Such, in substance, is the argument from adaptability founded on the assumption of theism and applied to the criticism or establishment of further religious beliefs. It is indeed somewhat stronger when we remember that the self-consciousness, with which we fictitiously endowed the lock, plays chief part in the very design and structure of man; that his self-knowledge, his moral and religious instincts, his desire and power of interpreting them, are all from the Author of his nature.
Of this difference Tennyson takes note in applying the argument from adaptability to the immortality of the soul:
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust;
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die,
And Thou hast made him, Thou art just.
But so far as the argument presupposes theism it cannot be made to support or even confirm theism. If, then, we want to make the argument absolutely universal with regard to religious beliefs—theism included and not presupposed—and so to make it available for apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must inquire whether any basis can be found for it in non-theistic philosophy; whether, prescinding from Divine governance and from an intelligent purpose running through nature, the adaptability of a belief to the higher needs of mankind can be considered in any way to prove its truth. So far we have only shown that such a conclusion results from a clearer insight into the theistic conception. Can we show that it springs, co-ordinately with theism, from some conception prior to both?
II.
If what is usually understood by "theism" be once granted as a foundation, it is easy to raise thereon a superstructure of further religious beliefs by means of the argument drawn from their adaptability to the higher needs of mankind. However individuals may fail, yet it must be allowed that on the whole the human mind progresses, or tends to progress, from a less to a more perfect self-knowledge, to a fuller understanding of its own origin, its end and destiny, and of the kind of life by which that end is to be reached,—that is, if once we admit that man is a self-interpreting creature, and the work of an intelligent Creator. So far however as the Christian creed exceeds man's natural exigencies and aspirations, it plainly cannot be subjected to this criterion; and so far as it includes (while it transcends) the highest form of "natural religion," the argument from adaptability holds of it only if we suppose Christianity to be a natural product of the human mind, thus destroying its claim to be from without and from above. But if from other reasons we know Christianity to be a God-made and not a man-made religion, then, though its divinity and truth is already proved, yet it is in some sort confirmed and verified by its adaptability to the demands of our higher nature. In a word, this particular argument holds strictly only for man's own guesses at religious truth,—for "natural" religions; but for Christianity, only so far as we deny it to be supernatural as to its content and mode of origination.
But so far as this argument presupposes theism, it cannot be made to support or even confirm theism; if then we wish to make it available for apologetic purposes in regard to those whose doubt is more deep-seated, we must now inquire whether, prescinding from divine governance and from finality in nature, the adaptability of a belief (say, in God, or in future retribution) to the needs of mankind, can be considered in any way as a proof of its truth; whether that argument can find any deeper mental basis than theism; whether it can be rested on anything which in the order of our thought is prior to theism so as to support or at least to confirm theism itself.
Our present endeavour is to show that though this argument rests more easily and securely on theism, yet it need not rest upon it; but springs, co-ordinately with theism, from any conception of the world that saves us from mental and moral chaos. Hence it confirms theism and is confirmed by theism; but each is strictly independent of the other and rests on a conception prior to both; they diverge from one and the same root and then intertwine and support one another.
By prescinding from theism I do not mean to exclude or deny it; for it is, as I have just said, bound up with the same conception from which the "argument from adaptability" is drawn. I only mean that I do not need to build upon it as on a prior conception; that I can put it aside. Indeed, of these two off-shoots, theism is less near to the common root, as will appear later.
Our limited mind cannot take in at once all the consequences or presuppositions of a thought; for this would be to know everything; but as with our outward eye we take in the circle of the horizon bit by bit, so with our mind when we turn to one aspect of an idea we lose sight of another. Hence in studying some complex organism or mechanism I may be clear about the bearing of any part on its immediately neighbouring parts, and yet may have no present notion of the whole; or may prescind entirely from the question of its origin or its purpose. Thus our thoughts are always unfinished and frayed round the edges, and we do not know how much they involve and drag along with them. We can think of the mechanism, and the organism, and the design, without thinking of the mechanist, or the organizer, or the designer; and so in all cases where two ideas are connected without being actually correlative. What is commonly called a philosophical proof consists simply in showing us the implications of some part of the general conception of things that we already hold. It is to force us either to loosen our hold on that part or else to admit all that it entails by way of consequences or presuppositions; and so to bring our thoughts into consistency one way or the other. But until something sets our mind in motion it can rest very comfortably in partial conceptions, without following them out to their results.