Chapter IV

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.

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.

§ 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.

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.