Thoughts on Religion | Page 5

by the fact that the human mind is only one of the
products of general evolution, its subjective relations necessarily
reflecting those external relations of which they themselves are the

product[14].
'§ 5. The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of the
conclusion that was liable to be formed upon the utter and hopeless
collapse of all the possible arguments in favour of Theism. Having
fully demonstrated that there is no shadow of a positive argument in
support of the theistic theory, there arose the danger that some persons
might erroneously conclude that for this reason the theistic theory must
be untrue. It therefore became necessary to point out, that although, as
far as we can see, nature does not require an Intelligent Cause to
account for any of her phenomena, yet it is possible that, if we could
see farther, we should see that nature could not be what she is unless
she had owed her existence to an Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words,
the probability there is that an Intelligent Cause is unnecessary to
explain any of the phenomena of nature, is only equal to the probability
there is that the doctrine of the persistence of force is everywhere and
eternally true.
'As a final step in our analysis, therefore, we altogether quitted the
region of experience, and ignoring even the very foundations of science,
and so all the most certain of relative truths, we carried the discussion
into the transcendental region of purely formal considerations. And
here we laid down the canon, "that the value of any probability, in its
last analysis, is determined by the number, the importance, and the
definiteness of the relations known, as compared with those of the
relations unknown;" and, consequently, that in cases where the
unknown relations are more numerous, more important, or more
indefinite than are the known relations, the value of our inference
varies inversely as the difference in these respects between the relations
compared. From which canon it followed, that as the problem of
Theism is the most ultimate of all problems, and so contains in its
unknown relations all that is to man unknown and unknowable, these
relations must be pronounced the most indefinite of all relations that it
is possible for man to contemplate; and, consequently, that although we
have here the entire range of experience from which to argue, we are
unable to estimate the real value of any argument whatsoever. The
unknown relations in our attempted induction being wholly indefinite,

both in respect of their number and importance, as compared with the
known relations, it is impossible for us to determine any definite
probability either for or against the being of a God. Therefore, although
it is true that, so far as human science can penetrate or human thought
infer, we can perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no right on this
account to conclude that there is no God. The probability, therefore,
that nature is devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest kind if
regarded scientifically--amounting, in fact, to a scientific
demonstration,--is nevertheless wholly worthless if regarded logically.
Although it is as true as is the fundamental basis of all science and of
all experience that, if there is a God, His existence, considered as a
cause of the universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if
there had never been a God, the universe could never have existed.
'Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively that, no matter
how great the probability of Atheism might appear to be in a relative
sense, we have no means of estimating such probability in an absolute
sense. From which position there emerged the possibility of another
argument in favour of Theism--or rather let us say, of a reappearance of
the teleological argument in another form. For it may be said, seeing
that these formal considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either for
or against Deity in an absolute sense, while they do not exclude such
reasoning in a relative sense, if there yet remain any theistic deductions
which may properly be drawn from experience, these may now be
adduced to balance the atheistic deductions from the persistence of
force. For although the latter deductions have clearly shown the
existence of Deity to be superfluous in a scientific sense, the formal
considerations in question have no less clearly opened up beyond the
sphere of science a possible locus for the existence of Deity; so that if
there are any facts supplied by experience for which the atheistic
deductions appear insufficient to account, we are still free to account
for them in a relative sense by the hypothesis of Theism. And, it may
be urged, we do find such an unexplained residuum in the correlation of
general laws in the production of cosmic