THE END.
Notes
[1] The above was written before Mr. Mill's essay on Theism was published. Lest, therefore, my refutation may be deemed too curt, I supplement it with Mr. Mill's remarks upon the same subject. "It may still be maintained that the feelings of morality make the existence of God eminently desirable. No doubt they do, and that is the great reason why we find that good men and women cling to the belief, and are pained by its being questioned. But, surely, it is not legitimate to assume that, in the order of the universe, whatever is desirable is true. Optimism, even when a God is already believed in, is a thorny doctrine to maintain, and had to be taken by Leibnitz in the limited sense, that the universe being made by a good being, is the best universe possible, not the best absolutely: that the Divine power, in short, was not equal to making it more free from imperfections than it is. But optimism, prior to belief in a God, and as the ground of that belief, seems one of the oddest of all speculative delusions. Nothing, however, I believe, contributes more to keep up the belief in the general mind of humanity than the feeling of its desirableness, which, when clothed, as it very often is, in the form of an argument, is a naive expression of the tendency of the human mind to believe whatever is agreeable to it. Positive value the argument of course has none." For Mill's remarks on the version of the argument dealt with in [§ 5], see his "Three Essays," p. 204.
[2] The words "or not conceivable," are here used in the sense of "not relatively conceivable," as explained in [Chap. vi.]
[3] For the full discussion from which the above is an extract, see System of Logic, vol. i. pp. 409-426 (8th ed.). But, substituting "psychical" for "volitional," see also, for some mitigation of the severity of the above statement, the closing paragraphs of my [supplementary essay] on "Cosmic Theism."
[4] Essay on Understanding—Existence of God.
[5] Locke, loc. cit.
[6] See [Appendix A].
[7] Viz., the constant association within experience of mind with certain highly peculiar material forms; the constant proportion which is found to subsist between the quantity of cerebral matter and the degree of intellectual capacity—a proportion which may be clearly traced throughout the ascending series of vertebrated animals, and which is very generally manifested in individuals of the human species; the effects of cerebral anæmia, anæsthetics, stimulants, narcotic poisons, and lesions of cerebral substance. There can, in short, be no question that the whole series of observable facts bearing upon the subject are precisely such as they ought to be upon supposition of the materialistic theory being true; while, contrariwise, there is a total absence of any known facts tending to negative that theory. At the same time it must be carefully noted, that the observed facts (and any additional number of the like kind) do not logically warrant us in concluding that mental states are necessarily dependent upon material changes. Nevertheless, it must also be noted, that, in the absence of positive proof of causation, it is certainly in accordance with scientific procedure, to yield our provisional assent to an hypothesis which undoubtedly connects a large order of constant accompaniments, rather than to an hypothesis which is confessedly framed to meet but a single one of the facts.