§ I.—CHAPTER I.

PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE.

THE Theistic Evidence, in its common inductive form, derives its logical force from certain principles implied in its very conception. It is necessary, therefore, in entering upon our subject, to determine these principles, and the grounds on which they rest. The special necessity of such an initial explanation and verification of principles, is shown by the fact that it is in regard to them alone that there remains any dispute. The question between the Theist and the Anti-Theist—Pantheist or Atheist—necessarily always resolves itself into one of this fundamental character. It becomes a controversy, not as to the existence of certain phenomena in nature whose existence is really indisputable on either side but as to the true meaning or interpretation of these phenomena. And especially is this the present aspect of the question, amid the new stir which, from opposite quarters, has begun in philosophical inquiry. We cannot therefore save ourselves, even if we would, from taking up the speculative discussions which lie across the threshold of our subject, 12 and endeavouring to establish our position securely on the narrow platform of First Principles. In this way, besides, we shall exhibit, better than in any other, the condensed logical force of the Evidence, illustratively expanded in the succeeding section. The theistic argument may be syllogistically expressed as follows, in a form which appears to us at once simple and free from ambiguity—viz., First or major premiss,

Order universally proves Mind.

Second, or minor premiss,

The works of Nature discover Order.

Conclusion,

The works of Nature prove Mind.⁵⁵   Dr Reid long ago expressed the theistic argument in a syllogistic form, as follows: “First, That design and intelligence in the cause may, with certainty, be inferred from marks or signs of it in the effect. This is the major proposition of the argument. The second, which we call the minor proposition, is, That there are in fact the clearest marks of design and wisdom in the works of nature; and the conclusion is, That the works of nature are the effects of a wise and intelligent Cause. One must either assent to the conclusion, or deny one or other of the premises.”
   To this statement of the theistic syllogism, which, to say the least, is not remarkable for precision, considerable exception has been taken by succeeding writers. Dr Crombie, in his work on Natural Theology, maintains that the syllogism of Reid is vicious in this respect, that in passing from the major to the minor proposition, he tacitly carries over to the “works of nature” the conclusion suggested by the term “effect;” while yet, according to Dr Crombie, this is the very thing to be proved—viz., That the world is an effect. He thus represents Reid’s statement of the argument: “Marks of design in the effect prove design in the cause. The works of nature are an effect, and exhibit marks of design; therefore the works of nature prove design in the cause.” Besides the invalid assumption which Dr Crombie maintains is here introduced into the minor premiss, he objects, and we think with perfect justice, to the mode in which the first proposition is stated, “marks of design in the effect” being simply equivalent to “design in the cause.”
   The more general form in which we have put the syllogism in the text, appears to us entirely to obviate these objections; and especially to liberate us from any such preliminary necessity as that of proving the world to be an “effect.” By putting out of view this term, and dealing simply with the fact of order, we have already, according to the truth of our first proposition, Mind as its cause. It is not necessary that we show previously that the orderly fact or phenomenon is an “effect,” for this simple reason, that in its very nature it is such. In virtue of its character as manifesting order it is already declared a product or effect. This of course may be held equally true on the syllogistic basis of Reid; and we do not therefore concur in this part of Dr Crombie’s criticism. Only by avoiding the use of the term “effect,” we obviate such an objection. Our mode of expression disencumbers the argument of an extraneous element of debate, and so far places the sceptical cavil of Hume simply beside the question.

It is of great importance to keep clear in the outset of all ambiguous or misleading terms. And this conviction has led us to reject from our syllogism such common expressions as not only “cause” and “effect,” but also 13 “design.” There will be abundant use in the sequel for this latter expression in all its full and appropriate significance, when we have established the great general doctrine on which it rests—viz., That Mind is everywhere the only valid explanation of Order—its necessary correlate.

It is this doctrine—the equivalent obviously of the major premiss of our syllogism—which appears to us to present, in its really valid and fundamental character, the theistic problem. Essentially, it is neither more nor less than the old doctrine of Final Causes; but, for the reason already stated, we prefer considering it in the mean time in a new and untechnical form of expression.

Upon this fundamental position rests the whole burden of the inductive theistic argument. If this position can be established—if the right of Intelligence to stand everywhere as the correlate of Order can be made good—the Pantheist or Positivist very well knows that, even 14according to his own favourite mode of viewing nature as a system of law or order, the theistic conclusion directly follows. The fact of a supremely Intelligent Cause then everywhere asserts itself. The discoveries of science, in all their rich variety, became only tributary witnesses to this fact. Here, accordingly, the whole contest of Theism centres, and finds its most vital struggle. And of this the opposite school of thinkers are sufficiently aware. They clearly feel that it is here alone that a consistent position of denial can be taken up. The right of Mind to be held everywhere as the correlate of Order, and so to stand at the head of nature, is stoutly, and even scornfully, impugned by them. That Mind is in man and animals the appropriate explanation of many facts of order, is of course not denied; but it is expressly denied that it has any claim to be regarded as the only true source, and final explanation, of all order.

We may seem to have put the theistic problem in a somewhat unfamiliar form. But, while confessedly not the form in which it has been usually discussed, it is nevertheless that in which, beyond all doubt, it most urgently presses itself upon our attention. Even in the writings of Hume it is this aspect of the question which suggests itself most powerfully, and which gives the main point to his famous sceptical reasoning—a fact which has not been sufficiently perceived. Interest has been concentrated upon his ingenious attempt to represent the world as a “singular effect,” but without a clear insight into the deeper principle by which he was led to take up this ground, and which alone gives to it all its force. If we can establish Mind as the universal correlate of order, 15it must be manifest that there is no room for such a position as that the world is a “singular effect.” The only question is, Does the world discover order? That Hume was perfectly aware of this, and that the real and final question regarding Theism related to the rightful claims and dignity of Mind, is so abundantly plain in the course of his reasoning, that it seems strange that it has not hitherto attracted more special examination. Even Dr Chalmers—who plainly enough saw that the mode, adopted by Reid and Stewart, of settling the matter by at once declaring design to be an intuitive principle of belief, was not all that was demanded against such an opponent—does not seem to have penetrated to this essential element of the subtlety which he manfully encounters. So far triumphant in his vindication of the theistic inference, as resting on the same basis of experience as any other inference from design, he does not yet reach, and bring out fully, the ultimate rational truth on which alone that inference, in the end, must rest.

To employ his own illustration, “If we can infer the agency of design in a watchmaker, though we never saw a watch made, we can, on the very same ground, infer the agency of design on the part of a world-maker, though we never saw a world made.” All that is requisite to constitute the inference valid in either case is not, as the sceptical objection implied, experience with the actual production of the special effects—with the making of a watch on the one hand, or the making of a world on the other—but only with the simple fact of adaptation on the one hand, and Mind as its explanation on the other. This general form of experience 16 is the sufficiently warrantable basis of inference in either case.⁶⁶   This is virtually the import of Chalmers’ amplified argument. See his Natural Theology, pp. 150-151. But it must be plain, we think, that the result of experience, generalise it as we may, can only be argumentatively valid when seen to be a truth of reason—in other words, when transformed into the position laid down in our first premiss, viz. that adaptation or order universally proves Mind. For otherwise we do not see how it would avail to say that the “watch,” so far as our experience of its production is concerned, is in the very same category as the “world.” The old objection would still recur, in this higher form, exactly the opposite of the position we have laid down—viz., that order (confessed in many cases to be the result of mind) cannot yet be validly maintained, in all cases, to flow only from Mind. No basis of experience simply can warrant such a conclusion. Admitting the effects to be similar, we are not thereby warranted in asserting that the explanation of the human effect is the only valid explanation of the universal effect. It can only be on grounds of reason—on the basis not simply of experience, but of the inherent laws of our rational constitution—that we can impregnably take up such a position against the Anti-Theist. This must, beyond doubt, come to be the final argumentative bearing of the question—which is thus really, when pushed back to its last analysis, one not so much regarding the world as a singular effect, as regarding Mind as a singular cause.

How this appears in the writings of Hume as the really 17 vital element of the question, is abundantly clear from the following paragraphs:—⁷⁷   Dialogue concerning Natural Religion, HUME’S Works, vol. ii. pp. 446, 448.

“But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual philosophy has been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to the universe houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred others which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause by which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole?”

“But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature upon another for the foundation of our judgment concerning the origin of the whole (which never can be admitted), yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle as the reason and design of animals is found to be upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain, which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe?”

“Admirable conclusion! Stone, wood, brick, iron, brass, have not, at this time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without human art and contrivance; therefore the universe could not originally attain its order and arrangement without something similar to human art. But 18 is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former? Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a rule for the UNIVERSE?”

The real subject of dispute, then, on the old battle-ground of Theism, which has descended to us, regards the valid claim of Mind to stand universally as the Interpretation of Order. And more eminently than ever, in the present day, is this the vital point at issue. The views thrown out with such an apparently heedless, yet far-reaching subtlety, by Hume, have at length been taken up in a strictly scientific form, and elaborated into a philosophical creed, which boasts numerous and able advocates. Positivism, indeed, if springing directly from the irreverent soil of French scientific culture, yet traces back its lineage to the Scottish sceptic, of whose keen and arrogant genius it is so fitting a representative.

It is true that, in this modern sceptical system, the theological bearing of the views advocated is not always prominently brought forward—sometimes rather simply passed by, as beyond the concern of science. This is especially the case with the writer who is, in this country, its ablest and most systematic expositor. But in other cases no opportunity is lost of bringing out this bearing in the most decided manner; and, even in the chief work of the writer in question, it is so clear and unmistakable that it is impossible not to perceive, under the show of courtesy, the deadly shafts levelled at the foundation of the theistic argument. This will be sufficiently apparent from the following quotation, which condenses the result of a train of argument, 19the object of which is to prove that what Mr Mill calls the “Volitional Theory”⁸⁸   Mill’s transposition of the Theistic Principle into a “Volitional Theory,” is just one of the many instances in which the real import of the principle has been obscured under a one-sided and wilfully perverted nomenclature. It is surely time that, in the search after truth, men should cease to be content to escape from the pressure of an antagonistic doctrine, by hiding its highest meaning under an easily degraded phraseology! There is a further misrepresentation conveyed by Mr Mill’s language, which, although it will be afterwards fully cleared up, it may be well to notice here, as tending to involve our own position in some degree of doubt. He speaks of the writers, against whom he argues, maintaining volition to be the “direct cause of all phenomena”—a statement very readily suggesting a caricature of their true doctrine—which does not for a moment deny the fact of physical causes, in Mr Mill’s sense of that term, but only that these causes, save as taking their rise in a RATIONAL Will, and forming an expression of such a Will, afford no satisfactory explanation of the phenomena. It is not by any means as their direct or immediate cause (in the sense of excluding physical causes—general laws), but only always as their First or Original Cause, that Mind is spoken of as the explanation of physical phenomena. meaning thereby the very truth which we have laid down in our first proposition is incompetent to stand as the only (ultimate) explanation of phenomena in general. We present it, in the mean time, merely in order that the antagonistic position with which we have to deal may be seen in its full meaning and force.

“Though it were granted,” he says,⁹⁹   MILL’S Logic, vol. i. p. 371. “that every phenomenon has an efficient, and not merely a phenomenal cause, and that volition, in the case of the peculiar phenomena which are known to be produced by it, is that efficient cause, are we, therefore, to say with these writers, that since we know of no other efficient cause, and ought not to assume one without evidence, there is no other, and volition is the direct cause of all phenomena? A more outrageous stretch of inference could hardly be made. Because among 20the infinite variety of the phenomena of nature there is one—namely, a particular mode of action of certain nerves—which has for its cause, and, as we are now supposing, for its efficient cause, a state of our mind; and because this is the only efficient cause of which we are conscious, being the only one of which, in the nature of the case, we can be conscious, since it is the only one which exists within ourselves, does this justify us in concluding that all other phenomena must have the same kind of efficient cause with that one eminently special, narrow, and peculiarly human or animal phenomenon?”

In endeavouring to verify the position which forms the argumentative basis of our Evidence, there are two special lines of proof demanded of us—the one relating directly to the position itself—that Order universally proves Mind, or, in other words, that Design is a principle pervading the universe; and the other relating to a doctrine which, as it appears to us, lies everywhere involved in the more special theological principle. This principle, in the form announced in our first proposition, undoubtedly implies a definite doctrine of causation. In asserting the principle of design, we clearly assert, at the same time, that Mind alone answers to our true, or at least ultimate, idea of cause. We pronounce causation, or at least our highest conception of it, to imply efficiency. But does it really do so? We find ourselves met on this general philosophical ground as to the true nature of causation, as well as on the ground of the special theological application which we make of the general truth. They who dispute the theistic interpretation of nature, no less dispute 21the doctrine of efficient causation, and in fact base their opposition to the higher principle on this lower and wider ground.

In order, therefore, fully to sustain our position, we must make it good on this lower ground. According to our whole view, the one position is untenable apart from the other. The two doctrines of final causes and of efficient causation we regard as essentially related. They are not to us, indeed, separate doctrines, but only separate phases of the same fundamental necessity of our rational nature: the relation of the two is not that of dependency—the one upon the other—but of intricacy—the one in the other; for while the theological principle virtually asserts the philosophical, the latter, in its highest conception, already implicitly contains the former.

It is very true that many theistic thinkers, and eminently among ourselves Dr Chalmers,¹⁰¹⁰   Natural Theology, vol. i. pp. 121-161. have not recognised this interchangeable relation between the general doctrine of causation and the special theological doctrine. But a fact of this sort has no farther claim to our consideration, than to lead us to ponder more thoroughly the grounds of our own conviction; and the more this is done, the more, we feel confident, will the view set forth in the following pages approve itself as the only sound and comprehensive one.