We have already seen that a difficulty of the same kind, which arises in the contemplation of causes and effects considered as forming an historical series, drives us to the assumption of a First Cause, as an Axiom 252 to which our Idea of Causation in time necessarily leads. And as we were thus guided to a First Cause, in order of Succession, the same kind of necessity directs us to a Supreme Cause in order of Causation.
On this most weighty subject it is difficult to speak fitly; and the present is not the proper occasion, even for most of that which may be said. But there are one or two remarks which flow from the general train of the contemplations we have been engaged in, and with which this Work must conclude.
We have seen how different are the kinds of cause to which we are led by scientific researches. Mechanical Forces are insufficient without Chemical Affinities; Chemical Agencies fail us, and we are compelled to have recourse to Vital Powers; Vital Powers cannot be merely physical, and we must believe in something hyperphysical, something of the nature of a Soul. Not only do biological inquiries lead us to assume an animal soul, but they drive us much further; they bring before us Perception, and Will evoked by Perception. Still more, these inquiries disclose to us Ideas as the necessary forms of Perception, in the actions of which we ourselves are conscious. We are aware, we cannot help being aware, of our Ideas and our Volitions as belonging to us, and thus we pass from things to persons; we have the idea of Personality awakened. And the idea of Design and Purpose, of which we are conscious in our own minds, we find reflected back to us, with a distinctness which we cannot overlook, in all the arrangements which constitute the frame of organized beings.
We cannot but reflect how widely diverse are the kinds of principles thus set before us;—by what vast strides we mount from the lower to the higher, as we proceed through that series of causes which the range of the sciences thus brings under our notice. Yet we know how narrow is the range of these sciences when compared with the whole extent of human knowledge. We cannot doubt that on many other subjects, besides those included in physical speculation, man has made out solid and satisfactory trains of 253 connexion;—has discovered clear and indisputable evidence of causation. It is manifest, therefore, that, if we are to attempt to ascend to the Supreme Cause—if we are to try to frame an idea of the Cause of all these subordinate causes;—we must conceive it as more different from any of them, than the most diverse are from each other;—more elevated above the highest, than the highest is above the lowest.
But further;—though the Supreme Cause must thus be inconceivably different from all subordinate causes, and immeasurably elevated above them all, it must still include in itself all that is essential to each of them, by virtue of that very circumstance that it is the Cause of their Causality. Time and Space,—Infinite Time and Infinite Space,—must be among its attributes; for we cannot but conceive Infinite Time and Space as attributes of the Infinite Cause of the universe. Force and Matter must depend upon it for their efficacy; for we cannot conceive the activity of Force, or the resistance of Matter, to be independent powers. But these are its lower attributes. The Vital Powers, the Animal Soul, which are the Causes of the actions of living things, are only the Effects of the Supreme Cause of Life. And this Cause, even in the lowest forms of organized bodies, and still more in those which stand higher in the scale, involves a reference to Ends and Purposes, in short, to manifest Final Causes. Since this is so, and since, even when we contemplate ourselves in a view studiously narrowed, we still find that we have Ideas, and Will and Personality, it would render our philosophy utterly incoherent and inconsistent with itself, to suppose that Personality, and Ideas, and Will, and Purpose, do not belong to the Supreme Cause from which we derive all that we have and all that we are.
But we may go a step further;—though, in our present field of speculation, we confine ourselves to knowledge founded on the facts which the external world presents to us, we cannot forget, in speaking of such a theme as that to which we have thus been led, that these are but a small, and the least significant 254 portion of the facts which bear upon it. We cannot fail to recollect that there are facts belonging to the world within us, which more readily and strongly direct our thoughts to the Supreme Cause of all things. We can plainly discern that we have Ideas elevated above the region of mechanical causation, of animal existence, even of mere choice and will, which still have a clear and definite significance, a permanent and indestructible validity. We perceive as a fact, that we have a Conscience, judging of Right and Wrong; that we have Ideas of Moral Good and Evil, that we are compelled to conceive the organization of the moral world, as well as of the vital frame, to be directed to an end and governed by a purpose. And since the Supreme Cause is the cause of these facts, the Origin of these Ideas, we cannot refuse to recognize Him as not only the Maker, but the Governor of the World; as not only a Creative, but a Providential Power; as not only a Universal Father, but an Ultimate Judge.
We have already passed beyond the boundary of those speculations which we proposed to ourselves as the basis of our conclusions. Yet we may be allowed to add one other reflection. If we find in ourselves Ideas of Good and Evil, manifestly bestowed upon us to be the guides of our conduct, which guides we yet find it impossible consistently to obey;—if we find ourselves directed, even by our natural light, to aim at a perfection of our moral nature from which we are constantly deviating through weakness and perverseness; if, when we thus lapse and err, we can find, in the region of human philosophy, no power which can efface our aberrations, or reconcile our actual with our ideal being, or give us any steady hope and trust with regard to our actions, after we have thus discovered their incongruity with their genuine standard;—if we discern that this is our condition, how can we fail to see that it is in the highest degree consistent with all the indications supplied by such a philosophy as that of which we have been attempting to lay the foundations, that the Supreme Cause, through whom man exists as 255 a moral being of vast capacities and infinite Hopes, should have Himself provided a teaching for our ignorance, a propitiation for our sin, a support for our weakness, a purification and sanctification of our nature?
And thus, in concluding our long survey of the grounds and structure of science, and of the lessons which the study of it teaches us, we find ourselves brought to a point of view in which we can cordially sympathize, and more than sympathize, with all the loftiest expressions of admiration and reverence and hope and trust, which have been uttered by those who in former times have spoken of the elevated thoughts to which the contemplation of the nature and progress of human knowledge gives rise. We can not only hold with Galen, and Harvey, and all the great physiologists, that the organs of animals give evidence of a purpose;—not only assert with Cuvier that this conviction of a purpose can alone enable us to understand every part of every living thing;—not only say with Newton that ‘every true step made in philosophy brings us nearer to the First Cause, and is on that account highly to be valued;’—and that ‘the business of natural philosophy is to deduce causes from effects, till we come to the very First Cause, which certainly is not mechanical;’—but we can go much farther, and declare, still with Newton, that ‘this beautiful system could have its origin no other way than by the purpose and command of an intelligent and powerful Being, who governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as the Lord of the Universe; who is not only God, but Lord and Governor.’
When we have advanced so far, there yet remains one step. We may recollect the prayer of one, the master in this school of the philosophy of science: ‘This also we humbly and earnestly beg;—that human things may not prejudice such as are divine;—neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, anything may arise of incredulity or intellectual night towards divine mysteries; but rather that by our minds thoroughly 256 purged and cleansed from fancy and vanity, and yet subject and perfectly given up to the divine oracles, there may be given unto faith the things that are faith’s.’ When we are thus prepared for a higher teaching, we may be ready to listen to a greater than Bacon, when he says to those who have sought their God in the material universe, ‘Whom ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.’ And when we recollect how utterly inadequate all human language has been shown to be, to express the nature of that Supreme Cause of the Natural, and Rational, and Moral, and Spiritual world, to which our Philosophy points with trembling finger and shaded eyes, we may receive, with the less wonder but with the more reverence, the declaration which has been vouchsafed to us:
ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ΗΝ Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ, ΚΑI Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΗΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΘΕΟΝ, ΚΑI ΘΕΟΣ ΗΝ Ὁ ΛΟΓΟΣ.