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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

Lecture III. — Argument from the World's Order

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Lecture III.

Argument from the World's Order.

It is often said, and with a measure of truth, that the physical sciences concern themselves with second causes. The quest for second causes is certainly the primary aim of the physical sciences, but human thought cannot stop short at any arbitrary point in its scrutiny of the causal process which has issued m the existing state of things. A cause which is itself caused—that as, a second cause—cannot be accepted by reason as an ultimate explanation which satisfies all its demands. In the nature of things, the only kind of cause which reason can accept as ultimate, and in the fullest sense efficient, is that which is free, self-determining, and therefore personal. This affirmation does not need to be proved. The philosophical speculation associated with the sciences of Nature; or rather, philosophical speculations which inevitably grow out of them make it abundantly clear that these sciences cannot avoid facing the problem, What is the ultimate reality which explains that wondrous and orderly whole which we call the Cosmos ? I venture to affirm, that there is not modern physicist or naturalist, of large outlook, who has formed some opinion, more or less definite, what this ultimate reality is. Some physicists there doubtless are who have most unreasonably insisted on making matter and force the exclusive basis of inference as to the nature of this ultimate reality, thereby arbitrarily excluding from their basis of inference a vastly page 32 more important range of fact, to wit mind, with all [unclear: its] rational, ethical, and religious judgments, implications and needs. In other words, they have essayed to explain everything in terms of matter and force. These physicists are not, I think, to be blamed because they have ventured to attempt a solution of the problem implied in the question : What is the ultimate reality ? We object in toto to their solution, for reasons, some of which I shall indicate in the sequel, but it would be absurd to censure them for doing what all rational beings feel impelled to do. The physical sciences have reached such a very definite conception of the order and subtle adaptations of [unclear: inograui]. Nature that the question is inevitably raised : How is this complicated, all-pervading order to be accounted for? Let us look at this problem just as it presents itself to the student of Nature. Ethical considerations do have, and ought to have, a preponderating influence in determining our general interpretation of the significance of Nature Meantime, let us leave out of view all ethical consideration and consider the problem of the world's order as a purely intellectual one. There are two, and only two, solutions which can pretend to anything like plausibility and [unclear: wide] acceptance—viz., the Theistie and Materialistic. Materialists, virtual and avowed, discover the ultimate reality is matter and force, and pronounce all the order and adaptation discernable in Nature to be the necessary product is the mechanical interactions of persistent forces. Given eternal matter and force, say they, and, by an absolute mechanical necessity, they must, in course of time evolve into just snch a cosmos as is our world including, of course, all living organisms, the subtle mechanism of which makes our most [unclear: cunning] and complicated inventions appear as simplicity [unclear: itself] Romanes wrote his "Candid Examination of Theism" [unclear: the] prove, among other things, that, assuming the truth [unclear: is] Spencer's persistence of force doctrine, all the order [unclear: and] harmony of the physical world, and the wonderful mechanism of living things—yea, human reason itself-must ultimately be evolved. The more mature judgment of this acute thinker has led him to retract his [unclear: Athesi] page 33 creed, and pronounce the Materialistic theory incredible, and that on purely intellectual grounds. In the end he saw what the mathematical genius of Dr Chalmers saw and announced long ago—to wit, that physical forces can only evolve a Cosmos on condition that the quantity, quality and space relations of these forces are of a very definite kind. An orderly, progressive evolution implies not merely and only inter-acting forces or causes, but, as principal Macosh puts it, " organised causation." Dr M'Cosh, a well-known scientist, in his " Basis of Evolution," has vindicated precisely the same truth by proving, as against Herbert Spencer, that not mere force, but the direction or determination of force is the only possible explanation of the world's order. It is as certain as anything in physical science can well be that such a disposition of the entire matter and force of the Universe is possible as would render all life and motion physically impossible. Nay, more : Lord Kelvin, Helmholtz, and Take—the very highest authorities in physical science—on the ground of mathematical deduction from the verified laws of heat, unhesitatingly affirm that the order of Nature continuing as it now is, the ultimate issue for the physical Universe will be perfect balance of force; that is death in the most comprehensive sense of the word.

This is how Helmholtz puts the matter:—" If (says he) the universe be delivered over to the undisturbed action of its physical processes, all force will finally pass over into the form of heat, and all heat come into a state of equilibrium. Then all possibility of a further change would be at an end, and the complete cessation of all natural processes must set in."

This being so, it is self-evident that the possibility of motion or evolution depends on a specific state and collocation of the in ter-acting forces, and not merely and only on the persistence of force, for force persists even when change becomes impossible.

Even mathematical thinkers of the stamp of Hart-maan Have proved by the theory of probabilities that it is preposterous to suppose that the many nice combinations or adjustments which go to make a healthy human eye page 34 can be the result of anything but purposive intelligence. If this is so, how unutterably preposterous is the supposition that the entire order of Nature, with its innumerable adjustments, is the product of the blind inter-actions of men force. Do I put it too strongly when I say that the Materialistic solution of the problem presented by the exquisite harmonies and adaptations of the Cosmos taken as a whole is outrageously irrational ? Those most competent to grapple in a purely intellectual fashion with the problem of the world's manifest and manifold order have not hesitated to pronounce Atheism irrational. Were it my object to present you with anything like an adequate criticism of Materialism, I would be under the necessity of proving to you that Materialism contradicts our most sacred and deep-seated convictions, such as the absolute imperative of conscience, the reality of freedom, and the reality of moral, as distinguished from legal, responsibilty. Of course, Materialism also necessitates the conclusion that personal immortality is the emptiest of dreams. Even the accepted distinction between truth and error vanishes in a Universe where all beliefs are equally necessary. Moreover, this view of the Universe shuts us up to the most unqualified Pessimism, for all that is evolved is doomed to be dissolved. Is not this a complete reductio ad absurdun of Materialism ?

The other solution of the problem of the worlds order is Theism, or the belief that the order and rationality observe able in the Cosmos are a manifestation of the odering intelligence of a personal God. This manner of interpreting the Cosmos is illustrated in that interesting and, so far as it goes, convincing argument for the existence of God generally described as the argument from design, or the teleological argument. The real drift of this argument is the show that the order of Nature is of such a kind that it can only be construed as the product of ordering, designing or purposive intelligence. It was, till quite recently, the fashion with the sounding-boards of current opinion [unclear: to] pour contempt on Paley and his classical watch [unclear: from] on a heath, and of course on all those who [unclear: were] antiquated enough to believe that sure traces [unclear: of] page 35 purposive intelligence are clearly recognisable in the nice and highly complicated mechanism of Nature. So many biologists of the ultra-Darwinian type proclaimed from the housetop that the teleological interpretation of Nature was a thing of the past. Nature, they affirmed, was neither the outcome nor the instrument of purposive intelligence. This finding, to be sure, was not very creditable to Nature, for m the judgment both of reason and conscience what is absolutely void of purpose is worthless, or worse; nor did it simplify the problem as to how, man who is certainly a purposive intelligence, could be evolved by a thing absolutely void of purpose. Despite all such considerations, the anti-teleological clamour did tell even on professed Theists of the kind who are moat anxious to be considered up to date—so much so that they made haste to give up the time-honoured design argument. If I am not much mistaken there is a recognisable turn in the tide. Lord Kelvin has, in the most public manner, [unclear: red] that he regards the principle of Paley's watch argument, or the argument from the order and adaptation manifest in Nature, valid on purely rational grounds. Romanes, in his last testimony, has said substantially the same thing. It will hardly do to sneer at the deliberate judgment of Lord Kelvin, who is manifestly so pre-eminently fit to solve just such problems as that presented by the order of Nature. A review of some of the more prominent objections which have been taken to the design argument will serve to bring out the nature of the evidential basis on which our most fundamental religions belief rests. I pass over sneers, such as that embodied in the pharse, "The carpenter theory of the universe," and objections which are really no objections, for they are irrelevant—as, for example, the undisputed assertion that the design argument is not absolutely demonstrative, or that it only proves that God is possessed of intelligence. As I have already said, absolute certainty as to concrete fact is beyond the reach of man. Further, the several Theistic arguments are but clear statements of the manner in which, from particular experiences we reach, or at least may reach, the knowledge of some particular Divine per- page 36 fection or group of perfections. Evidence is not worthless because it does not prove everything. In the nature of things, the evidence on which our belief in God rest, is just as manifold as the manifold ways in which God [unclear: reve] to us His perfections. Hence the Theistic argument in [unclear: its] totality is necessarily composite. Let us glance now [unclear: a] some of the sceptical cavils which have been urged [unclear: against] the validity of the Theistic solution of the problem presented by the world's order. And, first, it is urged that even if it be conceded that purposive intelligence is manifested in the subtle and complex harmonies of Nature the degree and kind of intelligence discernible in Nature does not logically necessitate the conclusion that God is [unclear: and] infinite intelligence. Say our sceptical critics: the conclusion is larger than the major premise, and therefore the conclusion does not necessarily follow ? Of course it does not necessarily follow; but what of that ? Is not the existence of physical science evidence enough that reasonable belief may be indefinitely larger than the inductive [unclear: basi] on which it rests, or from which it is an inference? [unclear: All] inductions worth calling such proceed from the [unclear: particales] to the universal. The supposition that the existence of by [unclear: a] substantive object can he proved till it is established by process of reasoning strictly demonstrative is both a [unclear: ran] and hurtful superstition. Or, to put the matter in another light: To object to the validity of the argument from the order of the Cosmos, on the ground that it infers as infinite cause from a finite effect, is to proceed on the [unclear: utterly] mistaken notion that anyone of the generally accepted. Theistic arguments is held to be a demonstration of [unclear: the] existence of God. These arguments, whether taken [unclear: single] or as a totality, are not, in the strict sense of the [unclear: word] demonstrations of the thesis that God is, but solutions of [unclear: the] problem set to un by the manifold facts of experience. In [unclear: other] words the proofs of the existence of God, like all [unclear: scientist] inductions, are simply rational explanations of the facts[unclear: in] experience. Assuredly, they are something more and [unclear: better] than logical deductions from a general truth.

To say, therefore, that the teleological argument is [unclear: an] what it does not pretend to be, is certainly not to [unclear: pro] page 37 it worthless. But this is precisely what sceptics and those carried away by their sophistries do when in effect they argue thus : The existence of God cannot be demonstrated, therefore it is doubtful. It is true that God's existence cannot be demonstrated, and therefore religious scepticism is morally possible; but it does not follow that the existence of God is doubtful. To put it mildly; The great mass of the reasonable beliefs of humanity rests on a basis of evidential proof very far from being demonstrative. To insist, therefore, on a species of proof—to wit, demonstration, which does not suffice to prove the existence of any substantial entity, is highly unreasonable. I have insisted much on this truth, because I firmly believe that the virtual denial of it is the cause of much sceptical bewilderment.

Again, it has been objected that the argument from existence of the observed harmonies and adaptations of the world does not justify the conclusion that God is the Creator of the world. At best and most it sets Him forth as a being who shapes and orders the material of the world, which for aught that the argument proves may be eternal, and to an indefinite extent refractory. As I have already said, this argument does not prove everything, and therefore cannot be reasonably objected to on this ground. But the objection just stated is almost palpably unjust to the teleological argument, for it is obvious that the teleology manifest in Nature is immanent or inner, and not impressed on it from without as is the ease in machines contrived by human wit. The order and harmony of Nature is the outcome not only of the disposition or collocation of matter, but of the definite properties which are inseparable from its essence. Reason, pondering on the manner in which the teleology or order of Nature is realised cannot, I think, reasonably evade the conclusion that the design of which the Cosmic order is the outcome has been laid in the essential constitution of matter. But is there any conceivable or possible manner The existence the order of Nature can be laid, as a sure potency, is the essential properties of matter, except by creating it? The existence of matter is not separable from its essential page 38 properties. From this it follows that to give matter [unclear: is] essential properties is to give it its being. AS [unclear: Huxley] himself has pointed out, the evolutionary theory of Nature does not by any means disprove the teleological view. Those who, like Fiske and multitudes of others, interpret the evolutionary process in a teleological sense, [unclear: conten] that the evolved order of the world or Cosmos is simply the unfolding of the potential order involved by the [unclear: creative] power and wisdom of God. Further, the manner in which this order and beauty are evolved argues a, power and skill unspeakably more than human. The growth of an eye [unclear: as] a far high or evidence of inventive power than the construction of a telescope. What I have just said makes itself-evident that the manner in which the order of the world is progressively evolved, implies that the order and existence of the world are due to the same cause. In other words, the Architect of the Cosmos is also its Creator.

Another of the objections urged against the season ableness of the Theistic solution of the problem presented by the world's order is eminently characteristic of the polemical methods of the religious Agnostic. As put by Professor Knight, of St. Andrews, who accepts it as [unclear: valid] it runs thus : " Design is a plan to overcome hindrance [unclear: to] effect a contemplated end by conquering difficulty, and by adjusting phenomena, each to each. But it is only a being of limited resources that requires so to act or work. [unclear: The] omnipotent can have no hindrance to overcome, no difficulty to surmount." I have given the objection exactly [unclear: as] Professor Knight puts it. The objection has an air [unclear: of] cleverness about it, and looks plausible. It is indeed [unclear: and] argument quite wonderful in the largeness and confidence of its gratuitous assumptions. Among other things its assumes that God is not to be conceived as choosing to [unclear: act] in a manner which has reference to the needs of [unclear: His] rational creatures. If it be supposed that He adopts [unclear: mean] for the gradual realisation of His ends, that can only [unclear: be] because His limited power lays Him under the necessary [unclear: of] slowly and laboriously achieving results which could not be instantly produced by the fiat of omnipotence. This [unclear: is] course, is to assume that the Omnipotent, or the [unclear: Infinite] page 39 cannot act in time, or under time conditions. But where is is the proof that God can only be conceived as adopting the method of realising His ends by the instrumentality of means except on the assumption that His power is limited ? Let us look at the plain facts of experience, and I think we will find abundant reason for supposing that the method of realising ends by the use of means does not necessarily imply—does not even naturally suggest—limitation of power. It is does not need to be proved that man is essentially an inventive or purposive intelligence, Con-situated as man is, his powers, intellectual and moral, could not be developed apart from the exercise of his inventiveness, and the faithful use of means. Nature in all its realms is a perfect magazine of instrumentalities, which invite and reward the exercise of man's purposive intelligence. Science, theoretical and applied, is an ever-growing testimony to the quite amazing extent to which the powers of nature can be made subservient to the needs of man. It is as manifest as anything can well be that Nature could not be a fitting school for our training were it not both an object lesson as to the method by which ends can be secured by the use of means, and a storehouse of the adaptable agencies which human inventiveness turns to such good account both in a material, intellectual, and moral sense. In the face of this great, broad fact, what can we say of the contention of those who maintain that the teleologies! interpretation of the world's order necessitates the conclusion that the author of this order is limited in power.

It is further urged that the Theistic solution of the world's order, which includes the purposive adjustments of means and ends, is open to the charge of gross anthropomorphism. The word anthropomorphism is to some ears suggestive of most heinous philosophic sin, and to other ears it may be suggestive of something well nigh incomprehensible. Let me try to give you some notion of the meaning of the word anthropomorphism. On all hands it is allowed that we can form no positive idea of God, except in so far as we conceive ourselves to be made in His image. All the attributes which we ascribe to God, such as wisdom, page 40 power, goodness, and so forth would have absolutely no meaning to us unless we conceived them according to the anology or after the likeness of the corresponding qualities which we know in ourselves. Hence, Theism [unclear: in] common with the Bible, assumes as an indisputable postulate that man is made in the image of God. But says the religious Agnostic, it is illegitimate to conceive God after the likeness of ourselves. Because, for example we are essentially purposive intelligence, it does not follow that God, or the ultimate reality, is an intelligence who forms purposes and executes them. To think of Him as personal, or holy, or just, is (says the religious sceptic) to impose on him the forms of our mental and moral nature—is, in other words, to fall into the grievour error which he calls anthropomorphism. The Materialist too, objects to the Theistic conception of God us [unclear: anthropemorhic], but for a different reason. He has a morphism of his own—that is, he has a very definite conception of [unclear: that] ultimate reality. Matter is the Supreme reality, and everything which is, so he affirms, is but a form of matter. The Theist takes his own spiritual nature to be the most perfect accessible image of God, whereas the Materialist takes matter to be the radical and elemental form of [unclear: all] that is. The believer in God assumes that be finds in, [unclear: his] own spiritual natare, a real, though imperfect likeness of the first cause. The Materialist conceives the ultimate reality after the likeness of the most elemental form [unclear: of] matter and force. It is idle, therefore, to object to [unclear: any] proposed solution of the world problem that it [unclear: conciev] the ultimate reality after the pattern or form of something revealed in our experience. If we are to think of the Supreme and ultimate reality at all, we must think of Him or it after the analogy of some entity given in experience. At this stage I need only remark that the [unclear: most] obviously rational course is to suppose that the [unclear: ultimate] reality is best represented by that which is [unclear: cofesse] highest in the effect of which it is assumed to be the [unclear: came]. That highest effect is of course man. But what I [unclear: was] specially to emphasise at this point is the manifest inconsistency of those religiously Agnostic scientists who object page 41 or rather imagine that they object, to all anthropomorphic elements in the scientific interpretation of the world and its order. Confessedly the most important of interpreting principles in the physical sciences is the causal judgment, which may be expressed in these terms : " Whatever begins to be must have had a cause." But what is cause? The most unsatisfactory answer which has been give n to this question is that proposed by Hume, Mill, and Co. According to this school, cause and effect are nothing but invariable antecedence and consequence. One set of conditions is invariably followed by another set of conditions, and the two sets get so associated in our minds that the idea of the one inevitably suggests the other. This, so it is said, all that is meant by the causal nexus. An iron pot with water in it is put over a brisk fire, and the water begins to boil. There is no efficiency, says Mill, in the fire to produce the result. All that we know or can know is that the two things invariably go together. This representation is utterly antagonistic to the dynamism of modern science. I venture to say that there is not a sober physicist who does not regard cause as equivalent to potency, efficiency, or power. But what is power? Hume and Mill rightly enough contend that it is not an object of sense perception. Only through our consciousness of volitional effort in overcoming resistance have we an immediate knowledge of force or power. As far as I am aware it is universally allowed that the idea of power or efficiency, which is of the essence of our notion of cause, is a transference; by way of analogy, to physical nature of a conception derived exclusively from our consciousness of volitional effort. This being so, it is self-evident that the entire range of the dynamical sciences is due to the fact that we interpret the material world in the light of a purely mental experience—to wit, volitional effort. To this extent physical science, and in truth all science, is and must be anthropomorphic. The proof of this fact is superabundant. Even Herbert Spencer allows that we cannot help interpreting Nature in terms of spirit. Force, of which he makes so much, and which in so many places, he seems to identify with the ultimate reality, is a purely page 42 anthropomorphic conception. Whole philosophics for example, that of Schopenhauer—are built on the assumption that the fundamental reality is Will Scientists, [unclear: too] of the first order have hazarded the conjecture that physical energy is but persistent will power. The [unclear: candid] thinker is therefore shut up to the conclusion that the idea of cause, which plays such an all-important part in modern science is anthropomorphic. It is therefore not without reason that the resolute religious sceptic sets himself [unclear: not] evacuate the idea of cause of its true import; for, if it is legitimate to interpret Nature by the aid of the anthropomorphic principle or category of cause, it is [unclear: rand] inconsistency to say that it is absolutely illegitimate [unclear: and] think of the ultimate reality—that is, God—after [unclear: that] analogy of that which we know to be highest and best [unclear: in] our own nature. As matter of fact, we interpret the world of physical energy in terms of will power or effort.

Is it unreasonable, then, to interpret the [unclear: wonde] order and harmony of this same world in terms of ordinary contriving intelligence? It must, I think, [unclear: sada] tolerably evident that the Theistic solution of the problem of the world's order is simply and only a particular inference, based on the universally accepted maxim the every effect implies an adequate cause. We feel [unclear: sd] certain that no quantity of "printer's pie," though [unclear: fr] ever so often from a huge dice-box, would ever arranges [unclear: ite] in the form, say, of Milton's "Paradise Lost." And [unclear: ov] certainty is not based on the fact that we have never [unclear: se] such an extraordinary effect result from chance [unclear: com] tion, but rests on the much more rational and [unclear: pos] consideration that the improbability of such a [unclear: ch] combination is practically infinite, In other words, [unclear: sds] rightly judge that the chance combination of [unclear: deta] letters is an utterly inadequate explanation of the [unclear: exter] definite collocation of the letters and words [unclear: wh] go to make up Milton's elaborate poem. The [unclear: teleolog] or design argument, which concludes from the [unclear: ma] order and adjustments of Nature that no cause other than purposive intelligence can account for the facts is [unclear: th] fore, in principle, not one whit more anthropomorphic [unclear: ov] page 43 the verdict of the physicist who assures us that the heat requisite to raise one pound of water by one degree cannot produce more than a certain and very definite equivalent of work.

Enough, I think, has been said to justify the following conclusion : The sciences of Nature brings us face to face with order, harmony, and adjustment of such a kind that the question is inevitably raised: How are these things to be accounted for? Of the two most widely-accepted solutions, to wit, Theism and Materialism, Materialism must be set aside on purely rational grounds, though, of course, there are other and more urgent reasons why must hold it to be inadmissible. Persistent force cannot explain the orderly evolution which has issued in Cosmos. It is demonstrable that a conceivable dis-position or collocation of persistent forces is equivalent to stagnation or death. Theism is not open to the objection that it assigns an inadequate or imaginary cause for the world-order. Purposive intelligence, coupled with power, will certainly account for the order and supreme intelligibility of Nature. The only question which admits of reasonable debate may be put thus: Do the facts, as known us, rationally justify us in maintaining that they can only be satisfactorily accounted for by the free action of purposive intelligence? It can hardly be doubted that most competent to deal with problems of this order have, with rare exceptions, pronounced unhesitatingly in favour of the Theistic solution. Professor Bowne, one of the ablest of American philosophers, affirms in his a work on Metaphysics that the order of Nature affords better and stronger evidence for rationality of the first cause than the actions of human beings do of their intelligence. Most assuredly Nature, in a very intelligible sense, is unspeakably more rational than any human work. Various objections have been urged against the view of those who contend that the order and intelligibility of Nature is only explicable on the assumption that intelligence is one of the attributes of the altimate reality, that is of God. Our review of the most important and plausible of these objections has, I trust, page 44 confirmed you in the conviction that they are unreasonable—so unreasonable that the principle of them could not be allowed in any sphere of thought other than the [unclear: sa] ligious. We would, for example, be quite ashamed to argue that the procedure of the teacher who slowly spells a succession of words before some youthful pupil can only be accounted for on the supposition that he cannot [unclear: res] fluently. And yet this is how grave thinkers do [unclear: arg] when they contend that the design argument necessitates the conclusion that God must be limited in power, for nothing but lack of power could conceivably induce Him to adopt this method of working. But it would seem that all kinds of [unclear: scep] cal objections, though manifestly futile in all the ordinary spheres of thought, are valid in the esteem of anti-religious bias. The proof which abundantly satisfies us in physical and natural science is nought to the religious Agnostic The objections of the religious sceptic would lose [unclear: mus] if not all, of their disturbing effect, were it only known that if consistently used as a criterion of the truth of all beliefs they would lead to universal scepticism.