Note 115 — Chapter III · THE CREATION.

"Natural Theology," p. 23. The practice so common among writers of Natural Theology of fixing upon one line of proof of the being of God as the only valid method, and then disparaging and endeavoring to show the invalidity of all others, is highly reprehensible. The strongest arguments employed by the Atheists have been culled from the writings of these eccentric theologians. In the celebrated public discussion between Mr. Holyoake, the leader of the Secularists in England, and Mr. Brindley, "On the existence of God," the most telling arguments of Mr. Holyoake were drawn from the standard works on Natural Theology. How much more rational and commendable is the course of the philosopher: "There are different proofs of the existence of God. The consoling result of my studies is that these different proofs are more or less strict in form, but they have all a depth of truth which needs only to be disengaged and put in a clear light in order to give incontestable authority. Every thing leads to God. There is no bad way of arriving at Him, but we go to Him by different paths."—Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. ii. p. 418.

The argument for the being of a God in its completeness is at once Ontological and Cosmological, Etiological and Teleological. It is in the concurrence and synthesis of these separate but harmonious lines of proof that we have an unanswerable demonstration. For ourselves, we are convinced, with Neitzsch, that the Ontological proof is first and last; they who seek to invalidate this cut the ground from under all the rest.