Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 18

Q. Review, January, 1863.]

It is hardly worth while to reply to the lame argument of Geoffroy, which needs a "crutch" for its support. The very ill.u.s.tration, undignified and irrelevant as it is, tells altogether against its author. For, first, the crutch is certainly a _contrivance_ designed for locomotion; secondly, the length and strength and lightness of the crutch are all matters of calculation and _adjustment_; and, thirdly, all the adaptations of the crutch are well-considered, in order to enable the lame man to walk; the function of the crutch is the final cause of its creation. This crutch is clearly out of place in Geoffroy's argument, and utterly breaks down. It is in its place in the teleological argument, and stands well, though it may not behave as well as the living limb. The understanding of a child can perceive that the design-argument does not a.s.sert that men were intended to have amputated limbs, but that crutches are designed for those whose limbs are paralyzed or amputated.

The existence of useless members, of rudimentary and abortive limbs, does seem, at first sight, to be unfavorable to the idea of supremacy of purpose and all-pervading design. It should be remarked, however, that this is an argument based upon our ignorance, and not upon our knowledge. It does not by any means follow that because we have discovered no reasons for their existence, therefore there are no reasons. Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually discovering the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers were ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds, were concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust their own feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any intention to G.o.d or nature, to dogmatically affirm there is no purpose in the existence of any thing. And then we may ask, what right have these men to set up the idea of "utility" as the only standard to which the Creator must conform? How came they to know that G.o.d is a mere "utilitarian;" or, if they do not believe in G.o.d, that nature is a miserable "Benthamite?" Why may not the idea of beauty, of symmetry, of order, be a standard for the universe, as much as the idea of utility, or mere subordination to some practical end? May not conformity to one grand and comprehensive plan, sweeping over all nature, be perfectly compatible with the adaptation of individual existences to the fulfillment of special ends? In civil architecture we have conformity to a general plan; we have embellishment and ornament, and we have adaptation to a special purpose, all combined; why may not these all be combined in the architecture of the universe?

The presence of any one of these is sufficient to prove design, for mere ornament or beauty is itself a purpose, an object, and an end. The concurrence of all these is an overwhelming evidence of design. Wherever found, they are universally recognized as the product of intelligence; they address themselves at once to the intelligence of man, and they place him in immediate relation to and in deepest sympathy with the Intelligence which gave them birth. He that formed the eye of man to see, and the heart of man to admire beauty, shall He not delight in it?

He that gave the hand of man its cunning to create beauty, shall He not himself work for it? And if man can and does combine both "ornament" and "use" in one and the same implement or machine, why should not the Creator of the world do the same? "When the savage carves the handle of his war-club, the immediate purpose of his carving is to give his own hand a firmer hold. But any shapeless scratches would be enough for this. When he carves it in an elaborate pattern, he does so for the love of ornament, and to satisfy the sense of beauty." And so "the harmonies, on which all beauty depends, are so connected in nature that _use_ and _ornament_ may often both arise out of the same conditions."[269]

[Footnote 269: Duke of Argyll, "Reign of Law," p. 203.]

The "true naturalist," therefore, recognizes two great principles pervading the universe--_a principle of order_--a unity of plan, and _a principle of special adaptation_, by which each object, though constructed upon a general plan, is at the same time accommodated to the place it has to occupy and the purpose it has to serve. In other words, there is _h.o.m.ology of structure_ and _a.n.a.logy of function_, conformity to _archetypal forms_ and _Teleology of organs_, in wonderful combination. Now, in the Materialistic school, it has been the prevalent practice to set up the unity of plan in animal structures, in opposition to the principle of Final Causes: Morphology has been opposed to Teleology. But in nature there is no such opposition; on the contrary, there is a beautiful co-ordination. The same bones, in different animals, are made subservient to the widest possible diversity of functions. The same limbs are converted into fins, paddles, wings, legs, and arms. "No comparative anatomist has the slightest hesitation in admitting that the pectoral fin of a fish, the wing of a bird, the paddle of the dolphin, the fore-leg of a deer, the wing of a bat, and the arm of a man, are the same organs, notwithstanding that their forms are so varied, and the uses to which they are applied so unlike each other."[270] All these are h.o.m.ologous in structure--they are formed after an ideal archetype or model, but that model or type is variously modified to adapt the animal to the sphere of life in which it is destined to move, and the organ itself to the functions it has to perform, whether swimming, flying, walking, or burrowing, or that varied manipulation of which the human hand is capable. These varied modifications of the vertebrated type, for special purposes, are unmistakable examples of final causation. Whilst the silent members, the rudimental limbs instanced by Oken, Martins, and others--as fulfilling no purpose, and serving no end, exist in conformity to an ideal archetype on which the bony skeletons of all vertebrated animals are formed,[271] and which has never been departed from since time began.

This type, or model, or plan, is, however, itself an evidence of _design_ as much as the plan of a house. For to what standard are we referring when we say that two limbs are morphologically the same? Is it not an _ideal_ plan, a _mental_ pattern, a metaphysical conception? Now an _ideal_ implies a mind which preconceived the idea, and in which alone it really exists. It is only as "an _order of Divine thought_"

that the doctrine of animal h.o.m.ologies is at all intelligible; and h.o.m.ology is, therefore, the science which traces the outward embodiment of a Divine Idea.[272] The principle of intentionality or final causation, then, is not in any sense invalidated by the discovery of "a unity of plan" sweeping through the entire universe.

[Footnote 270: Carpenter's "Comparative Physiology," p. 37.]

[Footnote 271: Aga.s.siz, "Essay on Cla.s.sification," p. 10.]

[Footnote 272: Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p.

644; "The Reign of Law," p. 208; Aga.s.siz, "Essay on Cla.s.sification," pp.

9-11.]

We conclude that we are justly ent.i.tled to regard "the principle of intentionality" as a primary and necessary law of thought, under which we can not avoid conceiving and describing the facts of the universe--_the special adaptation of means to ends necessarily implies mind_. Whenever and wherever we observe the adaptation of an organism to the fulfillment of a special end, we can not avoid conceiving of that _end_ as foreseen and premeditated, the _means_ as selected and adjusted with a view to that end, and creative energy put forth to secure the end--all which is the work of intelligence and will.[273] And we can not describe these facts of nature, so as to render that account intelligible to other minds, without using such terms as "contrivance,"

"purpose," "adaptation," "design." A striking ill.u.s.tration of this may be found in Darwin's volume "On the Fertilization of Orchids." We select from his volume with all the more pleasure because he is one of the writers who enjoins "caution in ascribing intentions to nature." In one sentence he says: "The _Labellum_ is developed into a long nectary, _in order_ to attract _Lepidoptera_; and we shall presently give reasons for suspecting the nectar is _purposely_ so lodged that it can be sucked only slowly, _in order_ to give time for the curious chemical quality of the viscid matter settling hard and dry" (p. 29). Of one particular structure he says: "This _contrivance_ of the guiding ridges may be compared to the little instrument sometimes used for guiding a thread into the eye of a needle." The notion that every organism has a use or purpose seems to have guided him in his discoveries. "The strange position of the _Labellum_, perched on the summit of the column, ought to have shown me that here was the place for experiment. I ought to have scorned the notion that the _Labellum_ was thus placed _for no good purpose_. I neglected this plain guide, and for a long time completely failed to understand the flower" (p. 262).[274]

[Footnote 273: Carpenter's "Principles of Comparative Physiology," p.

723.]

[Footnote 274: Edinburgh Review, October, 1862; article, "The Supernatural."]

So that the a.s.sumption of final causes has not, as Bacon affirms, "led men astray" and "prejudiced further discovery;" on the contrary, it has had a large share in every discovery in anatomy and physiology, zoology and botany. The use of every organ has been discovered by starting from the a.s.sumption _that it must have some use_. The belief in a creative purpose led Harvey to discover the circulation of the blood. He says: "When I took notice that the valves in the veins of so many parts of the body were so placed that they gave a free pa.s.sage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the pa.s.sage of the venal blood the contrary way, I was incited to imagine that so provident a cause as Nature has not placed so many valves _without design_, and no design seemed more probable than the circulation of the blood."[275] The wonderful discoveries in Zoology which have immortalized the name of Cuvier were made under the guidance of this principle. He proceeds on the supposition not only that animal forms have _some_ plan, _some_ purpose, but that they have an intelligible plan, a discoverable purpose. At the outset of his "_Regne Animal_" he says: "Zoology has a principle of reasoning which is peculiar to it, and which it employs to advantage on many occasions; that is, the principle of the conditions of existence, commonly called final causes."[276] The application of this principle enabled him to understand and arrange the structures of animals with astonis.h.i.+ng clearness and completeness of order; and to restore the forms of extinct animals which are found in the rocks, in a manner which excited universal admiration, and has commanded universal a.s.sent.

Indeed, as Professor Whewell remarks, at the conclusion of his "History of the Inductive Sciences," "those who have been discoverers in science have generally had minds, the disposition of which was to believe in an _intelligent Maker_ of the universe, and that the scientific speculations which produced an opposite tendency were generally those which, though they might deal familiarly with known physical truths, and conjecture boldly with regard to unknown, do not add to the number of solid generalizations."[277]

[Footnote 275: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 449.]

[Footnote 276: "History of Inductive Science," vol. ii. p. 2, Eng. ed.]

[Footnote 277: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 491. A list of the "great discoverers"

is given in his "Astronomy and Physics," bk. iii. ch. v.]

CHAPTER VII.

THE UNKNOWN G.o.d (_continued_).

IS G.o.d COGNIZABLE BY REASON? (_continued_).

"The faith which can not stand unless b.u.t.tressed by contradictions is built upon the sand. The profoundest faith is faith in the unity of truth. If there is found any conflict in the results of a right reason, no appeal to practical interests, or traditionary authority, or intuitional or theological faith, can stay the flood of skepticism."--ABBOT.

In the previous chapter we have considered the answers to this question which are given by the Idealistic and Materialistic schools; it devolves upon us now to review (iii.) the position of the school of _Natural Realism_ or _Natural Dualism_, at the head of which stands Sir William Hamilton.

It is admitted by this school that philosophic knowledge is "the knowledge of effects as dependent on their causes,"[278] and "of qualities as inherent in substances."[279]

[Footnote 278: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]

[Footnote 279: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]

1. _As to Events and Causes_.--"Events do not occur isolated, apart, by themselves; they occur and are conceived by us only in connection. Our observation affords us no example of a phenomenon which is not an effect; nay, our thought can not even realize to itself the possibility of a phenomenon without a cause. By the necessity we are under of thinking some cause for every phenomenon, and by our original ignorance of what particular causes belong to what particular effects, it is rendered impossible for us to acquiesce in the mere knowledge of the fact of the phenomenon; on the contrary, we are determined, we are necessitated to regard each phenomenon as _only partially known until we discover the causes_ on which it depends for its existence.[280]

Philosophic knowledge is thus, in its widest acceptation, the knowledge of effects as dependent on causes. Now what does this imply? In the first place, as every cause to which we can ascend is only an effect, it follows that it is the scope, that is, the aim, of philosophy to trace up the series of effects and causes until we arrive at _causes which are not in themselves effects_,"[281]--that is, to ultimate and final causes. And then, finally, "Philosophy, as the knowledge of effects in their causes, necessarily tends, not towards a plurality of ultimate or final causes, but towards _one_ alone."[282]

[Footnote 280: Ibid., vol. i. p. 56.]

[Footnote 281: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 58.]

[Footnote 282: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]

2. _As to Qualities and Substance, or Phenomena and Reality_.--As phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled, by the const.i.tution of our nature, to think them conjoined in and by something; and as they are phenomena, we can not think them phenomena of nothing, but must regard them as properties or qualities of something.[283] Now that which manifests its qualities--in other words, that in which the appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong--is called their _subject_, or _substance_, or _substratum_.[284] The subject of one grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, extension, solidity, figure, etc.) is called _matter_, or _material substance_. The subject of the other grand series of phenomena (as, _e.g._, thought, feeling, volition, etc.) is termed _mind_, or _mental substance_. We may, therefore, lay it down as an undisputed truth that consciousness gives, as an ultimate fact, a primitive duality--a knowledge of the _ego_ in relation and contrast to the _non-ego_, and a knowledge of the _non-ego_ in relation and contrast to the _ego_[285] Natural Dualism thus establishes the existence of two worlds of _mind_ and _matter_ on the immediate knowledge we possess of both series of phenomena; whilst the Cosmothetic Idealists discredit the veracity of consciousness as to our immediate knowledge of material phenomena, and, consequently, our _immediate knowledge of the existence of matter_.[286]

[Footnote 283: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]

[Footnote 284: Ibid., vol. i. p. 137.]

[Footnote 285: Ibid., vol. i. p. 292.]

[Footnote 286: Ibid., vol. i. pp. 292, 295.]

The obvious doctrine of the above quotations is, that we have an immediate knowledge of the "_existence_ of matter" as well as of "the _phenomena_ of matter;" that is, we know "_substance_" as immediately and directly as we know "_qualities_." Phenomena are known only as inherent in substance; substance is known only as manifesting its qualities. We never know qualities without knowing substance, and we can never know substance without knowing qualities. Both are known in one concrete act; substance is known quite as much as quality; quality is known no more than substance. That we have a direct, immediate, presentative "face to face" knowledge of matter and mind in every act of consciousness is a.s.serted again and again by Hamilton, in his "Philosophy of Perception."[287] In the course of the discussion he starts the question, "_Is the knowledge of mind and matter equally immediate?_" His answer to this question may be condensed in the following sentences. In regard to the immediate knowledge of _mind_ there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and immediate. The problem, therefore, exclusively regards the intuitive perception of the qualities of _matter_. Now, says Hamilton, "if we interrogate consciousness concerning the point in question, the response is categorical and clear. In the simplest act of perception I am conscious of _myself_ as a perceiving _subject_, and of an external _reality_ as the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same indivisible amount of intuition."[288] Again he says, "I have frequently a.s.serted that in perception we are conscious of the external object, immediately and _in itself_." "If, then, the veracity of consciousness be unconditionally admitted--_if the intuitive knowledge of matter and mind_, and the consequent reality of their ant.i.thesis, be taken as truths," the doctrine of Natural Realism is established, and, "without any hypothesis or demonstration, the _reality of mind_ and the _reality of matter_."[289]

[Footnote 287: Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, part ii.]

[Footnote 288: Ibid., p. 181.]

[Footnote 289: Ibid., pp. 34, 182.]

Now, after these explicit statements that we have an intuitive knowledge of matter and mind--a direct and immediate consciousness of self as a real, "self-subsisting ent.i.ty," and a knowledge of "an external reality, immediately and _in itself_," it seems unaccountably strange that Hamilton should a.s.sert "_that all human knowledge, consequently all human philosophy, is only of the Relative or Phenomenal_;"[290] and that "_of existence absolutely and in itself we know nothing_."[291] Whilst teaching that the proper sphere and aim of philosophy is to trace secondary causes up to ultimate or first causes, and that it _necessarily tends_ towards one First and Ultimate Cause, he at the same time a.s.serts that "first causes do not lie within the reach of philosophy,"[292] and that it can never attain to the knowledge of the First Cause.[293] "The Infinite G.o.d can not, by us, be comprehended, conceived, or thought."[294] G.o.d, as First Cause, as infinite, as unconditioned, as eternal, is to us absolutely "_The Unknown_." The science of Real Being--of Being _in se_--of self-subsisting ent.i.ties, is declared to be impossible. All science is only of the phenomenal, the conditioned, the relative. Ontology is a delusive dream. Thus, after pages of explanations and qualifications, of affirmations and denials, we find Hamilton virtually a.s.suming the same position as Comte and Mill--_all human knowledge is necessarily confined to phenomena_.

[Footnote 290: "Lectures on Metaphysics," vol. i. p. 136]

[Footnote 291: Ibid., vol. i. p. 138.]

[Footnote 292: Ibid., vol. i. p. 58.]

[Footnote 293: Ibid., vol. i. p. 60.]

[Footnote 294: Ibid., vol. ii. p. 375.]

It has been supposed that the chief glory of Sir William Hamilton rested upon his able exposition and defense of the doctrine of Natural Realism.