A Candid Examination of Theism | Page 8

or of organic nature."[3]

* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
THE ARGUMENT FROM THE EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN
MIND.
§ 8. Leaving now the obviously untenable arguments, we next come to
those which, in my opinion, may properly be termed scientific.
It will be convenient to classify those as three in number; and under
one or other of these heads nearly all the more intelligent advocates of
Theism will be found to range themselves.
§ 9. We have first the argument drawn from the existence of the human
mind. This is an argument which, for at least the last three centuries,
and especially during the present one, has been more relied upon than
any other by philosophical thinkers. It consists in the reflection that the
being of our own subjective intelligence is the most certain fact which
our experience supplies, that this fact demands an adequate cause for its
explanation, and that the only adequate cause of our intelligence must
be some other intelligence. Granting the existence of a conditioned
intelligence (and no one could reasonably suppose his own intelligence
to be otherwise), and the existence of an unconditioned intelligence
becomes a logical necessity, unless we deny either the validity of the
principle that every effect must have an adequate cause, or else that the
only adequate cause of Mind is Mind.
It has been a great satisfaction to me to find that my examination of this
argument--an examination which was undertaken and completed
several months before Mr. Mill's essay appeared--has been minutely
corroborated by that of our great logician. I mention this circumstance
here, as on previous occasions, not for the petty motive of vindicating
my own originality, but because in matters of this kind the accuracy of
the reasoning employed, and therefore the logical validity of the
conclusions attained, are guaranteed in the best possible manner, if the
trains of thought have been independently pursued by different minds.

§ 10. Seeing that, among the advocates of this argument, Locke went so
far as to maintain that by it alone he could render the existence of a
Deity as certain as any mathematical demonstration, it is only fair,
preparatory to our examining this argument, to present it in the words
of this great thinker.
He says:--"There was a time when there was no knowing (i.e.,
conscious) being, and when knowledge began to be; or else there has
been also a knowing being from all eternity. If it be said, there was a
time when no being had any knowledge, when that eternal being was
void of all understanding, I reply, that then it was impossible there
should ever have been any knowledge: it being as impossible that
things wholly void of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without
perception, should produce a knowing being, as it is impossible that a
triangle should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. For
it is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into
itself, sense, perception, and knowledge, as it is repugnant to the idea of
a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two right
ones."[4]
Now, although this argument has been more fully elaborated by other
writers, the above presentation contains its whole essence. It will be
seen that it has the great advantage of resting immediately upon the
foundation from which all argument concerning this or any other matter,
must necessarily arise, viz.,--upon the very existence of our
argumentative faculty itself. For the sake of a critical examination, it is
desirable to throw the argument before us into the syllogistic form. It
will then stand thus:--
All known minds are caused by an unknown mind. Our mind is a
known mind; therefore, our mind is caused by an unknown mind.
§ 11. Now the major premiss of this syllogism is inadmissible for two
reasons: in the first place, it is assumed that known mind can only be
caused by unknown mind; and, in the second place, even if this
assumption were granted, it would not explain the existence of Mind as
Mind. To take the last of these objections first, in the words of Mr. Mill,
"If the mere existence of Mind is supposed to require, as a necessary

antecedent, another Mind greater and more powerful, the difficulty is
not removed by going one step back: the creating mind stands as much
in need of another mind to be the source of its existence as the created
mind. Be it remembered that we have no direct knowledge (at least
apart from Revelation) of a mind which is even apparently eternal, as
Force and Matter are: an eternal mind is, as far as the present argument
is concerned, a simple hypothesis to account for the minds which we
know to exist. Now it