LECTURE VI. OBJECTIONS TO THE ARGUMENT FROM ORDER EXAMINED. I. THE universe is a system which comprehends countless subordinate systems. It is full of combinations of parts which constitute wholes, and of means which conspire to ends. The natural and obvious explanation of the order and adjustments which it thus presents is that they are due to a mind or intelligence. And this is the only rational explanation of them. Mind can alone account for order and adjustment, for the co-ordination of parts into a whole, or the adaptation of means to an end. If we refer them to anything else, the reference is essentially contrary to reason, essentially irrational. It may seem at the first superficial glance as if there were a variety of hypotheses as to the origin of the order we everywhere see around us, all equally or nearly equally credible; but adequate no cause. reflection cannot fail to convince us that they must be reduced to a single alternative-to two antagonistic theories. Our only choice is between reason and unreason, between a sufficient and an insufficient cause, between, we may even say, a cause and This will be brought out by an examination of the various hypotheses which have been suggested by those who are unwilling to admit that the order of the world originated in mind. They try their best to suggest some other alternative than that which I have said is inevitable; but every suggestion they make only raises the alternative which they would avoid-mind or chance, reason or unreason, a sufficient explanation or an absurd one. Before proceeding to establish this, however, it may be necessary to remark on some direct objections which have been taken to the design argument,-objections which might be valid, although no explanation of order could be given or were even attempted. The inference which the theist requires to draw from the existence of order in the universe is merely the existence of an intelligence who produced that order. It follows that it is an unfair objection to his argument to urge, as has often been urged, that it does not directly and of itself prove God to be the creator of the universe, but only the former of it-not the author of matter, but only of the collocations of matter. This objection, which men even like Hume and Kant and J. S. Mill have thought worth employing, is simply that the argument does not prove more than it professes to prove. It does not pretend to make all other reasoning for the Divine existence superfluous. It is no condition of its validity that it should stand alone; that it should contribute nothing to other arguments and receive nothing from them. The objection is thus entirely irrelevant. It may be a wise caution to those who would trust exclusively to it, and neglect or depreciate other arguments. It is no objection to its legitimacy. It is remarkable, too, that those who have urged this objection have never felt that before employing it they were bound to satisfy themselves and to prove to others that order is a mere surface or superficial thing-outside of matter, superimposed on it. If order be something inherently and intrinsically in matter-be of its very essence-belong to what is ultimate in it; if matter and its form be inseparable, then the author of its order must have been also the author of itself; and all that this objection shows us is, that those who have employed it have had mistaken notions about the nature of matter. Now, as I have already had to indicate, modern science seems rapidly perfecting the proof of this. The order in the heavens, and in the most complicated animal organisms, appears to be not more wonderful than the order in the ultimate - atoms of which they are composed. The balance of evidence is in favour of the view that order extends as far and penetrates as deep as matter itself does. The human intellect is daily learning that it is foolish to fancy that there is anywhere in matter a sphere in which the Divine Wisdom does not manifest itself in and through order. There is still another remark to be made on the objection under consideration. The immediate inference from the order of the universe is to an intelligent former of the universe, not to a creator. But this does not preclude the raising of the question, Is it reasonable to believe the former of the world merely its former? Must not its former be also its creator? On the contrary, the inference that the order of the world must be the result of intelligent agency ought to suggest this question to every serious and reflective mind, and it should even contribute something to its answer. The order of the universe must have originated with intelligence. What is implied in this admission? Clearly that the order of the universe cannot have originated with matter,—that matter is unintelligent, and cannot account either for intelligence or the effects of intelligence. But if so, the intelligence which formed the universe must be an eternal intelligence. The supposition that matter is eternal must in this case be supplemented by the admission that mind is eternal. In other words, the affirmation that the former of the world is merely its former-the denial that its former is also its creator-means dualism, the belief in two distinct eternal existences, an eternal mind and eternal matter. Whoever is not prepared to accept this hypothesis must abandon the affirmation and denial from which it necessarily follows. And who can, after due deliberation, accept it? The law of parsimony of causes absolutely forbids our assuming, for the explanation of anything, more 'causes than are necessary to account for it. It forbids, therefore, our belief in an eternal matter and an eternal mind, unless we can show reason for holding that one of them alone is not a sufficient cause of the universe. Now those who grant the inference from order to intelligence, themselves admit that matter is not a sufficient First Cause of the universe as it actually exists. Do they find any person admitting that mind would be an insufficient First Cause? Do they themselves see any way of showing its insufficiency? Do they not even perceive that it would be foolish and hopeless to try to show that an eternal mind could not create a material universe, and that all they could show would be, the here quite irrelevant truth, that the human mind is ignorant of the manner in which this could be done? If the answers to these questions are what I believe they must be, it must also be acknowledged that the former |