THE THEOLOGICAL BEARING OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY.
That necessary truth is progressive;--that science is the idealization
of facts, and that this process goes on from age to age, and advances
with the advance of scientific discovery;--these are doctrines which
I have endeavoured to establish and to elucidate. If these doctrines
are true, they are so important that I may be excused should I return
to them again and again, and trace their consequences in various
directions. Especially I would examine the bearing of these doctrines
upon our religious philosophy. I have hitherto abstained in a great
measure from discussing religious doctrines; but such a reserve carried
too far must deprive our philosophy of all completeness. No philosophy
of science can be complete which is not also a philosophy of the
universe; and no philosophy of the universe can satisfy thoughtful
men, which does not include a reference to the power by which the
universe came to be what it is. Supposing, then, such a reference to be
admitted, let us see what aspect our doctrines give to it.
1. (_How can there be necessary truths concerning the actual
universe?_)--In looking at the bearing of our doctrine on the
philosophy of the universe, we are met by a difficulty, which is
indeed, only a former difficulty under a new aspect. When we are come
to the conclusion that science consists of facts idealized, we are led
to ask, How this can be? _How can_ facts be idealized? How can that
which is a fact of external observation become a result of internal
thought? How can that which was known _à posteriori_ become known _à
priori_? How can the world of things be identified with the world
of thoughts? How can we discover a necessary connexion among mere
phenomena?
Or to put the matter otherwise: How is it that the deductions of the
intellect are verified in the world of sense? How is it that the truths
of science obtained _à priori_ are exemplified in the general rules of
facts observed _à posteriori_? How is it that facts, in science, always
do correspond to our ideas?
I have propounded this paradox in various forms, because I wish it
to be seen that it is, at first sight, a real, not merely a verbal
contradiction, or at least a difficulty. If we can discover the
solution of this difficulty in any one form, probably we can transpose
the answer so as to suit the other forms of the question.
2. Suppose the case to be as I have stated it; that in some sciences at
least, laws which were at first facts of observation come to be seen as
necessary truths; and let us see to what this amounts in the several
sciences.
It amounts to this: the truths of Geometry, such as we discern them by
the exercise of our own thoughts, are always verified in the world of
observation. The laws of space, derived from our Ideas, are universally
true in the external world.
In the same way, as to number: the laws or truths respecting number,
which are deduced from our Idea of Number, are universally true in the
external world.
In the same way, as to the science which deals with matter and force:
the truths of which I have spoken as derived from Ideas:--that
action is equal to reaction; and that causes are measured by their
effects;--are universally verified in all the laws of phenomena of the
external world, which are disclosed by the science of Mechanics.
In the same way with regard to the composition and resolution of bodies
into their elements; the truths derived from our Idea of Matter:--that
no composition or resolution can increase or diminish the quantity
of matter in the world, and that the properties of compounds are
determined by their composition;--are truths derived from Ideas of
quantity of matter, and of composition and resolution; but these truths
are universally verified when we come to the facts of Chemistry.
In the same way it is a truth flowing from the Ideas of the Kinds of
things, (as the possible subject of general propositions expressed in
language,) that the kinds of things must be definite; and this law is
verified whenever we express general propositions in general terms: for
instance, when we distinguish species in Mineralogy.
3. This last example may appear to most readers doubtful. I have
purposely pursued the enumeration till I came to a doubtful example,
because it is, and I conceive always will be, impossible to extend this
general view to _all_ the Sciences. On the contrary, this doctrine
applies at present to only a very few of the sciences, even in the eyes
of those who hold the existence of ideal truths. The doctrine extends
at present to a few only of the sciences, even if it extend to one
or two besides those which have been mentioned--Geometry, Mechanics,
Chemistry, Mineralogy: and though it may hereafter appear that Ideal
Truths are possible and attainable for a few other sciences, yet the
laws disclosed by sciences which cannot be reduced to ideal elements
will, I conceive, always very far outnumber those which can be so
reduced. The great body of our scientific knowledge will always be
knowledge obtained by mere observation, not knowledge obtained by the
use of theories alone.
4. The survey of the history and philosophy of the Sciences which we
have attempted in previous works enables us to offer a sort of estimate
of the relative portions of science which have and which have not
thus been idealized. For the Aphorisms[317] which we have collected
from that survey, contain Axioms which may be regarded as the Ideal
portions of the various sciences; and the inspection of that series of
aphorisms will show us to how such a portion of science, anything of
this axiomatic or ideal character can he applied. These Axioms are the
Axioms of Geometry (Aphorism XXVI); of Arithmetic (XXXVI); of Causation
(XLVII); of a medium for the sensation of secondary qualities (LVIII),
and their measure (LXIX); of Polarity (LXXII); of Chemical Affinity
(LXXVI); of Substance (LXXVII); of Atoms (LXXIX).
Have we any axioms in the sciences which succeed these in our survey,
as Botany, Zoology, Biology, Palæontology?
There is the Axiom of Symmetry (LXXX); of Kind, (already in some
measure spoken of, (LXXXIII)); of Final Cause (CV); of First Cause
(CXVI).
5. (_Small extent of necessary truth._)--It is easily seen how small
a portion of each of these latter sciences is included in these
axioms: while, with regard to the sciences first mentioned, the Axioms
include, in a manner, the whole of the science. The science is only
the consequence of the Axioms. The whole science of Mechanics is only
the development of the Axioms concerning action and reaction, and
concerning cause and its measures, which I have mentioned as a part of
our Ideal knowledge.
In fact, beginning from Geometry and Arithmetic, and going through
the sciences of Mechanics, of Secondary Qualities, and of Chemistry,
onwards to the sciences which deal with Organized Beings, we find that
our ideal truths occupy a smaller and smaller share of the sciences
in succession, and that the vast variety of facts and phenomena
which nature offers to us, is less and less subject to any rules or
principles which we can perceive to be necessary.
But still, that there are principles,--necessary principles, which
prevail universally even in these higher parts of the natural
sciences,--appears on a careful consideration of the axioms which I
have mentioned:--that in symmetrical natural bodies the similar parts
are similarly affected;--that every event must have a cause;--that
there must be a First Cause, and the like.
6. It being established, then, that in the progress of science,
facts are idealized--that _à posteriori_ truths become _à priori_
truths;--that the world of things is identified with the world of
thoughts to a certain extent;--to an extent which grows larger as we
see into the world of things more clearly; the question recurs which I
have already asked: How can this be?
How can it be that the world without us is thus in some respects
identical with the world within us?--that is our question.
7. (_How did things come to be as they are?_)--It would seem that we
may make a step in the solution of this question, if we can answer this
other: How did the world without us and the world within us come to be
what they are?
To this question, two very different answers are returned by those who
do and those who do not believe in a Supreme Mind or Intelligence, as
the cause and foundation of the world.
Those who do not believe that the world has for its cause and
foundation a Supreme Intelligence, or who do not connect their
philosophy with this belief, would reply to our inquiry, that the
reason why man's thoughts and ideas agree with the world is, that they
are borrowed from the world; and that the persuasion that these Ideas
and truths derived from them have any origin except the world without
us, is an illusion.
On this view I shall not now dwell; for I wish to trace out the
consequences of the opposite view, that there exists a Supreme Mind,
which is the cause and foundation of the universe. Those who hold this,
and who also hold that the human mind can become possessed of necessary
truths, if they are asked how it is that these necessary truths are
universally verified in the material world, will reply, that it is
so because the Supreme Creative-Mind has made it so to be:--that the
truths which exist or can be generated in man's mind agree with the
laws of the universe, because He who has made and sustains man and the
universe has caused them to agree:--that our Ideas correspond to the
Facts of the world, and the Facts to our Ideas, because our Ideas are
given us by the same power which made the world, and given so that
these can and must agree with the world so made.
8. (_View of the Theist_).--This, in its general form, would be the
answer of the _theist_, (so we may call him who believes in a Supreme
Intelligent Cause of the world and of man,) to the questions which we
have propounded--the perplexity or paradox which we have tried to bring
into view. But we must endeavour to trace this view--this answer--more
into detail.
If a Supreme Intelligence be the cause of the world and of the Laws
which prevail among its phenomena, these Laws must exist as Acts of
that Intelligence--as Laws caused by the thoughts of the Supreme
Mind--as Ideas in the Mind of God. And then the question would be, How
we are to conceive these thoughts, these Ideas, to be at the same time
Divine and human:--to be at the same time Ideas in the Divine Mind, and
necessary truths in the human mind; and this is the question which I
would now inquire into.
9. (_Is this Platonism?_)--To the terms in which the inquiry is now
propounded it may be objected that I am taking for granted the Platonic
doctrine, that the world is constituted according to the Ideas of the
Divine Mind. It may be said that this doctrine is connected with gross
extravagancies of speculation and fiction, and has long been obsolete
among sound philosophers.
To which I reply, that if such doctrines have been pushed into
extravagancies, with _them_ I have nothing to do, nor have I any
disposition or wish to revive them. But I do not conceive the doctrine,
to the extent to which I have stated it, to be at all obsolete:--that
the Cause and Foundation of the Universe is a Divine Mind: and from
that doctrine it necessarily follows, that the laws of the Universe are
in the Ideas of the Divine Mind.
I would then, as I have said, examine the consequences of this
doctrine, in reference to the question of which I have spoken. And
in order to do this, it may help us, if we consider separately the
bearing of this doctrine upon separate portions of our knowledge of
the universe;--separately its bearing upon the laws which form the
subject-matter of different sciences:--if we take particular human
Ideas, and consider what the Divine Ideas must be with regard to each
of them.
10. (_Idea of Space._)--Let us take, in the first place, the Idea
of Space. Concerning this Idea we possess necessary truths; namely,
the Axioms of Geometry; and, as necessarily resulting from them, the
whole body of Geometry. And our former inquiry, as narrowed within the
limits of this Idea, will be, How is it that the truths of Geometry--_à
priori_ truths--are universally verified in the observed phenomena of
the universe? And the theist's answer which we have given will now
assume this form:--This is so because the Supreme Mind has constituted
and constitutes the universe according to the Idea of Space. The
universe conforms to the Idea of Space, and the Idea of Space exists
in the human mind;--is necessarily evoked and awakened in the human
mind existing in the universe. And since the Idea of Space, which is
a constituent of the universe, is also a constituent of the human
mind, the consequences of this Idea in the universe and in the human
mind necessarily coincide; that is, the _spacial_ Laws of the universe
necessarily coincide with the _spacial_ Science which man elaborates
out of his mind.
11. To this it may be objected, that we suppose the Idea of Space in
the Divine Mind (according to which Idea, among others, the universe is
constituted,) to be identical with the Idea of Space in the human mind;
and this, it may be urged, is too limited and material a notion of the
Divine Mind to be accepted by a reverent philosophy.
I reply, that I suppose the Divine Idea of Space and the human Idea
of Space to coincide, _only so far_ as the human Idea goes; and
that the Divine Idea may easily have so much more luminousness and
comprehensiveness as Divine Ideas may be supposed to have compared with
human. Further, that this Idea of Space, the first of the Ideas on
which human science is founded, is the most luminous and comprehensive
of such Ideas; and there are innumerable other Ideas, the foundations
of sciences more or less complete, which are extremely obscure and
limited in the human mind, but which must be conceived to be perfectly
clear and unlimitedly comprehensive in the Divine Mind. And thus, the
distance between the human and the Divine Mind, even as to the views
which constitute the most complete of the human sciences, is as great
in our view as in any other.
12. That the Idea of Space in the human mind, though sufficiently clear
and comprehensive to be the source of necessary truths, is far too
obscure and limited to be regarded as identical with the Divine Idea,
will be plain to us, if we call to mind the perplexities which the
human mind falls into when it speculates concerning space infinite.
An Intelligence in which all these perplexities should vanish by the
light of the Idea itself, would be infinitely elevated in clearness and
comprehensiveness of intellectual vision above human intelligence, even
though its Idea of Space should coincide with the human Idea as far as
the human Idea goes.
I do not shrink from saying, therefore, that the Idea of Space which
is a constituent of the human mind existing in the universe is, as far
as it goes, identical with the Idea of Space which is a constituent of
the universe. And this I give as the answer to the question, How it is
that the necessary truths of Geometry universally coincide with the
relations of the phenomena of the universe? And this doctrine, it is
to be remembered, carries us to the further doctrine, that the Idea of
Space in the human mind is, so far as it goes, coincident with the Idea
of Space in the Divine Mind.
13. (_Idea of Time._)--What I have said of the Idea of Space, may
be repeated, for the most part, with regard to the Idea of Time;
except that the Idea of Time, as such, does not give rise to a large
collection of necessary truths, such as the propositions of Geometry.
Some philosophers regard Number as a modification or derivative of
the Idea of Time. If we accept this view, we have, in the Science of
Arithmetic, a body of necessary truths which flow from the Idea of
Time. But this doctrine, whichever way held, does not bear much on
the question with which we are now concerned. That which we do hold
is, that the Idea of Time in the human mind is, so far as it goes,
coincident with the Idea of Time in the Divine Mind: and that this
is the reason why the events of the universe, as contemplated by us,
conform to necessary laws of succession: while at the same time we must
suppose that all the perplexities in the Idea of Time which embarrass
the human mind--the perplexities, for instance, which arise from
contemplating a past and a future eternity, are, in the Divine Mind,
extinguished in the Light of the Idea itself.
Space and Time have, and have generally been regarded as having,
peculiar prerogatives in our speculations concerning the constitution
of the universe. We see and perceive all things as subject to the laws
of Space and Time; or rather (for the term _Law_ does not here satisfy
us), as being and happening _in_ space and _in_ time: and probably most
persons will have no repugnance to the doctrine that the Divine Mind,
as well as the human, so regards them, and has so constituted them and
us that they _must_ be so regarded. Space and Time are human Ideas
which include all objects and events, and are the foundation of all
human Science. And we can conceive that Space and Time are also Divine
Ideas which the Divine Mind causes to include all objects and events,
and makes to be the foundation of all existence. So far as these Ideas
go, our doctrine is not difficult or new.
14. (_Ideas of Force and Matter._)--But what are we to say of the
Ideas which come next in the survey of the sciences, Force and Matter?
These are human Ideas--the foundations of several sciences--of the
mechanical sciences in particular. But are they the foundations of
necessary truths? Have we necessary truths respecting Force and Matter?
We have endeavoured to prove that we have:--that certain fundamental
propositions in the Science of Mechanics, although, historically
speaking, they were discovered by observation and experience, are yet,
philosophically speaking, necessary propositions. And being such, the
facts of the universe must needs conform to these propositions; and
the reason why they do so, we hold, in this as in the former case,
to be, that these Ideas, Force and Matter, are Ideas in the Divine
Mind:--Ideas according to which the universe is, by the Divine Cause,
constituted and established.
15. That Force and Matter are Ideas existing in the Divine Mind, and
coincident with the Idea of Force and Matter in the human mind, as
far as these go, is a doctrine which is important in our view of the
universe in relation to its Cause and Foundation.
These are very comprehensive and fundamental Ideas, and there are
certain universal relations among external things which rest upon these
Ideas. The two, Force and Matter, are, in a certain way, the necessary
antithesis and opposite condition each of the other. Force (that is
Mechanical Force, Pressure or Impulse) cannot act without matter to
act upon. Matter (that is Body) cannot exist without Force by which
it is kept in its place, by which its parts are held together, and by
which it excludes every other body from the place which it occupies. We
cannot conceive Force without Matter, or Matter without Force; the two
are, as Action and Reaction, necessarily co-ordinate and coexistent.
In every part of the universe they must be so. In every part of the
universe, if there be material objects, there must be Force; if there
be Force, there must be material objects.
Our apprehension of this universal necessity arises from our having the
Ideas of Force and Matter which are human Ideas. The actuality of this
universal antithesis arises from the Ideas of Force and Matter being
Ideas in the Divine Mind;--Ideas realized as a part of the fundamental
constitution of the universe.
That Force and Matter are thus among the Ideas in the Divine Mind,
and that, with them, the Ideas of Force and Matter in the human mind,
regarded in their most general form, agree so far as they go, is
another step in the doctrine which I am trying to unfold. That the
Ideas of Force and Matter in the Divine Mind are such as to banish by
their own light, innumerable contradictions and perplexities which
darken these Ideas in the human mind, is to be supposed: and thus the
Divine Mind is infinitely luminous and comprehensive compared with the
human mind.
16. (_Creation of Matter._)--It may perhaps be urged, as an objection
to this doctrine, that it asserts Matter to be a necessary constituent
of the universe, and thus involves the assertion of the eternity of
Matter. But in reality the doctrine asserts Matter to be eternal, only
in the way in which time and space are eternal. Whether we hold that
there was a creation before which time and space did not exist,--with
the poet who says
Ere Time and Space _were_ Time and Space were _not_,--
is not essential to our present inquiry. Certainly we cannot conceive
such a state, and therefore cannot reason about it. We have no occasion
here to speak of Creation, nor have spoken of it. What I have said
is, that Space and Time, Force and Matter are universal elements,
principles, constituents, of the universe as it is--and necessary
Ideas of the human mind existing in that universe. If there ever
was a Creation before which Matter did not exist, it was a Creation
before which Force did not exist. And in the universe as it is, the
two are necessarily co-existent in the human thought because they are
co-existent in the Divine Thought which makes the world.
We apply then to Force and Matter the doctrine--the Platonic doctrine,
if any one please so to call it,--that the world is constituted
according to the Ideas of the Divine Mind, and that the human mind
apprehends the inward and most fundamental relations of the universe by
sharing in some measure of those same Ideas.
17. (_Platonic Ideas._)--But do we go on with Plato to extend this
doctrine of Ideas to all the objects and all the aspects of objects
which constitute the material universe? Do we say with Plato that there
is not only an Idea of a Triangle by conformity to which a figure is a
triangle, but an Idea of Gold, by conformity to which a thing is gold,
and Idea of a Table, by conformity to which a thing is a table?
We say none of these things. We say nothing which at all approaches to
them. We do not say that there is an Idea of a Triangle, the archetype
of all triangles; we only say that man has an Idea of Space, which is
an Idea of a fundamental reality; and that therefore from this Idea
flow real and universal truths--about triangles and other figures.
Still less do we say that we have an archetypal Idea of Gold, or of a
Metal in general, or of any of the kinds of objects which exist in the
world. Here we part company with Plato altogether.
But have we any Ideas at all with regard to objects which we thus speak
of as separable into Kinds? We can have knowledge,--even exact and
general knowledge, that is, science--with regard to such things--with
regard to plants and metals--gold and iron. Do we possess in our minds,
with regard to those objects, any Ideas, any universal principles, such
as we possess with regard to geometrical figures or mechanical actions?
And if so, are those human Ideas verified in the universe, as the Ideas
hitherto considered are? and do they thus afford us further examples
of Ideas in the human mind which are also Ideas in the Divine Mind,
manifested in the constitution of the universe?
18. (_Idea of Kinds._)--We answer _Yes_ to these questions, on this
ground:--the objects that exist in the world, plants and metals, gold
and iron, for example, in order that they may be objects with regard
to which we can have any knowledge, must be objects of distinct and
definite thought. Plant must differ from metal, gold from iron, in
order that we may know anything at all about any of these objects.
The differences by which such objects differ need not necessarily
be expressed by _definitions_, as the difference of a triangle and
a square are expressed; but there must manifestly _be_ fixed and
definite differences, in order that we may have any knowledge about
them. These Kinds of things must be so far distinct and definite, as
to be objects of distinct and definite thought. The _Kinds_ of natural
objects must differ, and we must think of things as of different Kinds,
in order that we may know anything about natural objects. Living in a
world in which we exercise our Intellect upon the natural objects which
surround us, we must regard them as distinct from each other in Kind.
We must have an Idea of Kinds of natural objects.
19. The Idea of a Kind involves this principle: That where the Kind
differs the Properties may differ, but so far as the Kind is the same
the Properties contemplated in framing the notion of each Kind are the
same. Gold cannot have the distinctive properties of Iron without being
Iron.
In the case of human knowledge, each Kind is marked by a _word_--a
_name_; and the doctrine that the notion of the Kind must be so applied
that this same Kind of object shall have the same properties, has
been otherwise expressed by saying that Names must be so applied that
general propositions may be possible. We must so apply the name of Gold
that we may be able to say, gold has a specific gravity of a certain
amount and is ductile in a certain degree.
20. But this condition of the names of Kinds,--that they must be
such that general propositions about these Kinds of objects shall be
possible;--is it a necessary result of the Idea of Kind? And if so, can
the Idea of Kind, thus implying the use of language, and a condition
depending on the use of language, be an Idea in the Divine as well as
in the human mind? Can it be, in this respect, like the Ideas which we
have already considered, Space and Time, Force and Matter?
We cannot suppose that the Ideas which exist in the Divine Mind imply,
in the Supreme Intelligence, the need of language, like human language.
But there is no incongruity in supposing that they imply that which
we take as the _condition_ of such language as we speak of, namely,
distinct thought. There is nothing incongruous in supposing that the
Supreme Intelligence regards the objects which exist in the universe as
distinct in Kind: and that the Idea of Kind in the human mind agrees
with the Idea of Kind in the Divine Mind, as far as it goes. And as
we have seen, the Idea of Properties is correlative and coexistent
with the Idea of Kind, so that the one changing, the other changes
also. There is nothing incongruous in supposing that the Divine Mind
manifests in the universe of which it is the Cause and Foundation,
these two, its co-ordinate Ideas: and that the human mind sees that
these two Ideas are co-ordinate and coexistent, in virtue of its
participating in these Ideas of the Divine Mind. The universe is full
of things which man perceives do and must differ correspondingly in
kind and in properties; and this is so, because the Ideas of various
Kinds and various Properties are part of the scheme of the universe in
the Divine Mind.
21. That the Ideas of Kinds and Properties as coordinate and
interdependent, though common, to a certain extent, to the human and
the Divine Mind, are immeasurably more luminous, penetrating and
comprehensive in the Divine than in the human mind, is abundantly
evident. In fact, though man assents to such axioms as these,--that
the Properties of Things depend upon their Kinds, and that the Kinds
of Things are determined by their Properties,--yet the nature of
connexion of Kinds and Properties is a matter in which man's mind is
all but wholly dark, and on which the Divine Mind must be perfectly
clear. For in how few cases--if indeed in any one--can we know what
is the essence of any Kind;--what is the real nature of the connexion
between the character of the Kind and its Properties! Yet on this point
we must suppose that the Divine Intellect, which is the foundation of
the world, is perfectly clear. Every Kind of thing, every genus and
species of object, appears to Him in its essential character, and its
properties follow as necessary consequences. He sees the essences of
things through all time and through all space; while we, slowly and
painfully, by observation and experiment, which we cannot idealize or
can idealize only in the most fragmentary manner, make out a few of the
properties of each Kind of thing. Our Science here is but a drop in the
ocean of that truth, which is known to the Divine Mind but kept back
from us; but still, that we can know and do know anything, arises from
our taking hold of that principle, human as well as Divine, that there
are differences of Kinds of things, and corresponding differences of
their properties.
22. (_Idea of Substance._)--I shall not attempt to enumerate all
the Ideas which, being thus a part of the foundation of Science in
the human mind and of Existence in the universe, are shown to be at
the same time Ideas in the Divine and in the human mind. But there
is one other of which the necessary and universal application is so
uncontested, that it may well serve further to exemplify our doctrine.
In all reasonings concerning the composition and resolution of the
elements of bodies, it is assumed that the quantity of matter cannot be
increased or diminished by anything which we can do to them. We have an
Idea of _Substance_, as something which may have its qualities altered
by our operations upon it, but cannot have its quantity changed.
And this Idea of Substance is universally verified in the facts of
observation and experiment. Indeed it cannot fail to be so; for it
regulates and determines the way in which we interpret the facts of
observation and experiment. It authorized the philosopher who was asked
the weight of a column of smoke to reply, "Subtract the weight of the
ashes from that of the fuel, and you have the weight of the smoke:"
for in virtue of that idea we assume that, in combustion, or in any
other operation, all the substance which is subjected to the operation
must exist in the result in some form or other. Now why may we
reasonably make this assumption, and thus, as it were, prescribe laws
to the universe? Our reply is, Because Substance is one of the Ideas
according to which the universe is constituted. The material things
which make up the universe are substance according to this Idea. They
are substance according to this Idea in the Divine Mind, and they are
substance according to this Idea in the human mind, because the human
mind has this Idea, to a certain extent, in common with the Divine
Mind. In this, as in the other cases, the Idea must be immeasurably
more clear and comprehensive in the Divine Mind than in the human.
The human Idea of substance is full of difficulty and perplexity: as
for instance; how a substance can assume successively a solid, fluid
and airy form; how two substances can be combined so as entirely to
penetrate one another and have new qualities: and the like. All these
perplexities and difficulties we must suppose to vanish in the Divine
Idea of Substance. But still there remains in the human, as in the
Divine Idea, the source and root of the universal truth, that though
substances may be combined or separated or changed in form in the
processes of nature or of art, no portion of substance can come into
being or cease to be.
23. (_Idea of Final Cause._)--There is yet one other Idea which I shall
mention, though it is one about which difficulties have been raised,
since the consideration of such difficulties may be instructive:
the Idea of a purpose, or as it is often termed, a _Final Cause_,
in organized bodies. It has been held, and rightly[318], that the
assumption of a Final Cause of each part of animals and plants is as
inevitable as the assumption of an efficient cause of every event.
The maxim, that in organized bodies nothing is _in vain_, is as
necessarily true as the maxim that nothing happens _by chance_. I have
elsewhere[319] shown fully that this Idea is not deduced from any
special facts, but is assumed as a law governing all facts in organic
nature, directing the researches and interpreting the observations
of physiologists. I have also remarked that it is not at variance
with that other law, that plants and that animals are constructed
upon general plans, of which plans, it may be, we do not see the
necessity, though we see how wide is their generality. This Idea of a
purpose,--of a Final Cause,--then, thus supplied by our minds, is found
to be applicable throughout the organic world. It is in virtue of this
Idea that we conceive animals and plants as subject to _disease_; for
disease takes place when the parts do not fully answer their _purpose_;
when they do not do what they _ought_ to do. How is it then that we
thus find an Idea which is _supplied_ by our own minds, but which is
_exemplified_ in every part of the organic world? Here perhaps the
answer will be readily allowed. It is because this Idea is an Idea of
the Divine Mind. There _is_ a Final Cause in the constitution of these
parts of the universe, and therefore we can interpret them by means of
the Idea of Final Cause. We can _see_ a purpose, because there _is_
a purpose. Is it too presumptuous to suppose that we can thus enter
into the Ends and Purposes of the Divine Mind? We willingly grant and
declare that it would be presumptuous to suppose that we can enter into
them to any but a very small degree. They doubtless go immeasurably
beyond our mode of understanding or conceiving them. But to a certain
extent we _can_ go. We can go so far as to see that they _are_ Ends and
Purposes. It is _not_ a vain presumption in us to suppose that we know
that the eye was made for seeing and the ear for hearing. In this the
most pious of men see nothing impious: the most cautious philosophers
see nothing rash. And that we can see thus far into the designs of
the Divine Mind, arises, we hold, from this:--that we have an Idea of
Design and of Purpose which, so far as it is merely _that_, is true;
and so far, is Design and Purpose in the same sense in the one case and
in the other.
I am very far from having exhausted the list of Fundamental Ideas which
the human mind possesses and which have been made the foundations of
Sciences. Of all such Ideas, I might go on to remark, that they are of
universal validity and application in the region of external Facts. In
all the cases I might go on to inquire, How is it that man's Ideas,
developed in his internal world, are found to coincide universally
with the laws of the external world? By what necessity, on what ground
does this happen? And in all cases I should have had to reply, that
this happens, and must happen, because these Ideas of the human mind
are also Ideas of the Divine Mind according to which the universe is
constituted. Man has these thoughts, and sees them verified in the
universe, because God had these thoughts and exemplifies them in the
universe.
24. (_Human immeasurably inferior to Divine_).--But of all these Ideas,
I should also have to remark, that the way in which man possesses them
is immeasurably obscure and limited in comparison with the way in
which God must be supposed to possess them. These human Ideas, though
clear and real as far as they go, in every case run into obscurity and
perplexity, from which the Ideas of the Divine Mind must be supposed to
be free. In every case, man, by following the train of thought involved
in each Idea, runs into confusion and seeming contradictions. It may
be that by thinking more and more, and by more and more studying the
universe, he may remove some of this confusion and solve some of these
contradictions. But when he has done in this way all that he can, an
immeasurable region of confusion and contradiction will still remain;
nor can he ever hope to advance very far, in dispelling the darkness
which hangs over the greater part of the universe. His knowledge, his
science, his Ideas, extend only so far as he can keep his footing
in the shallow waters which lie on the shore of the vast ocean of
unfathomable truth.
25. But further, we have not, even so, exhausted our estimate of the
immeasurable distance between the human mind and the Divine Mind:--very
far from it: we have only spoken of the smallest portion of the region
of truth,--that about which we have Sciences and Scientific Ideas.
In that region alone do we claim for man the possession of Ideas the
clearness of which has in it something divine. But how narrow is the
province of Science compared with the whole domain of human thought! We
may enumerate the sciences of which we have been speaking, and which
involve such Ideas as I have mentioned. How many are they? Geometry,
Arithmetic, Chemistry, Classification, Physiology. To these we might
have added a few others; as the sciences which deal with Light, Heat,
Polarities; Geology and the other Palætiological Sciences; and there
our enumeration at present must stop. For we can hardly as yet claim to
have Sciences, in the rigorous sense in which we use the term, about
the Vital Powers of man, his Mental Powers, his historical attributes,
as Language, Society, Arts, Law, and the like. On these subjects few
philosophers will pretend to exhibit to us Ideas of universal validity,
prevailing through all the range of observation. Yet all these things
proceed according to Ideas in the Divine Mind by which the universe,
and by which man, is constituted. In such provinces of knowledge,
at least, we have no difficulty in seeing or allowing how blind man
is with regard to their fundamental and constituent principles; how
weak his reason; how limited his view. If on some of the plainest
portions of possible knowledge, man have Ideas which may be regarded
as coincident to a certain extent with those by which the universe is
really constituted; still on by far the largest portion of the things
which most concern him, he has no knowledge but that which he derives
from experience, and which he cannot put in so general a form as to
have any pretensions to rest it upon a foundation of connate Ideas.
26. (_Science advances towards the Divine Ideas._)--But there is yet
one remark tending somewhat in the opposite direction, which I must
make, as a part of the view which I wish to present. Science, in the
rigorous sense of the term, involves, we have said, Ideas which to a
certain extent agree with the Ideas of the Divine Mind. But science in
that sense is progressive; new sciences are formed and old sciences
extended. Hence it follows that the Ideas which man has, and which
agree with the Ideas of the Divine Mind, may receive additions to their
number from time to time. This may seem a bold assertion; yet this is
what, with due restriction, we conceive to be true. Such Ideas as we
have spoken of receive additions, in respect of their manifestation
and development. The Ideas, the germ of them at least, were in the
human mind before; but by the progress of scientific thought they are
unfolded into clearness and distinctness. That this takes place with
regard to scientific Ideas, the history of science abundantly shows.
The Ideas of Space and Time indeed, were clear and distinct from the
first, and accordingly the Sciences of Geometry and Arithmetic have
existed from the earliest times of man's intellectual history. But the
Ideas upon which the Science of Mechanics depends, having been obscure
in the ancient world, are become clear in modern times. The Ideas of
Composition and Resolution have only in recent centuries become so
clear as to be the basis of a definite science. The Idea of Substance
indeed was always assumed, though vaguely applied by the ancients; and
the Idea of a Design or End in vital structures is at least as old as
Socrates. But the Idea of Polarities was never put forth in a distinct
form till quite recently; and the Idea of Successive Causation, as
applied in Geology and in the other Palætiological Sciences, was never
scientifically applied till modern times: and without attempting to
prove the point by enumeration, it will hardly be doubted that many
Scientific Ideas are clear and distinct among modern men of science
which were not so in the ancient days.
Now all such scientific Ideas are, as I have been urging, points on
which the human mind is a reflex of the Divine Mind. And therefore in
the progress of science, we obtain, not indeed new points where the
human mind reflects the Divine, but new points where this reflection is
clear and luminous. We do not assert that the progress of science can
bring _into existence_ new elements of truth in the human mind, but it
may bring them _into view_. It cannot add to the characters of Divine
origin in the human mind, but it may add to or unfold the _proofs_ of
such an origin. And this is what we conceive it does. And though we
do not conceive that the Ideas which science thus brings into view
are the most important of man's thoughts in other respects, yet they
may, and we conceive do, supply a proof of the Divine nature of the
human mind, which proof is of peculiar cogency. What other proofs may
be collected from other trains of human thought, we shall hereafter
consider.
27. (_Recapitulation._)--This, then, is the argument to which we
have been led by the survey of the sciences in which we have been
engaged:--That the human mind can and does put forth, out of its
natural stores, duly unfolded, certain Ideas as the bases of scientific
truths: These Ideas are universally and constantly verified in the
universe: And the reason of this is, that they agree with the Ideas
of the Divine Mind according to which the universe is constituted and
sustained: The human mind has thus in it an element of resemblance to
the Divine Mind: To a certain extent it looks upon the universe as
the Divine Mind does; and therefore it is that it can see a portion
of the truth: And not only can the human mind thus see a portion of
the truth, as the Divine Mind sees it: but this portion, though at
present immeasurably small, and certain to be always immeasurably small
compared with the whole extent of truth which with greater intellectual
powers, he might discern, nevertheless may increase from age to age.
This is then, I conceive, one of the results of the progress of
scientific discovery--the Theological Result of the Philosophy of
Discovery, as it may, I think, not unfitly be called:--That by every
step in such discovery by which external facts assume the aspect of
necessary consequences of our Ideas, we obtain a fresh proof of the
Divine nature of the human mind: And though these steps, however far
we may go in this path, can carry us only a very little way in the
knowledge of the universe, yet that such knowledge, so far as we do
obtain it, is Divine in its kind, and shows that the human mind has
something Divine in its nature.
The progress by which external facts assume the aspect of necessary
consequences of our Ideas, we have termed the idealization of facts;
and in this sense we have said, that the progress of science consists
in the Idealization of Facts. But there is another way in which the
operation of man's mind may be considered--an opposite view of the
identification of Ideas with Facts; which we must consider, in order to
complete our view of the bearing of the progress of human thought upon
the nature of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 317: Given in the _Novum Organon Renovatum_.]
[Footnote 318: _Nov. Org. Ren._ Aph. cv.]
[Footnote 319: _Hist. Sc. Id._ b. ix. c. vi.]