on the physical constitution of that body, whilst we must feel
uncertain how far the physical laws, which we observe here, will hold
under the vastly different conditions obtaining there. He supports
his caution by referring to cases in which what had been confidently
thought by many to be safe generalisations have been shown to fail in
novel circumstances. Thus it was thought that the passage of a gas
from the gaseous into the liquid form was always an abrupt change.
But it has been found that carbonic acid gas can be made to pass into
the liquid state by insensible gradations. Again, it had been thought
that gas, when incandescent, always gave light whose spectrum was
broken into thin lines; but it has been shown that hydrogen, under
high pressure, may be made to give forth light with a continuous
spectrum. Now surely this caution, which Mr Proctor enters in the case
of which he speaks, might still more wisely be entered when we come to
consider a state of things so novel, so remote from our experience,
as that which attended the origin of the universe, or rather of that
state of the universe with which we are acquainted. We certainly must
not be in haste to conclude that because the laws of nature, as they
are known to us, will not explain what must have taken place at some
very remote period, therefore those events must have been altogether
anomalous."--Religion and Science, pp. 71-74.
It is here virtually--perhaps I may say expressly--conceded that if the
matter and energy of the universe be finite and located in infinite
space, the reasoning by which the theorists of thermodynamics maintain
that perpetual motion is incompatible with the transformation and
dissipation of energy, cannot be resisted. Unless matter and energy
be infinite or space finite, the known laws of nature must eventually
abolish all differences of temperature and destroy all life--this
is what is admitted. To me it seems to amount to yielding all that
is demanded; because whoever seriously considers the difficulties
involved in believing either matter infinite or space finite must, I am
persuaded, come to regard it as equivalent to an acknowledgment that
the world will have an end and must have had a beginning.
Zoellner, in his ingenious work on the nature of comets, endeavours
to avoid this inference by recourse to the hypotheses of Riemann and
others as to a space of _n_ dimensions. In such a space the shortest
line would be a circle, and a body might move for ever, yet describe a
limited course. Matter, space, and inferentially time, would, in fact,
according to this hypothesis, be both finite and infinite. It is to be
hoped that few persons in the full possession of their intellects will
ever accept a view like this. The imaginary geometry may be thoroughly
sound reasoning, but it is reasoning from erroneous premises, and it
can only be useful so long as it is remembered that its premises are
erroneous. They have only to be assumed to be true to experience and
reality, and all science must be set aside in favour of nonsense. Logic
ought not, however, to be confounded with truth.
Caspari fancies that by representing the universe as not a mechanism
but an organism, he preserves the right to believe it eternal. But
surely the laws of heat apply to organisms no less than to mechanisms.
In an article concerning the cosmological problem, published in
the first number of the 'Vierteljahrsschrift f. Wissenschaftliche
Philosophie,' Professor Wundt rejects the theory in question on
extremely weak grounds. "It is easy to see," he says, "that, in the
case of the English physicists at least, the desire of harmonising the
data of the exact sciences with theological conceptions has not been
without influence on this limitation of the universe." The rashness
displayed by such a statement, and the utter want of evidence or
probability for it, as regards men like Thomson or Tait, need not
be pointed out. Besides, Clausius and Helmholtz are neither English
physicists nor likely to be influenced by theological conceptions.
Will it be believed that, notwithstanding this charge against others,
Professor Wundt's own reasoning is not scientific, but merely
anti-theological? Such is the case. If the Thomsonian theory be
admitted, a place is left for creative action, for miracle; and this,
he argues, is a contradiction of the principle of causality. Therefore
the theory must be rejected. It is to be regretted that so eminent a
man of science should employ so unscientific an argument.
There is obviously a very widespread unwillingness to accept the
Thomsonian theory; but, so far as I am aware, good reasons have not
yet been given for its rejection. The contrast between the reception
which it has received and that which has been accorded to the Darwinian
theory is certainly curious, and probably instructive.
NOTE XII., page 130.
THE HISTORY OF THE ÆTIOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.
The argument for the Divine existence which proceeds on the principle
of causality is generally called the cosmological argument, but
sometimes, and perhaps more accurately, the ætiological argument.
The proof from order is not unfrequently termed cosmological. It is
impossible to keep the ætiological argument entirely separate either
from the ontological or cosmological argument. Ætiological reasoning
may be detected as a creative factor in the rudest religious creeds.
The search for causes began not with the origin of philosophy but with
the origin of religion. Passages like Ps. xc. 1, 2, cii. 26-28; Rom. i.
19, 20; Heb. i. 10-12--have been referred to as anticipations of the
argument. Wherever nature is spoken of in Scripture, it is as the work
of an uncreated being, of a free and sovereign mind. Aristotle gave a
formal expression to the ætiological argument by inferring from the
motion of the universe the existence of a first unmoved mover--Phys.,
vii. 1, 2, viii. 7, 9, 15. Cicero repeated his reasoning, and tells us
it had been also employed by Carneades, De Nat. Deor., ii. 9, iii. 12,
13. Well known is St Augustine's "Interrogavi terram, et dixit: non
sum. Interrogavi mare et abyssos--et responderunt: non sumus deus tuus,
quære super nos. Interrogavi coelum, solem, lunam, stellas: neque nos
sumus deus, quem quæris, inquiunt. Et dixi omnibus iis--dicite mihi de
illo aliquid. Et exclamaverunt voce magna: ipse fecit nos. Interrogavi
mundi molem de Deo meo et respondit mihi: non ego sum, sed ipse me
fecit."--Conf., x. 6. Diodorus of Tarsus (Phot. Bib. Cod., 223, p.
209 Bekk.), and John of Damascus (De Fid. Orth., i. 3), inferred the
necessity of a creative unity from the mutability and corruptibility
of worldly things. Thomas Aquinas argued on the principle of causality
in three ways--viz.: 1. From motion to a first moving principle,
which is not moved by any other principle; 2. From effects to a first
efficient cause; and 3. From the possible and contingent to what is in
itself necessary.--Summa. P. i., Qu. 2, 3. Most of the theologians of
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries who treat of the
proofs of the Divine existence, employ in some form the argument from
causation. Thus, in Pearson 'On the Creed' and Charnock's 'Discourses
on the Existence and Attributes of God' will be found good examples of
how it was presented in this country in the seventeenth century. Hume's
speculations on causation attracted attention to it. The philosophers
of the Scottish school and their adherents among the theologians
laboured to present it in a favourable light. In Germany, Leibnitz
(Théodicée, I. c. 7) and Wolff (Rational Thoughts of God, § 928)
laid stress on the accidental contingent character of the world and
its contents, and, relying on the principle of the sufficient reason,
concluded that there must be a universal and permanent cause of all
that is changing and transitory, an absolute ground of all that is
relative and derivative. Further, Wolff and his followers raised on
this reasoning a large amount of metaphysical speculation as to the
nature of a necessary cause, the properties of an absolute Being, which
was of a very questionable sort in itself, and had no proper connection
with the so-called cosmological argument. To this argument, as stated
by Wolff, Kant applied his transcendental criticism, and proved, as
he thought, that it was "a perfect nest of dialectical assumptions."
His argumentation may be allowed to have had force against Wolff, but
it is weak wherever it is relevant to the ætiological proof rightly
understood. In fact, his objections openly proceed on the assumption
that the principle of causality is only applicable within the sphere
of sense experience. If this be true, no objections, of course, are
necessary. As a rule, the ætiological argument is not skilfully or even
carefully treated in the works of recent German theologians. It has
been expounded, however, with great philosophical ability and with a
rare wealth of scientific knowledge, by Professor Ulrici of Halle, in
the work entitled 'Gott und die Natur.' A translation of this treatise
would confer a real service both on the theology and philosophy of this
country.
NOTE XIII., page 137.
MATHEMATICS AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT.
"Another science regarded as barren of religious applications, and
even as sometimes positively injurious, is mathematics. Its principles
are, indeed, of so abstruse a nature, that it is not easy to frame out
of them a religious argument that is capable of popular illustration.
But, in fact, mathematical laws form the basis of nearly all the
operations of nature. They constitute, as it were, the very framework
of the material world.... It seems, then, that this science forms the
very foundation of all arguments for theism, from the arrangements
and operations of the material universe. We do, indeed, neglect the
foundation, and point only to the superstructure, when we state
these arguments. But suppose mathematical laws to be at once struck
from existence, and what a hideous case would the universe present!
What then would become of the marks of design and unity in nature,
and of the theist's argument for the being of a God?... It is said,
however, that mathematicians have been unusually prone to scepticism
concerning religious truth. If it be so, it probably originates from
the absurd attempt to apply mathematical reasoning to moral subjects;
or rather, the devotees of this science often become so attached to
its demonstrations, that they will not admit any evidence of a less
certain character. They do not realise the total difference between
moral and mathematical reasonings, and absurdly endeavour to stretch
religion on the Procrustean bed of mathematics. No wonder they become
sceptics. But the fault is in themselves, not in this science, whose
natural tendencies, upon a pure and exalted mind, are favourable to
religion."--Hitchcock's Religion of Geology, pp. 387-389.
"Nor can we fail to notice how frequently the law which men have
invented proves to have been already known and used in nature. The
mathematician devises a geometric locus or an algebraic formula from
_a priori_ considerations, and afterward discovers that he has been
unwittingly solving a mechanical problem, or explaining the form of a
real phenomenon. Thus, for example, in Peirce's 'Integral Calculus,'
published in 1843, is a problem invented and solved purely in the
enthusiasm of following the analytic symbols; but in 1863 it proved
to be a complete prophetic discussion and solution of the problem of
two pendulums suspended from one horizontal cord. Thus also Galileo's
discussion of the cycloid proved, long afterward, to be a key to
problems concerning the pendulum, falling bodies, and resistance
to transverse pressure. Four centuries before Christ, Plato and
his scholars were occupied upon the eclipse as a purely geometric
speculation, and Socrates seemed inclined to reprove them for their
waste of time. But in the seventeenth century after Christ, Kepler
discovers that the Architect of the heavens had given us magnificent
diagrams of the eclipse in the starry heavens; and, since that time,
all the navigation and architecture and engineering of the nineteenth
century have been built on these speculations of Plato. Equally
remarkable is the history of the idea of extreme and mean ratio. Before
the Christian era geometers had invented a process for dividing a
line in this ratio, that they might use it in an equally abstract and
useless problem--the inscribing a regular pentagon in a circle. But it
was not until the middle of the present century that it was discovered
that this idea is embodied in nature. It is hinted at in some animal
forms, it is very thoroughly and accurately expressed in the angles
at which the leaves of plants diverge as they grow from the stem, and
it is embodied approximately in the revolutions of the planets about
the sun.... Now, in all these cases of the embodiment in nature of an
idea which men have developed, not by a study of the embodiment, but
by an _a priori_ speculation, there seems to us demonstrative evidence
that man is made in the image of his Creator; that the thoughts
and knowledge of God contain and embrace all possible _a priori_
speculations of men. It is true that God's knowledge is infinite, and
beyond our utmost power of conception. But how can we compare the
reasonings of Euclid upon extreme and mean ratio with the arrangement
of leaves about the stem, and the revolutions of planets around the
sun, and not feel that these phenomena of creation express Euclid's
idea as exactly as diagrams or Arabic digits could do; and that
this idea was, in some form, present in the creation?"--The Natural
Foundations of Theology. By T. Hill, D.D., LL.D.
There is an ingenious and judicious little work by Charles Girdlestone,
M.A., published in 1875, and entitled 'Number: a Link between Divine
Intelligence and Human. An Argument.'
NOTE XIV., page 140.
ASTRONOMY AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT.
The design argument has always drawn some of its data from astronomy.
The order and beauty of the heavenly bodies, the alternation of
day and night, the succession of the seasons, and the dependence of
living creatures on these changes, are referred to as indications of
God's character and agency in many passages of Scripture. Thus, to
select only from the Psalms: "When I consider Thy heavens, the work
of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;
what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that
Thou visitest him?"--viii. 3, 4. "The heavens declare the glory of
God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge."--xix. 1, 2. "He
appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knoweth his going down. Thou
makest darkness, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest
do creep forth.... The sun ariseth, they gather themselves together,
and lay them down in their dens. Man goeth forth unto his work and
to his labour until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!
in wisdom hast Thou made them all."--civ. 19-24. Among classical
writers, Cicero has presented the design argument as founded on the
arrangements and movements of the heavenly bodies in a very striking
manner, when, referring to the instrument by which Posidonius had
ingeniously represented them, he asks whether, if that instrument were
carried into Scythia or Britain, any even of the barbarians of these
lands would doubt that it was the product of reason, and rebukes those
who would regard the wondrous system of which it was a feeble copy as
the effect of chance. "Quod si in Scythiam aut in Britanniam, sphæram
aliquis tulerit hanc, quam nuper familiaris noster effecit Posidonius,
cujus singulæ conversiones idem efficiunt in sole, et in lunâ, et in
quinque stellis errantibus, quod efficitur in coelo singulis diebus
et noctibus: quis in illâ barbarie dubitet, quin ea sphæra sit perfecta
ratione? Hi autem dubitant de mundo, ex quo et oriuntur et fiunt omnia,
casune ipse sit effectus, aut necessitate aliquâ, an ratione ac mente
divinâ: et Archimedem arbitrantur plus valuisse in imitandis sphæræ
conversionibus, quam naturam in efficiendis, præsertim cum multis
partibus sint illa perfecta, quam hæc simulata, sollertius."--De Nat.
Deorum, ii. 34, 35. The 'Astro-Theology' of Wm. Derham, published in
1714, was perhaps the first work entirely devoted to the illustration
of the design argument from astronomical facts and theories. Among
comparatively recent works of a similar kind I may mention Vince's
'Confutation of Atheism from the Laws and Constitution of the Heavenly
Bodies,' Whewell's 'Bridgewater Treatise,' Dick's 'Celestial Scenery,'
Mitchell's 'Planetary and Stellar Worlds,' and Leitch's 'God's Glory
in the Heavens.' They afford ample evidence of the erroneousness of
Comte's assertion that "the opposition of science to theology is more
obvious in astronomy than anywhere else, and that no other science has
given more terrible shocks to the doctrine of final causes." Kepler did
not think so, for he concludes his work on the 'Harmony of Worlds' with
these devout words: "I thank Thee, my Creator and Lord, that Thou hast
given me this joy in Thy creation, this delight in the works of Thy
hands. I have shown the excellency of Thy work unto men, so far as my
finite mind was able to comprehend Thine infinity. If I have said aught
unworthy of Thee, or aught in which I may have sought my own glory,
graciously forgive it." Nor did Newton, for he wrote: "Elegantissima
hæcce compages solis, planetarum, et cometarum (et stellarum), non
nisi consilio et dominio Entis cujusdam potentis et intelligentis oriri
potuit." And in our own times such men as Herschel, Brewster, Mädler,
&c., have protested against the notion that astronomy tends to atheism.
The late Professor De Morgan demonstrated in his 'Essay on
Probability,' when only eleven planets were known, that the odds
against chance, to which in such a case intelligence is the only
alternative, being the cause of all these bodies moving in one
direction round the sun, with an inconsiderable inclination of the
planes of their orbits, were twenty thousand millions to one. "What
prospect," are his own words, "would there have been of such a
concurrence of circumstances, if a state of chance had been the only
antecedent? With regard to the sameness of the directions, either of
which might have been from west to east, or from east to west, the case
is precisely similar to the following: There is a lottery containing
black and white balls, from each drawing of which it is as likely a
black ball shall arise as a white one: what is the chance of drawing
eleven balls all white?--answer 2047 to one against it. With regard to
the other question, our position is this: There is a lottery containing
an infinite number of counters, marked with all possible different
angles less than a right angle, in such a manner that any angle is
as likely to be drawn as another, so that in ten drawings the sum of
the angles drawn may be anything under ten right angles: now, what is
the chance of ten drawings giving collectively less than one right
angle?--answer 10,000,000 to one against it. Now, what is the chance of
both these events coming together?--answer, more than 20,000,000,000 to
one against it. It is consequently of the same degree of probability
that there has been something at work which is not chance in the
formation of the solar system."
There are several departments of science as much, or even more, adapted
than astronomy, to furnish proofs of the wisdom of God; but there is
none which affords us such evidence of His power, or so helps us to
realise His omnipresence, our own nothingness before Him, and the
littleness of our earth in the system of His creation. Those who wish
to have impressions of this kind deepened may be recommended to read
the works of Proctor and Flammarion.
What is said in the paragraph to which this note refers must not be so
understood as to be in consistent with the possibility or probability,
if not demonstrated certainty, that the universe is not a perfectly
conservative system, but one which is tending surely although slowly to
the destruction of the present condition of things. This fact, if it
be a fact, can no more affect the design argument in its relation to
astronomy, than the decay of plants and the death of animals can affect
it in relation to vegetable and animal physiology.
NOTE XV., page 143.
CHEMISTRY AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT.
The history of chemistry is of itself sufficient to disprove the view
of Comte that the initial and conjectural stages of a science are those
in which it affords most support to theology. It was only after the
definitive constitution of chemistry as a science, only after the
discovery of positive and precise chemical laws, that the teleological
argument for the Divine existence began to be rested to a certain
extent upon it.
The Honourable Robert Boyle, the founder of the Boyle Lectureship, was
one of the most distinguished chemists of his age, a zealous defender
of final causes, and the author of several treatises intended to
diffuse worthy views and sentiments as to the character and operations
of the Creator.
Probably the two best English treatises on the relationship of
chemistry to theism are the Bridgewater Treatise of Dr Prout,
'Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Digestion, considered
with reference to Natural Theology' (3d ed., 1845), and the Actonian
Prize Essay of Professor Fownes, 'Chemistry as exemplifying the
Wisdom and Beneficence of God' (1844). Both writers were chemists of
high reputation, but they were not very conversant with theology or
philosophy, and have, in consequence, by no means fully utilised the
excellent scientific materials which they collected.
This makes it all the more to be regretted that the late Professor
George Wilson was not permitted to accomplish his design of writing "a
book corresponding to the 'Religio Medici' of Sir Thomas Browne, with
the title 'Religio Chemici.'" Among the fragments comprised in the work
published under that title after his death, three essays--"Chemistry
and Natural Theology," "The Chemistry of the Stars," and "Chemical
Final Causes"--are most interesting and suggestive.
The attempts of writers like Moleschott and Büchner to draw atheistic
inferences from the theories or hypotheses of modern chemistry
have given rise to a multitude of answers, but it may be sufficient
to refer to the 'Antimaterialismus' of Dr L. Weiss. Liebig in his
'Chemical Letters' manifests profound contempt for the materialistic
and anti-theistic speculations attempted to be based on the science of
which he was so illustrious a master.
NOTE XVI., page 145.
GEOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC., AND THE DESIGN ARGUMENT.
The single fact that geology proves that every genus and species of
organic forms which exist or have existed on the earth had a definite
beginning in time, gives to this science great importance in reference
to theism. It decides at once and conclusively what metaphysics might
have discussed without result for ages. Its religious bearings are
exhibited in Buckland's 'Geology and Mineralogy considered in reference
to Natural Theology,' Hugh Miller's 'Footprints of the Creator,'
Hitchcock's 'Religion of Geology,' and many other works. Lyell
concludes both his 'Elements of Geology' and 'Principles of Geology'
by affirming that geological research finds in all directions the
clearest indications of creative intelligence; that "as we increase
our knowledge of the inexhaustible variety displayed in nature, and
admire the infinite wisdom and power which it manifests, our admiration
is multiplied by the reflection, that it is only the last of a great
series of pre-existing creations, of which we cannot estimate the
number or limit in times past."
The numerous adaptations which exist between the terrestrial and
celestial economies are dwelt on in detail by M'Culloch in the second
volume of his 'Proofs and Illustrations of the Attributes of God
from the Facts and Laws of the Physical Universe,' and by Buchanan
in 'Faith in God and Modern Atheism,' vol. i. pp. 132-156. These two
authors have also treated of the adaptations subsisting between the
organic and inorganic worlds. The Bridgewater Treatise of Chalmers was
on 'The Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual
Constitution of Man;' and that of Kidd, on 'The Adaptation of External
Nature to the Physical Constitution of Man.'