Christianity and Greek Philosophy

objects, I found an altar with this insc

d in their hearts, God himself having shown

ersed, it may be well to set down in definite propositions the results we have attained. We may th

of the facts of religious history, and which an extended study of the most fully

so that the purposes of his existence and the perfection

personal Lord and Lawgiver, and the consciousness of dependence upon

ip, there must also be implanted in his rational nature some original à priori ideas or laws of thought which

ing without rational ideas; a tendency or appetency, without a revealed object, would be the moc

st. Though differing essentially in their general principles and method, they are agreed in asserting that God is absolutely "the unknown;" and that, so far as reason and logic are concerned, man can not attain to any knowledge of the first pri

ge is necessarily confined to the observation and classification of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, succession, and resemblance. Man has no

servation and classification of mental phe

servation and classification of material p

ll knowledge is of the phenomenal." Philosophy can never attain to a positive knowledge of the First Cause. Of existence, absolutely and in itself, we know nothing. The infinite can not by us be comprehe

ceive an absolute limitation or an infinite illimitation, an absolute commencement or an infinite non-commencement. Both contradictory opposites are equally incomprehensible and inconceivable t

, God has manifested his existence in an objective manner to the senses, and given verbal communications of his character and will to men; human reason being utterly incapacitated

; or is all our supposed knowledge "a learned ignorance," 210 an unreasoning faith? We venture to answer this question in the affirmative. Human reason is now adequate to the cognition of God; it is able, with the fullest confidence, to affirm the being of a

urn) Hamilton's "P

state our own position explicitly, and exhibit what we regard as the true doctrine of the genesis of the idea of God in the human

ns within itself the rudimental germ of the future oak, but its mature and perfect development depends on the exterior conditions of moisture, light, and heat. By these exterior conditions it may be rendered luxuriant in its growth, or it may be stunted in its growth. It may barely exist under one class of conditions; it may be distorted and perverted, or it may perish utterly under another. And so in the idiotic mind the ideas of reason may be wanting, or they may be imprisoned by impervious walls of cerebral malformation. In the infant mind the development of reason is yet in an incipient stage. The idea of God is immanent to the infant thought, but the infant thou

1: (return)

n) Müller, " Science

the outer world of nature and the primary intuitions of the inner world of reason--a logical deduction from the self-evident truths given in sense, consciousness, and reason. "We do not perceive God, but we conceive Him upon the faith of this admirable world exposed to view, and upon the other world, more admirable still, which we bear in ourselves." 213 Therefore we do not say that man is born with an "innate idea" of God, nor with the definite proposition, "there is

) Cousin, "True, Beau

14: (retur

and determinative laws of vegetable life--so the germs of the idea of God are present in the human mind as the intuitions of pure reason (Rational Psychology); these intuitions are excited to energy by our experi

, and some objective that some are derived from experience, and that some can not be derived from experience, but are inherent in the very constitution of the mind itself, as à priori ideas of reason; that these are characterized as self-evident, universal, and necessary and that, as laws of thought, they govern the mind in all its conceptions of

l and mental, as revealed by sensation and experience. In presence of these facts of the universe, the à priori ideas of power, cause, reason, and end are evoked into consciousness with greater or less distinctness; and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic, free from all reflection, and consequently from all possibility of error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of expe

at "every change must have an efficient cause;" that all phenomena are an indication of power; and that "there is an ultimate and sufficient reason why all things exist, and are as they are, and not otherwise." There would be no logical force in enumerating the facts of order and special adaptation which literally crowd the universe, as proofs of the existence of an Intelligent Creator, if the mind did not affirm the necessary principle that "facts of order, having a commencement in time, suppose mind as their source and exponent." There is no logical conclusiveness in the assertion of Paley, "that experience teaches us that a designer must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our "experience" is narrowed down to a mere point

there are necessarily a number of simple à priori principles, and a variety

ory of phenomena which demands the idea of a God--a self-existent, int

inevitable and necessary tendency of the human mind; to resist which, skepticism and positivism have been utterly impotent. The first philosophers, of the Ionian school, had just as strong a faith in the existence of a Supreme Reality--an Ultimate Cause--as Leibnitz and Cousin. But when, by reflective thought, they attempted to render an account to themselves of this instinctive faith, they imagined that its object must be in some way appreciable to sense, and they sought it in some physical element, or under some visible and tangible shrine. Still, however imperfect and inadequate the method, and however

e genetic origin of our ideas of space and time to observation and experience; and, without the à priori idea of space, as the place of bodies, and of time, as the condition of succession, we can not conceive of phenomena at all. If, therefore, we know any thing beyond phenomena and their mutual relations; if we have any cognition of realities underlying phenomena, and of the relations of phenomena to their objective ground, it must be given by some faculty d

phenomena. The ideas of space, time, power, law, reason, and end, are the logical antecedents of the ideas of body, succession, event, consecution, order, and adaptation. The latter can not be conceived as distinct notions without the former. The former will not be reveale

the former; and the objective existence of the realities, represented by the ideas of reason, is the condition, sine qua non, of the existence of the phenomena presented to sense. If, in one indivisible act of consciousness, we immediately perceive extended matter exterior to our percipient mind, then Extension exists objectively; and if Extension exists objectively, then Space, its conditio sin

ite spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through illimitable space--the more do we comprehend the di

nd mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall venture to classify

indicate some fundamental relat

t; which phenomena, being characterized by likeness and unlikeness, are capable of compa

having beginning, succession, and end, which present themselves to us as the expressi

)--a multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity,

ng in space which are limited, conditioned, relative, dependent, and indicat

ich indicate some fundamental

rangement of parts (Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and movements o

volution of new orders and species, conformable to fixed and definite ideal archetype

rgans to the fulfillment of special function

ms made to fulfill analogous functions, or special purposes fulfilled

ich indicate some fundamental r

iminate between voluntary acts as right or wrong, indicat

ess of dependence and obligation, indicating some

bility to be required to give account for, and endure the consequ

life, and the universal anticipation of pleasure or pain in the future, as the con

eations, so we may see the mind and character of God displayed in his works. The skill and contrivance of Watts, and Fulton, and Stephenson were exhibited in their mechanical productions. The pure, the intense, the visionary impersonation of the soul which the artist had conjured in his own imagination was wrought out in Psyché. The colossal grandeur of Michael Angelo's ideals, the ethereal and saintly elegance of Raphael's were realized upon the canvas. So he who is familiar with the ideal of the sculptor or the painter can identify his creations even

ng as to the nature of its cause: if the existing order and arrangement of the universe had a commencement in time, it must have an ultimate and adequate cause.

hat order is an inherent law of nature, and, as eternal, does not imply a cause ab extra: if it is not eternal, then the ultimate cause of that order must be a p

f all its logical force. That argument is thus presented by Saisset: "The finite supposes the infinite. Extension supposes first space, then immensity: duration supposes first time, then eternity. A sudden and irresistible judgment refers this to the necessary, infinite, perfect being." 215 But if "the world is

rn) "Modern Panthei

: (return) I

of its parts--in the infinite variety of its species, of its forms, and of its degrees of existence. The finite can not express the infinite but by being multiplied infinitely. The finite, so far as it is finite, is not in any reasonable relation, or in any intelligible proportion to the infinite. But the finite, as multiplied infinitely, 217 ages upon ages, spaces upon spaces, stars beyond stars, worlds beyond worlds, is a true expression of the

tion of the finite by itself; that is, from the indefinite. That which is not infinite, added as many

aisset, "Modern Pantheis

, has generated innumerable paralogisms which disfigure the pages of their philosophical writings. This procedure is grounded in the common fallacy of supposing that infinity and quantity are compatible attributes, and

nditioned and the Unconditione

ill indicate à priori the natural and impassable boundaries of the science; while a subsequent examination of the quantities called in

e. Now mensurability implies the existence of actual, definite limits, since without them there could be no fixed relation between the given object and the standard of measurement, and, consequently, no possibility of exact mensuration. In fact, since quantification is the object of all mathematical operations, mathematics may be not inaptly defined as the science of the determinations of limits. It is evident, therefore, that the t

mit of its altitude is assigned in the side which must be parallel to its base in order to constitute it a parallelogram. In brief, all figuration is limitation. The contradiction in the term infinite line is not quite so obvious, but can readily be made apparent. Objectively, a line is only the termination of a surface, and a surface the termination of a solid; hence a line can not exist apa

tively in the mode of its cognition, a number is infinite only in the sense that it is beyond the power of our imagination or conception, which is an abuse of the term. In either case the totality is fixed; that is, finite. So, too, of series and process. Since every series involves a succession of terms or numbers, and every process a succession of steps or stages, the notion of series and process plainly involves that of number, and mu

out limit,' or 'endless approximation to a fixed limit,' for these mathematical processes continue only as we cont

t exist in a first term, it can not exist at all; of the two alternatives, therefore, one altogether disappears, and reason is freed from the dilemma of a compulsory yet impossible decision. Even if it should be allowed that the series has no first term, but has originated ab ?terno, it must always at each instant have a last term; the series, as a whole, can not be infinite, and hence can not, as Kant claims it can, realize in its wholeness unconditioned totality. Since countless terms forever remain unreached, the series is forever limited by them. Kant himself admits that it can never be completed, and is only potentially infinite; actually, therefore, by his own admission, it is finite. But a last term implies a first, as absolutely as one end of a string implies the other; the only possibility of an unconditioned lies in Kant's first alternative, and if, as he maintains Reason must demand it, she can not hesitate in her decisions. That number is a limitation is no new truth, and that every s

quantity is one which exceeds our powers of mensuration or of conception, but which, nevertheless, has bounds and limits in itself. 222 Hence the possibility of relation among infinite quantities, and of different orders of infinities. If the words infinite, i

American Review" completely dissolves the antinomies by which Hamilton seeks to susta

) De Morgan, "Diff. a

(return) Id.

an eternally-existing and infinite mind, who originated this order--a God existing without a cause. The eternal and infinite Mind is indivisible and illimitable; nature, in its totality, as well as in its individual parts, has interior divisibility, and exterior limit

regarding it as disqualified for self-existence, and in passing behind it for the Supreme Entity that needs no cause. Phenomena demand causation, entities dispense with it. No one asks for a cause of the space whic

ce, Nescience, and Faith," in

lements or principles which, in their regular and normal development, transcend the limits of consc

the former are universal, necessary, and absolute. As an example, and a proof of the reality and validity of this distinction, take the ideas of body and of space, the former unquestionably derived from experience, the latter supplied by reason alone. "I ask you, can not you conceive this book to be destroyed? Without doubt you can. And can not you conceive the whole world to be destroyed, and no matter whatever in existence? You can. For you, constituted as you are, the supposition of the non-existe

Cousin's "Hist. of Ph

se; of a thing being the author of its own existence; of something generated by and out of nothing. Ex nihilo nihil is a universal law of thought and of things. This universal "law of causality" is clearly distinguishable from a general truth reached by induction. For example, it is a very general truth that, during twenty-four hours, day is succeeded by night. But this is not a necessary truth, neither is it a universal truth. It does not extend to all known lands, as, for example, to Nova Zembla. It does not hold true of the other planets. Nor does it extend to all possible lands. We can easily con

m sensation and experience is called empirical knowledge, or knowledge à posteriori, because subsequent to, and consequent upon, the exercise of the faculties of observation. The knowledge derived from reason is called transcendental knowledge, or knowledge à priori, because it furnishes laws to, and governs the exercise of the faculties of observation and thought, and is not the result of their exercise. The sensibility brings the mind into relation with the physical world, the reason puts mind in commun

ysical science. Its achievement will give us a primordial logic, which shall be as exact in its procedure and as certain in its conclusions as the mathematical sciences. Meantime, it may be affirmed that philosophic analysis, in the person of Pla

e abstraction by which the contingent and relative element of knowledge is eliminated, and the necessary and abso

ch comprises comparison, abstraction, and generalization. The result in this process is the attainment of a general truth. 2. "Immediate abstraction, not comparative; operating not upon several concretes, but upon a single one, eliminating and neglecting its individual and variable part, and disengaging the absolute part, which it raises at once to its pure form." The parts to be eliminated

t begins to exist. Here it is not because I am the same, or have been affected in the same manner in several different cases, that I have come to this general and abstract conception. A leaf falls; at the same moment I think, I believe, I declare that this falling of the leaf must have a cause. A man has been killed; at the same instant I believe, I proclaim that this death must have a cause. Each one of these facts contains particular and variable circumstances, and something universal and necessary, to wit, both of them can not but have a cause. Now I am perfectly able to disengage the universal from the particular in regard to the first fact as well as in regard to the second fact, for the universal is in the first quite as well as in the second. In fact, if the principle of causality is not universal in the first fact, neither will it be in the second, nor in the third, no

Cousin, "True, Beautifu

rally accepted results of this method of a

, or primitive judgments from whence is

thus enounced--"every quality s

that begins to be supposes a power adequate

and plurality supposes an incomposite unity; all

supposes the infinite, the dependent supposes the

or primitive judgments, from which is de

angement, numerical relation, geometrical form--having a commencement in time, present themselves

evolution of new existences, according to fixed definite archetypes, su

"every means supposes an end contemplated, and a

"intelligent purpose and voluntar

, or primitive judgments, from whence is

ntary agent necessarily characterized as right or wrong, supposes a

ing of obligation to obey a law of duty suppose

accountability and of moral desert supposes a judge to wh

f an impersonal justice which demands that, in the final issue, every being shall receive his just

must be supposed as the adequate ground, and reason, and cause of its existence; or again, to state the law in view of our present discussion, "if the finite universe, with its existing order and arrangement, had a beginning, there must be an ultimate and sufficient reason why it exists, and why it is as it is, rather than otherwise." In view of one particular class of phenomena, or s

ir pure and abstract form; and they compel us to affirm a permanent being or reality behind all phenomena--a power adequate to the production of change, back of all events; a personal Mind, as the explanation of all the facts of order, and uniform succession, and regular evolution; and a personal Lawgiver and Righteous Judge as the ultimate ground an

igence, and that the existence of a Supreme Reality corresponding to, and represented by this idea, is rationally and lo

more deliberately and intelligibly to contemplate the various assaults which are