LITERATURE
As has been explained in this Lecture, many idealistic writers who insist upon the necessity of God as a universal, knowing Mind to explain both the existence of the world and our knowledge of it, are more or less ambiguous about the question whether the divine Mind is to be thought of as willing or causing the world, though passages occur in the writings of most of them which tend in this direction. 'God {57} must be thought of as creating the objects of his own thought' is a perfectly orthodox Hegelian formula. Among the idealistic writers (besides Berkeley) who correct this—as it seems to me—one-sided tendency, and who accept on the whole the view of the divine Causality taken in this Lecture, may be mentioned Lotze, the 9th Book of whose Microcosmus (translated by Miss Elizabeth Hamilton and Miss Constance Jones) or the third Book of his Logic (translation ed. by Prof. Bosanquet), may very well be read by themselves (his views may also be studied in his short Philosophy of Religion—two translations, by the late Mrs. Conybeare and by Professor Ladd); Pfleiderer, Philosophy and Development of Religion, especially chapter v.; and Professor Ward's Naturalism and Agnosticism.
Among the non-idealistic writers who have based their argument for the existence of God mainly or largely upon the consideration that Causality is unintelligible apart from a rational Will, may be mentioned—among older writers Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay I. (especially chapter v.), and among more recent ones Martineau, A Study of Religion. Flint's Theism may be recommended as one of the best attempts to state the theistic case with a minimum of technical Metaphysic.
Two little books by Professor Andrew Seth (now Seth Pringle-Pattison), though not primarily occupied with the religious problem, may be mentioned as very useful introductions to Philosophy—The Scottish Philosophers and Hegelianism and Personality.
[1] Of course deeply religious men like Green who have held this view did not admit, or did not realize, such consequences. The tendency here criticized is undoubtedly derived from Hegel, but passages suggestive of the opposite view can be extracted from his writings, e.g.: 'God, however, as subjective Power, is not simply will, intention, etc., but rather immediate Cause' (Philosophy of Religion, Eng. trans., ii. p. 129).
[2] The idea of Causality was by Kant identified with the idea of logical connexion, i.e. the relation of the premisses of a syllogism to its conclusion; but this does not involve time at all, and time is essential to the idea of Causality. For an admirable vindication of our immediate consciousness of Causality see Professor Stout's chapter on 'The Concept of Mental Activity' in Analytic Psychology (Book II. chap. i.).
[3] Excursion, Book IV.
[4] For the further development of this argument see Lecture IV.
[5] See especially the earlier chapters of The Philosophy of the Unconscious (translated by W. C. Coupland).
[6] Of course passages can be quoted from Hegel himself which suggest the idea that God is Will as well as Thought; I am speaking of the general tendency of Hegel and many of his disciples. Some recent Hegelians, such as Professor Boyce, seem to be less open to this criticism, but there are difficulties in thinking of God as Will and yet continuing to speak of ultimate Reality as out of Time.
[7] It may be objected that this is true only of 'conceptual space' (that is, the space of Geometry), but not of 'perceptual space,' i.e. space as it presents itself in a child's perception of an object. The distinction is no doubt from many points of view important, but we must not speak of 'conceptual space' and 'perceptual space' as if they had nothing to do with one another. If the relations of conceptual space were not in some sense contained or implied in our perceptions, no amount of abstraction or reflection could get the relations out of them.
[8] Sociology, vol. iii. p. 172.
[9] Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. ii. pp. 191-2.
[10] For a further discussion of the subject the reader may be referred to my essay on 'Personality in God and Man' in Personal Idealism.
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