A Candid Examination of Theism

by George John Romanes

I do not know where a more terse and accurate statement of the case could be found; and to my mind the question so lucidly put admits of the direct answer—Law clearly has a reason of a purely physical kind. And therefore I submit that the following quotation which Professor Flint makes from Professor Jevons, logical as it was when written, must now be regarded as embodying an argument which is obsolete.

"As an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in unlimited space in an unlimited number of modes of distribution, there must, even granting matter to have had all its laws from eternity, have been at some moment in time, out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible, that one choice and distribution which yielded the fair and orderly universe that now exists. Only out of rational choice can order have come."

But clearly the alternative is now no longer one between chance and choice. If natural laws arise by way of necessary consequence from the persistence of a single self-existing substance, it becomes a matter of scientific (though not of logical) demonstration that "the fair and orderly universe that now exists" is the one and only universe that, in the nature of things, can exist. But to continue this interesting passage from Dr. Flint's work—interesting not only because it sets forth the previous standing of this subject with so much clearness, but also because the work is of such very recent publication.

"The most common mode, perhaps, of evading the problem which order presents to reason is the indication of the process by which the order has been realised. From Democritus to the latest Darwinian there have been men who supposed they had completely explained away the evidences of design in nature when they had described the physical antecedents of the arrangements appealed to as evidences. Aristotle showed the absurdity of this supposition more than 2200 years ago."

Now this is a perfectly valid criticism on all such previous non-theistical arguments as were drawn from an "indication of the process by which the order has been realised;" for in all these previous arguments there was an absence of any physical explanation of the ultimate cause of the process contemplated, and so long as this ultimate cause remained obscure, although the evidence of design might by these arguments have been excluded from particular processes, the evidence of design could not be similarly excluded from the ultimate cause of these processes. Thus, for instance, it is doubtless illogical, as Professor Flint points out, in any Darwinian to argue that because his theory of natural selection supplies him with a natural explanation of the process whereby organisms have been adapted to their surroundings, therefore this process need not itself have been designed. That is to say, in general terms, as insisted upon in the foregoing essay, the discovery of a natural law or orderly process cannot of itself justify the inference that this law or method of orderly procedure is not itself a product of supernatural Intelligence; but, on the contrary, the very existence of such orderly processes, considered only in relation to their products, must properly be regarded as evidence of the best possible kind in favour of supernatural Intelligence, provided that no natural cause can be suggested as adequate to explain the origin of these processes. But this is precisely what the persistence of force, considered as a natural cause, must be pronounced as necessarily competent to achieve; for we can clearly see that all these processes obviously must and actually do derive their origin from this one causative principle. And whether or not behind this one causative principle of natural law there exists a still more ultimate cause in the form of a supernatural Intelligence, this is a question altogether foreign to any argument from teleology, seeing that teleology, in so far as it is teleology, can only rest upon the observed facts of the cosmos; and if these facts admit of being explained by the action of a single causative principle inherent in the cosmos itself, teleology is not free to assume the action of any causative principle of a more ultimate character. Still, as I have repeatedly insisted, these considerations do not entitle us dogmatically to deny the existence of some such more ultimate principle; all that these considerations do is to remove any rational argument from teleological sources that any such more ultimate principle exists. Therefore I am, of course, quite at one with Professor Flint when he says Professor Huxley "admits that the most thoroughgoing evolutionist must at least assume 'a primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences,' and 'is thereby at the mercy of the theologist, who can defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to involve the phenomena of the universe.' Granting this much, he is logically bound to grant more. If the entire evolution of the universe may have been intended, the several stages of its evolution may have been intended, and they may have been intended for their own sakes as well as for the sake of the collective evolution or its final result." Now that such may have been the case, I have been careful to insist in [Chapter V.]; all I am now concerned with is to show that, in view of the considerations adduced in Chapter [IV.], there is no longer any evidence to prove, or even to indicate, that such has been the case. And with reference to this opportune quotation from Professor Huxley I may remark, that the "thoroughgoing evolutionist" is now no longer "at the mercy of the theologian" to any further extent than that of not being able to disprove a purely metaphysical hypothesis, which is as certainly superfluous, in any scientific sense, as the fundamental data of science are certainly true.

It may seem almost unnecessary to extend this postscript by pursuing further the criticism on Professor Flint's exposition in the light of "a single new reason ... for the denial of design" which he challenges; but there are nevertheless one or two other points which it seems desirable to consider. Professor Flint writes:—

"M. Comte imagines that he has shown the inference from design, from the order and stability of the solar system, to be unwarranted, when he has pointed out the physical conditions through which that order and stability are secured, and the process by which they have been obtained.... Now the assertion that the peculiarities which make the solar system stable and the earth habitable have flowed naturally and necessarily from the simple mutual gravity of the several parts of nebulous matter is one which greatly requires proof, but which has never received it. In saying this, we do not challenge the proof of the nebular theory itself. That theory may or may not be true. We are quite willing to suppose it true—to grant that it has been scientifically established. What we maintain is, that even if we admit unreservedly that the earth and the whole system to which it belongs once existed in a nebulous state, from which they were gradually evolved into their present condition conformably to physical laws, we are in no degree entitled to infer from the admission the conclusion which Comte and others have drawn. The man who fancies that the nebular theory implies that the law of gravitation, or any other physical law, has of itself determined the course of cosmical evolution, so that there is no need for believing in the existence and operation of a divine mind, proves merely that he is not exempt from reasoning very illogically. The solar system could only have been evolved out of its nebulous state into that which it now presents if the nebula possessed a certain size, mass, form, and constitution, if it was neither too fluid nor too tenacious—if its atoms were all numbered, its elements all weighed, its constituents all disposed in due relation to one another; that is to say, only if the nebula was in reality as much a system of order, which Intelligence alone could account for, as the worlds which have been developed from it. The origin of the nebula thus presents itself to reason as a problem which demands solution no less than the origin of the planets. All the properties and laws of the nebula require to be accounted for. What origin are we to give them? It must be either reason or unreason. We may go back as far as we please, but, at every step and stage of the regress we must find ourselves confronted with the same question, the same alternative—intelligent purpose or colossal chance."

Now, so far as Comte is here guilty of the fallacy I have already dwelt upon of building a destructive argument upon a demonstration of mere orderly processes in nature, as distinguished from a demonstration of the natural cause of these processes, it is not for me to defend him. All we can say with regard to him in this connection is, that, having a sort of scientific presentiment that if the knowledge of his day were sufficiently advanced it would prove destructive of supernaturalism in the higher and more abstruse provinces of physical speculation, as it had previously proved in the lower and less abstruse of these provinces, Comte allowed his inferences to outrun their legitimate basis. Being necessarily ignorant of the one generating cause of orderly processes in nature, he improperly allowed himself to found conclusions on the basis of these processes alone, which could only be properly founded on the basis of their cause. But freely granting this much to Professor Flint, and the rest of his remarks in this connection will be found, in view of the altered standing of this subject, to be open to amendment. For, in the first place, no one need now resort to the illogical supposition that "the law of gravitation or any other physical law has of itself determined the course of cosmical evolution." What we may argue, and what must be conceded to us, is, that the common substratum of all physical laws was at one time sufficient to produce the simplest physical laws, and that throughout the whole course of evolution this common substratum has always been sufficient to produce the more complex laws in the ascending series of their ever-increasing number and variety. And hence it becomes obvious that the "origin of the nebula" presents a difficulty neither greater nor less than "the origin of the planets," since, "if we may go back as far as we please," we can entertain no scientific doubt that we should come to a time, prior even to the nebula, when the substance of the solar system existed merely as such—i.e., in an almost or in a wholly undifferentiated form, the product, no doubt, of endless cycles of previous evolutions and dissolutions of formal differentiations. Therefore, although it is undoubtedly true that "the solar system could only have been evolved out of its nebulous state into that which it now presents if the nebula possessed" those particular attributes which were necessity to the evolution of such a product, this consideration is clearly deprived of all its force from our present point of view. For unless it can be shown that there is some independent reason for believing these particular attributes—which must have been of a more and more simple a character the further we recede in time—to have been miraculously imposed, the analogy is overwhelming that they all progressively arose by way of natural law. And if so, the universe which has been thus produced is the only universe in this particular point of space and time which could have been thus produced. That it is an orderly universe we have seen ad nauseam to be no argument in favour of its having been a designed universe, so long as the cause of its order—general laws—can be seen to admit of a natural explanation.

Thus there is clearly nothing to be gained on the side of teleology by going back to the dim and dismal birth of the nebula; for no "thoroughgoing evolutionist" would for one moment entertain the supposition that natural law in the simplest phases of its development partook any more of a miraculous character than it does in its more recent and vastly more complex phases. The absence of knowledge must not be used as equivalent to its presence; and if analogy can be held to justify any inference whatsoever, surely we may conclude with confidence that if existing general laws admit of being conceivably attributed to a natural genesis, the primordial laws of a condensing nebula must have been the same.

There is another passage in Professor Flint's work to which it seems desirable to refer. It begins thus: "There is the law of heredity: like produces like. But why is there such a law? Why does like produce like?... Physical science cannot answer these questions; but that is no reason why they should not both be asked and answered. I can conceive of no other intelligent answer being given to them than that there is a God of wisdom, who designed that the world should be for all ages the abode of life," &c.