We will not speak of chances in the production of such a mathematical marvel. We dare not approach the stupendous calculation, unless we might borrow the geometry of the morning star.
But every region of astronomy overflows with similar wonders; yet I have only time to adduce one more. The sun and all his suite of luminous attendants rotate from west to east, on axes that remain nearly parallel to themselves. La Place has computed the probability to be as four millions to one that all the motions of the planets, whether of rotation or revolution, originated in a common cause. Is it, then, even so much as conceivable that the efficient of such an endless order should be itself destitute of all reason and foresight? For it is universally conceded that the discovery and quick perception of mathematical relations evince intellect of the most lofty character; how incomparably superior, therefore, must have been the rationality required for the primary composition and arrangement of these relations! If to think geometrically demands intelligence, can any cause work geometrically without possessing the attributes of thought? We admire the genius of a Kepler and of a Newton as almost superhuman, because they were enabled to understand the harmonious laws of the heavenly bodies; what madness, then, must it be to deny the existence of mind as the necessary efficient for the production of these very harmonies!
I might go on to career all over the fields of science, and show the prevalence of mathematical ratios and equations in every department of approachable nature. But on the strength of the instances already adduced I think we are entitled to assume our minor premise as thoroughly proven: that all natural phenomena have the characteristic of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance. And this induction, although it only rests for support on the canon of agreement—per enumerationem simplicem, ubi non reperitur instantia contradictoria—nevertheless has as broad and firm a basis as the philosophic axiom that every fact has a cause. For as we have never found a phenomenon without an efficient, so neither can we ever find one without its relations of mathematical order.
And now calling to mind our major premise—that every natural phenomenon having the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony must be the effect of a rational cause—it follows irresistibly by the rules of logic, from the conjugation of the two propositions, that all natural phenomena are the effects of a rational cause.
But we are not yet justified in dignifying the efficient of all these natural phenomena with the name of God. For the cause, though demonstrated to be intelligent, may be one or many, permanent or transient, good or evil. We have only inquired as to its existence, without considering any other attribute. However, we have not far to go in the sequel of the investigation, as the laws of logical inference founded on our previous inductions will enable us to give a speedy solution of the remaining problems, at least so fully as they may be susceptible of scientific explanation.
On the subject of causal unity it may be laid down as a general principle: That in the same sphere of time and space the identity of an efficient is to be concluded from the identity of the phenomena which experience has shown it to be capable of producing. Thus we refer all the electrical facts in the universe to a single imponderable agent; and we always predicate the power of heat whenever we witness its usual and well-known effects. Nevertheless, these instances are only analogous. But the following are precisely in point. The affirmation of a single human being, the truth of his separate existence as a real and rational unit, is inferred alone from his manifestations as a cause in time and space. He stands demonstrated, present or absent, by the power that he develops, or has developed, in his individual sphere. His physical features may change, yet he will still be revealed in his intelligent actions. The divine pictures of a Raphael or a Rubens may be identified for long ages after the hand that sketched the now immortal lineaments of some mortal face has been mouldering, like the lovely original, in darkness and dust. No two persons—that is to say, human causes—present exactly the same effects. Every fact evolved will differ more or less. And, lastly, every cause is manifested as a unit by its occupation or pervasion of a given space.
Applying, then, this axiom of identity to the efficient of natural phenomena, the unity of the great Cause becomes at once apparent. Everywhere we behold the same laws of mathematical harmony. The identical principle of gravitation, which we have proved to be the effect of a sublime rationality, carries us away to the utmost limits of the solar system, and shows us one sovereign efficient, one pervading force, that we may henceforth call God, all over those immeasurable fields of infinite azure. And when this path grows so dim and distant amidst that far-off wilderness of flaming worlds that we can no longer trace the footsteps of attraction, there still remains heaven’s own highway of radiant light to conduct us on and on towards the centre, or perchance it may be the circumference, of the universe, revealing the same God enthroned on every sun; because every ray that flashes from the great blue deep of the firmament preserves the same identical laws of reflection and refraction.
Who can elevate his mind to the contemplation of these amazing and magnificent depths of distance, those profound caverns of space, teeming and sparkling with worlds like crystals? That light which travels almost two hundred thousand miles in a second does not reach us from the star 61 Cygni until after a journey of nine years and three months; and yet that is one of the nocturnal luminaries which may be termed the nearest neighbors of our system. The number of registered stars amount to two hundred thousand; while the entire host accessible to the sweep of the telescope have been reckoned as a hundred millions, from some of which it takes the luminous rays thousands of years to fly down to the earth. What mathematician, then, shall measure this celestial expanse, brimming over with suns and stars, and swarming with galaxies of living flame? Imagination stoops beneath such a giddy summit, nor dares attempt to scale those cliffs of golden fire. Reason, faltering on the brink of that boundless ocean of immensity, recoils as from the verge of annihilation. None but God can walk the heights of those starry pinnacles, and the light that burns and flashes around his feet falls down to man as the proof of the divine presence. In fine, if we had never before known a Deity, the telescope would have revealed him.
The unity of God being established, can we predicate his eternity? In the first place, all history bears witness to the permanence of the same grand principles of causation, since the primary annals of the species; and then geology takes up the subject, and carries it back for countless ages through those records inscribed on the ancient rocks by the pencil of central fire, or the fierce pen of earthquakes and blazing volcanoes; and still everywhere we see the evidence of the same mathematical laws, the same attraction and gravitation. Everything alike shows the existence of the same all-creating Deity as anterior to itself; and further than this the canons of mere induction cannot go.
Nor can the goodness of God be demonstrated in the precise and conclusive manner which has marked our previous propositions. The beauties of nature and the blessings of Providence are sufficient proofs to the majority of mankind; and for all the rest one must depend on à priori reasoning, or look to the clearer light of a divine revelation.