THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL LAWS.
§ 28. Turning now to an important error of Mr. Mill's in respect of
omission, I firmly believe that all competent writers who have ever
undertaken to support the argument from Design, have been moved to do so by
their instinctive appreciation of the much more important argument, which
Mill does not mention at all and which we now proceed to consider--the
argument from General Laws. That is to say, I cannot think that any one
competent writer ever seriously believed, had he taken time to analyse his
beliefs, that the cogency of his argument lay in assuming any knowledge
concerning the _process_ of divine thought; he must have really believed
that it lay entirely in his observation of the _product_ of divine
thought--or rather, let us say, of divine intelligence. Now this is the
whole difference between the argument from Design and the argument from
General Laws. The argument from Design says, There must be a God, because
such and such an organic structure must have been due to such and such an
intellectual _process_. The argument from General Laws says, There must be
a God, because such and such an organic structure must _in some way or
other have been ultimately due to_ intelligence. Nor does this argument end
here. Not only must such and such an organic structure have been ultimately
due to intelligence, but every such structure--nay, every phenomenon in the
universe--must have been the same; for all phenomena are alike subject to
the same method of sequence. The argument is thus a cumulative one; for as
there is no single known exception to this universal mode of existence, the
united effect of so vast a body of evidence is all but irresistible, and
its tendency is clearly to point us to some _one_ explanatory cause. The
scope of this argument is therefore co-extensive with the universe; it
draws alike upon all phenomena with which experience is acquainted. For
instance, it contains all the phenomena covered by the Design argument,
just as a genus contains any one of its species; it being manifest, from
what was said in the last section, that if the general doctrine of
Evolution is accepted, the argument from Design must of necessity merge
into that from General Laws. And this wide basis, we may be sure, must be
the most legitimate one whereon to rest an argument in favour of Theism. If
there is any such thing as such an argument at all, the most unassailable
field for its display must be the universe as a whole, seeing that if we
separate any one section of the universe from the rest, and suppose that we
here discover a different kind of testimony to intelligence from that which
we can discover elsewhere, we may from analogy be abundantly sure that on
the confines of our division there must be second causes and general laws
at work (whether discoverable or not), which are the immediate agents in
the production of the observed results. Of course I do not deny that some
classes of phenomena afford us more and better proofs of intellectual
agency than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being more
numerous, subtle, and complex; but it will be seen that this is a different
interpretation of the evidence from that against which I am contending.
Thus, if there are tokens of divine intention (as distinguished from
design) to be met with in the eye,--if it is inconceivable that so "nice
and intricate a structure" should exist without intelligence as its
_ultimate_ cause; then the discovery of natural selection, or of any other
law, as the _manner_ in which this intelligence wrought in no wise
attenuates the proof as to the fact of an intelligent cause. On the
contrary, it tends rather to confirm it; for, besides the evidence before
existing, there is added that which arises from the conformity of the
method to that which is observable in the rest of the universe.
Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and others have said, I
cannot but feel that the ubiquitous action of general laws is, of all facts
supplied by experience, the most cogent in its bearing upon teleology. If
perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does not indicate the
existence of a presiding intelligence, it becomes a question whether any
other kind of method--short of the intelligently miraculous--could possibly
do so; seeing that the further the divine _modus operandi_ (supposing such
to exist) were removed from absolute uniformity, the greater would be the
room for our interpreting it as mere fortuity. But forasmuch as the
progress of science has shown that within experience the method of the
Supreme Causality is absolutely uniform, the hypothesis of fortuity is
rendered irrational; and let us think of this Supreme Causality as we may,
the fact remains that from it there emanates a directive influence of
uninterrupted consistency, on a scale of stupendous magnitude and exact
precision, worthy of our highest possible conceptions of Deity.
§ 29. Had it been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I doubt not
that I should have regarded the foregoing considerations as final: I should
have concluded that there was an overwhelming balance of rational
probability in favour of Theism; and I think I should also have insisted
that this balance of rational probability would require to continue as it
was till the end of time. I should have maintained, in some such words as
the following, in which the Rev. Baden Powell conveys this argument:--"The
very essence of the whole argument is the invariable preservation of the
principle of _order_: not necessarily such as we can directly recognise,
but the universal conviction of the unfailing subordination of everything
to _some_ grand principles of _law_, however imperfectly apprehended in our
partial conceptions, and the successive subordination of such laws to
others of still higher generality, to an extent transcending our
conceptions, and constituting the true chain of universal causation which
culminates in the sublime conception of the COSMOS.
"It is in immediate connection with this enlarged view of universal
immutable natural order that I have regarded the narrow notions of those
who obscure the sublime prospect by imagining so unworthy an idea as that
of occasional interruptions in the physical economy of the world.
"The only instance considered was that of the alleged sudden supernatural
origination of new species of organised beings in remote geological epochs.
It is in relation to the broad principle of law, if once rightly
apprehended, that such inferences are seen to be wholly unwarranted by
science, and such fancies utterly derogatory and inadmissible in
philosophy; while, even in those instances properly understood, the real
scientific conclusions of the invariable and indissoluble chain of
causation stand vindicated in the sublime contemplations with which they
are thus associated.
"To a correct apprehension of the whole argument, the one essential
requisite is to have obtained a complete and satisfactory grasp of this
_one grand principle of law pervading nature, or rather constituting the
very idea of nature_;--which forms the vital essence of the whole of
inductive science, and the sole assurance of those higher inferences from
the inductive study of natural causes which are the vindications of a
supreme intelligence and a moral cause.
"_The whole of the ensuing discussion must stand or fall with the admission
of this grand principle_. Those who are not prepared to embrace it in its
full extent may probably not accept the conclusions; but they must be sent
back to the school of inductive science, where alone it must be
independently imbibed and thoroughly assimilated with the mind of the
student in the first instance.
"On the slightest consideration of the nature, the foundations, and general
results of inductive science,... we recognise the powers of intellect fitly
employed in the study of nature,... pre-eminently leading us to perceive
_in nature_, and in the invariable and universal constancy of its laws, the
indications of universal, unchangeable, and recondite arrangement,
dependence, and connection in reason....
"We thus see the importance of taking a more enlarged view of the great
argument of natural theology; and the necessity for so doing becomes the
more apparent when we reflect on the injury to which these sublime
inferences are exposed from the narrow and unworthy form in which the
reasoning has been too often conducted....
"The satisfactory view of the whole case can only be found in those more
enlarged conceptions which are furnished by the grand contemplation of
cosmical order and unity, and which do not refer to inferences from the
_past_, but to proofs of the _ever-present_ mind and reason in nature.
"If we read a book which it requires much thought and exercise of reason to
understand, but which we find discloses more and more truth and reason as
we proceed in the study, and contains clearly more than we can at present
comprehend, then undeniably we properly say that thought and reason _exist
in that book_ irrespectively of our minds, and equally so of any question
as to its author or origin. Such a book confessedly exists, and is ever
open to us in the natural world. Or, to put the case under a slightly
different form:--When the astronomer, the physicist, the geologist, or the
naturalist notes down a series of observed facts or measured dates, he is
not an _author_ expressing his own ideas,--he is a mere _amanuensis_ taking
down the dictations of nature: his observation book is the record of the
thoughts of _another mind_: he has but set down literally what he himself
does not understand, or only very imperfectly. On further examination, and
after deep and anxious study, he perhaps begins to decipher the meaning, by
perceiving some law which gives a signification to the facts; and the
further he pursues the investigation up to any more comprehensive theory,
the more fully he perceives that there is a higher reason, of which his own
is but the humbler interpreter, and into whose depths he may penetrate
continually further, to discover yet more profound and invariable order and
system, always indicating still deeper and more hidden abysses yet
unfathomed, but throughout which he is assured the same recondite and
immutable arrangement ever prevails.
"That which requires thought and reason to understand must be itself
thought and reason. That which mind alone can investigate or express must
be itself mind. And if the highest conception attained is but partial, then
the mind and reason studied is greater than the mind and reason of the
student. If the more it be studied the more vast and complex is the
necessary connection in reason disclosed, then the more evident is the vast
extent and compass of the intelligence thus partially manifested, and its
reality, as _existing in the immutably connected order of objects
examined_, independently of the mind of the investigator.
"But considerations of this kind, just and transcendently important as they
are in themselves, give us no aid in any inquiry into the _origin_ of the
order of things thus investigated, or the _nature_ or other attributes of
the mind evinced in them.
"The real argument for universal _intelligence_, manifested in the
universality of order and law in the material world, is very different from
any attempt to give a form to our conceptions, even by the language of
analogy, as to the _nature_ or _mode of existence_ or operation of that
intelligence [_i.e._, as I have stated the case, the argument can only rest
on a study of the _products_, as distinguished from the _processes_ of such
intelligence]: and still more different from any extension of our inference
from what _is_ to what _may have been_, from _present_ order to a supposed
_origination_, first adjustment, or planning of that order.
"By keeping these distinctions steadily in view, we appreciate properly
both the limits and the extent and compass of what we may appropriately
call COSMOTHEOLOGY."[19]
I have quoted these passages at length, because they convey in a more
forcible, guarded, and accurate manner than any others with which I am
acquainted, the strictly rational standing of this great subject prior to
the date at which the above-quoted passage was written. Therefore, as I
have said, if it had been my lot to have lived in the last generation, I
should certainly have rested in these "sublime conceptions" as in an
argument supreme and irrefutable. I should have felt that the progress of
physical knowledge could never exert any other influence on Theism than
that of ever tending more and more to confirm that magnificent belief, by
continuously expanding our human thoughts into progressively advancing
conceptions, ever grander and yet more grand, of that tremendous Origin of
Things--the Mind of God. Such would have been my hope--such would have been
my prayer. But now, how changed! Never in the history of man has so
terrific a calamity befallen the race as that which all who look may now
behold advancing as a deluge, black with destruction, resistless in might,
uprooting our most cherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and
burying our highest life in mindless desolation. Science, whom erstwhile we
thought a very Angel of God, pointing to that great barrier of Law, and
proclaiming to the restless sea of changing doubt, "Hitherto shalt thou
come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed,"--even
Science has now herself thrown down this trusted barrier; the flood-gates
of infidelity are open, and Atheism overwhelming is upon us.
§ 30. All and every law follows as a necessary consequence from the
persistence of force and the primary qualities of matter.[20] That this
must be so is evident if we consider that, were it not so, force could not
be permanent nor matter constant. For instance, if action and reaction were
not invariably equal and opposite, force would not be invariably
persistent, seeing that in no case can the formula fail, unless some one or
other of the forces concerned, or parts of them, disappear. And as with a
simple law of this kind, so with every other natural law and
inter-operation of laws, howsoever complex such inter-operation may be; for
it is manifest that if in any case similar antecedents did not determine
similar consequents, on one or other of these occasions some quantum of
force, or of matter, or of both, must have disappeared--or, which is the
same thing, the law of causation cannot have been constant. Every natural
law, therefore, may be defined as the formula of a sequence, which must
either ensue upon certain forces of a given intensity impinging upon
certain given quantities, kinds, and forms of matter, or else, by not
ensuing, prove that the force or the matter concerned were not of a
permanent nature.
§ 31. The argument, then, which was elaborated in § 29, and which has so
long and so generally received the popular sanction in the common-sense
epitome, that in the last record there must be mind in external nature,
since "that which it requires thought and reason to understand must itself
be thought and reason,"--this argument, I say, must now for ever be
abandoned by reasonable men. No doubt it would be easy to point to several
speculative thinkers who have previously combated this argument,[21] and
from this fact some readers will perhaps be inclined to judge, from a false
analogy, that as the argument in question has withstood previous assaults,
it need not necessarily succumb to the present one. Be it observed,
however, that the present assault differs from all previous assaults, just
as demonstration differs from speculation. What has hitherto been but mere
guess and unwarrantable assertion has now become a matter of the greatest
certainty. That the argument from General Laws is a futile argument, is no
longer a matter of unverifiable opinion: it is as sure as is the most
fundamental axiom of science. That the argument will long remain in
illogical minds, I doubt not; but that it is from henceforth quite
inadmissible in accurate thinking, there can be no question. For the sake,
however, of impressing this fact still more strongly upon such readers as
have been accustomed to rely upon this argument, and so find it difficult
thus abruptly to reverse the whole current of their thoughts,--for the sake
of such, I shall here add a few remarks with the view of facilitating the
conception of an universal Order existing independently of Mind.
§ 32. Interpreting the mazy nexus of phenomena only by the facts which
science has revealed, and what conclusion are we driven to accept? Clearly,
looking to what has been said in the last two sections, that from the time
when the process of evolution first began,--from the time before the
condensation of the nebula had showed any signs of commencing,--every
subsequent change or event of evolution was _necessarily bound_ to ensue;
else force and matter have not been persistent. How then, it will be asked,
did the vast nexus of natural laws which is now observable ever begin or
continue to be? In this way. When the first womb of things was pregnant
with all the future, there would probably have been existent at any rate
not more than one of the formulæ which we now call natural laws. This one
law, of course, would have been the law of gravitation. Here we may take
our stand. It does not signify whether there ever was a time when
gravitation was not,--_i.e._, if ever there was a time when matter, _as we
now know it_, was not in existence;--for if there ever was such a time,
there is no reason to doubt, but every reason to conclude, that the
evolution of matter, as we now know it, was accomplished in accordance with
law. Similarly, we are not concerned with the question as to how the law of
gravitation came to be associated with matter; for it is overwhelmingly
probable, from the extent of the analogy, that if our knowledge concerning
molecular physics were sufficiently great, the existence of the law in
question would be found to follow as a necessary deduction from the primary
qualities of matter and force, just as we can now see that, when present,
its peculiar quantitative action necessarily follows from the primary
qualities of space.
Starting, then, with these data,--matter, force, and the law of
gravitation,--what must happen? We have the strongest scientific reason to
believe that the matter of the solar system primordially existed in a
highly diffused or nebulous form. By mutual gravitation, therefore, all the
substance of the nebula must have begun to concentrate upon itself, or to
condense. Now, from this point onwards, I wish it to be clearly understood
that the mere consideration of the supposed facts not admitting of
scientific proof, or of scientific explanation if true, in no wise affects
the certainty of the doctrine which these facts are here adduced to
establish. Fully granting that the alleged facts are not beyond dispute,
and that, even if true, innumerable other unknown and unknowable facts must
have been associated with them--fully admitting, in short, that our ideas
concerning the genesis of the solar system are of the crudest and least
trustworthy character; still, if it be admitted, what at the present day
only ignorance or prejudice can deny, viz., that, as a whole, evolution has
been the method of the universe; then it follows that the doctrine here
contended for is as certainly true as it would be were we fully acquainted
with every cause and every change which has acted and ensued throughout the
whole process of the genesis of things.
Now, bearing this caveat in mind, we have next to observe that when once
the nebula began to condense, new relations among its constituent parts
would, _for this reason_, begin to be established. "Given a rare and widely
diffused mass of nebulous matter,... what are the successive changes that
will take place? Mutual gravitation will approximate its atoms, but their
approximation will be opposed by atomic repulsion, the overcoming of which
implies the evolution of heat." That is to say, the condensation of the
nebula as a whole of necessity implies at least the origination of these
new material and dynamical relations among its constituent parts. "As fast
as this heat partially escapes by radiation, further approximation will
take place, attended by further evolution of heat, and so on continuously:
the processes not occurring separately, as here described, but
simultaneously, uninterruptedly, and with increasing activity." Hence the
newly established relations continuously acquire new increments of
intensity. But now observe a more important point. The previous essential
conditions remaining unaltered--viz., the persistence of matter and force,
as well as, or rather let us say and consequently, the law of
gravitation--these conditions, I say, remaining constant, and the newly
established relations would necessarily _of themselves_ give origin to
_new_ laws. For whenever two given quantities of force and matter met in
one of the novel relations, they would of necessity give rise to novel
effects; and whenever, on any future occasion, similar quantities of force
and matter again so met, precisely similar effects would of necessity
require to occur: but the occurrence of similar effects under similar
conditions is all that we mean by a natural law.
Continuing, then, our quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer's terse and lucid
exposition of the nebular theory, we find this doctrine virtually embodied
in the next sentences:--"Eventually this slow movement of the atoms towards
their common centre of gravity will bring about phenomena of another order.
"Arguing from the known laws of atomic combination, it will happen that,
when the nebulous mass has reached a particular stage of condensation--when
its internally situated atoms have approached to within certain distances,
have generated a certain amount of heat, and are subject to a certain
mutual pressure (the heat and pressure increasing as the aggregation
progresses), some of them will suddenly enter into chemical union. Whether
the binary atoms so produced be of kinds such as we know, which is
possible, or whether they be of kinds simpler than any we know, which is
more probable, matters not to the argument. It suffices that molecular
combinations of some species will finally take place." We have, then, here
a new and important change of relations. Matter, primordially uniform, has
itself become heterogeneous; and in as many places as it has thus changed
its state, it must, in virtue of the fact, give rise to other hitherto
novel relations, and so, in many cases, to new laws.[22]
It would be tedious and unnecessary to trace this genesis of natural law
any further: indeed, it would be quite impossible so to trace it for any
considerable distance without feeling that the ever-multiplying mazes of
relations renders all speculation as to the actual processes quite useless.
This fact, however, as before insisted, in no wise affects the only
doctrine which I here enunciate--viz., that the self-generation of natural
law is a necessary corollary from the persistence of matter and force. And
that this must be so is now, I hope, sufficiently evident. Just as in the
first dawn of things, when the proto-binary compounds of matter gave rise
to new relations together with their appropriate laws, so throughout the
whole process of evolution, as often as matter acquired a hitherto novel
state, or in one of its old states entered into hitherto novel relations,
so often would non-existent or even impossible laws become at once possible
and necessary. And in this way I cannot see that there is any reason to
stop until we arrive at all the marvellous complexity of things as they
are. For aught that speculative reason can ever from henceforth show to the
contrary, the evolution of all the diverse phenomena of inorganic nature,
of life, and of mind, appears to be as necessary and as self-determined as
is the being of that mysterious Something which is Everything,--the Entity
we must all believe in, which without condition and beyond relation holds
its existence in itself.
§ 33. Does it still seem incredible that, notwithstanding it requires
mental processes to interpret external nature, external nature may
nevertheless be destitute of mind? Then let us look at the subject on its
obverse aspect.
According to the theory of evolution--which, be it always remembered, is no
mere gratuitous supposition, but a genuine scientific theory--human
intelligence, like everything else, has been evolved. Now in what does the
evolution of intelligence consist? Any one acquainted with the writings of
our great philosopher can have no hesitation in answering: Clearly and only
in the establishment of more and more numerous and complex internal or
psychological relations. In other words, the law of intelligence being
"that the strengths of the inner cohesions between psychical states must be
proportionate to the persistences of the outer relations symbolised," it
follows that the development of intelligence is "secured by the one simple
principle that experience of the outer relations _produces_ inner
cohesions, and makes the inner cohesions strong in proportion as the outer
relations are persistent." Now the question before us at present is merely
this:--Must we not infer that these outer relations are regulated by mind,
seeing that order is undoubtedly apparent among them, and that it requires
mental processes on our part to interpret this order? The only legitimate
answer to this question is, that these outer relations _may_ be regulated
by mind, but that, in view of the evolution theory, we are certainly not
entitled to infer that they _are_ so regulated, _merely_ because it
requires mental processes on our part to interpret their orderly character.
For if it is true that the human mind was itself evolved by these outer
relations--ever continuously moulded into conformity with them as the prime
condition of its existence--then its process of interpreting them is but
reflecting (as it were) in consciousness these outer relations by which the
inner ones were originally produced. Granting that, as a matter of fact, an
objective macrocosm exists, and if we can prove or render probable that
this objective macrocosm is _of itself_ sufficient to evolve a subjective
microcosm, I do not see any the faintest reason for the latter to conclude
that a self-conscious intelligence is inherent in the former, merely
because it is able to trace in the macrocosm some of those orderly
objective relations by which its own corresponding subjective relations
were originally produced. If it is said that it is impossible to conceive
how, apart from mind, the orderly objective relations themselves can ever
have originated, I reply that this is merely to shift the ground of
discussion to that which occupied us in the last section: all we are now
engaged upon is,--Granting that the existence of such orderly relations is
actual, whether with or without mind to account for them; and granting also
that these relations are _of themselves_ sufficient to produce
corresponding subjective relations; then the mere fact of our conscious
intelligence being able to discover numerous and complex outer relations
answering to those which they themselves have caused in our intelligence,
does not warrant the latter in concluding that the causal connection
between intelligence and non-intelligence has ever been reversed--that
these outer relations in turn are caused by a similar conscious
intelligence. How such a thing as a conscious intelligence is possible is
another and wholly unanswerable question (though not more so than that as
to the existence of force and matter, and would not be rendered less so by
merging the fact in a hypothetical Deity); but granting, as we must, that
such an entity does exist, and supposing it to have been evolved by natural
causes, then it would appear incontestably to follow, that whether or not
objective existence is presided over by objective mind, our subjective mind
would _alike_ and _equally_ require to read in the facts of the external
world an indication, whether true or false, of some such presiding agency.
The subjective mind being, by the supposition, but the obverse aspect of
the sum total of such among objective relations as have had a share in its
production, when, as in observation and reflection, this obverse aspect is
again inverted upon its die, it naturally fits more or less exactly into
all the prints.
§ 34. This last illustration, however, serves to introduce us to another
point. The supposed evidence from which the existence of mind in nature is
inferred does not always depend upon such minute correspondences between
subjective method and objective method as the illustration suggests. Every
natural theologian has experienced more or less difficulty in explaining
the fact, that while there is a tolerably general similarity between the
contrivances due to human thought and the apparent contrivances in nature
which he regards as due to divine thought, the similarity is nevertheless
_only_ general. For instance, if a man has occasion to devise any
artificial appliance, he does so with the least possible cost of labour to
himself, and with the least possible expenditure of material. Yet it is
obvious that in nature as a whole no such economic considerations obtain.
Doubtless by superficial minds this assertion will be met at first with an
indignant denial: they have been accustomed to accumulate instances of this
very principle of economy in nature; perhaps written about it in books, and
illustrated it in lectures,--totally ignoring the fact that the instances
of economy in nature bear no proportion at all to the instances of
prodigality. Conceive of the force which is being quite uselessly expended
by all the wind-currents which are at this moment blowing over the face of
Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dissipated during the
secular cooling of this single planet. Feebly try to think of what the sun
is radiating into space. If it is retorted that we are incompetent to judge
of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this is but to abandon the
argument from economy whenever it is found untenable: we presume to be
competent judges of almighty purposes so long as they appear to imitate our
own; but so soon as there is any divergence observable, we change front. By
thus selecting all the instances of economy in nature, and disregarding all
the vastly greater instances of reckless waste, we are merely laying
ourselves open to the charge of an unfair eclecticism. And this formal
refutation of the argument from economy admits of being further justified
in a strikingly substantial manner; for if all the examples of economy in
nature that were ever observed, or admit being observed, were collected
into one view, I undertake to affirm that, without exception, they would be
found to marshal themselves in one great company--the subjects whose law is
_survival of the fittest_. One question only will I here ask. Is it
possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, after due
consideration, to withstand the fact that the solitary exceptions to the
universal prodigality so painfully conspicuous in nature are to be found
where there is also to be found a full and adequate physical explanation of
their occurrence?
But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars wherein the
modes and the means of the supposed divine intelligence differ from those
of its human counterpart. Comparative anatomists can point to organic
structures which are far from being theoretically perfect: even the mind of
man in these cases, notwithstanding its confessed deficiencies in respect
both of cognitive and cogitative powers, is competent to suggest
improvements to an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all-wise! And
what shall we say of the numerous cases in which the supposed purposes of
this intelligence could have been attained by other and less roundabout
means? In short, not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is admitted, even
by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties of reconciling,
even approximately, the supposed processes of divine thought with the known
processes of human thought are quite insuperable. The fact is expressed by
such writers in various ways,--_e.g._, that it would be presumptuous in man
to expect complete conformity in all cases; that the counsels of God are
past finding out; that his ways are not as our ways, and so on. Observing
only, as before, that in thus ignoring adverse cases natural theologians
are guilty of an unfair eclecticism, it is evident that all such
expressions concede the fact, that even in those provinces of nature where
the evidence of superhuman intelligence appears most plain, the resemblance
of its apparent products to those of human intelligence consists in a
general approximation of method rather than in any precise similarity of
particulars: the likeness is generic rather than specific.
Now this is exactly what we should expect to be the case, if the similarity
in question be due to the cause which the present section endeavours to set
forth. If all natural laws are self-evolved, and if human intelligence is
but a subjective photograph of certain among their interrelations, it seems
but natural that when this photograph compares itself with the whole
external world from parts of which it was taken, its subjective lights and
shadows should be found to correspond with some of the objective lights and
shadows much more perfectly than with others. Still there would doubtless
be sufficient general conformity to lead the thinking photograph to
conclude that the great world of objective reality, instead of being the
_cause_ of such conformity as exists, was itself the _effect_ of some
common cause,--that it too was of the nature of a picture. Dropping the
figure, if it is true that human intelligence has been evolved by natural
law, then in view of all that has been said it must now, I think, be
tolerably apparent, _that as by the hypothesis human intelligence has
always been required to think and to act in conformity with law, human
intelligence must at last be in danger of confusing or identifying the fact
of action in conformity with law with the existence and the action of a
self-conscious intelligence. Reading then in external nature innumerable
examples of action in conformity with law, human intelligence falls back
upon the unwarrantable identification, and out of the bare fact that law
exists in nature concludes that beyond nature there is an Intelligent
Lawgiver._
§ 35. From what has been said in the last five sections, it manifestly
follows that all the varied phenomena of the universe not only may, but
must, depend upon the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
matter.[23] Be it remembered that the object of the last three sections was
merely to "_facilitate conception_" of the fact that it does not at all
follow, because the phenomena of external nature admit of being
intelligently inquired into, therefore they are due to an intelligent
cause. The last three sections are hence in a manner parenthetical, and it
is of comparatively little importance whether or not they have been
successful in their object; for, from what went before, it is abundantly
manifest that, whether or not the subjective side of the question admits of
satisfactory elucidation, there can be no doubt that the objective side of
it is as certain as are the fundamental axioms of science. It does not
admit of one moment's questioning that it is as certainly true that all the
exquisite beauty and melodious harmony of nature follow as necessarily and
as inevitably from the persistence of force and the primary qualities of
matter, as it is certainly true that force is persistent, or that matter is
extended and impenetrable. No doubt this generalisation is too vast to be
adequately conceived, but there can be equally little doubt that it is
necessarily true. If matter and force have been eternal, so far as human
mind can soar it can discover no need of a superior mind to explain the
varied phenomena of existence. Man has truly become in a new sense the
measure of the universe, and in this the latest and most appalling of his
soundings, indications are returned from the infinite voids of space and
time by which he is surrounded, that his intelligence, with all its noble
capacities for love and adoration, is yet alone--destitute of kith or kin
in all this universe of being.
* * * * *