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to God, nor to ascribe them to any other being." Belief in God is not the conclusion of a demonstration, but the solution of a problem. Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 226— "either the whole question is assumed in starting, or the Infinite is not reached in concluding."

As a logical process this is indeed defective, since all logic as well as all observation depends for its validity upon the presupposed existence of God, and since this particular process, even granting the validity of logic in general, does not warrant the conclusion that God exists, except upon a second assumption that our abstract ideas of infinity and perfection are to be applied to the Being to whom argument has actually conducted us.

But although both ends of the logical bridge are confessedly wanting, the process may serve and does serve a more useful purpose than that of mere demonstration, namely, that of awakening, explicating, and confirming a conviction which, though the most fundamental of all, may yet have been partially slumbering for lack of thought.

Morell, Philos. Fragments, 177, 179-" We can, in fact, no more prove the existence of a God by a logical argument, than we can prove the existence of an external world; but none the less may we obtain as strong a practical conviction of the one, as the other." "We arrive at a scientific belief in the existence of God just as we do at any other possible human truth. We assume it, as a hypothesis absolutely necessary to account for the phenomena of the universe; and then evidences from every quarter begin to converge upon it, until, in process of time, the common sense of mankind, cultivated and enlightened by ever accumulating knowledge, pronounces upon the validity of the hypothesis with a voice scarcely less decided and universal than it does in the case of our highest scientific convictions."

Fisher, Essays on Supernat. Orig. of Christ'y, 572-“What then is the purport and force of the several arguments for the existence of God? We reply that these proofs are the different modes in which faith expresses itself and seeks confirmation. In them faith, or the object of faith, is more exactly conceived and defined, and in them is found a corroboration, not arbitrary but substantial and valuable, of that faith which springs from the soul itself. Such proofs, therefore, are neither on the one hand sufficient to create and sustain faith, nor are they on the other hand to be set aside as of no value." A. J. Barrett: "The arguments are not so much a bridge in themselves, as they are guys, to hold firm the great suspension-bridge of intuition, by which we pass the gulf from man to God. Or, while they are not a ladder by which we may reach heaven, they are the Ossa on Pelion, from whose combined height we may descry heaven." On the whole subject, see Cudworth, Intel. System of the Universe, 3: 42; Calderwood, Philos. of the Infinite, 150 sq.; Curtis, Human Element in Inspiration, 242; Peabody, in Andover Review, July, 1884; Hahn, History of the Arguments for the Existence of God.

CHAPTER III.

ERRONEOUS EXPLANATIONS OF THE FACTS.

Any correct explanation of the universe must postulate an intuitive knowledge of the existence of the external world, of self, and of God. The desire for scientific unity, however, has induced attempts to reduce these three factors to one, and according as one or another of the three has been regarded as the all-inclusive principle, the result has been Materialism, Idealism, or Pantheism.

I. MATERIALISM.

Materialism is that method of thought which gives priority to matter, rather than to mind, in its explanations of the universe. Upon this view, material atoms constitute the ultimate and fundamental reality of which all things, rational and irrational, are but combinations and phenomena. Force is regarded as a universal and inseparable property of matter.

The element of truth in materialism is the reality of second causes. Its error is in mistaking these second causes for first causes, and in supposing them able to account for their own existence, and for the existence of the universe.

Herschel says that these atoms, in recognizing each other in order to combine, show a great deal of presence of mind.' The monad of Leibnitz = 'parvus in suo genere deus. Deprive matter of force (impenetrability, motion, etc.), and you have only extension left. This makes matter space zero. The impossibility of finding in matter, regarded as mere atoms, any of the attributes of a cause, has led to a general abandonment of this old Materialism of Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Condillac, Holbach, Feuerbach, Büchner; and Materialistic Idealism has taken its place, which instead of regarding force as a property of matter, regards matter as a manifestation of force. See Lange, History of Materialism: Janet, Materialism; Fabri, Materialismus; Herzog, Encyclopædie, art.: Materialismus; but esp., Stallo, Modern Physics, 148–170.

In addition to the general error indicated above, we object to this system as follows:

1. In knowing matter, the mind necessarily judges itself to be a substance different in kind, and higher in rank, than the matter which it knows.

We here state simply an intuitive conviction. The mind, in using its physical organism and through it bringing external nature into its service, recognizes itself as different from and superior to matter. Martineau, quoted in Brit. Quar., April, 1882: 173– The inorganic and unconscious portion of the world, instead of being the potentiality of the organic and conscious, is rather its residual precipitate, formed as the indwelling Mind concentrates an intenser aim on the upper margin of the ordered whole, and especially on the inner life of the natures that can resemble him." Pres. Thos. Hill, in Bib. Sac., April, 1852: 353—“All that is really given by the act of sense-perception is the existence of the conscious self, floating in boundless space and boundless time, surrounded and sustained by boundless power. The material world, which we at first think the great reality, is only the shadow of a real being, which is immaterial." Harris,

Philosophical Basis of Theism, 317-"Imagine an infinitesimal being in the brain, watching the action of the molecules, but missing the thought. So science observes the universe, and misses God."

2. Since the mind's attributes of (a) continuous identity, (b) selfactivity, (c) unrelatedness to space, are different in kind and higher in rank than the attributes of matter, it is rational to conclude that the substance underlying mental phenomena is a substance different in kind and higher in rank than that which underlies material phenomena.

This is an argument from specific qualities to the nature of the substance underlying them. (a) Memory proves personal identity. This is not an identity of material atoms, for atoms change. The molecules that come cannot remember those that depart. Some immutable part in the brain? organized, or unorganized? organized decays; unorganized = soul. (b) Inertia shows that matter is not self-moving. It acts only as it is acted upon. A single atom would never move. Two portions are necessary, and these, in order to useful action, require adjustment by a power which does not belong to matter. Evolution of the universe inexplicable, unless matter were first moved by some power outside itself. See Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law, 92. (c) The highest activities of mind are independent of known physical conditions. Mind controls and subdues the body. It does not cease to grow when the growth of the body ceases. When the body nears dissolution, the mind often asserts itself most strikingly.

See Porter, Human Intellect, 22, 131, 132. McCosh, Christianity and Positivism, chap. on Materialism; Divine Government, 71-94; Intuitions, 140-145. Hopkins, Study of Man, 53-56; Morell, Hist. Philos., 318-334; Hickok, Rational Cosmology, 403; Theol. Eclectic, 6: 555; Appleton, Works, 1: 151-154; Calderwood, Moral Philosophy, 235; Ulrici, Leib und Seele, 688-725, and synopsis, in Bap. Quar., July, 1873: 380.

3. This common judgment that mind and matter are distinct substances must be regarded as conclusive, until it is scientifically demonstrated that mind is material in its origin and nature. But all attempts to explain the psychical from the physical, or the organic from the inorganic, are acknowledged failures. The most that can be claimed is, that psychical are always accompanied by physical changes, and that the inorganic is the basis and support of the organic. Although the precise connection between the mind and the body is unknown, the fact that the continuity of physical changes is unbroken in times of psychical activity renders it certain that mind is not transformed physical force.

The chemist can produce organic, but not organized, substances. The life cannot be produced from matter. Even in living things progress is secured only by plan. Multiplication of desired advantage, in the Darwinian scheme, requires a selecting thought; in other words the natural selection is artificial selection after all. John Fiske, Destiny of the Creature, 109–“ Cerebral physiology tells us that, during the present life, although thought and feeling are always manifested in connection with a peculiar form of matter, yet by no possibility can thought and feeling be in any sense the product of matter. Nothing could be more grossly unscientific than the famous remark of Cabanis, that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile. It is not even correct to say that thought goes on in the brain. What goes on the brain is an amazingly complex series of molecular movements, with which thought and feeling are in some unknown way correlated, not as effects or as causes, but as concomitants."

Leibnitz's "pre-established harmony" indicates the difficulty of defining the relation between mind and matter. See British Quarterly, Jan., 1874: art. by Herbert, on Mind and the Science of Energy; Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, sec. 56: "Two things, mind and nervous action, exist together, but we cannot imagine how they are related." See Review of Spencer's Psychology, in N. Englander, July, 1873. Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 120-"The passage from the physics of the brain to the facts of consciousness is unthinkable." Bain, Mind and Body, 131: No break in physical continuity. McCosh, Intuitions, 145; Talbot, in Bap. Quarterly, Jan., 1871: 1.

4. The materialistic theory, denying as it does the priority of spirit, can furnish no sufficient cause for the highest features of the existing universe, namely, its personal intelligences, its intuitive ideas, its moral progress, its beliefs in God and immortality.

Herbert, Modern Realism Examined: "Materialism has no physical evidence of the existence of consciousness in others. As it declares our fellow-men to be destitute of free volition, so it should declare them destitute of consciousness; should call them, as well as brutes, pure automata. If physics are all, there is no God, but there is also no man, existing." Some of the early followers of Descartes used to kick and beat their dogs, laughing meanwhile at their cries and calling them the "creaking of the machine." Huxley, who calls the brutes "conscious automata,” believes in the gradual banishment, from all regions of human thought, of what we call spirit and spontaneity: "A spontaneous act is an absurdity; it is simply an effect that is uncaused."

Diman, Theistic Argument, 348-" Materialism can never explain the fact that matter is always combined with force. Coördinate principles? then dualism, instead of monism. Force cause of matter? then we preserve unity, but destroy materialism; for we trace matter to an immaterial source. Behind multiplicity of natural forces we must postulate some single power-which can be nothing but coördinating mind." Mark Hopkins sums up Materialism in Princeton Rev., Nov., 1879: 490-"1. Man, who is a person, is made by a thing, i. e. matter. 2. Matter is to be worshipped as man's maker, if anything is to be (Rom. 1: 25). 3. Man is to worship himself-his God is his belly." See also Martineau, Religion and Materialism, 25-31; Christlieb, Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, 145–161; Buchanan, Modern Atheism, 247, 248; McCosh, in International Rev., Jan., 1875; Contemp. Rev., Jan., 1875, art.: Man Transcorporeal; Calderwood, Relations of Mind and Brain; Laycock, Mind and Brain; Diman, Theistic Argument, 358; Wilkinson, in Present Day Tracts, 3: no. 17.

II. MATERIALISTIC IDEALISM.

Idealism proper is that method of thought which regards all knowledge as conversant only with affections of the percipient mind.

Its element of truth is the fact that these affections of the percipient mind are the conditions of our knowledge. Its error is in denying that through these and in these we know that which exists independently of our consciousness.

The idealism of the present day is mainly a materialistic idealism. It defines matter and mind alike in terms of sensation, and regards both as opposite sides or successive manifestations of one underlying and unknowable force.

Modern idealism is the development of a principle found as far back as Locke. Locke derived all our knowledge from sensation. Berkeley said that externally we could be sure only of sensations-could not therefore be sure that the external world exists at all. Hume carried the principle further and held that internally also we cannot be sure of anything but mental phenomena. We do not know mental substance within, any more than we know material substance without. Berkeley's view is to be found in his Principles of Human Knowledge, § 18 sq. See also Presb. Rev., April, 1885: 301-313; Journ. Spec. Philos., 1884: 246–260, 383-399; Tulloch, Mod. Theories, 360, 361.

The most complete refutation of idealism in all its forms, is that of Sir Wm. Hamilton, in his Metaphysics, 348-372, and Theories of Sense-Perception-the Reply to Brown. See condensed statement of Hamilton's view, with estimate and criticism, in Porter, Human Intellect, 236-240; on Idealism, see also 129, 132. Porter holds that original perception gives us simply affections of our own sensorium; as cause of these, we gain knowledge of extended externality. So Sir Wm. Hamilton: "Sensation proper has no object but a subject-object." But both Porter and Hamilton hold that through these sensations we know that which exists independently of our sensations.

Mill, however, in his Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton, 1: 234-253, makes sensations the only objects of knowledge; defines matter as a "permanent possibility of sensa

tion" and mind as a "series of feelings aware of itself." So Huxley calls matter “only a name for the unknown cause of states of consciousness." Mill and Huxley, with Spencer, Bain, and Tyndall, are Humists. See Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, 1: 75; 2: 80. All these regard the material atom as a mere centre of force = hypothetical cause of sensations. Matter is therefore a manifestation of force, while, to the old materialism, force was a property of matter. See art. on Huxley, in Contemp. Rev., Oct., 1872; Tyndall, Fragments of Science, 73. But if matter, mind, and God are nothing but sensations, then the body itself is nothing but sensations. There is no body, to have the sensations, and no spirit, either human or divine, to produce them. See Lowndes, Philos. of Primary Beliefs, 115-143; Atwater (on Ferrier), in Princeton Rev., 1857: 258-280.

To this view we make the following objections:

1. Its definition of matter as a "permanent possibility of sensation" contradicts our intuitive judgment that, in knowing the phenomena of matter, we have direct knowledge of substance as underlying phenomena, as distinct from our sensations, and as external to the mind which experiences these sensations.

Bowne, Metaphysics. 432-"How the possibility of an odor and a flavor can be the cause of the yellow color of an orange is probably unknowable, except to a mind that can see that two and two may make five." See Inverach's Philosophy of Spencer Examined, in Present Day Tracts, 5: no. 29.

2. Its definition of mind as a "series of sensations aware of itself” contradicts our intuitive judgment that, in knowing the phenomena of mind, we have direct knowledge of a spiritual substance of which these phenomena are manifestations, which retains its identity independently of our consciousness, and which, in its knowing, instead of being the passive recipient of impressions from without, always acts from within by a power of its own.

See, on Bain's Cerebral Psychology, Martineau's Essays, 1: 265. On the physiological method of mental philosophy, see Talbot, in Bap. Quar., 1871: 1; Bowen, on Dualism, Materialism, or Idealism, in Princeton Rev., March, 1878: 423-450.

3. In so far as this theory regards mind as the obverse side of matter, or as a later and higher development from matter, the mere reference of both mind and matter to an underlying force does not save the theory from any of the difficulties of pure materialism already mentioned; since in this case, equally with that, force is regarded as purely physical, and the priority of spirit is denied.

Herbert Spencer, Psychology, quoted by Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, 2: 80-"Mind and nervous action are the subjective and objective faces of the same thing. Yet we remain utterly incapable of seeing, or even of imagining, how the two are related. Mind still continues to us a something without kinship to other things." Owen, Anatomy of Vertebrates, quoted by Talbot, Bap. Quar., Jan., 1871: 5—“ All that I know of matter and mind in themselves is that the former is an external centre of force, and the latter an internal centre of force." New Englander, Sept., 1883: 636–“If the atom be a mere centre of force and not a real thing in itself, then the atom is a supersensual essence, an immaterial being. To make immaterial matter the source of conscious mind is to make matter as wonderful as an immortal soul or a personal Creator." See New Englander, July, 1875: 532-535; Martineau, Religion and Modern Materialism, 25-“If it takes mind to construe the universe, how can the negation of mind constitute it?"

4. In so far as this theory holds the underlying force of which matter and mind are manifestations to be in any sense intelligent or voluntary, it leads to the conclusion that second causes, whether material or spiritual, have no proper existence, and that there is but one agent in the universe-a conclusion which involves all the difficulties of pantheism.

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