A Candid Examination of Theism | Page 6

he sees, feeling what he feels, nay, that we actually do so, and when the utmost effort of which we are capable fails to make us aware of what we are told, we perceive this supposed universal faculty of intuition is but
'The Dark Lantern of the Spirit Which none see by but those who bear it.'"
It is thus, I think, abundantly certain that the present argument must, from its very nature, be powerless as an argument to anyone save its assertor; as a matter of fact, the alleged necessity of thought is not universal; it is peculiar to those who employ the argument.
And now, it is but just to go one step further and to question whether the alleged necessity of thought is, in any case and properly speaking, a real necessity. Unless those who advance the present argument are the victims of some mental aberration, it is overwhelmingly improbable that their minds should differ in a fundamental and important attribute from the minds of the vast majority of their species. Or, to continue the above quotation, "They may fairly be asked to consider, whether it is not more likely that they are mistaken as to the origin of an impression in their minds, than that others are ignorant of the very existence of an impression in theirs." No doubt it is true that education and habits of thought may so stereotype the intellectual faculties, that at last what is conceivable to one man or generation may not be so to another;[2] but to adduce this consideration in this place would clearly be but to destroy the argument from the intuitive necessity of believing in a God.
Lastly, although superfluous, it may be well to point out that even if the impossibility of conceiving the negation of God were an universal law of human mind--which it certainly is not--the fact of his existence could not be thus proved. Doubtless it would be felt to be much more probable than it now is--as probable, for instance, if not more probable, than is the existence of an external world;--but still it would not be necessarily true.
§ 7. The argument from the general consent of mankind is so clearly fallacious, both as to facts and principles, that I shall pass it over and proceed at once to the last of the untenable arguments--that, namely, from the existence of a First Cause. And here I should like to express myself indebted to Mr. Mill for the following ideas:--"The cause of every change is a prior change; and such it cannot but be; for if there were no new antecedent, there would be no new consequent. If the state of facts which brings the phenomenon into existence, had existed always or for an indefinite duration, the effect also would have existed always or been produced an indefinite time ago. It is thus a necessary part of the fact of causation, within the sphere of experience, that the causes as well as the effects had a beginning in time, and were themselves caused. It would seem, therefore, that our experience, instead of furnishing an argument for a first cause, is repugnant to it; and that the very essence of causation, as it exists within the limits of our knowledge, is incompatible with a First Cause."
The rest of Mr. Mill's remarks upon the First Cause argument are tolerably obvious, and had occurred to me before the publication of his essay. I shall, however, adhere to his order of presenting them.
"But it is necessary to look more particularly into this matter, and analyse more closely the nature of the causes of which mankind have experience. For if it should turn out that though all causes have a beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation."
He then shows that the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy supplies us with such a datum, and thus the conclusion easily follows--"It would seem, then, that the only sense in which experience supports, in any shape, the doctrine of a First Cause, viz., as the prim?val and universal element of all causes, the First Cause can be no other than Force."
Still, however, it may be maintained that "all force is will-force." But "if there be any truth in the doctrine of Conservation of Force, ... this doctrine does not change from true to false when it reaches the field of voluntary agency. The will does not, any more than other agencies, create Force: granting that it originates motion, it has no means of doing so but by converting into that particular manifestation, a portion of Force