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CRITICISM OF PROFESSOR KNIGHT.

205

postulate what Trendelenburg, in the second volume of his Logical Investigations' ('Logische Untersuchungen'), was pleased to call a central Power (umfassende Macht) for such predetermined harmony (praestabilirte Harmonie), a Power dominating and uniting all, and a Power in which thought (der Gedanke) is the prime power?

Surely we do not mean to view the continuity and progression in all the protoplasmic evolutionary process and not see inherent and underlying order, or feel need to postulate some such Power, as that of which we have just spoken, superintending the adaptative traits of the protoplasmic process. It may be perfectly true that, so long as we confine our scrutiny to the physical and protoplasmic order of things, no trace of an occult and spiritualistic Power may be evident, but this scrutiny does not exhaust the case, for there are psychological aspects or evolutions to be addedaspects of mind certainly as real and ultimate as those of matter-which take us beyond where we now stand, beyond the Power of Nature, infinite and eternal, to the Power of Being, which is spiritual and personal, of Love which is Divine. Professor Knight has declared that this "ascent and survey" can only be allowed "after we have discovered, from some other source, that a Divine Being exists." But what good purpose is served by blaming this argument for not effecting what it does not profess to accomplish? It professes

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to give us Mind, and nothing else. should we rail at it because it does not furnish other things-the Divine Self-Existence or the Infinite? Professor Knight says "it is not accumulation of facts that we need, but relevancy of data": it seems to us there is even greater need of a just inference or legitimate expectation from data perfectly relevant to what is proposed. The presence of mind is one thing: the extent and the character of the mind are other matters. Recent theistic philosophy has, in our view, taken the world, so brimful of purpose, to be a thought, and has postulated, as the correlate of the thought so involved in its ubiquitous design, a Thinker who is Framer of the universe-not necessarily an infinite Maker, it is true, but, more relevantly, an intelligent Creator. That philosophy has not, we believe, forgotten that when science passes beyond its own proper sphere, and thinks to erect its own conception of the order of Nature into a sufficient account of its Cause, it is, as Dr Carpenter once observed, "invading a province of thought to which it has no claim." We are bold enough to claim, on behalf of theistic thought, that its march has been a magnificent progress in vividness and grasp of the glory and grandeur of an illimitable working. Yes, one, too, the conformity to purpose (Zweckmässigkeit) of whose beauty and sublimity reason has stubbornly refused to regard as explicable otherwise than as

VIEW OF WEISSE.

207

the expression (Ausdruck) — objectively existent after every allowance for what has been contributed by the mind of the subject-of Designing Intelligence.

We may take occasion here to note that philosophical theism has gained a juster perception of the unwisdom of pressing out the theory of final causes to an interpretation so rigid that the spontaneity and inherent worth, of the activity, beauty, and sympathy, of nature, are lost. That is to say, it has perceived that such things as the beauty, order, and harmony of creation do not exist merely for purposes beyond themselves, but carry their own. end and justification with them. It is still open to us to ask, "Does not this harmony demand Another besides the organic subject as its cause? This question we may leave on one side, as, if one grasps the notion of an organism, this development of teleological adaptation is a necessary consequence of the vitality of the subject." Theistic thought appears to us also to have, in this newer and inner teleological view, found a better door of escape from that Deistic view of a hermit-like or monkish Deity which Weisse declared to be the danger of the argument from order. And because it has not been able to overlook the fact that the order which science has been more fully unravelling in the world points to forces that have a relationship to the future in that they are seen to work constructively, it has held that we are, more

clearly than perhaps ever before, though in a different manner, led up to a theistic conclusion. It seems to us to be of the utmost consequence to remember what is so often overlooked, that no scientific advances of the future can possibly rob us of the teleological view of the world as a whole. For no reductions of the phenomena of life and mind in terms of the material world could really render the need and the faith of one Infinite and self-conscious Being at base of all, less urgent or less rational than before, however they might alter our modes of setting or interpreting the primal elements of which self-conscious spirit is the efflorescence. It may very well be doubted whether, in fact, any state of mind save that of a perverted and petrified condition of intellect-an á olílwσis τοῦ νοητικοῦcan long remain without such postulation of Supreme Intelligence in presence of the order, harmony, adjustment, and ends, towards which "the whole creation moves."

So little able has recent inquiry been to elude the grasp of rational purpose or final cause in its comprehensive researches into the world's structure, that our late philosophy of theism has found the theistic idea involved in final cause more persistently present than was always from the scientific side expected. For has it not more clearly found the august processes of evolution to be so rational, so eloquent of mind or intelligence, that we are left with not less teleology than before-only with tele

CRITICISM OF HAECKEL AND SPENCER. 209

ology of a vaster sort? It quite remembers that this argument is not one that makes the strongest appeal to men's minds in this time, when, in fact, the presence of Mind in nature is so widely recognised, but it insists on the fact that the proof is now stronger. And has it not, as we in perfect keeping with all this have tried to show, more distinctly felt design to be the very presupposition of that law of development which is the basal law of all living beings? The truth is, it has found writers like Haeckel and Spencer-the former of whom is professedly so strong on the purposelessness or dysteleology of Nature-quite unable to work out their fundamental conceptions here without really assuming the very teleology they profess to reject. Why did Spencer talk of adjustment in the way he did when he wished. to banish teleology? And why did Haeckel give to adaptation and inheritance the really teleological significance he has done? But still, theistic philosophy has more boldly and frankly acknowledged, we believe, that no replacement of suppositions of chance by purpose or law can suffice to lead as of necessity up to a personal Deity. Yet these evidences of the purposiveness exhibited by nature may lead the way thitherward, and may serve no unimportant function in theistic thought in doing so. For still it must be asked, Is it so easy to stop short of Personality, and rest in so abstract a conception of Intelligence? Are we not

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