But you proceed: “We must, therefore, suppose that this power has for a time been inert in the presence of chaotic or motionless matter.” In these few words I find three mistakes: First, you again introduce time where there can be nothing but eternity; secondly, you assume that a power not exercised is inert—which is false, because inertness means destitution of self-acting power; thirdly, you put chaotic and motionless matter in the presence of the creative power before this power has been exercised—which is to assume that chaotic matter was not created, but only received movement. You understand, doctor, that in arguing, as you do, from the point of view of your adversaries, you cannot take such liberties. If you wish to refute creation, you must take it as it is understood and defended by its supporters; or else you will only refute your own hallucinations. But I will not insist on these latter remarks. I made them only that you may better realize how deficient and miserable is your method of reasoning.
Büchner (bitterly). Thank you for the compliment.
Reader. However, I have more to say; and I hope, doctor, that you will not lose your temper, if I proceed onward in the same strain. In the second part of your argument you say that the creative power “could not have existed after the creation, as rest and inactivity are again incompatible with the notion of force.” This is evidently a mere reiteration of the sophism just refuted. If the reason you allege had any weight, it would follow that, when you have ceased curing a patient, your medical power would vanish, and, when you have ceased talking, your talkative power would be extinct; in fact, rest and inactivity, according to you, are incompatible with the notion of power. I say “power,” although you here make use of the word “force,” which is calculated to mislead your readers. The word “force” is frequently [pg 448] used to express a quantity of movement; and, of course, rest and movement exclude one another; hence to designate the creative power by the name of “force” may be a dishonest trick, though a very clumsy one, to inveigle readers into the belief that rest and creative power are incompatible. Here, however, I must point out another great blunder, which a man of your talent should have been able to avoid. There is a truth, doctor, of which you seem to be quite ignorant, though certainly you must have heard of it more than once. It is that the creative power, after the production of creatures, does not remain inactive. Creatures need positive conservation, and would fall into nothingness were they not continually kept in existence by the same power by which they have been first brought into being. Hence the creative power is always at work. What is, then, your supposition of its inactivity but a new proof of your ignorance?
What you add concerning the motion of matter has no importance. I might admit with you that, prescinding from miracles (which you are blind enough to deny), “at no time and nowhere, even in the most distant space reached by our telescope, could a single fact be established which would render the assumption of a force external, and independent of matter, necessary.” This, however, regards only the stability of the laws of motion; and it would be absurd to infer that therefore the existence of matter and its conservation need not be accounted for by an external cause. But you again give a proof of your ignorance by adding that “the motion of matter obeys only those laws which are inherently active.” What does this mean? Try to understand the term “law,” and you will see that to call law “inherently active” is an unpardonable nonsense. And hoping that this suffices to show the absolute worthlessness of your pretended argument, I will let you go on with your other allegations.
Büchner. You do not reflect, sir, that in your theory the creative power must have been idle for an eternity; and this cannot be admitted. For “to consider the power in eternal rest, and sunk in self-contemplation, is an empty arbitrary abstraction without any empirical basis” (p. 6).
Reader. Not at all, doctor. To consider God in eternal rest is not an empty arbitrary abstraction; it is a real and necessary conclusion from incontrovertible premises. Is it philosophical to assume, as you do, that creation would likely put an end to God's eternal rest? God always rests unchangeably in himself, whether he actually exercises his creative power or not. He has in himself his happiness, and in himself he rests for ever independently of creation. This we say without thinking for a moment of your “empirical basis.” For we know that it is a silly thought, that of endeavoring to find an empirical basis for a purely intellectual truth. But if by the want of an empirical basis you mean a want of known facts from which to show God's existence and infinite perfection, then your duty would have been to substantiate your assertion by showing that such facts are not real facts, or have no connection with the existence of a supreme being. This you have omitted to do, and thus all your argument consists of bold assertions, not only without proofs, but without the possibility of proof.
Is it not strange, then, that you [pg 449] fancy to have cornered your readers, and compelled them to resort to the most absurd fictions to uphold the existence of a creative power? You say, in fact, that they have no other resource but to admit “the singular notion that the creative power had suddenly and without any occasion arisen out of nothing, had created the world (out of what?), and had again, in the moment of completion, collapsed within itself, and, so to say, dissolved itself in the universe” (p. 7). Indeed, were we as stupid as any creature can be, we would still find it impossible to dream of such a foolish assumption. You add that “philosophers and others have ever cherished this latter notion, believing that they could, by this mode of reasoning, reconcile the indisputable fact of a fixed and unchangeable law in the economy of the universe with the belief in an individual creative power” (ibid.) I do not hesitate to tell you, doctor, that nothing but hatred of truth could prompt you to utter such a gross lie.
Büchner. Yet “all religious conceptions lean more or less towards this idea” (p. 7).
Reader. This I deny.
Büchner. Let me explain. Philosophers admit the idea, “with this difference: that they conceive the spirit of the world reposing after the creation, but yet, as an individual, capable of again suspending his own laws” (p. 7).