The above must be regarded as a complete refutation of the position taken by Hume, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally existing in a state of order, without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an eternally-existing and infinite mind, who originated this order--a God existing without a cause. The eternal and infinite Mind is indivisible and illimitable; nature, in its totality, as well as in its individual parts, has interior divisibility, and exterior limitability. The infinity of God is not a quantitative, but a qualitative infinity. The miscalled eternity and infinity of nature is an indefinite extension and protension in time and space, and, as quantitative, must necessarily be limited and measurable, therefore finite.
The universe of sense-perception and sensuous imagination is a phenomenal universe, a genesis, a perpetual becoming, an entrance into existence, and an exit thence; the Theist is, therefore, perfectly justified in regarding it as disqualified for self-existence, and in passing behind it for the Supreme Entity that needs no cause. Phenomena demand causation, entities dispense with it. No one asks for a cause of the space which contains the universe, or of the Eternity on the bosom of which it floats. Everywhere the line is necessarily drawn upon the same principle; that entities may have self-existence, phenomena must have a cause. [223]
[Footnote 223: ][ (return) ] "Science, Nescience, and Faith," in Martineau's "Essays," p. 206.
IV. Psychological analysis clearly attests that in the phenomena of consciousness there are found elements or principles which, in their regular and normal development, transcend the limits of consciousness, and attain to the knowledge of Absolute Being, Absolute Reason, Absolute Good, i.e., GOD.
The analysis of thought clearly reveals that the mind of man is in possession of ideas, notions, beliefs, principles (as e.g., the idea of space, duration, cause, substance, unity, infinity), which are not derived from sensation and experience, and which can not be drawn out of sensation and experience by any process of generalization. These ideas have this incontestable peculiarity, as distinguished from all the phenomena of sensation, that, whilst the latter are particular, contingent, and relative, the former are universal, necessary, and absolute. As an example, and a proof of the reality and validity of this distinction, take the ideas of body and of space, the former unquestionably derived from experience, the latter supplied by reason alone. "I ask you, can not you conceive this book to be destroyed? Without doubt you can. And can not you conceive the whole world to be destroyed, and no matter whatever in existence? You can. For you, constituted as you are, the supposition of the non-existence of bodies implies no contradiction. And what do we call the idea of a thing which we can conceive of as non-existing? We call it a contingent and relative idea. But if you can conceive this book to be destroyed, all bodies destroyed, can you suppose space to be destroyed? You can not. It is in the power of man's thought to conceive the non-existence of bodies; it is not in the power of man's thought to conceive the non-existence of space. The idea of space is thus a necessary and absolute idea." [224]
[Footnote 224: ][ (return) ] Cousin's "Hist. of Philos.," vol. ii. p. 214.
Take, again, the ideas of event and cause. The idea of an event is a contingent idea; it is the idea of something which might or might not have happened. There is no impossibility or contradiction in either supposition. The idea of cause is a necessary idea. An event being given, the idea of cause is necessarily implied. An uncaused event is an impossible conception. The idea of cause is also a universal idea extending to all events, actual or conceivable, and affirmed by all minds. It is a rational fact, attested by universal consciousness, that we can not think of an event transpiring without a cause; of a thing being the author of its own existence; of something generated by and out of nothing. Ex nihilo nihil is a universal law of thought and of things. This universal "law of causality" is clearly distinguishable from a general truth reached by induction. For example, it is a very general truth that, during twenty-four hours, day is succeeded by night. But this is not a necessary truth, neither is it a universal truth. It does not extend to all known lands, as, for example, to Nova Zembla. It does not hold true of the other planets. Nor does it extend to all possible lands. We can easily conceive of lands plunged in eternal night, or rolling in eternal day. With another system of worlds, one can conceive other physics, but one can not conceive other metaphysics. It is impossible to imagine a world in which the law of causality does not reign. Here, then, we have one absolute principle (among others which may be enumerated), the existence and reality of which is revealed, not by sensation, but by reason--a principle which transcends the limits of experience, and which, in its regular and logical development, attains the knowledge of the Absolute Cause--the First Cause of all causes--God.
Thus it is evident that the human mind is in possession of two distinct orders of primitive cognitions,--one, contingent, relative, and phenomenal; the other universal, necessary, and absolute. These two distinct orders of cognition presuppose the existence in man of two distinct faculties or organs of knowledge--sensation, external and internal, which perceives the contingent, relative, and phenomenal, and reason, which apprehends the universal, necessary, and absolute. The knowledge which is derived from sensation and experience is called empirical knowledge, or knowledge à posteriori, because subsequent to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of observation. The knowledge derived from reason is called transcendental knowledge, or knowledge à priori, because it furnishes laws to, and governs the exercise of the faculties of observation and thought, and is not the result of their exercise. The sensibility brings the mind into relation with the physical world, the reason puts mind in communication with the intelligible world--the sphere of à priori principles, of necessary and absolute truths, which depend upon neither the world nor the conscious self, and which reveal to man the existence of the soul, nature, and God. Every distinct fact of consciousness is thus at once psychological and ontological, and contains these three fundamental ideas, which we can not go beyond, or cancel by any possible analysis--the soul, with its faculties; matter, with its qualities; God, with his perfections.
We do not profess to be able to give a clear explication and complete enumeration of all the ideas of reason, and of the necessary and universal principles or axioms which are grounded on these ideas. This is still the grand desideratum of metaphysical science. Its achievement will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the person of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Cousin, has succeeded in disengaging such à priori ideas, and formulating such principles and laws of thought, as lead infallibly to the cognition of the Absolute Being, the Absolute Reason, the Absolute Good, that is, GOD.
It would carry us too far beyond our present design were we to exhibit, in each instance, the process of immediate abstraction by which the contingent and relative element of knowledge is eliminated, and the necessary and absolute principle is disengaged. We shall simply state the method, and show its application by a single illustration.