Probabilities | Page 6

voice of revelation. We do not attempt to
prove it; that were easy and obvious: but our more difficult endeavour
at present is to show how antecedently probable it was that God should
be: and that so being, He should be invested with the reasonable
attributes, wherewithal we know His glorious Nature to be clothed.
Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that
"originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to prove,
_à posteriori_, that Something did exist; because something exists now:
every matter and every derived spirit must have had a Father; ex nihilo
nihil fit, is not more a truth, than that creation must have had a Creator.
However, leaving this plain path (which I only point at by the way for
obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at the great antecedent
probability that in the beginning Something should have been, rather
than Nothing.
The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence,
as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a negation,
which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to be
denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be
somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to
that of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived
without the previous idea of a tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, ex vi
termini, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity,
prësupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would
still and for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its
removal; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The
chances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity; and
the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. It
was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable
beginning from which reason can start, Something should be found
existent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability.
Next; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely to
be?--There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the many
either sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in the

former case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, there
would be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?--let us
see. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are more probable,
and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you take away,
the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, you arrive at
that One Being, whom we have already proved probable. Moreover,
many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the many is a
gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for all
purposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have
been in essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of any
thing short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution,
needs must that one or other of the many (long before any possible
beginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista of
eternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes to
become absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostile
compulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be
indifferent; if they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God.
Perpetuity of discord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity
tends to decomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to
work in, a one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an
_à priori_ probability. That all other assumptions than that of His true
and eternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to
the rational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the direct
proofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason:
albeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, such as
Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless at
some of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence,
became a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any
one of us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihood
existed for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which prepares
the mind to take as a fundamental truth, "The Lord our God is one
Jehovah."
Next; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probable
attribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the
same principle as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier
than Nothing, we conclude that