Note 8 — SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS. (continued 2)

To avoid burdening the text, I have omitted another criticism which may be made on Locke's argument. "Triangle" is a word by which we designate a certain figure, one of the properties of which is that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles. In other words, any figure which does not exhibit this property is not that figure which we designate a triangle. Hence, when Locke says he cannot conceive of a triangle which does not present this property, it may be answered that his inability arises merely from the fact that any figure which fails to present this property is not a figure to which the term "triangle" can apply. Thus viewed, however, the illustration would obviously be absurd, for the same reason that the question of the clown is absurd, "Can you think of a horse that is just like a cow?" What Locke evidently means is, that we cannot conceive of any geometrical figure which presents all the other properties of a triangle without also presenting the property in question. Now, even admitting, with Locke, that it is as inconceivable that the entity known to us as Matter should possess the property of causing thought as it is that the figure which we term a triangle should posses the property of containing more than two right angles, still it remains, for the purposes of Locke's supposed theistic demonstration, to prove that it is an inconceivable for the entity which we call Mind not to be due to another Mind, as it is for a triangle not to contain, other than two right angles. But, further, even if it were possible to prove this, the demonstration would make as much against Theism as in favour of it; for if, as the illustration of the triangle implies, we restrict the meaning of the word "Mind" to an entity one of whose essential qualities is that it should be caused by another Mind, the words "Supreme and Uncaused Mind" involve a contradiction in terms, just as much as would the words "A square triangle having four right angles." It would, therefore, seem that if we adhere to Locke's argument, and pursue it to its conclusion, the only logical outcome would be this:—Seeing that by the word "Mind," I expressly connote the quality of derivation from a prior Mind, as a quality belonging no less essentially to Mind than the quality of presenting two right angles belongs to a triangle; therefore, whatever other attributes I ascribe to the First Cause, I must clearly exclude the attribute Mind; and hence, whatever else such a Cause may be, it follows from my argument that it certainly is—Not Mind.