Analogy nothing homologous or at the least analogous to human such a mode of agency' in the case of human voli of the will. This line of proof, tion and moral causation. Why should it be thought a thing incredible that man should exist in the image and likeness of God, who made him?2 § 13. In this argument it has been sufficient to being from view the Divine Being as only a logical postulate in the scale of causation. I have done so, not, of course willingly, (for who, after all, can love or reverence a probable or even a demonstrated God?) pheno mena, suitable to the demands of Positivism. 1 "Sicut ab exemplari, non secundum æqualitatem.”—Thom. Aq., Sum., I. i., p. 93, Art. I., and see Origen, c. Cels., VI. lxiii. "Il est vrai que Dieu est le seul dont l'action est pure et sans mélange de ce qu'on appelle pâtir: mais cela n'empêche pas que la créature n'ait part aux actions aussi, puisque l'action de la créature est une modification de la substance qui en coule naturellement, et qui renferme une variation non-seulement dans les perfections que Dieu a communiquées à la créature, mais encore dans les limitations qu'elle y apporte d'elle-même pour être ce qu'elle est."-Leibnitz, Théod., Pt. I., $ 32. "Causa itaque rerum quæ facit nec fit, Deus est. Aliæ vero causæ et faciunt et fiunt; sicut sunt omnes creati spiritus et maximè rationales. Corporales autem causæ, quæ magis fiunt quàm faciunt, non sunt inter causas efficientes annumerandæ : quoniam hoc possunt qued ex ipsis faciunt spirituum voluntates."-August., Civ. D., V. ix. 2 Thus is it literally true, ubi spiritus Domini, ibi libertas (TÒ vоepòv Kai aνTEέovolov). Cf. Delitzsch, Biblical Psych., p. 84, E. T. "Man in perfection of nature being made according to the likeness of his Maker, resembleth Him also in the manner of His working: so that whatsoever we work as men, the same we do wittingly work and freely neither are we according to the manner of natural agents so tied, but that it is in our power to leave the things we do undone."— Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. vii. 2. "God created man in His own image: to be the image of His own eternity created He man! Of eternity and self-existence what other likeness is possible, but immortality and moral self-determination ?"-Coleridge, Friend, I. 146. See the whole passage. Comp. Hazard on The Will, Pt. I. "Well said Saint Chrysostom with his lips of gold, 'The true Shekinah is man.'"-Carlyle, S. R., p. 44. but because of some prevailing modes of thought which should, where possible, be encountered on common ground.' The original sin of Positivism is the refusal to acknowledge the idea of a true efficient cause (also a final one) to the universe, which thus emerges from nothing, and ends in nothing. Though philosophy properly denies to the human mind the knowledge of an efficient or physical cause to phenomena, it cannot, as it seems to me, ignore the necessity of a First Cause; or, as a fact in nature, of the common sense of a Divine original. A double error is committed. Engrossed with the material world, the subjective portion of the universe, with its necessities and claims, is 1 See Janet's remarks, La Crise Philosophique, p. 106. "No generalisation," it has been truly said, " of the phenomena of space, of time, of matter, or of force, can become a religious conception."-H. Spencer, First Princ., p. 23. Thus Pascal argued that from number we know there is an Infinite, but not its nature-only it must be different from any aggregation of number. But while admitting with Dean Mansel, Aids to Faith, p. 25, that “mind and not matter is the truer image of God," following Kant, Kritik, Werke, II. 478-81, I cannot but think Sir W. Hamilton goes too far in his assertion that "the phenomena of matter, taken by themselves, do not warrant any inference to the existence of a God."-Lect. on Metaph., I. p. 26. See some good remarks of Mr. Mill, Exam., p. 491, on the danger of sacrificing successively one kind of evidence to another. 2 See Comte, Phil. Pos., IV. 388. I have already remarked (p. 65) on the inconsistency of Comtism, in that, forsaking its fundamental Materialism, it reverts to a worship of humanity, "le Grand Etre." Comte's own words were in a manner prophetic. Speaking of those who give up Positivism after holding it, and that they pass temporarily into Pantheism, "l'esprit," he says, "retombe involontairement dans la théologie ordinaire, la seule solide et conséquente, parce qu'elle a été construite par des esprits d'une toute autre trempe.”— Littré, p. 174. trine of the remedy to Pantheism. neglected; while further in the analysis of the object itself one antecedent in causation is omitted. The connection of such a frame of thought with Pantheism is a very close one. For the essence of The doc Pantheism lies in insisting on a necessary coalition a creation of the Infinite with the finite.' Its precursor is the absorption of the individual in the general, of the personal in nature. Its antidote is the dogma of a creation, not, indeed, from eternity, but in time; for eternity is no attribute of the finite. In this sense only is it true to say with Carlyle, (though the expression is not altogether free from objection), that "Nature, which is the time-vesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the foolish." 2 Nor can the view be admitted which is held by some leading physicists of our time, who, while rejecting materialism from their creed, look upon matter (after Goethe) as 1 Hence the theories of an "Anima Mundi "-as though the world could be considered as an animal or a substance. See Leibnitz, Works, p. 564, ed. Erdmann. "Personality," says Feuerbach with truth, "is the antidote to Pantheism."-Ess. of Christianity, p. 220. 2 Sartor Resartus, p. 183. What Bossuet said of Polytheism, is true of Pantheism, "Tout est Dieu: excepté Dieu même.” 3 Thus Prof. Huxley (on Yeast, Cont. Rev., XIX. 36) states that "one great object of Protoplasm' is to show that what is called 'materialism' has no sound philosophical basis." Lange (Gesch. des Materialismus, p. 238) most truly remarks, "Dies ist in der That die Stellung unserer meisten heutigen Materialisten.' Sie sind wesentlich Skeptiker sie glauben nicht mehr dass die Materie, wie sie unseren Sinnen erscheint, die letzte Lösung aller Räthsel der Natur enthalte: allein sie verfahren grundsatzlich als ob es so sei, und warten, bis ihnen aus den positiven Wissenschaften selbst eine Nöthigung zu anderen Annahmen entgegentritt." identifica matter an omnipresent form in which the unknown cause is manifested to us. They seem to regard it as Faulty noble only because, after all, it is incomprehen- tion of sible; and are at least as ready to formulate all with the phenomena even of life, mind, and society, in mind by terms of matter, motion, and force, as in any other thinkers. terms.1 A latent assumption here lurks under a professed nescience. 1 2 Divine present Positivism planation nomena, § 14. It is not enough to urge that Positivism Defects of does not in its principles negate Deity or render as an exGod impossible. It seeks not to require Him. As of phea system it leaves no mysteries; it resolves all into laws of physical agents; it has no Heaven; it professedly renounces all concern with what happens to living things after their death; or, as it is said, "at the consummation of the ages, if the ages have a consummation." It makes the attempt to divide the area of knowledge3 into Sciences 1 See Prof. Huxley, Lay S., Lecture on Descartes. Tyndall, Fragm. of Thought, p. 87. H. Spencer, Princ. of Psych., I. § 63, 272. First Princ., pp. 222, 280, 502. It would seem evident that if the notion of an intelligent First Cause is in abeyance, all progress and morality become at most facts, and are no longer laws of the universe. 2 Mr. Morley, Crit. Misc., p. 257, speaks of Goethe as the poet of that "new faith which is as yet without any universally recognized label; but whose Heaven is an ever closer harmony between the consciousness of man and all the natural forces of the universe, whose liturgy is culture, and whose Deity is a certain high composure of the human heart." The tendency of Positivism in declining to investigate causes, is to omit the notion of cause altogether. This reduces all forms of existence to modifications of a substance, i. e. to Spinozism. 3 Phil. Pos., Leçon II. and V., pp. 13, 14. of Sciences, p. 41. Littré, Paroles, p. 33. nie rien, n'affirme rien: car nier ou affirmer G. H. Lewes, Comte's Phil. definition of causa tion, Concrete, those relative to beings or objects, and Sciences Abstract, those relative to events; that is, to the general laws and possibilities of operation. But this encyclopædic purview of the realm of knowledge will be found defective. A fact in and in its nature, the elementary atom of a positive system, is not simply explained' by an enumeration of physical agents working uniformly or under fixed laws. The collocation or co-presence of those agents is a necessary condition of the result, and should form part of the definition of causation. But of this co-existence and combination of phenomena, or of the part-causes of phenomena, of the organism with its environment, no scientific account can be rendered. It is a fact unique, sui generis, yet undoubtedly a fact; and it is incumbent on a positive philosophy to estimate and include it. Neither atomic particles nor elemental forces can be "the joint artists of their own combinations." une connaissance quelconque de l'origine des êtres et de leur fin." 1 This is recognized by Mr. Mill, Logic, I. 417,549, II. 44. “The elcment which is not a law of causation but a collocation of causes, cannot itself be reduced to any law. . . . . The utmost disorder is apparent in the combination of the causes, which is consistent with the most perfect order in their effects. For when each agent carries on its own operations according to an uniform law, even the most capricious combination of agencies will generate a regularity of some sort, as we see in the kaleidoscope, where any casual arrangement of coloured bits of glass produces, by the laws of reflection, a beautiful regularity in the effect." This remark, it will be observed, assumes the uniformity of the operation of the agencies in accounting for the order resulting in their effects. |