it has been called, Theantingim, de taking of the manhood into God. Objection § 11. It is a diffinity more apparent than real, the Evil- that a being apprehensive and recipient of will answered. should, if in leed it be so, le descended from pro genitors without it. It is evikut when we take into account the expansive force of mind and the vast differences which sever civilized from barbarous tribes, that, whatever his origin, man's capacity for improvement, or, as we should prefer to term it, renovation, is practically infinite. Nor is it easy to say where a difference of degree in respect of faculties may merge into one of kind. An illustration of this truth may be found in the longdelayed maturity of the more complex and highly endowed embryos, which yet recall, in various stages of growth and infancy, the rudimentary phases of specific evolution. If the sense of personality, of responsibility and moral consciousness be our guarantee of the soul's reality, it may afford some clue to the point of transition from animal to human existence in the higher and truer sense. Doubtless "there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual." Howbeit "that was not first which is ismus, sie stets das Ganze des Weltalls in seiner Einheit umfasst sowohl das Erdenleben, als die leuchtenden Himmelsräume. Sie weilt seltener bei dem Einzelnen der Erscheinung, sondern erfreut sich der Anschauung grosser Massen. Man möchte sagen, dass in dem einzigen 104. Psalm das Bild des ganzen Kosmos dargelegt ist," &c. On Christianity as wholly depending on the doctrine of the Incarnation, see Dorner, Doct. of Person of Christ, I. 2, sub init., and Dr. Westcott in his able critique of Comte on Christianity, Cont. Rev., VI. 418. of man spiritual." We may have "borne the image of the heavenly." It is probably through the Relation medium of sensation that we learn to distinguish to the our separate personality. Yet it is a knowledge world. too wonderful and excellent for the mere brute: he cannot attain to it. The moral qualities which he displays are probably derived from his intercourse with man, and admit of very limited culture. So with the sense of immortality, of freedom, and responsible activity. Part of the native generic consciousness of our race, this may yet be developed slowly, partially, precariously. Still the fact of such development remains with its attendant consequences; for which the same evidence exists as determines the reality of all our knowledge. animal uniformity § 12. The old familiar generalization that there Admitted is no effect without a cause 3 has been so far ex- of the 1 "Take an example of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God or melior natura; which courage is manifestly such as that creature without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never attain."-Bacon, Essay on Atheism. Augustine, Civ. Dei, XI. xxvii., remarks, "Verumtamen inest sensibus irrationalium animantium etsi scientia nullo modo, at certe quædam scientia similitudo.” 2 See Mr. Picton's able speculations in New Theories and Old Faith, Lect. II., &c. The "survival of the fittest," in spite of Mr. Spencer's answer to Mr. Martineau (Cont. Rev., XX. 147), implies to my mind pre-arrangement and a directive Will. The benevolence of the originating Mind requires a distinct proof. 3 Of this Leibnitz, Théod., I. § 44, remarks: "Sans ce grand principe nous ne pourrions jamais prouver l'existence de Dieu." An illustration of his method will be found in his Confessio Naturæ contra Atheistas (Works, pp. 45, 46, ed. Erdmann), and Théodicée, I. § 7. Dien est la première raison des choses, &c. course of Nature. Leads to the acknow ledgment Cause. tended in experience as to receive the addition, and one which is itself uniform. Thus if Physical Science should ever ultimately resolve the bulk of natural facts into forces, compounds into substances, organic structures into inorganic, or inorganic into organic, vital into material, or material into vital; these forces, we may presume, will be found to be qualified; for else they would be incapable of differentiation. Or if ultimately resoluble into a single force, this must, so far as we can conceive, be itself qualified, to be what it is.1 Eternal form must still divide But as that which is itself the origin of movement to all other things, must be either self-caused, of a First that is, can in no manner be itself an effect; 2 or must be in its operation eternal a parte ante; it is necessary to determine the alternative. It is not enough to say with one of its most distinguished teachers that "the positive philosophy does not busy itself with the beginnings of the universe, it the universe had a beginning." Or, again, with 3 1 "Cette idée de l'espèce qui serait inhérente au germe, c'est un principe qui dépasse toutes les données du matérialisme.”—Janet, Le Mat. Contemporain, p. 115. 2 Comp. Arist., Metaph., XI. vi. vii.; Phys., VIII.; Plato, Phædrus p. 245. Compare Sir W. Hamilton's argument, Lect. I. 60, to show that philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, tends not to a plurality of ultimate causes, but towards one. Comte views the resolution of laws or forces into unity as chimerical, 3 Littré, Paroles de Phil. Pos., p. 53. one of its most distinguished critics,' that "the positive mode of thought is not necessarily a denial of the supernatural, since it merely throws back the question to the origin of all things. If the universe had a beginning, its beginning by the very conditions of the case was supernatural; the laws of Nature cannot account for their own origin." This, we reply, is to renounce a legitimate function of man's intelligence," the "obstinate questionings of sense and outward things"; and to quench within him an ever-rising instinct of inquiry into the origin of the world of nature. His understanding and reason, no less than his moral faculties, direct him to its solution. Of the 2 1 J. S. Mill, A. Comte and Positivism, p. 15. Tentat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas, Ecquænam fuerit mundi genitalis origo.-Lucret., v. 1210. See De Maistre, Soirées, Vme Entret. "Il ne dépend nullement de nous de n'y pas regarder. Il est là devant nous," &c. M. Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 669, calls it "an infantine curiosity which pretends to know the origin and end of all things." Not so Leibnitz. "Rien ne marque mieux l'imperfection d'une philosophie que la nécessité où le philosophe se trouve d'avouer qu'il se passe quelque chose suivant son système dont il n'y a aucune raison.”—Théod., II. § 340. "Moi, je crois qu'il y faut reconnoître des marques de la force de l'esprit humain qui le fait pénétrer dans l'intérieur des choses. Ce sont des ouvertures nouvelles et pour ainsi dire des rayons de l'aube du jour qui nous promet une lumière plus grande."-Ib., Disc., § 81. Kant, though holding that no theological beliefs can be based on cosmological notions, Prolegg. § 44, yet finds a firm foundation in the ideas which are the offspring of Reason, such as the soul, the world, and God. Whewell, Bridgewater Tr., p. 159, ed. Bohn, observes that “the same reasoning faculty which seeks for the origin of the present state of things, and is capable of assenting to, or dissenting from, the hypothesis propounded, is necessarily led to seek in the same manner for the origin of any previous state of things," &c. See also Indications of the Creator, p. 153. native of of matter The alter- alternatives before him, the eternity of matter is an eternity liable to many objections,' one only of which needs. here to be noticed. While science nowhere contradicts the fact of a beginning, its absence is inconsistent and in the judgment of the highest authorities in physical philosophy incompatible with the state of our knowledge of Nature rejected (Werden) as a continuous effect, and of natural philo- agents and their mode of operation as causes. Thus astronomy, in the opinion of Professor Huxley 2 2 "leads us to contemplate phenomena, the very nature of which demonstrates that they must have had a beginning, and that they must have an end." "The principle of the dissipation of energy," according to another distinguished professor,3 "as it alone is able to lead us by sure steps by natural sophers. 1 As, for example, that it really explains nothing: æternitas quippe nullius rei causa intelligi potest. 2 Lay Sermons, p. 17, probably referring to the fact of the earth's retardation in a resisting medium. Comp. Whewell, Bridg. Tr., Bk. II. c. viii. Sir John Herschel, Disc. Nat. Phil., § 28, says: "If we mistake not, then, the discoveries alluded to effectually destroy the idea of an eternal, self-existent matter, by giving to each of its atoms the essential characters at once of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent." * Professor Tait, Report of British Assoc., 1871. He adds, “Sir William Thomson's splendid suggestion of Vortex Atoms implies the absolute necessity of an intervention of creative power to form or to destroy one atom even of dead matter." Dr. Whewell, Indications, pp. 14, 17, 115, remarks, "A perpetual motion is impossible in chemistry as it is in mechanics; and a theory of constant change continued throughout infinite time is untenable when asserted upon chemical no less than upon mechanical principles." Liebig, 23 Brief ap. Lange, Gesch. des Mat., p. 342, considers the same to be proved by physiology. Die exakte Naturforschung hat bewiesen, dass das organische Leben auf Erden einen Anfang hatte. |