THEISM. (continued 7)

Chalmers and Erskine on the Argument from Conscience.

The moral argument was, as was to be expected, a very favourite one with Dr Chalmers, and his way of stating it was as remarkable for its simplicity and directness as for its eloquence. "Had God," he asks, "been an unrighteous Being Himself, would He have given to the obviously superior faculty in man so distinct and authoritative a voice on the side of righteousness? Would He have so constructed the creatures of our species as to have planted in every breast a reclaiming witness against Himself? Would He have thus inscribed on the tablet of every heart the sentence of His own condemnation; and is this not just as likely, as that He should have inscribed it in written characters on the forehead of each individual? Would He so have fashioned the workmanship of His own hands; or, if a God of cruelty, injustice, and falsehood, would He have placed in the station of master and judge that faculty which, felt to be the highest in our nature, would prompt a generous and high-minded revolt of all our sentiments against the Being who formed us? From a God possessed of such characteristics, we should surely have expected a differently-moulded humanity; or, in other words, from the actual constitution of man, from the testimonies on the side of all righteousness, given by the vicegerent within the heart, do we infer the righteousness of the Sovereign who placed it there."—Natural Theology, vol. i. pp. 323, 324. This argument of Dr Chalmers, like all other arguments from conscience, implies the soundness of the reasoning by which God has been attempted to be shown to be the intelligent cause or author of the universe; and, on that perfectly legitimate presupposition, it seems to me as irresistible as it is simple. An intelligent but unrighteous God would never have made a creature better than himself and endowed with admiration of what is most opposite to himself, the reverse and counterpart of his own character.

The argument as stated by the late Mr Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, is no less simple and direct: "When I attentively consider what is going on in my conscience, the chief thing forced on my notice is, that I find myself face to face with a purpose—not my own, for I am often conscious of resisting it—but which dominates me and makes itself felt as ever present, as the very root and reason of my being.... This consciousness of a purpose concerning me that I should be a good man—right, true, and unselfish—is the first firm footing I have in the region of religious thought: for I cannot dissociate the idea of a purpose from that of a Purposer, and I cannot but identify this Purposer with the Author of my being and the Being of all beings; and further, I cannot but regard His purpose towards me as the unmistakable indication of His own character."—'The Spiritual Order, and other Papers,' pp. 47, 48.

Associationist Theory of the Origin of Conscience.

I have indicated to some extent my reasons for regarding this theory as unsatisfactory in an article entitled "Associationism and the Origin of Moral Ideas," in 'Mind,' No. III. (July 1876). In the treatise of M. Carrau, 'La Morale Utilitaire,' the various forms of the theory are examined with fairness and penetration.

Chalmers and Bain on the Pleasure of Malevolence.

Dr Chalmers devotes a chapter of his 'Natural Theology' to the illustration of "the inherent pleasure of the virtuous, and misery of the vicious affections." I do not think the psychological doctrine of that chapter unexceptionable; but, at the same time, I cannot understand on what ground Prof. Bain imagines that it "implies doubts as to the genuineness of the pleasures of malevolence," and virtually denies that "the feeling of gratified vengeance is a real and indisputable pleasure."—See Emotions and the Will, pp. 187-189. The very passage which Prof. Bain quotes is quite inconsistent with this view. It is as follows: "The most ordinary observer of his own feelings, however incapable of analysis, must be sensible, even at the moment of wreaking the full indulgence of his resentment on the man who has provoked or injured him, that all is not perfect within; but that in this, and indeed in every other malignant feeling, there is a sore burden of disquietude, an unhappiness tumultuating in the heart, and visibly pictured in the countenance. The ferocious tyrant who has only to issue forth his mandate, and strike dead at pleasure the victim of his wrath, with any circumstance too of barbaric caprice and cruelty which his fancy, in the very waywardness of passion unrestrained and power unbounded, might suggest to him—he may be said through life to have experienced a thousand gratifications, in the solaced rage and revenge which, though ever breaking forth on some new subject, he can appease again every day of his life by some new execution. But we mistake it if we think otherwise than that, in spite of these distinct and very numerous, nay, daily gratifications, if he so choose, it is not a life of fierce internal agony notwithstanding."

The sentence which precedes these words leaves no doubt that Prof. Bain's interpretation of them is incorrect. "True, it is inseparable from the very nature of a desire, that there must be some enjoyment or other at the time of its gratification; but, in the case of these evil affections, it is not unmixed enjoyment." The following passage is, however, still more explicit: "There is a certain species of enjoyment common to all our affections. It were a contradiction in terms to affirm otherwise; for it were tantamount to saying, that an affection may be gratified without the actual experience of a gratification. There must be some sensation or other of happiness at the time when a man attains that which he is seeking for; and if it be not a positive sensation of pleasure, it will at least be the sensation of a relief from pain, as when one meets with the opportunity of wreaking upon its object that indignation which had long kept his heart in a tumult of disquietude. We therefore would mistake the matter if we thought that a state even of thorough and unqualified wickedness was exclusive of all enjoyment, for even the vicious affections must share in that enjoyment which inseparably attaches to every affection at the moment of its indulgence. And thus it is that even in the veriest Pandemonium might there be lurid gleams of ecstasy and shouts of fiendish exultation—the merriment of desperadoes in crime, who send forth the outcries of their spiteful and savage delight when some deep-laid villany has triumphed, or when, in some dire perpetration of revenge, they have given full satisfaction and discharge to the malignity of their accursed nature. The assertion, therefore, may be taken too generally, when it is stated that there is no enjoyment whatever in the veriest hell of assembled outcasts; for even there, might there be many separate and specific gratifications. And we must abstract the pleasure essentially involved in every affection at the instant of its indulgence, and which cannot possibly be disjoined from it, ere we see clearly and distinctively wherein it is that, in respect of enjoyment, the virtuous and vicious affections differ from each other. For it is true that there is a common resemblance between them; and that, by the universal law and nature of affection, there must be some sort of agreeable sensation in the act of their obtaining that which they are seeking after. Yet it is no less true that, did the former affections bear supreme rule in the heart, they would brighten and tranquillise the whole of human existence; whereas, had the latter the entire and practical ascendancy, they would distemper the whole man, and make him as completely wretched as he was completely worthless." Dr Chalmers, then, did not call in question the pleasures of malevolence.

History of the Moral Proof.

Conscience has from the earliest times and among the rudest peoples exercised great influence in the formation of religious belief. Moral reasons weighed with men in their origination and elaboration of religion long before they expressed them in abstract propositions and logical forms. The historical proof of this truth is so ample that it would require a volume to do it justice: all literatures might be made to yield contributions to it.

The simplest form of the moral argument, and the one which has been most generally employed, is that of an inference from the moral law to a moral lawgiver. Closely associated with it are those forms which rest on the emotions involved in or accompanying virtue and guilt. These are the directest modes of exhibiting what Chalmers calls "the theology of conscience, which is not only of wider diffusion but of far more practical influence than the theology of academic demonstration."

Raymond of Sebonde, in a work which I have previously had occasion to mention, was perhaps the first to present it in a more artificial form. He argues thus: Man is a responsible being who can neither reward nor punish himself, and who must consequently be under a superior being who will reward and punish him, unless his life is to be regarded as vain and purposeless—unless even the whole of external nature, which is subject to man and exists for his sake, is to be pronounced aimless and useless. External nature, however, is seen to be throughout orderly and harmonious; how can we suppose the moral world to be disorderly and chaotic? As the eye corresponds to things visible, the ear to things audible, the reason to things intelligible, so conscience must correspond to a judgment which implies some one to pronounce it, and to a retribution which implies some one to inflict it. But this some one must be absolutely just; he must be omniscient, as possessing a perfect knowledge of all human actions, and a thorough insight into their moral character; omnipotent, to execute his judgments; and, in a word, must be the most perfect of all beings—i.e., God.

Kant's argument is thus summarised by the Archbishop of York: "The highest good of man consists of two parts, the greatest possible morality and happiness. The former is the demand of his spiritual, the latter of his animal nature. The former only, his morality, is within his own power; and while, by persevering virtue, he makes this his personal character, he is often compelled to sacrifice his happiness. But since the desire of happiness is neither irrational nor unnatural, he justly concludes either that there is a Supreme Being who will so guide the course of things (the natural world, not of itself subject to moral laws) as to render his holiness and happiness equal, or that the dictates of his conscience are unjust and irrational. But the latter supposition is morally impossible; and he is compelled, therefore, to receive the former as true."

Akin to this argument are those which are based on man's desire of good. Proclus, in his 'Theology of Plato,' argues to the following effect: All beings desire the good; but this good cannot be identical with the beings which desire it, for then these beings would be themselves the good, and would not desire what they already possessed. The good is antecedent, therefore, to all the beings who desire it. Since the time of Proclus to the present many have argued that there must be a God because the heart demands one to satisfy its desire of love, or holiness, or happiness; few, perhaps, have done so with more ingenuity of logic or fervour of belief than John Norris in "Contemplation and Love, or the Methodical Ascent of the Soul to God by steps of Meditation," and in "An Idea of Happiness" ('Collection of Miscellanies').

A contemporary theologian, Principal Pirie of Aberdeen, has laid great stress on an argument which we may assign to this class. "No argument," he says, "can be valid which founds on innate ideas, or which embraces considerations so entirely beyond the range of human apprehension that we cannot positively be assured whether they be true or false. Yet we have no hesitation in saying that there is an argument a priori for the existence and attributes of a God, which is involved in the very nature of our feelings, and which therefore tells upon the faith of the whole human race, even when they are altogether ignorant of it logically, as existing in the form of a proposition. It makes no appeal, however, to profound metaphysical speculations, and is consequently plain and intelligible to any one capable of exercising reason at all. It rests on the principle which both our feelings and our experience demonstrate to be true, that every primary and essential desire of the human mind has a co-relative—or, in other words, a something to gratify it—existing in the nature of things. The mode in which the development of this principle constitutes an argument a priori for the existence and attributes of a God we now proceed to explain. Every human being feels from the moment in which he comes into existence, and through his whole subsequent history, that he is in himself a weak, helpless creature. As we have said, this feeling begins from the very beginning of our conscious existence. The appeals of the infant for aid are made continually.... As we advance to childhood, youth, and manhood, our sense of power gradually increases. We are conscious that under certain circumstances we can do something for ourselves. Yet this capability, we are also conscious in its very exercise, does not depend on us for its continuance. We cannot preserve to ourselves fortune, health, or even life, for a single moment. Yet all these things we desire, and desire with the utmost earnestness, and desire as a primary tendency of our minds. We may not indeed always clothe such desire in words—we may not put it into the form of a proposition; but that it exists in every mind as a feeling, and practically operates upon every individual, is as certain as our existence itself, and is indeed manifest every moment in the efforts which we make to preserve these and all other forms of what we believe to involve happiness. In this desire, consequently, we have the voice of nature speaking, and commanding us to use such efforts. Of ourselves we know that they would be insufficient. The results depend upon causes over which we have no control. Our own efforts, we are conscious, are only means which nature has appointed us to employ, but their success depends on circumstances altogether beyond our power. It is, as has been said, the voice of nature telling us that each of our desires has a co-relative, through which it may be fully gratified by the use of the proper means. This co-relative, in the case of intense and permanent happiness, can only be found in the existence of a God, omnipotent, omniscient, true, just, benevolent, and eternal, in whom we repose entire confidence. No other assumption could by possibility satisfy our desire for the highest and permanent happiness now and for ever. For to realise thoroughly the argument, it is to be observed that our desire is for the highest and permanent happiness. It is not imperfect or temporary happiness merely which we desire, though we may be compelled to be content with this, if we cannot procure more. It is the highest happiness possible for our natures, and that without end. Now, if such happiness is to be attained at all, it can only be obtained through a God possessed of the attributes which we have enumerated."—Natural Theology, pp. 71-74.

Prof. Wace, in the second course of his Boyle Lectures—Christianity and Morality (1876)—has exhibited, with considerable detail, and in an ingenious and eloquent manner, the testimony which conscience bears to a personal God, a moral Creator, and a moral Governor. A glimpse of his general idea may be obtained from the following words: "In our endeavour to trace in the conscience, and in the personal experience of individuals, the roots of our faith in a God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, we have now advanced two considerable steps beyond our first and simplest sense of right and wrong. We have seen that this sense, when allowed to speak with its full imperative and personal force, arouses in us, as it aroused in the Psalmist, a sense of our being in contact with a personal and righteous Will. This conviction necessarily involves, as it involved in the writer of the 139th Psalm, the further belief that an authority which has this claim upon our obedience in every particular of our conduct, in all our thoughts and acts, must at the same time be the author and source of our whole constitution; that the righteous eyes which now penetrate, whether through darkness or through light, to the very depths of our souls, must also have seen our 'substance, yet being imperfect,' and that in their book must all our members have been written. If it be the imperative and paramount law of our nature to obey our conscience, and to make moral perfection, or spiritual excellence, our ultimate aim, we cannot but conclude that our whole nature, and the whole order of things in which we are placed, is in the hands of a moral power; and that, as we are fearfully and wonderfully made for righteous and reasonable ends, it must be by a righteous and reasonable Will that we are made. The conscience of man must never be omitted from our view of the design of man; and it is only when we contemplate the adjustment of his whole nature to the purposes of the loftiest moral development, that the argument from design acquires its full strength.... The apprehension of a Power which establishes righteousness as the law of life, involves also the conviction that it is able to enforce that law, and to render it finally and everywhere supreme. The conviction, indeed, is one of faith and not of demonstration; and the Scriptures, no less than life, are full of instances in which this faith is tried by the bitterest experience. Even prophets, as I have before observed, are at times driven to the cry that 'the law is slacked, and that judgment doth never go forth.' But the deepest instincts and necessities of conscience forbid the toleration of any such instinct of despair. If right were not essentially and ultimately might, I do not say—God forbid—that it would not still claim the supreme allegiance of the soul; but life would be a bitter mockery and an inexplicable cruelty. Not merely to be under an imperative law to pursue that which cannot be realised, but to be bound to such a fruitless pursuit by every noble and lovely influence—to be condemned in moral and spiritual realities to the torments of a Tantalus—this is a conception of human life against which the whole soul rebels. Accordingly, a God of all righteousness must of necessity be regarded as a God of all power.... That 'categorical imperative' of the conscience, on which the German philosopher insisted, is imperative in demanding not only a God, but an Almighty God."

Defects in the Physical World.

Lucretius (ii. 177-v. 196) has dwelt on the arrangements which render one zone of the earth torrid and others frigid—on the extent of barren heaths and rocks, of sands and seas—on the prevalence of unseasonable weather, storms, and tempests—and on the abundance of noxious herbs and destructive animals, &c.—as evidences that the earth was faulty and ill made, and could not be the work of a Divine Intelligence. Whether it was well or ill made appears to have been a favourite subject of dispute between the Epicureans and Stoics. Lactantius (De Ira Dei, c. xiii.) reports, and attempts to answer, the objections which the Epicureans and Academics were accustomed to urge against the constitution of the physical world. In Cudworth's 'Intellectual System,' vol. iii., pp. 464-8, Bentley's 'Folly of Atheism,' pt. i., Serm. 8; Derham's 'Astro-Theology,' book vii., c. 2, &c., such objections are discussed. In the remarks which I made on the subject in the lecture, I have had chiefly in view the opinions of Comte, J. S. Mill, and J. J. Murphy (Scientific Bases of Faith, c. xvi.)

Mr Mill's charges against nature are very vigorously and graphically expressed. "Next to the greatness of these cosmic forces, the quality which most forcibly strikes every one who does not avert his eyes from it, is their perfect and absolute recklessness. They go straight to their end, without regarding what or whom they crush on the road. Optimists, in their attempts to prove that 'whatever is, is right,' are obliged to maintain, not that Nature ever turns one step from her path to avoid trampling us into destruction, but that it would be very unreasonable in us to expect that she should. Pope's 'Shall gravitation cease when you go by?' may be a just rebuke to any one who should be so silly as to expect common human morality from Nature. But if the question were between two men, instead of between a man and a natural phenomenon, that triumphant apostrophe would be thought a rare piece of impudence. A man who should persist in hurling stones or firing cannon when another man 'goes by,' and, having killed him, should urge a similar plea in exculpation, would very deservedly be found guilty of murder. In sober truth, nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are Nature's everyday performances. Killing, the most criminal act recognised by human laws, Nature does once to every being that lives, and in a large proportion of cases after protracted tortures, such as only the greatest monsters whom we read of ever purposely inflicted on their living fellow-creatures. If, by an arbitrary reservation, we refuse to account anything murder but what abridges to a certain term supposed to be allotted to human life, Nature also does this to all but a small percentage of lives, and does it in all the modes, violent or insidious, in which the worst human beings take the lives of one another. Nature impales men, breaks them as if on the wheel, casts them to be devoured by wild beasts, burns them to death, crushes them with stones like the first Christian martyr, starves them with hunger, freezes them with cold, poisons them by the quick or slow venom of her exhalations, and has hundreds of other hideous deaths in reserve, such as the ingenious cruelty of a Nabis or a Domitian never surpassed. All this Nature does with the most supercilious disregard both of mercy and of justice, emptying her shafts upon the best and noblest indifferently with the meanest and worst—upon those who are engaged in the highest and worthiest enterprises, and often as the direct consequence of the noblest acts,—and it might almost be imagined as a punishment for them. She mows down those on whose existence hangs the wellbeing of a whole people, perhaps the prospects of the human race for generations to come, with as little compunction as those whose death is a relief to themselves, or a blessing to those under their noxious influence. Such are Nature's dealings with life. Even when she does not intend to kill, she inflicts the same tortures in apparent wantonness. In the clumsy provision which she has made for that perpetual renewal of animal life, rendered necessary by the prompt termination she puts to it in every individual case, no human being ever comes into the world but another human being is literally stretched on the rack for hours or days, not unfrequently issuing in death. Next to taking life (equal to it, according to a high authority) is taking the means by which we live; and Nature does this, too, on the largest scale and with the most callous indifference. A single hurricane destroys the hopes of a season; a flight of locusts, or an inundation, desolates a district; a trifling chemical change in an edible root starves a million of people. The waves of the sea, like banditti, seize and appropriate the wealth of the rich and the little all of the poor with the same accompaniments of stripping, wounding, and killing, as their human antitypes. Everything, in short, which the worst men commit either against life or property, is perpetrated on a larger scale by natural agents. Nature has noyades more fatal than those of Carrier; her explosions of fire-damp are as destructive as human artillery; her plague and cholera far surpass the poison-cups of the Borgias. Even the love of 'order,' which is thought to be a following of the ways of Nature, is, in fact, a contradiction of them. All which people are accustomed to deprecate as 'disorder' and its consequences, is precisely a counterpart of Nature's ways. Anarchy and the Reign of Terror are overmatched in injustice, ruin, and death, by a hurricane and a pestilence."—Three Essays, pp. 28-31.

The opinion that the world would be either physically or morally improved were gravitation to cease when men went by, were fire not always to burn and were water occasionally to refuse to drown, were laws few and miracles numerous, may safely be left to refute itself. Therefore, let me simply set over against Mr Mill's censure of Nature Wordsworth's praise:—

No best possible Created System.

Dante has given magnificent expression to the truth that no created system can be absolutely perfect:—

Defects in the Organic World.

The objections to final causes from alleged defects in the organic world have been answered with wisdom and success by M. Janet, in his 'Causes Finales,' pp. 313-348.

The views of Professor Helmholtz as to the defects of the eye will be found stated at length in his popular lectures on scientific subjects. The chief defects enumerated are: 1. Chromatic aberration, connected with 2. Spherical aberration and defective centring of the cornea and lens, together producing the imperfection known as astigmatism; 3. Irregular radiation round the images of illuminated points; 4. Defective transparency; 5. Floating corpuscles, and 6. The "blind spot" with other gaps in the field of vision. "The eye has every possible defect that can be found in an optical instrument, and even some which are peculiar to itself." "It is not too much to say that if an optician wanted to sell me an instrument which had all these defects, I should think myself quite justified in blaming his carelessness in the strongest terms, and giving him back his instrument. Of course I shall not do this with my eyes, and shall be only too glad to keep them as long as I can—defects and all. Still, the fact that, however bad they may be, I can get no others, does not at all diminish their defects, so long as I maintain the narrow but indisputable position of a critic on purely optical grounds."

Helmholtz himself, however, points out that the defects of the eye are "all so counteracted, that the inexactness of the image which results from their presence very little exceeds, under ordinary conditions of illumination, the limits which are set to the delicacy of sensation by the dimensions of the retinal cones;" that "the adaptation of the eye to its function is most complete, and is seen in the very limits which are set to its defects." In fact, were the eye more perfect as an instrument of optical precision, it would be less perfect as an eye. Its absolute defects are practical merits. To be a useful eye it must be neither a perfect telescope nor a perfect microscope, but a something which can readily serve many purposes, and which can be supplemented by many instruments. The delicate finish of a razor renders it unfit for cutting wood. All man's senses and organs are inferior to those possessed by some of the lower animals, but the inferiority is of a kind which is a real and vast advantage. It is of a kind which allows them to be put to a greater variety of uses than could more perfect senses and organs. It is the very condition of their capacity to be utilised in manifold directions by an inventive and progressive reason. Further, no man can see at all merely with a so-called perfect optical instrument. He must have in addition the imperfect instrument, composed of a soft, watery, animal substance, and designated the eye. There is that in the eye which immeasurably transcends all mere physics and chemistry, all human mechanism and contrivance; there is life; there is vision.

Epicurean Dilemma.

The Epicurean dilemma has been often dealt with. I shall content myself with quoting Mr Bowen's remarks on the subject: "Omnipotence and benevolence are apparently very simple and very comprehensive terms, though few are more vaguely used. The former means a power to do everything; but this does not include the ability to do two contradictory things at the same moment, or to accomplish any metaphysical impossibility. Thus, the Deity cannot cause two and two to make five, nor place two hills near each other without leaving a valley between them. The impossibility in such cases does not argue a defect of power, but an absurdity in the statement of the case to which the power is to be applied. A statement which involves a contradiction in terms does not express a limitation of ability, because in truth it expresses nothing at all; the affirmation and the denial, uttered in the same breath, cancel each other, and no meaning remains. All metaphysical impossibilities can be reduced to the formula, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be at the same moment, as this would be an absurdity—that is, an absurd or meaningless statement. Thus, virtue cannot exist without free agency, because a free choice between good and evil is involved in the idea of virtue, so that the proposition means no more than this—that what contains freedom cannot be without freedom. We cannot choose between good and evil, unless good and evil are both placed before us—that is, unless we know what these words mean; and we cannot express our choice in action, unless we are able to act—that is, unless we have the power of doing either good or evil. In the dilemma quoted from Epicurus, a contradiction in terms is held to prove a defect of power, or to disprove omnipotence; the dilemma, therefore, is a mere logical puzzle, like the celebrated one of Achilles and the tortoise.

"The meaning of benevolence appears simple enough; but it is often difficult to tell whether a certain act was or was not prompted by kind intentions. Strictly speaking, of course, benevolence is a quality of mind—that is, of will (bene volo) or intention, not of outward conduct. An action is said to be benevolent only by metaphor; it is so called, because we infer from it, with great positiveness, that the agent must have had benevolent intentions. We think that the motives are indicated by the act; but we may be mistaken. He who gives food to the hungry poor would be esteemed benevolent; but he may do it with a view to poison them. To strike for the avowed purpose of causing pain usually argues ill-will or a malignant design; but the blow may come from the kindest heart in the world, for the express purpose of benefiting him who receives it. In the present argument, Epicurus assumes that the presence of evil—that is, the outward fact—is enough to prove a want of benevolence, or even a malignant design, on the part of him who might have prevented it. But if by evil is here meant mere pain or suffering, whether proceeding from bodily or mental causes, we may boldly deny the inference. If pleasure or mere enjoyment is not the greatest good, if sometimes it is even inconsistent with the possession of a higher blessing, then a denial of it may be a proof of goodness instead of malice."—Metaphysical and Ethical Science, pp. 362, 363.

God and Duty.

"To such readers as have reflected on man's life; who understand that for man's wellbeing Faith is properly the one thing needful; how with it martyrs, otherwise weak, can cheerfully endure the shame and the cross—and without, worldlings puke up their sick existence by suicide in the midst of luxury: to such it will be clear that for a pure moral nature the loss of religious belief is the loss of everything.

"All wounds, the crush of long-continued destitution, the stab of false friendship and of false love, all wounds in thy so genial heart, would have healed again had not its life-warmth been withdrawn.

"Well mayest thou exclaim, 'Is there no God, then; but at best an absentee God, sitting idle, ever since the first Sabbath, at the outside of His universe and seeing it go?' 'Has the word Duty no meaning? is what we call Duty no Divine messenger and guide, but a false earthly phantasm made up of desire and fear?' 'Is the heroic inspiration we name Virtue but some passion; some bubble of the blood, bubbling in the direction others profit by?' I know not; only this I know, if what thou namest Happiness be our true aim, then are we all astray. 'Behold, thou art fatherless, outcast, and the universe is—the Devil's.'"—Carlyle.

Histories of the Theistic Proofs.

There are several histories of the proofs for the Divine existence. One of the earliest is Ziegler's 'Beiträge zur Geschichte des Glaubens an das Dasein Gottes' (1792). The best known, and perhaps the most interesting, is Bouchitté's 'Histoire des Preuves de l'Existence de Dieu' (Mémoires de l'Académie, Savants Étrangers, i.), written from the Krausean point of view. The 'Geschichte der Beweise für das Dasein Gottes bis zum 14 Jahrhundert' (1875), by Alfred Tyszka, and the 'Geschichte der Beweise für das Dasein Gottes von Cartesius bis Kant' (1876), by Albert Krebs, supplement each other. There are two very able articles—partly historical, but chiefly critical—on these proofs by Professor Köstlin in the 'Theol. Studien und Kritiken,' H. 4, 1875, and H. 1, 1876. The most conscientious, useful, and learned history of speculation regarding Deity is, so far as is known to me, the four-volumed work of Signor Bobba, 'Storia della Filosofia intorno all' Idea di Dio.'

On the history of the a priori proofs there may be consulted the treatise of Fischer, 'Der ontologische Beweis f. d. Dasein Gottes u. s. Geschichte,' 1852, and an article of Seydel, "Der gesch. Eintritt ontologischer Beweisführing," &c. (Tr. f. Ph. H. i. 1858). In Hase's 'Life of Anselm' (of which there is an English translation) there is a good account of Anselm's argument. There is also a translation of the 'Proslogion,' with Gaunilo's objections and Anselm's reply, in the 'Bibliotheca Sacra,' 1851. On the Cartesian proofs there is a special work by Huber, 'Die cartes. Beweise v. Dasein Gottes' (1854).

Hegel's 'Vorlesungen über d. Beweise f. d. Dasein Gottes' are of great interest and value in various respects; but his view of the historical succession of the proofs does not appear to me to be tenable.

A priori Proof not Proof from a Cause.

The philosophers and theologians who have supposed a priori proof to be proof from a cause or antecedent existence, have, of course, denied that there can be any a priori proof of the Divine existence. Aristotle laid down as a rule that demonstration must proceed from things prior to and the causes of the things to be demonstrated, and those who assented to this rule necessarily denied the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God. The assertion of Clemens of Alexandria that "God cannot be apprehended by any demonstrative science" is indubitable, if the view of demonstration on which he rests it be correct; "for such science is from things prior and more knowable, whereas nothing can precede that which is uncreated." It is a manifest contradiction to imagine that an eternal being is subsequent to any other being, or a perfect being dependent on any other being. Even mathematical demonstration, however, is not from causes; nor is there any reason for supposing that the order of knowledge is necessarily and universally the same as the order of existence.

It is by confounding demonstration erroneously understood in the manner indicated with proof in general that not a few persons have arrived at the conclusion that the existence of God cannot be proved at all, and have deemed preposterous assertions like that of Jacobi, "A God who can be proved is no God, for the ground of proof is necessarily above the thing proved by it," both profound and pious.

Some a priori Arguments.

I have treated of Clarke's argument in the 'Encyc. Brit.' art. "Samuel Clarke."

The demonstration of Dr Fiddes is contained in his 'Theologia Speculativa, or a Body of Divinity,' 2 vols., 1718-20. It consists of six propositions: 1. Something does now exist; 2. Something has existed eternally; 3. Something has been eternally self-existent; 4. What is self-existent must have all the perfections that exist anywhere or in any subject; 5. What is self-existent must have all possible perfections, and every perfection, in an infinite measure; 6. What has all possible perfections in an infinite measure is God. He proves his fourth proposition thus: "Since nothing can arise out of nothing, and since there can be no perfection but what has some subject of inherence, every perfection must have been eternally somewhere or other, or in one subject or other, into which it must be ultimately resolved, or else it could never have been at all; without admitting, what of all things we are the best able to conceive, an infinite progression of efficient causes—that is, an infinite series of beings derived one from another, without a beginning or any original cause at the head of the series. So that whatever perfections we observe in any being must have been originally and eternally in the self-existent being." On behalf of his fifth proposition he advances two arguments: 1. "All properties essentially follow the nature and condition of the subject, and must be commensurate to it. For this reason we say that wisdom, power, and goodness being attributes of an infinite subject, or one which is the substratum of one infinite attribute, these and all the other perfections belonging to it must be infinite also. Otherwise the same subject, considered as a subject, would be infinite in one respect, and yet finite in another; which, if it be not a contradiction, seems to border so near upon one that we cannot comprehend the possibility of it." 2. "A self-existent being as the subject of any perfection cannot limit itself; because it must necessarily have existed from all eternity what it is, and have been the same in all properties essentially inherent in it, antecedently to any act or volition of its own. Nor can such a being be limited by anything external to it; for, besides that self-existence necessarily implies independence, properties which are essential to any subject can admit of no increase or diminution or the least imaginable change, without destroying the essence itself of the subject. Nor yet can it be said that there is any impossibility in the nature of the thing that the perfections inhering in an infinite subject should be in the highest or even in an infinite degree. Indeed it is scarce possible for us (for the reasons already assigned) to conceive how they should be otherwise. Neither can any such impossibility arise from the nature of the perfections themselves. If, then, the perfections of a self-existent being cannot be limited by itself, nor by anything external to it, nor from any invincible repugnancy in the nature of the perfections themselves, I conclude that the self-existent being must not only have all possible perfections, but every perfection in an infinite degree."

The 'Demonstration of the Existence of God against Atheists,' by the Rev. Colin Campbell, Minister of the Parish of Ardchattan, 1667-1726, has been recently printed for private circulation from a MS. now deposited in the library of Edinburgh University. The editor has added to it a learned and admirable appendix. Mr Campbell's manner of proving that there is one, and but one, infinite Being, is as follows: "As everything which hath a beginning forces confession of one who hath none—because to produce is an action, and must presuppose an actor,—by the same force of reason, we must confess that whatever is limited, or made of such and such a limited nature, is limited by something which did limit it to be such a thing, and no other. For limit is an action, and confesseth an actor. So that there must be a being anterior to all limited beings, and, consequently, some being that is not at all limited, to evite the absurd progress of running infinitely upwards unlimited beings, without a single limiter. Now, an unlimited being is the same as to say an infinite being. And so, by the force of reason, we have a being which is eternal, which is infinite. There can be but one infinite, because, were there two or more, the one would limit the other; and so the infinite would be finite, the unlimited would be limited. Therefore, the unlimited, or infinite, must be one only; and that one purely single and uncompounded, else every part of the compound would limit the other parts, so that all the parts would be limited. And a whole whose parts are limited must be limited in the whole, it being impossible that a compound or conjunction of finites can, by addition, produce an infinite, unless you imagine this complex whole to consist partly of finites, and also of some infinite. But the one infinite part, if infinite, cannot leave place for any other finite to make it up, it being itself unlimited and infinite; and such an addition would speak it limited by the part which was added. And a thousand like absurdities would follow."

Wollaston's attempted demonstration is contained in the fifth section of his 'Religion of Nature Delineated' (1725). This is a common book, and the mere reference to it must suffice.

Moses Lowman's 'Argument to prove the Unity and Perfection of God a priori' was published in 1735, and reprinted, with a preface by Dr Pye Smith, containing an account of the author and his works, in the Cabinet Library of Scarce and Celebrated Tracts (1836). I reproduce the abstract which Dr Smith gave of this ingenious argument in his 'First Lines of Christian Theology:' "1. Positive existence is possible, for it involves no contradiction. 2. All possible existence is either necessary, which must be, and in its own nature cannot but be; or contingent, which may be or not be, for in neither case is a contradiction involved. 3. Some existence is necessary: for, if all existence were contingent, all existence might not be as well as might be; and that thing which might not be never could be without some other thing as the prior cause of its existence, since every effect must have a cause. If, therefore, all possible existence were contingent, all existence would be impossible; because the idea or conception of it would be that of an effect without a cause, which involves a contradiction. 4. Necessary existence must be actual existence: for necessary existence is that which must be and cannot but be—that is, it is such existence as arises from the nature of the thing in itself; and it is an evident contradiction to affirm that necessary existence might not be. 5. Necessary existence being such as must be and cannot but be, it must be always and cannot but be always; for to suppose that necessary existence could begin to be, or could cease to be—that is, that a time might be in which necessary existence would not be—involves a contradiction. Therefore, necessary existence is without beginning and without end—that is, it is eternal. 6. Necessary existence must be wherever any existence is possible: for all existence is either contingent or necessary; all contingent existence is impossible without necessary existence being previously as its cause, and wherever existence is possible it must be either of a necessary or a contingent being. Therefore, necessary existence must be wherever existence is possible—that is, it must be infinite. 7. There can be but one necessarily existent being; for two necessarily existent beings could in no respect whatever differ from each other—that is, they would be one and the same being. 8. The one necessarily existent being must have all possible perfections: for all possible perfections must be the perfections of some existence; all existence is either necessary or contingent; all contingent existence is dependent upon necessary existence; consequently, all possible perfections must belong either to necessary existence or to contingent existence—that is, to contingent beings, which are caused by and are dependent upon necessary being. Therefore, since there can be but one necessarily existent being, that being must have all possible perfections. 9. The one necessarily existent being must be a free agent; for contingent existence is possible, as the conception of it involves no contradiction; but necessary existence must be the cause or producing agent of contingent existence, otherwise contingent existence would be impossible, as an effect without a cause; and necessary existence as the cause of contingent existence does not act necessarily, for then contingent existence would itself be necessary, which is absurd as involving a contradiction. Therefore necessary existence, as the cause of contingent existence, acts not necessarily but freely—that is, is a free agent, which is the same thing as being an intelligent agent. 10. Therefore, there is one necessarily existent being, the cause of all contingent existence—that is, of all other existences besides himself; and this being is eternal, infinite, possessed of all possible perfections, and is an intelligent free agent—that is, this Being is God."

The demonstration of the Divine existence given by the Chevalier Ramsay is contained in the First Book of his 'Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion' (1748). It is as elaborately mathematical in form as the reasoning in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' and has continuous reference to that reasoning. It is impossible to give any distinct conception of its nature by a brief description.

The argument of Dr Hamilton, Dean of Armagh, is fully set forth in his 'Attempt to prove the Existence and Absolute Perfection of the Supreme Unoriginated Being, in a Demonstrative Manner' (1785). It assumes the "axiom" that "whatever is contingent, or might possibly have been otherwise than it is, had some cause which determined it to be what it is. Or in other words: if two different or contrary things were each of them possible, whichever of them took place, or came to pass, it must have done so in consequence of some cause which determined that it, and not the other, should take the place." The propositions which he endeavours to demonstrate are these: I. There must be in the universe some one being, at least, whose non-existence is impossible—whose existence had no cause, no beginning, and can have no end. II. The whole nature of the unoriginated being, or the aggregate of his attribute, is uncaused, and must be necessarily and immutably what it is; so that he cannot have any attribute or modification of his attributes but such as were the eternal and necessary concomitants of his existence. III. Whatever are the attributes of the unoriginated being, he must possess each of them unlimitedly, or in its whole extent, such as it is when considered in the abstract. IV. In whatever manner the unoriginated being exists or is present anywhere, he must in the like manner exist or be present everywhere. V. The unoriginated being is one individual uncompounded substance identically the same everywhere, and to which our ideas of whole and parts, magnitude or quantity, are not applicable. VI. The unoriginated being must necessarily possess intelligence and power unlimited, and all other natural attributes that are in themselves absolute perfections. VII. There is in the universe but one unoriginated being, who must therefore be the original fountain of all existence, and the first cause of all things. VIII. All things owe their existence ultimately to the power of the first cause operating according to his free will. IX. Almighty God, the first cause and author of all things, must be a Being of infinite goodness, wisdom, mercy, justice, and truth, and all other moral perfections, such as become the supreme author and governor of the universe.

THE END.

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