I must own, CLEANTHES, said DEMEA, that nothing can more surprise me,
than the light in which you have all along put this argument. By the
whole tenor of your discourse, one would imagine that you were
maintaining the Being of a God, against the cavils of Atheists and
Infidels; and were necessitated to become a champion for that fundamental
principle of all religion. But this, I hope, is not by any means a
question among us. No man, no man at least of common sense, I am
persuaded, ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to a truth so
certain and self-evident. The question is not concerning the being, but
the nature of God. This, I affirm, from the infirmities of human
understanding, to be altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us. The
essence of that supreme Mind, his attributes, the manner of his
existence, the very nature of his duration; these, and every particular
which regards so divine a Being, are mysterious to men. Finite, weak, and
blind creatures, we ought to humble ourselves in his august presence;
and, conscious of our frailties, adore in silence his infinite
perfections, which eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it
entered into the heart of man to conceive. They are covered in a deep
cloud from human curiosity. It is profaneness to attempt penetrating
through these sacred obscurities. And, next to the impiety of denying his
existence, is the temerity of prying into his nature and essence, decrees
and attributes.
But lest you should think that my piety has here got the better of my
philosophy, I shall support my opinion, if it needs any support, by a very
great authority. I might cite all the divines, almost, from the foundation
of Christianity, who have ever treated of this or any other theological
subject: But I shall confine myself, at present, to one equally celebrated
for piety and philosophy. It is Father MALEBRANCHE, who, I remember, thus
expresses himself [Recherche de la Verite. Liv. 3. Chap.9]. "One ought not
so much," says he, "to call God a spirit, in order to express positively
what he is, as in order to signify that he is not matter. He is a Being
infinitely perfect: Of this we cannot doubt. But in the same manner as
we ought not to imagine, even supposing him corporeal, that he is clothed
with a human body, as the ANTHROPOMORPHITES asserted, under colour that
that figure was the most perfect of any; so, neither ought we to imagine
that the spirit of God has human ideas, or bears any resemblance to our
spirit, under colour that we know nothing more perfect than a human mind.
We ought rather to believe, that as he comprehends the perfections of
matter without being material.... he comprehends also the perfections of
created spirits without being spirit, in the manner we conceive spirit:
That his true name is, He that is; or, in other words, Being without
restriction, All Being, the Being infinite and universal."
After so great an authority, DEMEA, replied PHILO, as that which you have
produced, and a thousand more which you might produce, it would appear
ridiculous in me to add my sentiment, or express my approbation of your
doctrine. But surely, where reasonable men treat these subjects, the
question can never be concerning the Being, but only the Nature, of the
Deity. The former truth, as you well observe, is unquestionable and
self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause; and the original cause of
this universe (whatever it be) we call God; and piously ascribe to him
every species of perfection. Whoever scruples this fundamental truth,
deserves every punishment which can be inflicted among philosophers, to
wit, the greatest ridicule, contempt, and disapprobation. But as all
perfection is entirely relative, we ought never to imagine that we
comprehend the attributes of this divine Being, or to suppose that his
perfections have any analogy or likeness to the perfections of a human
creature. Wisdom, Thought, Design, Knowledge; these we justly ascribe to
him; because these words are honourable among men, and we have no other
language or other conceptions by which we can express our adoration of
him. But let us beware, lest we think that our ideas anywise correspond
to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these
qualities among men. He is infinitely superior to our limited view and
comprehension; and is more the object of worship in the temple, than of
disputation in the schools.
In reality, CLEANTHES, continued he, there is no need of having recourse
to that affected scepticism so displeasing to you, in order to come at
this determination. Our ideas reach no further than our experience. We
have no experience of divine attributes and operations. I need not
conclude my syllogism. You can draw the inference yourself. And it is a
pleasure to me (and I hope to you too) that just reasoning and sound
piety here concur in the same conclusion, and both of them establish the
adorably mysterious and incomprehensible nature of the Supreme Being.
Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said CLEANTHES, addressing
himself to DEMEA, much less in replying to the pious declamations of
PHILO; I shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round the
world: contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be
nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of
lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond
what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various
machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other
with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever
contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all
nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of
human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence.
Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer,
by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the
Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed
of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which
he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument
alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity, and his similarity
to human mind and intelligence.
I shall be so free, CLEANTHES, said DEMEA, as to tell you, that from the
beginning, I could not approve of your conclusion concerning the
similarity of the Deity to men; still less can I approve of the mediums
by which you endeavour to establish it. What! No demonstration of the
Being of God! No abstract arguments! No proofs a priori! Are these, which
have hitherto been so much insisted on by philosophers, all fallacy, all
sophism? Can we reach no further in this subject than experience and
probability? I will not say that this is betraying the cause of a Deity:
But surely, by this affected candour, you give advantages to Atheists,
which they never could obtain by the mere dint of argument and reasoning.
What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said PHILO, is not so much that
all religious arguments are by CLEANTHES reduced to experience, as that
they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefragable of that
inferior kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the
earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a thousand times; and
when any new instance of this nature is presented, we draw without
hesitation the accustomed inference. The exact similarity of the cases
gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event; and a stronger evidence
is never desired nor sought after. But wherever you depart, in the least,
from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the
evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is
confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced the
circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it
takes place in TITIUS and MAEVIUS. But from its circulation in frogs and
fishes, it is only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that
it takes place in men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much
weaker, when we infer the circulation of the sap in vegetables from our
experience that the blood circulates in animals; and those, who hastily
followed that imperfect analogy, are found, by more accurate experiments,
to have been mistaken.
If we see a house, CLEANTHES, we conclude, with the greatest certainty,
that it had an architect or builder; because this is precisely that
species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species
of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such a
resemblance to a house, that we can with the same certainty infer a
similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The
dissimilitude is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is
a guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause; and how
that pretension will be received in the world, I leave you to consider.
It would surely be very ill received, replied CLEANTHES; and I should be
deservedly blamed and detested, did I allow, that the proofs of a Deity
amounted to no more than a guess or conjecture. But is the whole
adjustment of means to ends in a house and in the universe so slight a
resemblance? The economy of final causes? The order, proportion, and
arrangement of every part? Steps of a stair are plainly contrived, that
human legs may use them in mounting; and this inference is certain and
infallible. Human legs are also contrived for walking and mounting; and
this inference, I allow, is not altogether so certain, because of the
dissimilarity which you remark; but does it, therefore, deserve the name
only of presumption or conjecture?
Good God! cried DEMEA, interrupting him, where are we? Zealous defenders
of religion allow, that the proofs of a Deity fall short of perfect
evidence! And you, PHILO, on whose assistance I depended in proving the
adorable mysteriousness of the Divine Nature, do you assent to all these
extravagant opinions of CLEANTHES? For what other name can I give them?
or, why spare my censure, when such principles are advanced, supported by
such an authority, before so young a man as PAMPHILUS?
You seem not to apprehend, replied PHILO, that I argue with CLEANTHES in
his own way; and, by showing him the dangerous consequences of his
tenets, hope at last to reduce him to our opinion. But what sticks most
with you, I observe, is the representation which CLEANTHES has made of
the argument a posteriori; and finding that that argument is likely to
escape your hold and vanish into air, you think it so disguised, that you
can scarcely believe it to be set in its true light. Now, however much I
may dissent, in other respects, from the dangerous principles of
CLEANTHES, I must allow that he has fairly represented that argument; and
I shall endeavour so to state the matter to you, that you will entertain
no further scruples with regard to it.
Were a man to abstract from every thing which he knows or has seen, he
would be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to determine
what kind of scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to one
state or situation of things above another. For as nothing which he
clearly conceives could be esteemed impossible or implying a contradiction,
every chimera of his fancy would be upon an equal footing; nor could he
assign any just reason why he adheres to one idea or system, and rejects
the others which are equally possible.
Again; after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the world as it really
is, it would be impossible for him at first to assign the cause of any
one event, much less of the whole of things, or of the universe. He might
set his fancy a rambling; and she might bring him in an infinite variety
of reports and representations. These would all be possible; but being
all equally possible, he would never of himself give a satisfactory
account for his preferring one of them to the rest. Experience alone can
point out to him the true cause of any phenomenon.
Now, according to this method of reasoning, DEMEA, it follows, (and is,
indeed, tacitly allowed by CLEANTHES himself,) that order, arrangement,
or the adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any proof of design;
but only so far as it has been experienced to proceed from that
principle. For aught we can know a priori, matter may contain the source
or spring of order originally within itself, as well as mind does; and
there is no more difficulty in conceiving, that the several elements,
from an internal unknown cause, may fall into the most exquisite
arrangement, than to conceive that their ideas, in the great universal
mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into that arrangement. The
equal possibility of both these suppositions is allowed. But, by
experience, we find, (according to CLEANTHES), that there is a difference
between them. Throw several pieces of steel together, without shape or
form; they will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch. Stone,
and mortar, and wood, without an architect, never erect a house. But the
ideas in a human mind, we see, by an unknown, inexplicable economy,
arrange themselves so as to form the plan of a watch or house.
Experience, therefore, proves, that there is an original principle of
order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects we infer similar
causes. The adjustment of means to ends is alike in the universe, as in a
machine of human contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resembling.
I was from the beginning scandalised, I must own, with this resemblance,
which is asserted, between the Deity and human creatures; and must
conceive it to imply such a degradation of the Supreme Being as no sound
Theist could endure. With your assistance, therefore, DEMEA, I shall
endeavour to defend what you justly call the adorable mysteriousness of
the Divine Nature, and shall refute this reasoning of CLEANTHES, provided
he allows that I have made a fair representation of it.
When CLEANTHES had assented, PHILO, after a short pause, proceeded in the
following manner.
That all inferences, CLEANTHES, concerning fact, are founded on
experience; and that all experimental reasonings are founded on the
supposition that similar causes prove similar effects, and similar
effects similar causes; I shall not at present much dispute with you. But
observe, I entreat you, with what extreme caution all just reasoners
proceed in the transferring of experiments to similar cases. Unless the
cases be exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence in applying
their past observation to any particular phenomenon. Every alteration of
circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the event; and it requires new
experiments to prove certainly, that the new circumstances are of no
moment or importance. A change in bulk, situation, arrangement, age,
disposition of the air, or surrounding bodies; any of these particulars
may be attended with the most unexpected consequences: And unless the
objects be quite familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect
with assurance, after any of these changes, an event similar to that
which before fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate steps of
philosophers here, if any where, are distinguished from the precipitate
march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the smallest similitude, are
incapable of all discernment or consideration.
But can you think, CLEANTHES, that your usual phlegm and philosophy have
been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to
the universe houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their
similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes?
Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other
animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the
universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred
others, which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause, by
which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on
other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred
from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all
comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we
learn any thing concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a
leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction
concerning the vegetation of a tree?
But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature
upon another, for the foundation of our judgement concerning the origin
of the whole, (which never can be admitted,) yet why select so minute, so
weak, so bounded a principle, as the reason and design of animals is
found to be upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little
agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus make it
the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favour does
indeed present it on all occasions; but sound philosophy ought carefully
to guard against so natural an illusion.
So far from admitting, continued PHILO, that the operations of a part can
afford us any just conclusion concerning the origin of the whole, I will
not allow any one part to form a rule for another part, if the latter be
very remote from the former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude,
that the inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence,
reason, or any thing similar to these faculties in men? When nature has
so extremely diversified her manner of operation in this small globe, can
we imagine that she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense a
universe? And if thought, as we may well suppose, be confined merely to
this narrow corner, and has even there so limited a sphere of action,
with what propriety can we assign it for the original cause of all
things? The narrow views of a peasant, who makes his domestic economy the
rule for the government of kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable
sophism.
But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason, resembling
the human, were to be found throughout the whole universe, and were its
activity elsewhere vastly greater and more commanding than it appears in
this globe; yet I cannot see, why the operations of a world constituted,
arranged, adjusted, can with any propriety be extended to a world which
is in its embryo state, and is advancing towards that constitution and
arrangement. By observation, we know somewhat of the economy, action, and
nourishment of a finished animal; but we must transfer with great caution
that observation to the growth of a foetus in the womb, and still more to
the formation of an animalcule in the loins of its male parent. Nature,
we find, even from our limited experience, possesses an infinite number
of springs and principles, which incessantly discover themselves on every
change of her position and situation. And what new and unknown principles
would actuate her in so new and unknown a situation as that of the
formation of a universe, we cannot, without the utmost temerity, pretend
to determine.
A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very
imperfectly discovered to us; and do we thence pronounce decisively
concerning the origin of the whole?
Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at this
time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without
human art and contrivance; therefore the universe could not originally
attain its order and arrangement, without something similar to human art.
But is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former?
Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a rule for the universe?
Is nature in one situation, a certain rule for nature in another
situation vastly different from the former?
And can you blame me, CLEANTHES, if I here imitate the prudent reserve of
SIMONIDES, who, according to the noted story, being asked by HIERO,
What God was? desired a day to think of it, and then two days more; and
after that manner continually prolonged the term, without ever bringing
in his definition or description? Could you even blame me, if I had
answered at first, that I did not know, and was sensible that this
subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties? You might cry out
sceptic and railler, as much as you pleased: but having found, in so many
other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections and even
contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from
its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from the
sphere of our observation. When two species of objects have always been
observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence
of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an
argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the
objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without
parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will
any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must
arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have
experience of it? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we
had experience of the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely,
that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance...
PHILO was proceeding in this vehement manner, somewhat between jest and
earnest, as it appeared to me, when he observed some signs of impatience
in CLEANTHES, and then immediately stopped short. What I had to suggest,
said CLEANTHES, is only that you would not abuse terms, or make use of
popular expressions to subvert philosophical reasonings. You know, that
the vulgar often distinguish reason from experience, even where the
question relates only to matter of fact and existence; though it is
found, where that reason is properly analysed, that it is nothing but a
species of experience. To prove by experience the origin of the universe
from mind, is not more contrary to common speech, than to prove the
motion of the earth from the same principle. And a caviller might raise
all the same objections to the Copernican system, which you have urged
against my reasonings. Have you other earths, might he say, which you
have seen to move? Have...
Yes! cried PHILO, interrupting him, we have other earths. Is not the moon
another earth, which we see to turn round its centre? Is not Venus
another earth, where we observe the same phenomenon? Are not the
revolutions of the sun also a confirmation, from analogy, of the same
theory? All the planets, are they not earths, which revolve about the
sun? Are not the satellites moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn,
and along with these primary planets round the sun? These analogies and
resemblances, with others which I have not mentioned, are the sole proofs
of the COPERNICAN system; and to you it belongs to consider, whether you
have any analogies of the same kind to support your theory.
In reality, CLEANTHES, continued he, the modern system of astronomy is
now so much received by all inquirers, and has become so essential a part
even of our earliest education, that we are not commonly very scrupulous
in examining the reasons upon which it is founded. It is now become a
matter of mere curiosity to study the first writers on that subject, who
had the full force of prejudice to encounter, and were obliged to turn
their arguments on every side in order to render them popular and
convincing. But if we peruse GALILEO's famous Dialogues concerning the
system of the world, we shall find, that that great genius, one of the
sublimest that ever existed, first bent all his endeavours to prove, that
there was no foundation for the distinction commonly made between
elementary and celestial substances. The schools, proceeding from the
illusions of sense, had carried this distinction very far; and had
established the latter substances to be ingenerable, incorruptible,
unalterable, impassable; and had assigned all the opposite qualities to
the former. But GALILEO, beginning with the moon, proved its similarity
in every particular to the earth; its convex figure, its natural darkness
when not illuminated, its density, its distinction into solid and liquid,
the variations of its phases, the mutual illuminations of the earth and
moon, their mutual eclipses, the inequalities of the lunar surface, &c.
After many instances of this kind, with regard to all the planets, men
plainly saw that these bodies became proper objects of experience; and
that the similarity of their nature enabled us to extend the same
arguments and phenomena from one to the other.
In this cautious proceeding of the astronomers, you may read your own
condemnation, CLEANTHES; or rather may see, that the subject in which you
are engaged exceeds all human reason and inquiry. Can you pretend to show
any such similarity between the fabric of a house, and the generation of
a universe? Have you ever seen nature in any such situation as resembles
the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under
your eye; and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the
phenomenon, from the first appearance of order to its final consummation?
If you have, then cite your experience, and deliver your theory.