Thoughts on Religion | Page 3

was passed over without comment; while the argument from
a first cause was found to involve a logical suicide. Lastly, the
argument that, as human volition is a cause in nature, therefore all
causation is probably volitional in character, was shown to consist in a
stretch of inference so outrageous that the argument had to be
pronounced worthless.
'§ 2. Proceeding next to examine the less superficial arguments in
favour of Theism, it was first shown that the syllogism, All known
minds are caused by an unknown mind; our mind is a known mind;
therefore our mind is caused by an unknown mind,--is a syllogism that
is inadmissible for two reasons. In the first place, it does not account
for mind (in the abstract) to refer it to a prior mind for its origin; and
therefore, although the hypothesis, if admitted, would be an
explanation of known mind, it is useless as an argument for the
existence of the unknown mind, the assumption of which forms the
basis of that explanation. Again, in the next place, if it be said that
mind is so far an entity sui generis that it must be either self-existing or
caused by another mind, there is no assignable warrant for the assertion.
And this is the second objection to the above syllogism; for anything
within the whole range of the possible may, for aught that we can tell,
be competent to produce a self-conscious intelligence. Thus an objector
to the above syllogism need not hold any theory of things at all; but
even as opposed to the definite theory of materialism, the above
syllogism has not so valid an argumentative basis to stand upon. We
know that what we call matter and force are to all appearance eternal,
while we have no corresponding evidence of a mind that is even
apparently eternal. Further, within experience mind is invariably
associated with highly differentiated collocations of matter and
distributions of force, and many facts go to prove, and none to negative,
the conclusion that the grade of intelligence invariably depends upon,
or at least is associated with, a corresponding grade of cerebral
development. There is thus both a qualitative and a quantitative relation
between intelligence and cerebral organisation. And if it is said that
matter and motion cannot produce consciousness because it is

inconceivable that they should, we have seen at some length that this is
no conclusive consideration as applied to a subject of a confessedly
transcendental nature, and that in the present case it is particularly
inconclusive, because, as it is speculatively certain that the substance of
mind must be unknowable, it seems à priori probable that, whatever is
the cause of the unknowable reality, this cause should be more difficult
to render into thought in that relation than would some other
hypothetical substance which is imagined as more akin to mind. And if
it is said that the more conceivable cause is the more probable cause,
we have seen that it is in this case impossible to estimate the validity of
the remark. Lastly, the statement that the cause must contain actually
all that its effects can contain, was seen to be inadmissible in logic and
contradicted by everyday experience; while the argument from the
supposed freedom of the will and the existence of the moral sense was
negatived both deductively by the theory of evolution, and inductively
by the doctrine of utilitarianism.' The theory of the freedom of the will
is indeed at this stage of thought utterly untenable[7]; the evidence is
overwhelming that the moral sense is the result of a purely natural
evolution[8], and this result, arrived at on general grounds, is
confirmed with irresistible force by the account of our human
conscience which is supplied by the theory of utilitarianism, a theory
based on the widest and most unexceptionable of inductions[9]. 'On the
whole, then, with regard to the argument from the existence of the
human mind, we were compelled to decide that it is destitute of any
assignable weight, there being nothing more to lead to the conclusion
that our mind has been caused by another mind, than to the conclusion
that it has been caused by anything else whatsoever.
'§ 3. With regard to the argument from Design, it was observed that
Mill's presentation of it [in his Essay on Theism] is merely a
resuscitation of the argument as presented by Paley, Bell, and Chalmers.
And indeed we saw that the first-named writer treated this whole
subject with a feebleness and inaccuracy very surprising in him; for
while he has failed to assign anything like due weight to the inductive
evidence of organic evolution, he did not hesitate to rush into a
supernatural explanation of biological phenomena. Moreover, he has
failed signally in his analysis of the Design