Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology

by William Whewell

In the same way it would appear that the universe, so far as it is an object of our knowledge, is finite in other respects also. Now when we have once attained this conviction, all the oppressive apprehension of being overlooked in the government of the universe has no longer any rational source. For in the superintendence of a finite system of things, what is there which can appear difficult or overwhelming to a Being such as we must, from what we know, conceive the Creator to be? Difficulties arising from space, number, gradation, are such as we can conceive ourselves capable of overcoming, merely by an extension of our present faculties. Is it not then easy to imagine that such difficulties must vanish before Him who made us and our faculties? Let it be considered how enormous a proportion the largest work of man bears to the smallest;—the great pyramid to the point of a needle. This comparison does not overwhelm us, because we know that man has made both. Yet the difference between this proportion and that of the sun to the claw of a mite, does not at all correspond to the difference which we must suppose to obtain between the Creator and the creature. It appears then that, if the first flash of that view of the universe which science reveals to us, does sometimes dazzle and bewilder men, a more attentive examination of the prospect, by the light we thus obtain, shows us how unfounded is the despair of our being the objects of Divine Providence, how absurd the persuasion that we have discovered the universe to be too large for its ruler.

4. Another ground of satisfactory reflection, having the same tendency, is to be found in the admirable order and consistency, the subordination and proportion of parts, which we find to prevail in the universe, as far as our discoveries reach. We have, it may be, a multitude almost innumerable of worlds, but no symptom of crowding, of confusion, of interference. All such defects are avoided by the manner in which these worlds are distributed into systems;—these systems, each occupying a vast space, but yet disposed at distances before which their own dimensions shrink into insignificance;—all governed by one law, yet this law so concentrating its operation on each system, that each proceeds as if there were no other, and so regulating its own effects that perpetual change produces permanent uniformity. This is the kind of harmonious relation which we perceive in that part of the universe, the mechanical part namely, the laws of which are best known to us. In other provinces, where our knowledge is more imperfect, we can see glimpses of a similar vastness of combination, producing, by its very nature, completeness of detail. Any analogy by which we can extend such views to the moral world, must be of a very wide and indefinite kind; yet the contemplation of this admirable relation of the arrangements of the physical creation, and the perfect working of their laws, is well calculated to give us confidence in a similar beauty and perfection in the arrangements by which our moral relations are directed, our higher powers and hopes unfolded. We may readily believe that there is, in this part of the creation also, an order, a subordination of some relations to others, which may remove all difficulty arising from the vast multitude of moral agents and actions, and make it possible that the superintendence of the moral world shall be directed with as exact a tendency to moral good, as that by which the government of the physical world is directed to physical good.

We may perhaps see glimpses of such an order, in the arrangements by which our highest and most important duties depend upon our relation to a small circle of persons immediately around us: and again, in the manner in which our acting well or ill results from the operation of a few principles within us; as our conscience, our desire of moral excellence, and of the favour of God. We can hardly consider such principles otherwise than as intended to occupy their proper place in the system by which man’s destination is to be determined; and thus, as among the means of the government and superintendence of God in the moral world.

That there must be an order and a system to which such regulative principles belong, the whole analogy of creation compels us to believe. It would be strange indeed, if, while the mechanical world, the system of inert matter, is so arranged that we cannot contemplate its order without an elevated intellectual pleasure;—while organized life has no faculties without their proper scope, no tendencies without their appointed object;—the rational faculties and moral tendencies of man should belong to no systematic order, should operate with no corresponding purpose: that, while the perception of sweet and bitter has its acknowledged and unmistakeable uses, the universal perception of right and wrong, the unconquerable belief of the merit of certain feelings and actions, the craving alike after moral advancement and after the means of attaining it, should exist only to delude, perplex, and disappoint man. No one, with his contemplations calmed and filled and harmonized by the view of the known constitution of the universe, its machinery “wheeling unshaken” in the farthest skies and in the darkest cavern, its vital spirit breathing alike effectively in the veins of the philosopher and the worm;—no one, under the influence of such a train of contemplations, can possibly admit into his mind a persuasion which makes the moral part of our nature a collection of inconsistent and futile impressions, of idle dreams and warring opinions, each having the same claims to our acceptance. Wide as is the distance between the material and the moral world; shadowy as all reasonings necessarily are which attempt to carry the inferences of one into the other; elevated above the region of matter as all the principles and grounds of truth must be, which belong to our responsibilities and hopes; still the astronomical and natural philosopher can hardly fail to draw from their studies an imperturbable conviction that our moral nature cannot correspond to those representations according to which it has no law, coherency, or object. The mere natural reasoner may, or must stop far short of all that it is his highest interest to know, his first duty to pursue; but even he, if he take any elevated and comprehensive views of his own subject, must escape from the opinions, as unphilosophical as they are comfortless, which would expel from our view of the world all reference to duty and moral good, all reliance on the most universal grounds of trust and hope.

Men’s belief of their duty, and of the reasons for practising it, connected as it is with the conviction of a personal relation to their Maker, and of His power of superintendence and reward, is as manifest a fact in the moral, as any that can be pointed out is in the natural world. By mere analogy which has been intimated, therefore, we cannot but conceive that this fact belongs in some manner or other to the order of the moral world, and of its government.

When any one acknowledges a moral governor of the world; perceives that domestic and social relations are perpetually operating and seem intended to operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty; and feels that the voice of conscience, the peace of heart which results from a course of virtue, and the consolations of devotion, are ever ready to assume their office as our guides and aids in the conduct of all our actions;—he will probably be willing to acknowledge also that the means of moral government are not wanting, and will no longer be oppressed or disturbed by the apprehension that the superintendence of the world may be too difficult for its Ruler, and that any of His subjects and servants may be overlooked. He will no more fear that the moral than that the physical laws of God’s creation should be forgotten in any particular case: and as he knows that every sparrow which falls to the ground contains in its structure innumerable marks of the Divine care and kindness, he will be persuaded that every individual, however apparently humble and insignificant, will have his moral being dealt with according to the laws of God’s wisdom and love; will be enlightened, supported, and raised, if he use the appointed means which God’s administration of the world of moral light and good offers to his use.

[CHAPTER IV.]
On the Impression produced by the Contemplation of Laws of Nature;

or, on the Conviction that Law implies Mind.

The various trains of thought and reasoning which lead men from a consideration of the natural world to the conviction of the existence, the power, the providence of God, do not require, for the most part, any long or laboured deduction, to give them their effect on the mind. On the contrary, they have, in every age and country, produced their impression on multitudes who have not instituted any formal reasonings upon the subject, and probably upon many who have not put their conclusions in the shape of any express propositions. The persuasion of a superior intelligence and will, which manifests itself in every part of the material world, is, as is well known, so widely diffused and deeply infixed, as to have made it a question among speculative men whether the notion of such a power is not universal and innate. It is our business to show only how plainly and how universally such a belief results from the study of the appearances about us. That in many nations, in many periods, this persuasion has been mixed up with much that was erroneous and perverse in the opinions of the intellect or the fictions of fancy, does not weaken the force of such consent. The belief of a supernatural and presiding power runs through all these errors: and while the perversions are manifestly the work of caprice and illusion, and vanish at the first ray of sober inquiry, the belief itself is substantial and consistent, and grows in strength upon every new examination. It was the firmness and solidity of the conviction of something Divine which gave a hold and permanence to the figments of so many false divinities. And those who have traced the progress of human thought on other subjects, will not think it strange, that while the fundamental persuasion of a Deity was thus irremovably seated in the human mind, the developement of this conception into a consistent, pure, and steadfast belief in one Almighty and Holy Father and God, should be long missed, or never attained, by the struggle of the human faculties; should require long reflection to mature it, and the aid of revelation to establish it in the world.