If such a belief, so grounded, be unscientific, as is constantly assumed, there must be good arguments to the contrary. It should be demonstrable, either that Science has shown such a line of reasoning to be unsound, or that she has discovered[{98}] within her own domain something which, at least conceivably, can do the work thus attributed to Intelligence—in which case the much-quoted dictum of Lord Kelvin will be in point,—that if a probable solution of any problem can be found which is consistent with the ordinary course of Nature, we must not go beyond Nature in search of one.
If, on the other hand, the above line of reasoning cannot be invalidated, and if scientific methods can discover nothing competent to effect what has undoubtedly been effected, it is not easy to see how it can be unscientific to proceed by inference to what is confessedly beyond the scope of observation and experiment.
That "Teleology," or the doctrine of Final Causality,[136] is unworthy of serious consideration, is without doubt a common assumption, and some writers seem to think that an argument is sufficiently discredited if it be styled "teleological." Yet this rather formidable term represents no more than the belief that the infinite adaptations of means to results observed in Nature are the effect of purpose, not of chance. And if we eliminate purpose, what is there left to furnish an explanation, beyond the indubitable fact that such adaptations have always been found in organic nature, and that we have learnt confidently to anticipate that they will[{99}] appear generation after generation according to the "law of heredity"? But this obviously only tells us that they have been produced and are likewise transmitted, and throws no light whatever on the cause of the marvellous processes to which their production and their transmission are due. If we have any rational grounds for expecting that such processes will continue to occur, it cannot be merely that they have occurred before, but we instinctively infer that the cause to which they are ultimately due continues to operate. We are thus as far as ever from an answer to the question, What is that cause?
It may be urged [says Newman][137] if a thing happens once it must happen always; for what is to hinder it? Nay, on the contrary, why, because one particle of matter has a certain property, should all particles have the same? Why, because particles have instanced the property a thousand times, should the thousand and first instance it also? It is prima facie unaccountable that an accident should happen twice, not to speak of it happening always. If we expect a thing to happen twice, it is because we think it is not an accident, but has a cause. What has brought about a thing once, may bring it about twice. What is to hinder its happening? rather what is to make it happen? Here we are thrown back from the question of Order to that of Causation. A law is not a cause, but a fact; but when we come to the question of cause, then we have no experience of any cause but Will.
Here is the crucial point: "We have no experience of any cause but Will;" and it follows that if, as Science bids us, we base inference on experience alone, there can be no doubt about the conclusion to which we shall be led.
No different is the verdict of Sir John Herschel:
The presence of Mind [he writes][138] is what solves the whole difficulty: so far, at least, as it brings it within the sphere of our consciousness, and into conformity with our own experience of what action is.
That the introduction of intelligent purpose, as a factor, sufficiently meets the requirements of our reason cannot be denied. As Bishop Butler insists, it is even impossible for any man in his senses to say that the problem can be more easily solved without it. And witnesses not merely unfriendly, but positively and even bitterly hostile, are compelled to admit that on whatever other grounds they may reject Theism, it is not because this doctrine is inadequate as an explanation of the world we know.
It seems to me [says Professor Huxley][139] that "creation," in the ordinary sense of the word, is perfectly conceivable. I find no difficulty in imagining that, at some former period, this universe was not in existence; and that it made its appearance ... in consequence of the volition of some pre-existent Being.[{101}] The so-called à priori arguments against Theism, and given a Deity, against the possibility of creative acts, appear to me to be devoid of reasonable foundation.