Thoughts on Religion | Page 6

harmony. It signifies nothing,
the argument may run, that we are unable to conceive the methods
whereby the supposed Mind operates in producing cosmic harmony;
nor does it signify that its operation must now be relegated to a

super-scientific province. What does signify is that, taking a general
view of nature, we find it impossible to conceive of the extent and
variety of her harmonious processes as other than products of
intelligent causation. Now this sublimated form of the teleological
argument, it will be remembered, I denoted a metaphysical teleology,
in order sharply to distinguish it from all previous forms of that
argument, which, in contradistinction I denoted scientific teleologies.
And the distinction, it will be remembered, consisted in this--that while
all previous forms of teleology, by resting on a basis which was not
beyond the possible reach of science, laid themselves open to the
possibility of scientific refutation, the metaphysical system of teleology,
by resting on a basis which is clearly beyond the possible reach of
science, can never be susceptible of scientific refutation. And that this
metaphysical system of teleology does rest on such a basis is
indisputable; for while it accepts the most ultimate truths of which
science can ever be cognizant--viz. the persistence of force and the
consequently necessary genesis of natural law,--it nevertheless
maintains that the necessity of regarding Mind as the ultimate cause of
things is not on this account removed; and, therefore, that if science
now requires the operation of a Supreme Mind to be posited in a
super-scientific sphere, then in a super-scientific sphere it ought to be
posited. No doubt this hypothesis at first sight seems gratuitous, seeing
that, so far as science can penetrate, there is no need of any such
hypothesis at all--cosmic harmony resulting as a physically necessary
consequence from the combined action of natural laws, which in turn
result as a physically necessary consequence of the persistence of force
and the primary qualities of matter. But although it is thus indisputably
true that metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered
scientifically, it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if
considered psychologically. In other words, if it is more conceivable
that Mind should be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the
persistence of force should be so, then it is not irrational to accept the
more conceivable hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable one,
provided that the choice is made with the diffidence which is required
by the considerations adduced in Chapter V [especially the Canon of
probability laid down in the second paragraph of this section, § 5].

'I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology,
although in a physical sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological
sense legitimate. But as against the fundamental position on which
alone this argument can rest--viz. the position that the fundamental
postulate of Atheism is more inconceivable than is the fundamental
postulate of Theism--we have seen two important objections to lie.
'For, in the first place, the sense in which the word "inconceivable" is
here used is that of the impossibility of framing realizable relations in
the thought; not that of the impossibility of framing abstract relations
in thought. In the same sense, though in a lower degree, it is true that
the complexity of the human organization and its functions is
inconceivable; but in this sense the word "inconceivable" has much less
weight in an argument than it has in its true sense. And, without
waiting again to dispute (as we did in the case of the speculative
standing of Materialism) how far even the genuine test of
inconceivability ought to be allowed to make against an inference
which there is a body of scientific evidence to substantiate, we went on
to the second objection against this fundamental position of
metaphysical teleology. This objection, it will be remembered, was,
that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as an effect of
Mind [i.e. Mind being what we know it in experience to be], as it is to
conceive of it as an effect of mindless evolution. The argument from
inconceivability, therefore, admits of being turned with quite as terrible
an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be made to exert on Atheism.
'Hence this more refined form of teleology which we are considering,
and which we saw to be the last of the possible arguments in favour of
Theism, is met on its own ground by a very crushing opposition: by its
metaphysical character it has escaped the opposition of physical science,
only to encounter a new opposition in the region of pure psychology to
which it fled. As a conclusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it
devolved on us to determine the relative magnitudes of these opposing
forces. And in doing