On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical

by William Whewell

To this question, two very different answers are returned by those who do and those who do not believe in a Supreme Mind or Intelligence, as the cause and foundation of the world.

Those who do not believe that the world has for its cause and foundation a Supreme Intelligence, or who do not connect their philosophy with this belief, would reply to our inquiry, that the reason why man's thoughts and ideas agree with the world is, that they are borrowed from the world; and that the persuasion that these Ideas and truths derived from them have any origin except the world without us, is an illusion.

On this view I shall not now dwell; for I wish to trace out the consequences of the opposite view, that there exists a Supreme Mind, which is the cause and foundation of the universe. Those who hold this, and who also hold that the human mind can become possessed of necessary truths, if they are asked how it is that these necessary truths are universally verified in the material world, will reply, that it is so because the Supreme Creative-Mind has made it so to be:—that the truths which exist or can be generated in man's mind agree with the laws of the universe, because He who has made and sustains man and the universe has caused them to agree:—that our Ideas correspond to the Facts of the world, and the Facts to our Ideas, because our Ideas are given us by the same power which made the world, and given so that these can and must agree with the world so made.

8. (View of the Theist).—This, in its general form, would be the answer of the theist, (so we may call him who believes in a Supreme Intelligent Cause of the world and of man,) to the questions which we have propounded—the perplexity or paradox which we have tried to bring into view. But we must endeavour to trace this view—this answer—more into detail.

If a Supreme Intelligence be the cause of the world and of the Laws which prevail among its phenomena, these Laws must exist as Acts of that Intelligence—as Laws caused by the thoughts of the Supreme Mind—as Ideas in the Mind of God. And then the question would be, How we are to conceive these thoughts, these Ideas, to be at the same time Divine and human:—to be at the same time Ideas in the Divine Mind, and necessary truths in the human mind; and this is the question which I would now inquire into.

9. (Is this Platonism?)—To the terms in which the inquiry is now propounded it may be objected that I am taking for granted the Platonic doctrine, that the world is constituted according to the Ideas of the Divine Mind. It may be said that this doctrine is connected with gross extravagancies of speculation and fiction, and has long been obsolete among sound philosophers.

To which I reply, that if such doctrines have been pushed into extravagancies, with them I have nothing to do, nor have I any disposition or wish to revive them. But I do not conceive the doctrine, to the extent to which I have stated it, to be at all obsolete:—that the Cause and Foundation of the Universe is a Divine Mind: and from that doctrine it necessarily follows, that the laws of the Universe are in the Ideas of the Divine Mind.

I would then, as I have said, examine the consequences of this doctrine, in reference to the question of which I have spoken. And in order to do this, it may help us, if we consider separately the bearing of this doctrine upon separate portions of our knowledge of the universe;—separately its bearing upon the laws which form the subject-matter of different sciences:—if we take particular human Ideas, and consider what the Divine Ideas must be with regard to each of them.

10. (Idea of Space.)—Let us take, in the first place, the Idea of Space. Concerning this Idea we possess necessary truths; namely, the Axioms of Geometry; and, as necessarily resulting from them, the whole body of Geometry. And our former inquiry, as narrowed within the limits of this Idea, will be, How is it that the truths of Geometry—à priori truths—are universally verified in the observed phenomena of the universe? And the theist's answer which we have given will now assume this form:—This is so because the Supreme Mind has constituted and constitutes the universe according to the Idea of Space. The universe conforms to the Idea of Space, and the Idea of Space exists in the human mind;—is necessarily evoked and awakened in the human mind existing in the universe. And since the Idea of Space, which is a constituent of the universe, is also a constituent of the human mind, the consequences of this Idea in the universe and in the human mind necessarily coincide; that is, the spacial Laws of the universe necessarily coincide with the spacial Science which man elaborates out of his mind.

11. To this it may be objected, that we suppose the Idea of Space in the Divine Mind (according to which Idea, among others, the universe is constituted,) to be identical with the Idea of Space in the human mind; and this, it may be urged, is too limited and material a notion of the Divine Mind to be accepted by a reverent philosophy.