A
CANDID EXAMINATION
OF
THEISM.
BY
PHYSICUS.
BOSTON: HOUGHTON, OSGOOD, & COMPANY. 1878. [_All rights reserved_]
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_CANST THOU BY SEARCHING FIND OUT GOD?_
* * * * *
PREFACE.
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The following essay was written several years ago; but I have hitherto refrained from publishing it, lest, after having done so, I should find that more mature thought had modified the conclusions which the essay sets forth. Judging, however, that it is now more than ever improbable that I shall myself be able to detect any errors in my reasoning, I feel that it is time to present the latter to the contemplation of other minds; and in doing so, I make this explanation only because I feel it desirable to state at the outset that the present treatise was written before the publication of Mr. Mill's treatise on the same subject. It is desirable to make this statement, first, because in several instances the trains of reasoning in the two essays are parallel, and next, because in other instances I have quoted passages from Mr. Mill's essay in connections which would be scarcely intelligible were it not understood that these passages are insertions made after the present essay had been completed. I have also added several supplementary essays which have been written since the main essay was finished.
It is desirable further to observe, that the only reason why I publish this edition anonymously is because I feel very strongly that, in matters of the kind with which the present essay deals, opinions and arguments should be allowed to produce the exact degree of influence to which as opinions and arguments they are entitled: they should be permitted to stand upon their own intrinsic merits alone, and quite beyond the shadow of that unfair prejudication which cannot but arise so soon as their author's authority, or absence of authority, becomes known. Notwithstanding this avowal, however, I fear that many who glance over the following pages will read in the "Physicus" of the first one a very different motive. There is at the present time a wonderfully wide-spread sentiment pervading all classes of society--a sentiment which it would not be easy to define, but the practical outcome of which is, that to discuss the question of which this essay treats is, in some way or other, morally wrong. Many, therefore, who share this sentiment will doubtless attribute my reticence to a puerile fear on my part to meet it. I can only say that such is not the case. Although I allude to this sentiment with all respect--believing as I do that it is an offshoot from the stock which contains all that is best and greatest in human nature--nevertheless it seems to me impossible to deny that the sentiment in question is as unreasonable as the frame of mind which harbours it must be unreasoning. If there is no God, where can be the harm in our examining the spurious
Table of contents (by pages)
- 1: A Candid Examination of Theism by Romanes
- 2: By the full rigour of the scientific methods
- 3: The Syllogism further defective
- 4: If the doctrine of evolutionary psychology be true
- 5: The argument from metaphysical teleology
- 6: Professor Flint's work on Theism
- 7: In its bearing upon rational argument
- 8: And that the very essence of causation
- 9: Even assuming volitions to be uncaused
- 10: And volition is the direct cause of all phenomena
- 11: As it is repugnant to the idea of a triangle
- 12: The validity of the theistic hypothesis
- 13: For he is a favourite authority with theists
- 14: Must necessarily be unknowable
- 15: As this presentation is strictly formal
- 16: That the phaenomena of matter taken by themselves
- 17: Theism is without any rational basis to stand upon at all
- 18: The existence of our ethical faculty
- 19: Or the uncompounded ethical class
- 20: The dictating character of conscience
- 21: Can in itself be no proof of Theism
- 22: As Paley appears to have thought it was
- 23: Even if this assumption were true
- 24: More clearly where Paley stumbled
- 25: Paley goes on to ask How is it possible
- 26: Resolves itself into a petitio principii
- 27: The hypothesis of fortuity is rendered irrational
- 28: And general results of inductive science
- 29: And if the highest conception attained is but partial
- 30: Would have been the law of gravitation
- 31: Mutual gravitation will approximate its atoms
- 32: In view of the evolution theory
- 33: This obverse aspect is again inverted upon its die
- 34: Even by natural theologians themselves
- 35: If all natural laws are self evolved
- 36: Inexorable logic has forced us to conclude that
- 37: There exists the unfathomable abyss of the Unknowable
- 38: If predicated of anything within the Unknowable
- 39: The question of Theism is so vitally associated
- 40: All vestiges of a scientific teleology
- 41: Precludes it from the possibility of proof
- 42: Hence there is at least one nameable way in which
- 43: A perfect correlation among general laws
- 44: And from this fact we go on generalising and generalising
- 45: For we have seen that our supposed theist
- 46: An atheist may here argue as follows
- 47: The theistic theory is born of highly suspicious parentage
- 48: The two terms are separately intelligible
- 49: When thus divested of its distinguishing attributes
- 50: That in strict reasoning the teleological argument
- 51: And the second the test of relative inconceivability
- 52: From education and organised habits of thought
- 53: And there finding it a trustworthy test
- 54: Or on the no less hardened armoury of confirmed scepticism
- 55: Is a syllogism that is inadmissible for two reasons
- 56: That the argument from teleology must
- 57: Or more indefinite than are the known relations
- 58: I denoted a metaphysical teleology
- 59: That the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology
- 60: Looking to the present condition of speculative philosophy
- 61: So far as I am individually concerned
- 62: Superadd to matter a faculty of thinking
- 63: To endow matter with the faculty of thinking
- 64: Without such superadded perfections
- 65: Has its parts connected by ways inconceivable to us
- 66: No collocation of such particles can possibly do so
- 67: It is unnecessary to multiply these quotations
- 68: Adopting his master's teaching of the Unknowable
- 69: Noumena must be regarded as absolute
- 70: The anthropomorphic teachings of previous religions
- 71: Fiske's somewhat elaborate essays
- 72: As cosmists maintain that Theism
- 73: And from Pantheism on the other
- 74: The Absolute Being of Cosmism can be shown
- 75: For I maintain that even Unconditioned Being
- 76: The very simplicity of the theory
- 77: As this is a subject distinct from Theism
- 78: Merely symbolic of unknowable realities
- 79: Can in any legitimate sense be termed quasi theistic
- 80: That the molecule has been made
- 81: Than the violation of this law by Paley
- 82: And therefore that every such vortex system
- 83: The considerations adduced in Chapter IV
- 84: In a relative or proximate sense
- 85: Out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible
- 86: Can only rest upon the observed facts of the cosmos
- 87: We do not challenge the proof of the nebular theory itself
- 88: Physical science cannot answer these questions
- 89: Such an implication would not be legitimate
- 90: And throughout all this period of incalculable duration
- 91: In an omnipotent and beneficent Deity
- 92: According to this adverse interpretation
- 93: Or non beneficent in his designs
- 94: We see no vestige of such correlation
- 95: Belie the hypothesis of Theism
- 96: Spencer's doctrines to have visited Materialism
- 97: Spencer asserts the existence of an unknown Reality
- 98: To disprove any instance of recognised causation
- 99: Even if conceded to be actualities
- 100: Science can have no ultimate datum at all
- 101: Having concluded energy to be indestructible
- 102: If the universe as a whole is finite
- 103: Having merged one group of manifestations into another group
- 104: The effects of cerebral anaemia
- 105: As Mind is always associated with Matter within experience
- 106: As the illustration of the triangle implies
- 107: See supplementary essay On the Final Mystery of Things
- 108: For the maintenance of a cosmos
- 109: Cataclysms whether it be the capture of an insect
- 110: Ought properly to be termed incredible propositions
- 111: This pseud idea must represent as impossibility