There are others no less extensive and inexhaustible in the principles which underlie and maintain human society, and those which preside over the progressive development of humanity. Political economy is the department of social science which has been cultivated with most success. What, then, is its most comprehensive and best established theorem? This--that although the great majority of men are moved mainly by self-interest, and few seek with much zeal or persistency the general good, the result of their being left in perfect freedom to pursue their own advantage, so long as they do not outwardly violate the rules of justice, is far better for the whole society than if they conformed their conduct to any plan which human wisdom, aiming directly at the general good, could devise; nature having provided in the principles of the human constitution and the circumstances of human life for the selfish plans and passions of individuals so neutralising one another, so counteracting and counterpoising one another, as to secure the social stability and welfare--as to leave general ideas and interests to rule with comparatively little resistance. It is surely a natural inference from this that a Supreme Reason grasps all human reasons, and uses them in order to realise a purpose grander and better than any which they themselves contemplate. History viewed as a whole teaches the same truth on a wider scale. An examination of it discloses a plan pervading human affairs from the origin of man until the present day--a progress which has proceeded without break or stoppage, in accordance with laws which are as yet very imperfectly apprehended. Of the countless generations which have come and gone like the leaves of the forest, for unknown thousands of years, few have had the slightest glimpse of the order which connected them with their fellows, and embraced their every action; fewer still have sought to conform to it; the immense majority have set before them only mean and narrow schemes for personal good; all passions have raged and all vices prevailed in their turn; there have been confusion and tumult and war; and yet the order, progress, plan I speak of have been slowly and silently but surely built up. In this evolution of order out of the chaos of millions on millions of conflicting human wills seeking merely their own pleasure, there is, perhaps, even a more impressive proof of the operation of Divine Wisdom than in the origination and preservation of order among the multitudinous stars of heaven. The philosophical historian who has most conclusively shown by the scrutiny of the chief events in the annals of humanity the existence of such a progressive plan, is amply justified in arguing that it cannot have originated with man, or matter, or chance, but must be the work of God. "We have passed in review," he says, "all the theories imagined by philosophers and historians to explain the mysterious fact that there is in the life of man unfolded in history a succession, a plan, a development, which cannot be referred to man himself. Some, despairing from the outset to find a solution, make of their ignorance a blind power which they call hazard. Evidently that is no solution. Hazard is a word, and nothing more. Other writers--the majority of writers--say that this mysterious power is nature, under the form of climate, or races, or the whole of the physical influences which act on the moral world. But what is nature? Whence has it this power, this foresight, this intelligence, which are so conspicuous in the course of our destinies? If nature is matter, and nothing but matter, that too is no answer. Who will believe that matter acts with wisdom--with intelligence? Where there is intelligent action there must be an intelligent being; therefore nature leads us to God. Finally, there are those who substitute for nature general laws. But do not laws suppose a legislator? and who can this legislator be, if not God?"[28]

[28] See Appendix XX.

There is, then, everywhere, both in the physical and moral worlds, order and adaptation, proportion and co-ordination, and there is very widely present progress--order which advances in a certain direction to a certain end, which is until realised only an ideal. This is the state of things which science discloses. The question is, Is this state of things intelligible on any other supposition than that of a designing mind? The theist holds that it is not; that it directly and imperatively demands an intelligent cause; that to assign it either to no cause, or to any other than an intelligent cause, is, in the strictest and strongest sense of the term, absurd. If we deny that there is such order as I have indicated, we set aside the entire teaching of all the sciences--we pronounce science to be from beginning to end a delusion and a lie. Men in the present day dare not do this. If we deny that such order implies the agency of a Supreme Intelligence, we contradict no express declaration of any of the sciences; we may accept all that they have to tell us about order, and they can tell us about nothing else. But notwithstanding this, it is far more reasonable, far less absurd, to deny that there is order in the universe, than to admit it and deny that its ultimate cause is an intelligence. Further, although we cannot be more certain of the cause than of the effect from which it is inferred, and consequently cannot be more certain that an intelligence has produced the order which is in the universe than that there is order therein, the theistic inference from the whole of that order may well be greatly stronger than the scientific proof of order in any particular instance. Men of science have probably never as good reasons for believing in the laws of order brought to light by their own special science, as the theist has for believing in a Supreme Intelligence because of the order which is the common and concurrent result of all the sciences, and which is obvious to every eye.

II.

The argument from order and adaptation is often spoken of as "the argument from design." The phrase is an unfortunate one. The argument is not _from_ but _to_ design. To assume design and then to affirm that "every design must have a designer," is manifestly not serious reasoning, but a play upon words. To assume design at all is to assume precisely what one is most bound to prove; and to assume design in the universe is to assume what cannot be proved, yea, what the theist requires to show against the pantheist cannot be proved. In any other than a very loose and metaphorical sense design has no existence except in mind. There is no design in the sky, or the sea, or the land; there are only law, order, and arrangement therein, and these things are not designs although they imply designs. What we can describe as the designs of the lower animals are given to them with their constitutions, and are only a part of the instrumentality which fits them for their place in the world. Men have designs properly so called; but the argument for the existence of God from the evidences of a Supreme Wisdom in the progressive evolution of human history, instead of resting on these designs, is based on the fact that what has actually been realised has far transcended them. Science as a mere exposition of the facts of the universe can never show us Divine design, for the good reason that there is no such design in these facts, although, had it not existed elsewhere, they could never have been what they are. While this is true, it must in justice be added that most if not all of the advocates of theism who have presented the argument under consideration in the faulty form,--"Design implies a designer; the universe abounds in design; therefore the universe, so far as it abounds in design, implies a designer,"--have erred more in expression than in thought. In reality they have not meant by design what is properly so called, and consequently have not begun their argument by assuming what was denied and in need of proof. In reality they have meant by design those characteristics of things which they hold to be the indications or evidences or correlatives of intelligence, and which they might have designated by such terms as order, adjustment, adaptation, fitness, progress, &c. All attempts to refute their reasoning, therefore, by a strict and literal interpretation of the phrase "Design implies a designer," must be pronounced unfair. Censure of the phrase is warranted. Rejection of the argument on account of the phrase is superficial and unjust.

It has been held that the argument from order and adaptation is essentially different from the design argument. The reason given for this has been that the design argument is based on the analogy or supposed analogy between the works of nature and the products of human art. In this argument, we are told, we infer from the likeness which certain natural objects bear to artificial objects that there must be a likeness in their causes. We know, it is said, that only intelligent beings frame such structures as houses, ships, and watches, and seeing that there is in the mechanism of the heavens, the circulation of the blood, and the construction of the eye, arrangements and adjustments of a similar kind, we conclude that they also must have been framed by an intelligent being, who must be as much greater than man as the works of nature are greater than the works of art, for causes are proportional to their effects. Now this may be the design argument as some have presented it who had no particular wish to criticise it severely, and it certainly is the way in which Hume and Kant wished it to be presented; but it has no claim whatever to be considered the only proper form of the argument, and is, in fact, a very bad form of it. It is true that there is an analogy between the works of nature and the works of art, and that on the strength of this analogy the two classes of works, and also their causes, may be compared, but not true that the design argument when correctly stated either rests on such analogy or implies such comparison. The analogy and comparison may be drawn into, and, as it were, incorporated with the design argument, but that is rather as a means of illustration than as a condition of inference. When we infer from an examination of their construction that the eye and the ear have been designed by an intelligent being, we are no more dependent on our knowledge that a watch or a telescope has been designed by an intelligent being than we are dependent on our knowledge of the eye and ear being the products of intelligence when we infer that the watch and the telescope are the products of intelligence. There is an inference in both cases, and an inference of precisely the same nature in both cases. It is as direct and independent when the transition is to God from His works as when to our fellow-men from their works. We are greatly mistaken if we suppose that we have an immediate knowledge of the intelligence of the beings who make watches, houses, and ships; we only know that the beings who make these things are intelligent because such things could not be made without intelligence: in a word, we only know our fellow-creatures to be intelligent beings because they utter and arrange sounds so as to convey a meaning, execute movements which tend to an end, and construct machines. We have no more a direct perception or a personal experience of the intelligence of our fellow-men than we have of the intelligence of God. The mind which has given origin to the order and adjustments of the universe is not more absolutely inaccessible to sense and self-consciousness than the mind which gives origin to the order and adjustments of a watch. It is therefore impossible that our knowledge of the former should be dependent on our knowledge of the latter. In both cases the knowledge is inferential,--in both cases it is dependent on the immediate consciousness of intelligence in ourselves,--but the inference is in the former case neither longer nor less legitimate than in the latter. We deny, then, that there is any truth in the statement that the design argument rests on the analogy between the works of nature and the products of art It rests directly on the character of the works of nature as displaying order and adjustment. It is essentially identical with the argument which we have expounded.

It is not less objectionable to speak of the argument from order and adaptation as being an argument from final causes than to speak of it as being an argument from design, unless the different significations of final cause be distinguished, and those which are irrelevant and illegitimate be excluded. For the expression "final cause" has various significations which are indeed intimately related, yet which cannot be employed indifferently without leading to utter confusion. These significations may be distributed into two classes. Each class contains three significations, and every signification of the first class has a signification of the second class to correspond to it. In fact, the significations of the first class are simply so many aspects of order or adaptation, and those of the second class so many aspects of design or intention; the former are order and adaptation viewed with reference to the intrinsic, the extrinsic, and the ultimate ends of things, and the latter are design and intention viewed with reference to the same three ends. Final cause sometimes means the intrinsic end of what is orderly and adjusted, the realisation of the nature of anything which is considered as a whole, a complex of order and adjustment. The combined stability and movement of the solar system is in this sense the final cause of the arrangements by which that result is secured. Sight is in this sense the final cause of the eye, because in sight the true nature of the eye manifests itself. Then, final cause sometimes means not the intrinsic but the extrinsic end of what is orderly and adjusted; not merely the realisation of the nature of anything, but its relationship to other things, its adaptations to their requirements, its uses; not merely the end of an arrangement regarded as a self-contained or completed whole, but the end or ends which it serves as a system surrounded by, connected with, and included in other systems. It is impossible to admit final cause in the sense of intrinsic end and to deny it in that of extrinsic end; for the universe is not a mere aggregate of systems placed alongside of one another, but otherwise unconnected--it is itself a system composed of an infinity of systems within systems. Nothing in nature stands alone; nothing lives to itself nor dies to itself. What is a whole with reference to something smaller than itself, is a part with reference to something larger than itself. The eye is a whole with reference to its own cords, lenses, fluids, and membranes, but it is a part with reference to the body; sight is therefore not more certainly its end than the uses of sight How can a man admit final cause to be involved in the relationship between his stomach and bodily life, but deny it to be involved in the relationship between his stomach and the vegetable and animal substances with which he satisfies its cravings? Clearly the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic ends is a narrow one, and exists not so much in the nature of things as in our way of looking at things. We have but to elevate and extend our own view, and what was before an extrinsic end is thereby changed into an intrinsic end. Admit, in fact, final cause anywhere, and you must admit it everywhere; admit anything to have an end, and you must admit all things to have an end; for the world is a grand and wondrous unity in which all objects depend on and serve one another, and all forces contribute to the attainment of a single comprehensive issue. Once accept the principle of finality, and there is no consistent stopping short of the conviction of Aristotle, that on it hang the whole heavens and earth.

It is only when the word final cause is used in one or other of these two senses that we can with any propriety speak of reasoning from final causes to the existence of God. And these are just the senses in which the expression is now least used. Final cause is generally employed at present to signify design. It means, not the arrangement of causes and effects into systematic unities, the parts of which have definite relations to one another and a common issue, or the adaptation of these unities to support and serve one another, but purpose or intention in the Divine Mind with respect to such arrangement or adaptation. This sense of the word is so obviously general enough to refer both to intrinsic and extrinsic ends that it would be unnecessary to direct attention to the fact, were it not that we are much more apt to fall into error regarding extrinsic than intrinsic ends, and consequently, regarding the intention or purpose which refers to them. A thing has just one intrinsic end--namely, the single conspicuous and all-comprehensive function or issue in virtue of which we can regard it as being a whole or unity, and as possessed of a certain relative independence or completeness. There is thus comparatively little possibility of error in determining what the intrinsic end is in a given instance, and comparatively little danger of presumption in affirming it to have been the end contemplated by the Divine Mind. There is no doubt, for example, that the eye is an instrument constructed in a way calculated to attain the intrinsic end--sight; and there can be no presumption in affirming that God must have had that end in view in the construction of the eye. If there be a God, and if He have had anything to do with the making of the eye, He must have designed that His creatures should see with their eyes. It is different with extrinsic ends. A thing has never merely one extrinsic end; it has always a multitude of extrinsic ends, for it is always related to a multitude of other things. If we would speak of the extrinsic end of a thing we must mean thereby the whole of its adaptations to other things, the entire circle of its external relationships, the sum of its uses. But men have always shown themselves prone in judging of the extrinsic ends of things to single out some particular adaptation or use, or at least a few adaptations or uses, and to ignore or exclude all others. And especially have they shown themselves prone to judge of things merely from their relationship and utility to themselves, as if their happiness was the chief if not sole end of all things. This is, of course, an utterly erroneous method of judging, and necessarily leads to ridiculous thoughts about things, and to irreverent thoughts about God's designs in the creation of things. "It can," as Hegel tells us, "truly profit neither religion nor science, if, after considering the vine with reference to the well-known uses which it confers upon man, we proceed to consider the cork-tree with reference to the corks which are cut from its bark to serve as stoppers for wine-bottles."

When we affirm, then, that final causes in the sense of intrinsic ends are in things, we affirm merely that things are systematic unities, the parts of which are definitely related to one another and co-ordinated to a common issue; and when we affirm that final causes in the sense of extrinsic ends are in things, we affirm merely that things are not isolated and independent systems, but systems definitely related to other systems, and so adjusted as to be parts or components of higher systems, and means to issues more comprehensive than their own. We cannot affirm that final causes in the sense of designs are in things; they can only exist in a mind. What do we mean when we hold that final causes in this sense truly are in the Divine Mind, and with reference equally to intrinsic and extrinsic ends? Merely that such order and adjustment as may actually be seen in things and between things--seen with the naked eye it may be, or only to be seen through the telescope or microscope--or which, if they cannot be seen, yet can by scientific induction be proved to be in and between things,--that that order and adjustment which actually exist, were intended or designed by God to exist. Of course every theist who sees evidences of God's existence in the harmonies of nature, must necessarily rise to final causes in this sense from final causes in the other senses which have been indicated; he must pass from material arrangements to the Divine Intelligence which he believes to be manifested by them. And there can be no shadow of presumption in any theist searching for final causes--Divine designs--in this sense and to this extent. What Descartes and others have said against doing so, on the ground that it is arrogant for a man to suppose he can investigate the ends contemplated by the Deity--can penetrate into the counsels of Divine Wisdom--has manifestly no force or relevancy, so long as all that is maintained is that the order which actually exists was meant to exist. The doubt or denial of that is irreverent. To admit the existence of God, and yet to refuse to acknowledge that He purposed and planned the adaptations and harmonies in nature, is surely as presumptuous as it is inconsistent. To assume that God is ignorant of the constitution and character of the universe, and has had no share in the contrivance and management of it, is to degrade Him to the level of the dream-and-dread-begotten gods of Democritus and Epicurus. Better not to think of God at all, than to think of Him in such a way.

The final cause of a thing, however, may mean, and with reference both to adjustment and design, neither its intrinsic nor extrinsic, but its ultimate end. It may mean, not merely that a thing is and was intended to be the mechanism or organism which science analyses and explains, and to stand in the relationships and fulfil the uses which science traces, but also that it will have, and was intended to have, a destination in the far future. We may ask, What is the goal towards which creation moves? What will be the fate of the earth? In what directions are vegetable and animal life developing? What is the chief end of man? Whither is history tending? What is the ideal of truth which science has before it, and which it hopes to realise? of beauty, which art has before it? of goodness, which virtue has before it? And although to most if not all of these questions probably no very definite and certain answer can be given, to deny that they can in any measure be answered, to pronounce all speculation regarding ultimate ends as wholly vain, would justly be deemed the expression of a rash and thoughtless dogmatism. Science claims not only to explain the past but to foretell the future. The power of prevision possessed by a science is the best criterion of its rank among the sciences when rank is determined by certitude. And most significant is the boldness with which some of the sciences have of late begun to forecast the future. Thus, with reference to the end of the world, the spirit of prophecy, which until very recently was almost confined to the most noted religious visionaries, is now poured largely out upon our most distinguished physicists. This we regard as a most significant and hopeful circumstance, and trust that ere long the prophets of science will be far less discordant and conflicting in their predictions even of the remotest issues than they must be admitted to be at present.

While speculation as to final causes in the sense of ultimate ends is, within certain limits, as legitimate as it is natural, its results are undoubtedly far too meagre and uncertain to allow of our reasoning from them to the existence or wisdom of God. We must prove that there is a Divine Intelligence from what we actually perceive in things, and not from what we can conjecture as to the final destinies of things. In fact, until we have ascertained that there is a Divine Intelligence, and in some measure what are the principles on which that Intelligence proceeds, our chance of reaching truth through speculation as to the ultimate ends of things is, in all probability, exceedingly small. It is on no hazardous speculations of this kind that we would rest an argument for the Divine existence, although questions have been raised as to the Divine character and government which will, at a later stage of the discussion, involve us to some extent in the consideration of ultimate ends.

When final cause is employed to signify design in any reference, be it to intrinsic, extrinsic, or ultimate ends, I have nothing to object to Bacon and Descartes's condemnation of it as illegitimate and unprofitable in science. I know of no science, physical or moral, in which, while thus understood, it can be of the slightest use as a principle of scientific discovery. It is as much out of place in the world of organic as of inorganic nature. It is quite incorrect to say that although it does not lead to the discovery of new truths in strictly physical science, it does so in physiology for example, or in psychology, or in ethics. It is only when it means merely the inherent order and adjustment of things--not when it means designs and purposes regarding them--that the search after it can possibly lead to scientific truth, and, when so understood, it leads to truth in all sciences alike. It was the suggestive principle in Adams and Leverrier's discovery of the planet Neptune from certain unexplained perturbations of the planet Uranus, quite as much as in Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood from the observation of certain unexplained valves at the outlet of the veins and the rise of the arteries. It is involved in the very nature of the inductive process, and is only confirmed and enlarged by the progress of inductive research. It stands in no opposition to the principle of efficient causes, and is in no degree disproved by the discovery of such causes. Assertions to the effect that it has gradually been driven by the advance of knowledge from the simpler sciences into those which are complex and difficult,--that it is being expelled even out of biology and sociology--and that it always draws its confirmation, not from phenomena which have been explained, but from phenomena which await explanation,--are often made, but they rest almost exclusively on the wishes of those who make them. They have no real historical basis.[29]

[29] See Appendix XXI.

LECTURE VI.

OBJECTIONS TO THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER EXAMINED.

I.

The universe is a system which comprehends countless subordinate systems. It is full of combinations of parts which constitute wholes, and of means which conspire to ends. The natural and obvious explanation of the order and adjustments which it thus presents is that they are due to a mind or intelligence. And this is the only rational explanation of them. Mind can alone account for order and adjustment, for the co-ordination of parts into a whole, or the adaptation of means to an end. If we refer them to anything else, the reference is essentially contrary to reason, essentially irrational. It may seem at the first superficial glance as if there were a variety of hypotheses as to the origin of the order we everywhere see around us, all equally or nearly equally credible; but adequate reflection cannot fail to convince us that they must be reduced to a single alternative--to two antagonistic theories. Our only choice is between reason and unreason, between a sufficient and an insufficient cause, between, we may even say, a cause and no cause. This will be brought out by an examination of the various hypotheses which have been suggested by those who are unwilling to admit that the order of the world originated in mind. They try their best to suggest some other alternative than that which I have said is inevitable; but every suggestion they make only raises the alternative which they would avoid--mind or chance, reason or unreason, a sufficient explanation or an absurd one. Before proceeding to establish this, however, it may be necessary to remark on some direct objections which have been taken to the design argument,--objections which might be valid, although no explanation of order could be given or were even attempted.

The inference which the theist requires to draw from the existence of order in the universe is merely the existence of an intelligence who produced that order. It follows that it is an unfair objection to his argument to urge, as has often been urged, that it does not directly and of itself prove God to be the creator of the universe, but only the former of it--not the author of matter, but only of the collocations of matter. This objection, which men even like Hume and Kant and J. S. Mill, have thought worth employing, is simply that the argument does not prove more than it professes to prove. It does not pretend to make all other reasoning for the Divine existence superfluous. It is no condition of its validity that it should stand alone; that it should contribute nothing to other arguments and receive nothing from them. The objection is thus entirely irrelevant. It may be a wise caution to those who would trust exclusively to it, and neglect or depreciate other arguments. It is no objection to its legitimacy.

It is remarkable, too, that those who have urged this objection have never felt that before employing it they were bound to satisfy themselves and to prove to others that order is a mere surface or superficial thing--outside of matter, superimposed on it. If order be something inherently and intrinsically in matter--be of its very essence--belong to what is ultimate in it; if matter and its form be inseparable,--then the author of its order must have been also the author of itself; and all that this objection shows us is, that those who have employed it have had mistaken notions about the nature of matter. Now, as I have already had to indicate, modern science seems rapidly perfecting the proof of this. The order in the heavens, and in the most complicated animal organisms, appears to be not more wonderful than the order in the ultimate atoms of which they are composed. The balance of evidence is in favour of the view that order extends as far and penetrates as deep as matter itself does. The human intellect is daily learning that it is foolish to fancy that there is anywhere in matter a sphere in which the Divine Wisdom does not manifest itself in and through order.

There is still another remark to be made on the objection under consideration. The immediate inference from the order of the universe is to an intelligent former of the universe, not to a creator. But this does not preclude the raising of the question, Is it reasonable to believe the former of the world merely its former? Must not its former be also its creator? On the contrary, the inference that the order of the world must be the result of intelligent agency ought to suggest this question to every serious and reflective mind, and it should even contribute something to its answer. The order of the universe must have originated with intelligence. What is implied in this admission? Clearly that the order of the universe cannot have originated with matter,--that matter is unintelligent, and cannot account either for intelligence or the effects of intelligence. But if so, the intelligence which formed the universe must be an eternal intelligence. The supposition that matter is eternal must in this case be supplemented by the admission that mind is eternal. In other words, the affirmation that the former of the world is merely its former--the denial that its former is also its creator--means dualism, the belief in two distinct eternal existences,--an eternal mind and eternal matter. Whoever is not prepared to accept this hypothesis must abandon the affirmation and denial from which it necessarily follows. And who can, after due deliberation, accept it? The law of parsimony of causes absolutely forbids our assuming, for the explanation of anything, more causes than are necessary to account for it. It forbids, therefore, our belief in an eternal matter and an eternal mind, unless we can show reason for holding that one of them alone is not a sufficient cause of the universe. Now those who grant the inference from order to intelligence, themselves admit that matter is not a sufficient First Cause of the universe as it actually exists. Do they find any person admitting that mind would be an insufficient First Cause? Do they themselves see any way of showing its insufficiency? Do they not even perceive that it would be foolish and hopeless to try to show that an eternal mind could not create a material universe, and that all they could show would be, the here quite irrelevant truth, that the human mind is ignorant of the manner in which this could be done? If the answers to these questions are what I believe they must be, it must also be acknowledged that the former of the universe can only be rationally thought of as also its creator.

I turn to the consideration of another equally futile objection to the argument from order. That argument, it is said, does not prove the Divine Intelligence to be infinite. The universe, as a system of order, is finite, and we have no right to conclude that its cause is in respect of intelligence, or in any other respect, infinite. We must attribute to the cause the wisdom necessary to produce the effect, but no more. The obvious reply is, that this is precisely what we do. The argument is not employed to prove the infinity of the Divine Intelligence, but to prove that the order and adaptations which everywhere abound in the universe must have had an intelligence capable of conceiving and producing them. It is an obvious and legitimate argument to that extent, and it is pushed no farther. The inference that the world had an intelligent author is as simple, direct, and valid, as that any statue, painting, or book had an intelligent author. When Mr Spencer, Mr Lewes, and Professor Tyndall argue that the cause of the universe cannot be known to be intelligent, because the reason of man, being finite, cannot comprehend the infinite, they overlook that the reason of man has no need to comprehend the infinite in order to apprehend such manifestations of the infinite as come before it. Just as a person reading the works of the able men who urge this weak objection feels certain that these books must have had their origin in minds endowed with certain intellectual powers, and cannot have been produced by chance, or blind forces, or bodies destitute of minds, and this although much in their minds is and always must be inscrutable to him; so, when he studies the books of nature and of history, he feels equally certain, and in the same way certain, that they are the compositions of a most amazing intellect; and his certainty as to this need not be lessened, clouded, or in any degree affected, by the great and indubitable, but here irrelevant, truth--that the mind of God is in itself, in its essence, inscrutable; and in its greatness, its infinity, incomprehensible.

The argument from order must further be admitted sufficient to show, if valid at all, that the wisdom of the First Cause is of the most wondrous character. The more nature and mind and history are studied by any one who sees in them evidence of design at all, the more wondrous must the wisdom displayed in them be felt to be. Whoever realises that that wisdom is at once guiding the countless hosts of heavenly bodies in all their evolutions through the boundless realms of space, and fashioning and providing for the countless hosts of microscopic creatures dwelling on the leaf of a flower or in a drop of water, everywhere accomplishing a multitude of ends by few and simple means, or effecting single and definite purposes by the most elaborate and complex contrivances, must feel that rash beyond all expression is the short-sighted mortal who can venture to affirm that it is not infinite. If "the Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, and by understanding hath established the heavens," His wisdom and His understanding are at least so great that we cannot measure them, and have no right to pronounce them limited. The adjustments and harmonies of the universe, as we know it, indicate a depth and richness of wisdom in its Author which far pass our comprehension; and the universe which we know is probably less in comparison with the universe which God has made, than the leaf on which a host of animalcules live and die is in comparison with the vastest of primeval forests, or an ant-hill with the solar system. The universe which we see and know is a noble commentary on such words of Scripture as these: "I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass on the face of the depth: when He established the clouds above: when He strengthened the fountains of the deep: when He gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him." But beyond the universe which we see and know, extend illimitable fields of space and stretches of time which we do not see and do not know, but which may be even more crowded with the works of Divine Intelligence than any which are within our range of bodily or mental vision. The ingenious authors of the book entitled 'The Unseen Universe' suppose the entire visible universe to be but a local product and temporary phase of a far older and greater universe, which itself again may be only an island in the ocean of a universe still more stupendous and refined. Whatever error may be mingled with this thought in the work mentioned, there is, I doubt not, at least this much of truth also, that the entire course of nature which science reveals is but a ripple, a current, in the ocean of God's universal action. The man whose mind is duly open to the possibility of this will not venture to pronounce the intelligence of God to be finite. The man who fails to recognise its possibility is very blind, very thoughtless.

It is scarcely credible that the evidences of God's wisdom should have been argued to be proofs of His weakness. And yet this has happened. "It is not too much to say," wrote Mr J. S. Mill, "that every indication of design in the Kosmos is so much evidence against the omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by design? Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity for contrivance--the need of employing means--is a consequence of the limitation of power. Who would have recourse to means if to attain his end his mere word was sufficient? The very idea of means implies that the means have an efficacy which the direct action of the being who employs them has not. Otherwise they are not means, but an encumbrance. A man does not use machinery to move his arms. If he did, it could only be when paralysis had deprived him of the power of moving them by volition. But if the employment of contrivance is in itself a sign of limited power, how much more so is the careful and skilful choice of contrivances? Can any wisdom be shown in the selection of means when the means have no efficacy but what is given them by the will of him who employs them, and when his will could have bestowed the same efficacy on any other means? Wisdom and contrivance are shown in overcoming difficulties, and there is no room for them in a being for whom no difficulties exist. The evidences, therefore, of natural theology distinctly imply that the author of the Kosmos worked under limitations."[30]

[30] Three Essays on Religion, pp. 176, 177.

This, it seems to me, is very strange and worthless reasoning. According to it, the ability of God to form and execute a purpose is evidence not of power but of weakness. I wonder if Mr Mill imagined that the inability of God to form and carry out a purpose would have been evidence not of His weakness but of His power. Or did he suppose, perhaps, that both ability and inability were signs of weakness, and that, consequently, for once opposites were identical? Or did he not think on the subject at all, and so reasoned very much at random? I confess I cannot see how ability to contrive things is weakness, or inability to contrive them power. I hold to Bacon's maxim that "knowledge is power," and refuse to admit that wisdom is weakness. But God, if omnipotent, it is said, did not need to contrive: His mere word must have been sufficient. Yes, is the obvious answer; His mere word, His mere will, was sufficient to produce all His contrivances, and has produced them all. There is no shadow of reason for suspecting that anything was difficult to Him or for Him. No such suspicion is entertained by those who employ the design argument; and those who would rationally object to that argument must find something else to insist on than the power of God's mere will. The will of God is everywhere as efficacious as He in His omnipotence and omniscience chooses that it should be. At the same time, if He desire certain ends, His will cannot remain mere will and dispense with the contrivance of appropriate means. If He wish to bestow happiness on human beings, He must create human beings, and contrive their bodies and minds. To speak of His will as able to "bestow the same efficacy on any means" is no less contrary to reason than it would be to speak of it as able to make the part greater than the whole. It is only in the world imagined by Mr Mill--one in which two and two might be five--that a sunbeam could serve the same purpose as a granite pillar or a steam-engine; and such a world, most people will assuredly hold, even omnipotence could not create. Infinite power and wisdom must necessarily work "under limitations" when they originate and control finite things; but the limitations are not in the infinite power and wisdom themselves--they are in their operations and effects. According to Mr Mill's argument, infinite power could not create a finite world at all: only a finite power could do so. That surely means that a finite power must be mightier than an infinite power; and that, again, is surely a plain self-contradiction, a manifest absurdity.

There is another objection which, although in itself unworthy of answer, has been urged so often and presented in so many forms, some of which are rhetorically impressive, that it cannot be wholly passed over. The design argument has been censured as "assuming that the genesis of the heavens and the earth was effected somewhat after the manner in which a workman shapes a piece of furniture"--as "converting the Power whose garment is seen in the visible universe into an Artificer, fashioned after the human model, and acting as man is seen to act"--as "transforming the First Cause into a magnified mechanist who constructs a work of art, and then sits apart from it and observes how it goes," &c. Now the heavens and the earth are to such a wonderful extent exemplifications both of mechanical laws and æsthetic principles, that no man of sense, I think, will deny that they may most justly be compared to machines or works of art, or even pronounced to be machines and works of art. They are that, although they are more than that. An animal is a machine, although an organism too. Every organism is a machine, although every machine is not an organism. Art and nature are not antagonistic and exclusive. Man and all man's arts are included in nature, and nature is the highest art. While, however, it is legitimate and even necessary to illustrate the design argument by references to human inventions, the numerous and immense differences between the works of man's art and the processes of nature must not be overlooked; and there is no excuse for saying that they have been overlooked. It is precisely because the universe is so above anything man has made or can make, and because vegetable and animal organisms are so different from watches and statues, that the argument in question leads us to a divine and not to a merely human intelligence. It implies that both the works of God and the works of man are products of intelligence; but it does not require that they should have anything else in common. It recognises that the most elaborate and exquisite contrivances of man fall immeasurably below "nature's most minute designs." So far from requiring, it forbids our carrying any of the limitations or peculiarities of human contrivance over to that which is divine. Besides, the belief in design is held in conjunction with the belief in creation out of nothing. The same persons who recognise that there is a divine wisdom displayed in the constitution and course of nature believe the universe to have been called into being by the mere volition of the Almighty. But among all theories of the genesis of the heavens and the earth, that is the only one which does not represent the First Cause as working like a man. Man never creates--he cannot create. To produce anything he must have something to work on--he must have materials to mould and modify.[31]

[31] See Appendix XXII.

II.

Those who refuse to refer the order and adaptations in the universe to a designing intelligence are bound to account for them in some other way. Has this been done? Has any person succeeded in tracing them back to any other principle which can be reasonably regarded as their cause, or as adequate to their production? This is the question which we have now to consider.

Matter, some would have us believe, is the origin of the order of the universe. Grant it, and there is still the question--What is the origin of matter?--to be disposed of. We have seen that this is a question which we are bound to raise; we have seen that there are strong reasons for holding that matter had an origin, had a beginning in time, and none whatever for regarding it as self-existent and eternal. The very existence of order and system, of mechanical adjustments and organic adaptations in the universe, seems to prove that matter must have had a beginning. If certain collocations of matter evince design, and must have had a beginning, the adaptation of the parts to form the collocation evinces design, and implies a beginning. And if matter had a beginning, its cause can only have been mind. To say that it originated with chance or necessity is plainly absurd. Chance and necessity are meaningless terms unless mind or matter be presupposed. There can be no accidents where neither mind nor matter exists. There can be no chance where there is no law. Chance or accident is what occurs when two or more independent series of phenomena meet, without their meeting having been premeditated and provided for. When one series of causes leads a man to pass a house at a given moment of a given day, and another series of causes, coexistent with but wholly independent of the former series, determines that a heavy body shall fall from the roof of that house at that moment of that day and kill that man, the consequence--his death--is what may be properly called an accident, or matter of chance. One who believes, indeed, in the omniscience and universal foreordination and government of God, will hold that even in such a case the accident or chance is merely apparent; but he will not deny the right of the atheist to speak of chance or accident in this way, or to explain as matters of chance whatever he can. The word chance, or accident, can have no intelligible sense, however, unless there be such independent series of phenomena--unless there be mental and material existences, mental and material laws. Chance cannot be conceived of, even by the atheist, as the origin of existence. The same may be said of necessity. Matter or mind may act necessarily, but necessity cannot act without matter or mind. If it be requisite, therefore, to seek a cause for matter, mind alone can be assigned as its cause. If we are justified in seeking for the origin of matter at all, our choice of an answer lies between mind and absurdity, between a real and sufficient cause and an imaginary and inconceivable cause. Besides, how could matter of itself produce order, even if it were self-existent and eternal? It is far more unreasonable to believe that the atoms or constituents of matter produced of themselves, without the action of a Supreme Mind, this wonderful universe, than that the letters of the English alphabet produced the plays of Shakespeare, without the slightest assistance from the human mind known by that famous name. These atoms might, perhaps, now and then, here and there, at great distances and long intervals, produce, by a chance contact, some curious collocation or compound; but never could they produce order or organisation, on an extensive scale or of a durable character, unless ordered, arranged, and adjusted in ways of which intelligence alone can be the ultimate explanation. To believe that their fortuitous and undirected movements could originate the universe, and all the harmonies and utilities and beauties which abound in it, evinces a credulity far more extravagant than has ever been displayed by the most superstitious of religionists. Yet no consistent materialist can refuse to accept this colossal chance-hypothesis. All the explanations of the order of the universe which materialists, from Democritus and Epicurus to Diderot and Lange, have devised, rest on the assumption that the elements of matter, being eternal, must pass through infinite combinations, and that one of these must be our present world--a special collocation among the countless millions of collocations, past and future. Throw the letters of the Greek alphabet, it has been said, an infinite number of times, and you must produce the Iliad and all Greek books. The theory of probabilities, I need hardly say, requires us to believe nothing so absurd. Throw letters together without thought through all eternity, and you will never make them express thought. All the letters in the Iliad might have been tossed and jumbled together from morning to night by the hands of the whole human race, from the beginning of the world until now, and the first line of the Iliad would have been still to compose, had not the genius of Homer been inspired to sing the wrath of Achilles and the war around Troy. But what is the Iliad to the hymn of creation, and the drama of providence? Were these glorious works composed by the mere jumbling together of atoms, which were not even prepared beforehand to form things, as letters are to form words, and which had to shake themselves into order without the help of any hand? They may believe that who can. It seems to me that it ought to be much easier to believe all the Arabian Nights.