Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry

by George Ticknor Curtis

When the moral and intellectual qualities of men constitute one part of the phenomenal manifestations which we adopt as the basis of reasoning to the existence of God, we are in danger of assigning to that being attributes of character which would be far from perfection. Nearly all the religions that have existed, and of which we have much knowledge—perhaps all of them but one—have displayed more or less of this tendency. It is only necessary to instance the Hebrew Scriptures, for there are parts of that narrative in which the Deity is represented as actuated by something very much like human passions and motives, and these representations are among the hardest things to be reconciled with the idea that those books were inspired writings. Every one knows with what effect these passages of the Hebrew Scriptures are used by those who reject both the Old and the New Testaments as inspired books. But is philosophy therefore to shrink from the use of materials with which the world is filled, and which lead to the conception of a being of infinite faculties and perfect goodness? Grant all that may be said of the stupid and fatal errors into which men have been led by likening the Deity to man: there remains a vast store-house of materials on which to reason to the existence of God, which philosophy can not afford to reject, which can be freed from the peril that has often attended their use, and which involve no "symbolizing" process of the kind which Mr. Spencer imagines.

Let us again translate Mr. Spencer's language, and endeavor to analyze his position. There is, he says, a law of thought, which requires and depends upon certain elements of thought. By "thought" he means a conceivable idea, or one which the mind can represent to itself. By the elements of thought he means, I suppose, the data which enable us to have an idea of a product. The process of reaching this product is supposed to be conducted according to a law which requires us to have the data or elements by which the process is to be conducted. For example, in the process of reaching an idea of definite space as a product of thought, we take certain data or elements, by conceiving of space as divided into successive portions to which we give the name of feet or miles. The product of thought is the number of feet or miles into which we divide the definite space of which we form an idea. In this process we have conformed to Mr. Spencer's law of thought, because we have data or elements by which to conduct the process and reach the product.

But now, says Mr. Spencer, when thought undertakes to have as its product the idea of endless space, it makes an effort to pass beyond its sphere; the elements of thought fail, and therefore the law of thought fails; the product is nothing but a dim symbol of a product; the process becomes nothing but a dim symbol of a process; and no predicament, that is, no fact, is here inferable from the law of thought as a fact or predicament that can be asserted. But what, in the case supposed, is the fact or predicament that is asserted, when we speak or think of endless space, or of space that transcends all our powers of measurement? Is it correct to say that the law of thought fails, because we can not express endless space in feet or miles? Is it true that we have only "symbolized" the product of endless space out of the data or elements of measurable space? Here it is necessary to inquire what the learned philosopher means by "symbolizing" a product or a process. I understand him to mean, in the case supposed, that whereas in reference to the idea or product of a measurable space we have certain data or elements out of which to form that idea, when we undertake to think of endless space we transfer the notion of a measurable space to that of which no measure can be predicated, and therefore we can have no conception of endless space, but only a "formless consciousness of the inscrutable." Let us see if this is sound.

Take as a convenient idea of a measurable space the 92,000,000 miles from the earth to the sun, and lay it down on paper. If, after having measured this space, we could transport ourselves to the sun, we could extend the line in the same direction beyond the sun, by laying down a further measurement of 92,000,000 miles from the sun to any object that we could observe beyond the sun. This process we could repeat indefinitely and forever, if we could be successively removed to the different stages at each point of departure. But when an aggregate of such multiplied measurements had been reached greater than could be expressed in figures, we should still have the intellectual power of thinking of an extension of space indefinitely beyond that which we have measured. Nothing would have failed us but the power of expressing in figures the endless extent of space which lies beyond the utmost limit that we can so express.

It is precisely here, as I suppose, that Mr. Spencer's "symbolizing process" and his "symbolized product" come in. We have taken as the elements of thought the idea of successive measurements of space; and the law of thought permits us to have as a definite product whatever extent of space can be marked off by such successive measurements. But when we undertake to have, as the product of thought, a consciousness, or conception, of endless space, we have merely used the idea of a definite space as a "symbol," or simulacrum, of that which is without form, and is only a "formless consciousness of the inscrutable"—whatever that means.

Let us see what has happened. The power of measuring, or describing in form, a definite extent of space, has given us an idea of space. The product of our thought is extension between two given points. Such extensions must be capable of indefinite multiplication, although we can not express in figures an indefinite multiplicand. The product is then something beyond what we can express in a definite form; but is it beyond the sphere of thought? What is it? It is an idea which we deduce by a strict process of reasoning, and to which we do not need to give and can not give expression in figures. The process of reasoning is this: Measurement has given us an idea of space; our faculty of applying measurement is limited; but our faculty of conceiving of space through which we could go on forever multiplying such measurements, if we had the means, is certainly a faculty of which all men are conscious who are accustomed to analyze the processes of thought. In this process we may reach that which in one sense is "inscrutable." It is inscrutable, inasmuch as we can not understand how eternity of space or time came to exist. Our experience of phenomena enables us to have an idea of space and time, and from the fact that we have measured off portions of space or time, we deduce the fact that there must be an eternity of both. It is immaterial whether we call this a "symbolizing" process, or call it something else. The product is an idea at which we arrive by a strict process of reasoning. Eternity of space or time is an inscrutable idea, when we attempt to inquire how it came to be. That it exists, is an idea from which the human mind can not escape, and which it reaches by a perfectly sound deduction. We are all the while thinking of space or time, whether we are thinking of that which is measurable, or of that which is immeasurable.

I now come to a passage in Mr. Spencer's recent article which it is necessary to attempt to explain to the unlearned reader, and to bring it, if possible, within the reach of ordinary minds. This passage, which follows in his recent article immediately after his quotation from his "Essays," is the following:

Thus, then, criticisms like this of Mr. Martineau, often recurring in one shape or other, and now again made by Mr. Harrison, do not show the invalidity of my argument, but once more show the imbecility of human intelligence when brought to bear on the ultimate question. Phenomenon without noumenon is unthinkable; and yet noumenon can not be thought of in the true sense of thinking. We are at once obliged to be conscious of a reality behind appearance, and yet can neither bring this consciousness of reality into any shape, nor can bring into any shape its connection with appearance. The forms of our thought, molded on experience of phenomena, as well as the connotations of our words formed to express the relations of phenomena, involve us in contradictions when we try to think of that which is beyond phenomena; and yet the existence of that which is beyond phenomena is a necessary datum alike of our thoughts and our words. We have no choice but to accept a formless consciousness of the inscrutable.

Some definitions must now be given. The word "phenomenon" has become naturalized in our English tongue. Derived as a noun from the Greek verb Φαίνομαι, to appear, it means anything visible; whatever is presented to the eye by observation or experiment, or what is discovered to exist; as the phenomena of the natural world, the phenomena of the heavenly bodies, of terrestrial substances, the phenomena of heat and color.[95] In this application the word denotes what appears to us, or what we discover by our senses. It is also used, in the plural, more loosely, to denote occurrences or things which we observe to happen; as when, speaking of physical occurrences, we mean physical facts the happening of which we observe. Moral phenomena, on the other hand, are the appearances exhibited by the action of mind.