"all so counteracted, that the inexactness of the image which results
from their presence very little exceeds, under ordinary conditions of
illumination, the limits which are set to the delicacy of sensation
by the dimensions of the retinal cones;" that "the adaptation of the
eye to its function is most complete, and is seen in the very limits
which are set to its defects." In fact, were the eye more perfect
as an instrument of optical precision, it would be less perfect as
an eye. Its absolute defects are practical merits. To be a useful
eye it must be neither a perfect telescope nor a perfect microscope,
but a something which can readily serve many purposes, and which can
be supplemented by many instruments. The delicate finish of a razor
renders it unfit for cutting wood. All man's senses and organs are
inferior to those possessed by some of the lower animals, but the
inferiority is of a kind which is a real and vast advantage. It is of
a kind which allows them to be put to a greater variety of uses than
could more perfect senses and organs. It is the very condition of
their capacity to be utilised in manifold directions by an inventive
and progressive reason. Further, no man can see at all merely with a
so-called perfect optical instrument. He must have in addition the
imperfect instrument, composed of a soft, watery, animal substance,
and designated the eye. There is that in the eye which immeasurably
transcends all mere physics and chemistry, all human mechanism and
contrivance; there is life; there is vision.
NOTE XXXIV., page 252.
EPICUREAN DILEMMA.
The Epicurean dilemma has been often dealt with. I shall content
myself with quoting Mr Bowen's remarks on the subject: "_Omnipotence
and benevolence_ are apparently very simple and very comprehensive
terms, though few are more vaguely used. The former means a power
to do everything; but this does not include the ability to do two
contradictory things at the same moment, or to accomplish any
metaphysical impossibility. Thus, the Deity cannot cause two and two to
make five, nor place two hills near each other without leaving a valley
between them. The impossibility in such cases does not argue a defect
of power, but an absurdity in the statement of the case to which the
power is to be applied. A statement which involves a contradiction
in terms does not express a limitation of ability, because in truth
it expresses nothing at all; the affirmation and the denial, uttered
in the same breath, cancel each other, and no meaning remains. All
metaphysical impossibilities can be reduced to the formula, that it is
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same moment,
as this would be an absurdity--that is, an absurd or meaningless
statement. Thus, virtue cannot exist without free agency, because a
free choice between good and evil is involved in the idea of _virtue_,
so that the proposition means no more than this--that what contains
freedom cannot be without freedom. We cannot choose between good and
evil, unless good and evil are both placed before us--that is, unless
we know what these words mean; and we cannot express our choice in
action, unless we are able to act--that is, unless we have the power
of doing either good or evil. In the dilemma quoted from Epicurus,
a contradiction in terms is held to prove a defect of power, or to
disprove omnipotence; the dilemma, therefore, is a mere logical puzzle,
like the celebrated one of Achilles and the tortoise.
"The meaning of _benevolence_ appears simple enough; but it is often
difficult to tell whether a certain act was or was not prompted by kind
intentions. Strictly speaking, of course, benevolence is a quality
of mind--that is, of will (bene _volo_) or intention, not of outward
conduct. An _action_ is said to be benevolent only by metaphor; it is
so called, because we infer from it, with great positiveness, that the
agent must have had benevolent intentions. We think that the motives
are indicated by the act; but we may be mistaken. He who gives food
to the hungry poor would be esteemed benevolent; but he may do it with
a view to poison them. To strike for the avowed purpose of causing
pain usually argues ill-will or a malignant design; but the blow may
come from the kindest heart in the world, for the express purpose of
benefiting him who receives it. In the present argument, Epicurus
assumes that the presence of evil--that is, the outward fact--is enough
to prove a want of benevolence, or even a malignant design, on the part
of him who might have prevented it. But if by evil is here meant mere
pain or suffering, whether proceeding from bodily or mental causes, we
may boldly deny the inference. If pleasure or mere enjoyment is not the
greatest good, if sometimes it is even inconsistent with the possession
of a higher blessing, then a denial of it may be a proof of goodness
instead of malice."--Metaphysical and Ethical Science, pp. 362, 363.
NOTE XXXV., page 263.
GOD AND DUTY.
"To such readers as have reflected on man's life; who understand that
for man's wellbeing Faith is properly the one thing needful; how with
it martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the
cross--and without, worldlings puke up their sick existence by suicide
in the midst of luxury: to such it will be clear that for a pure moral
nature the loss of religious belief is the loss of everything.
"All wounds, the crush of long-continued destitution, the stab of false
friendship and of false love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, would
have healed again had not its life-warmth been withdrawn.
"Well mayest thou exclaim, 'Is there no God, then; but at best an
absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the
outside of His universe and _seeing_ it go?' 'Has the word Duty no
meaning? is what we call Duty no Divine messenger and guide, but a
false earthly phantasm made up of desire and fear?' 'Is the heroic
inspiration we name Virtue but some passion; some bubble of the blood,
bubbling in the direction others profit by?' I know not; only this I
know, if what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all
astray. 'Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the universe is--the
Devil's.'"--Carlyle.
NOTE XXXVI., page 268.
HISTORIES OF THE THEISTIC PROOFS.
There are several histories of the proofs for the Divine existence.
One of the earliest is Ziegler's 'Beiträge zur Geschichte des Glaubens
an das Dasein Gottes' (1792). The best known, and perhaps the most
interesting, is Bouchitté's 'Histoire des Preuves de l'Existence de
Dieu' (Mémoires de l'Académie, Savants Étrangers, i.), written from
the Krausean point of view. The 'Geschichte der Beweise für das Dasein
Gottes bis zum 14 Jahrhundert' (1875), by Alfred Tyszka, and the
'Geschichte der Beweise für das Dasein Gottes von Cartesius bis Kant'
(1876), by Albert Krebs, supplement each other. There are two very able
articles--partly historical, but chiefly critical--on these proofs by
Professor Köstlin in the 'Theol. Studien und Kritiken,' H. 4, 1875,
and H. 1, 1876. The most conscientious, useful, and learned history
of speculation regarding Deity is, so far as is known to me, the
four-volumed work of Signor Bobba, 'Storia della Filosofia intorno all'
Idea di Dio.'
On the history of the _a priori_ proofs there may be consulted the
treatise of Fischer, 'Der ontologische Beweis f. d. Dasein Gottes u.
s. Geschichte,' 1852, and an article of Seydel, "Der gesch. Eintritt
ontologischer Beweisführing," &c. (Tr. f. Ph. H. i. 1858). In Hase's
'Life of Anselm' (of which there is an English translation) there is
a good account of Anselm's argument. There is also a translation of
the 'Proslogion,' with Gaunilo's objections and Anselm's reply, in the
'Bibliotheca Sacra,' 1851. On the Cartesian proofs there is a special
work by Huber, 'Die cartes. Beweise v. Dasein Gottes' (1854).
Hegel's 'Vorlesungen über d. Beweise f. d. Dasein Gottes' are of great
interest and value in various respects; but his view of the historical
succession of the proofs does not appear to me to be tenable.
NOTE XXXVII., page 269.
_A PRIORI_ PROOF NOT PROOF FROM A CAUSE.
The philosophers and theologians who have supposed A PRIORI proof
to be proof from a cause or antecedent existence, have, of course,
denied that there can be any _a priori_ proof of the Divine existence.
Aristotle laid down as a rule that demonstration must proceed from
things prior to and the causes of the things to be demonstrated, and
those who assented to this rule necessarily denied the possibility
of demonstrating the existence of God. The assertion of Clemens of
Alexandria that "God cannot be apprehended by any demonstrative
science" is indubitable, if the view of demonstration on which he
rests it be correct; "for such science is from things prior and more
knowable, whereas nothing can precede that which is uncreated." It is a
manifest contradiction to imagine that an eternal being is subsequent
to any other being, or a perfect being dependent on any other being.
Even mathematical demonstration, however, is not from causes; nor
is there any reason for supposing that the order of knowledge is
necessarily and universally the same as the order of existence.
It is by confounding demonstration erroneously understood in the manner
indicated with proof in general that not a few persons have arrived at
the conclusion that the existence of God cannot be proved at all, and
have deemed preposterous assertions like that of Jacobi, "A God who can
be proved is no God, for the ground of proof is necessarily above the
thing proved by it," both profound and pious.
NOTE XXXVIII., page 285.
SOME _A PRIORI_ ARGUMENTS.
I have treated of Clarke's argument in the 'Encyc. Brit.' art. "Samuel
Clarke."
The demonstration of Dr Fiddes is contained in his 'Theologia
Speculativa, or a Body of Divinity,' 2 vols., 1718-20. It consists
of six propositions: 1. Something does now exist; 2. Something has
existed eternally; 3. Something has been eternally self-existent;
4. What is self-existent must have all the perfections that exist
anywhere or in any subject; 5. What is self-existent must have all
possible perfections, and every perfection, in an infinite measure;
6. What has all possible perfections in an infinite measure is God.
He proves his fourth proposition thus: "Since nothing can arise out
of nothing, and since there can be no perfection but what has some
subject of inherence, every perfection must have been eternally
somewhere or other, or in one subject or other, into which it must be
ultimately resolved, or else it could never have been at all; without
admitting, what of all things we are the best able to conceive, an
infinite progression of efficient causes--that is, an infinite series
of beings derived one from another, without a beginning or any original
cause at the head of the series. So that whatever perfections we
observe in any being must have been originally and eternally in the
self-existent being." On behalf of his fifth proposition he advances
two arguments: 1. "All properties essentially follow the nature and
condition of the subject, and must be commensurate to it. For this
reason we say that wisdom, power, and goodness being attributes of an
infinite subject, or one which is the substratum of one _infinite_
attribute, these and all the other perfections belonging to it must be
infinite also. Otherwise the same subject, considered as a subject,
would be infinite in one respect, and yet finite in another; which, if
it be not a contradiction, seems to border so near upon one that we
cannot comprehend the possibility of it." 2. "A self-existent being
as the subject of any perfection cannot limit itself; because it must
necessarily have existed from all eternity what it is, and have been
the same in all properties essentially inherent in it, antecedently
to any act or volition of its own. Nor can such a being be limited by
anything external to it; for, besides that self-existence necessarily
implies independence, properties which are essential to any subject
can admit of no increase or diminution or the least imaginable change,
without destroying the essence itself of the subject. Nor yet can it
be said that there is any impossibility in the nature of the thing
that the perfections inhering in an _infinite_ subject should be
in the highest or even in an infinite degree. Indeed it is scarce
possible for us (for the reasons already assigned) to conceive how they
should be otherwise. Neither can any such impossibility arise from
the nature of the perfections themselves. If, then, the perfections
of a self-existent being cannot be limited by itself, nor by anything
external to it, nor from any invincible repugnancy in the nature of
the perfections themselves, I conclude that the self-existent being
must not only have all possible perfections, but every perfection in an
_infinite_ degree."
The 'Demonstration of the Existence of God against Atheists,' by the
Rev. Colin Campbell, Minister of the Parish of Ardchattan, 1667-1726,
has been recently printed for private circulation from a MS. now
deposited in the library of Edinburgh University. The editor has
added to it a learned and admirable appendix. Mr Campbell's manner of
proving that there is one, and but one, infinite Being, is as follows:
"As everything which hath a beginning forces confession of one who
hath none--because to produce is an action, and must presuppose an
actor,--by the same force of reason, we must confess that whatever is
limited, or made of such and such a limited nature, is limited by
something which did limit it to be such a thing, and no other. For
limit is an action, and confesseth an actor. So that there must be a
being anterior to all limited beings, and, consequently, some being
that is not at all limited, to evite the absurd progress of running
infinitely upwards unlimited beings, without a single limiter. Now, an
unlimited being is the same as to say an infinite being. And so, by the
force of reason, we have a being which is eternal, which is infinite.
There can be but one infinite, because, were there two or more, the
one would limit the other; and so the infinite would be finite, the
unlimited would be limited. Therefore, the unlimited, or infinite, must
be one only; and that one purely single and uncompounded, else every
part of the compound would limit the other parts, so that all the parts
would be limited. And a whole whose parts are limited must be limited
in the whole, it being impossible that a compound or conjunction of
finites can, by addition, produce an infinite, unless you imagine this
complex whole to consist partly of finites, and also of some infinite.
But the one infinite part, if infinite, cannot leave place for any
other finite to make it up, it being itself unlimited and infinite; and
such an addition would speak it limited by the part which was added.
And a thousand like absurdities would follow."
Wollaston's attempted demonstration is contained in the fifth section
of his 'Religion of Nature Delineated' (1725). This is a common book,
and the mere reference to it must suffice.
Moses Lowman's 'Argument to prove the Unity and Perfection of God
_a priori_' was published in 1735, and reprinted, with a preface by
Dr Pye Smith, containing an account of the author and his works,
in the Cabinet Library of Scarce and Celebrated Tracts (1836). I
reproduce the abstract which Dr Smith gave of this ingenious argument
in his 'First Lines of Christian Theology:' "1. Positive existence is
possible, for it involves no contradiction. 2. All possible existence
is either _necessary_, which must be, and in its own nature cannot
but be; or _contingent_, which may be or not be, for in neither case
is a contradiction involved. 3. _Some_ existence is _necessary_: for,
if all existence were contingent, all existence might not be as well
as might be; and that thing which might not be never could be without
some other thing as the prior cause of its existence, since every
effect must have a cause. If, therefore, all possible existence were
contingent, all existence would be impossible; because the idea or
conception of it would be that of an effect without a cause, which
involves a contradiction. 4. Necessary existence must be _actual_
existence: for necessary existence is that which must be and cannot
but be--that is, it is such existence as arises from the nature of
the thing in itself; and it is an evident contradiction to affirm
that necessary existence might not be. 5. Necessary existence being
such as must be and cannot but be, it must be _always_ and cannot
but be always; for to suppose that necessary existence could begin
to be, or could cease to be--that is, that a time might be in which
necessary existence would not be--involves a contradiction. Therefore,
necessary existence is without beginning and without end--that is, it
is eternal. 6. Necessary existence must be _wherever_ any existence
is possible: for all existence is either contingent or necessary; all
contingent existence is impossible without necessary existence being
previously as its cause, and wherever existence is possible it must
be either of a necessary or a contingent being. Therefore, necessary
existence must be wherever existence is possible--that is, it must be
_infinite_. 7. There can be but _one_ necessarily existent being; for
two necessarily existent beings could in no respect whatever differ
from each other--that is, they would be one and the same being. 8. The
one necessarily existent being must have _all possible perfections_:
for all possible perfections must be the perfections of some existence;
all existence is either necessary or contingent; all contingent
existence is dependent upon necessary existence; consequently, all
possible perfections must belong either to necessary existence or to
contingent existence--that is, to contingent beings, which are caused
by and are dependent upon necessary being. Therefore, since there
can be but one necessarily existent being, that being must have all
possible perfections. 9. The one necessarily existent being must be a
_free agent_; for contingent existence is possible, as the conception
of it involves no contradiction; but necessary existence must be the
cause or producing agent of contingent existence, otherwise contingent
existence would be impossible, as an effect without a cause; and
necessary existence as the cause of contingent existence does not act
necessarily, for then contingent existence would itself be necessary,
which is absurd as involving a contradiction. Therefore necessary
existence, as the cause of contingent existence, acts _not necessarily_
but _freely_--that is, is a free agent, which is the same thing as
being an _intelligent agent_. 10. Therefore, there is one necessarily
existent being, the cause of all contingent existence--that is, of all
other existences besides himself; and this being is eternal, infinite,
possessed of all possible perfections, and is an intelligent free
agent--that is, _this Being is God_."
The demonstration of the Divine existence given by the Chevalier
Ramsay is contained in the First Book of his 'Philosophical Principles
of Natural and Revealed Religion' (1748). It is as elaborately
mathematical in form as the reasoning in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' and has
continuous reference to that reasoning. It is impossible to give any
distinct conception of its nature by a brief description.
The argument of Dr Hamilton, Dean of Armagh, is fully set forth in his
'Attempt to prove the Existence and Absolute Perfection of the Supreme
Unoriginated Being, in a Demonstrative Manner' (1785). It assumes the
"axiom" that "whatever is contingent, or might possibly have been
otherwise than it is, had some cause which determined it to be what it
is. Or in other words: if two different or contrary things were each of
them possible, whichever of them took place, or came to pass, it must
have done so in consequence of some cause which determined that _it_,
and not _the other_, should take the place." The propositions which he
endeavours to demonstrate are these: I. There must be in the universe
some one being, at least, whose non-existence is impossible--whose
existence had no cause, no beginning, and can have no end. II. The
whole nature of the unoriginated being, or the aggregate of his
attribute, is uncaused, and must be necessarily and immutably what
it is; so that he cannot have any attribute or modification of his
attributes but such as were the eternal and necessary concomitants of
his existence. III. Whatever are the attributes of the unoriginated
being, he must possess each of them unlimitedly, or in its whole
extent, such as it is when considered in the abstract. IV. In whatever
_manner_ the unoriginated being exists or is present anywhere, he
must in the _like manner_ exist or be present everywhere. V. The
unoriginated being is one individual uncompounded substance identically
the same everywhere, and to which our ideas of _whole_ and _parts_,
_magnitude_ or _quantity_, are not applicable. VI. The unoriginated
being must necessarily possess intelligence and power unlimited,
and all other natural attributes that are in themselves absolute
perfections. VII. There is in the universe but one unoriginated being,
who must therefore be the original fountain of all existence, and
the first cause of all things. VIII. All things owe their existence
ultimately to the power of the first cause operating according to his
free will. IX. Almighty God, the first cause and author of all things,
must be a Being of infinite goodness, wisdom, mercy, justice, and
truth, and all other moral perfections, such as become the supreme
author and governor of the universe.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained
except in obvious cases of typographical errors.
Italics are shown thus _italic_.
3^{ieme.} indicates that the letters enclosed in curly brackets
are superscripted.
The repetition of the title on the first two pages has been removed.