The Infinite Mind-But can we know Him? 99 Hence there must be uniformity of skeletal structure. The skeleton of an ape is pre-eminently adapted to its work. So is that of man. What is common to both is essential, for it does work in common. There is no reason for the inference, that, because the cranial bones of a monkey bear a morphological resemblance to those of man, therefore the one gave birth to the other. But we do see that modern embryology finds itself anticipated in the song of the Psalmist :— "Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect, Which in continuance were fashioned, When as yet there was none of them."*. When none of my members as a human being were formed, they were in the Divine Mind-fashioned in continuance of preceding forms-"Elective Consummation," leading us to perceive that the exquisite adaptation in our whole being proves us "fearfully and wonderfully made." We have been led to this course of reasoning, because it involves the subtilest questions which modern biology presents; and those least understood. And it is a phase of the argument not discussed by Mr. Leifchild. But we earnestly recommend our readers to make themselves acquainted with the masterly and eloquent pages which he has written on this subject. So far as they reach, they prove that purpose and prevision are everywhere visible in nature. Wherefore, reaching from effect to cause, we arrive, at length, at a FIRST CAUse. Arguing from phenomena to the realities they enfold, we come to the boundless Power that gave them being. Passing up through the forces of the universe, we are led at last to the Omnipotent will-force that directs them all. While inferring, from the infinite harmonies of the Cosmos, the perfect adjustment of its parts to their purpose, and the agreement of each with the whole, we perceive that that from whence it was all derived must have been ONE INFINITE MIND; and all this affords us the ennobling promise of an ever-widening grasp of His Boundless Nature. But at the very threshold Philosophy meets us, and declares the Godhead inscrutable to the human mind. If there be a God, we cannot know Him. The Infinite, the Absolute, are concepts that bristle with contradictions and become impossible to thought. Mr. Leifchild challenges the reasoning on which this inference is based, and disputes, chiefly with the acknowledged weapons of others, the entire question. It is shown * Ps. cxxxix. 16. that the high reputation of Sir W. Hamilton gave wide currency to this view, and that its adoption and specific expansion by Dr. Mansel, although nobly meant, was illfounded. One of the devices of Philosophy most to be dreaded is the assertion of ignorance with the assumption of knowledge. This may always be premised when it is asserted that we must necessarily employ words of whose meaning we know nothing; for this is purely an assumption. They are positive concepts, or their constant employment would be impossible. In spite of affirmed ignorance the most complete, both Hamilton and Mansel define both "Absolute" and "Infinite." "By Absolute is meant that which exists in and by itself, having no necessary relation to any other being." It is "that which is aloof from relation, comparison, limitation, condition, dependence, &c." Now to suppose such a conception knowable in its fulness, would be absurd. We know not in what it inheres. It is a concept merely, not an entity. Whoever distinguishes the universe from God; whoever separates the vast concatenation of matter from its Creator, must submit that by the very production of being other than His own, He has chosen to condition Himself:-to place Himself in relation. For this reason The Infinite, The Absolute cannot be conceived by us. That which our minds embrace is an Absolute and Infinite Being. Because I exist and know that I am not God, therefore the Creator is conditioned. He is beyond my comprehension, but I must know something of Him, or the conception of His existence would never have arisen within me. It could have had no place in my mind. To assert that we cannot know Him is to know something concerning Him. If by The Absolute we mean The All,-the ideal everything that is or may be, of course we cannot approach it: it teems with contradictions to us. Even consciousness could not attach to it, for this would condition it. But, we repeat, this is a mere abstraction, not the perception of an objective existence. It is utterly unlike what must be our concept of the Infinite God. We attach a perfect meaning to the word infinite; although it is an idea which it is impossible to complete. We do not merely mean by it the unknown; and the something we do mean profoundly interests us. Indeed, we can only mean by it that which extends beyond all we know or can think of, and then still further. The limit can always be made to recede before us, but only by a succession of mental shapes. If it be objected, that this confounds the The Personality of the Creator. 101 indefinite with the infinite, the answer is, that the indefinite is something of which we cannot affirm whether it extends beyond some conceivable limit or not: the infinite is that of which we can say it extends beyond all conceivable limits. Thus the idea infinite, is distinguished from all other conceptions, and the Infinite God becomes a definite object of knowledge. It must ever be limited, but it is clear. We cannot explain; we can conceive. We do not comprehend; we apprehend. Thus, then, the Infinite Source of the universe is accessible to the mind. But can He be a Person? Infinitude and Personality are declared contradictory and unthinkable. It is said the one is conditioned, the other not. "Yet, as distinct Creator, he must of necessity be a separate personality. If we refuse personality to Him, we relapse into Pantheism; if we doubt His infinity, He ceases to be the Creator, in not being co-extensive with creation."* "What love can we cherish for an impersonal, universal substance? Before we can feel human love for God, we must surely apprehend Him as love personified." Nevertheless, our author has no logical support for this claim. He implies that personality is an attribute of a being having mind and body. "If we affirm that God is incorporeal, we seem at the same time to affirm that He is impersonal! ... We know that the Infinite Mind transcends the limits of any finite personality;" and he seeks simply to apologise for the doctrine by an appeal to "a refined and elevated consciousness." Yet he admits that "it may be wholly indescribable in human language, without being inconceivable by human thought."§ We affirm, that there is nothing more inconceivable in a Personal Infinite than in an Infinite alone. Omnipresence does not nullify personality. Space is no necessary concomitant of our conception of presence. We can conceive ourselves a thousand times as large as now; if so, why not a million times? Why not any size we please? Size is a mere accident to personality. A body as large as the universe involves no negation of it. At what point will it become incongruous between this and infinity? Again, what is personality or personal presence in ourselves? Is it in every part of the body, or limited to a region? Is its "position" a mathematical point in the brain, or a certain cubic space? The very question shows, that what we mean by personality is not position, limitation -but immediate control over the contents of any space. If * P. 131. † P. 140. P. 145. § P. 141. I could separate the metals from the earths in Jupiter, or work machinery by the water-courses in Mars, although my body remained on the earth, I should be as personally present there as here. Position is a secondary matter, involving the whole question of space and time. Personality destroys The Absolute, The All; but the same may be said of wisdom or truth. But our concept of the Infinite God is no more destructive of personality than it is of purity or power. He is the Great Will of the Universe, and the only idea of will we can have is, that it is the will of a person. Thus reason heralds faith, and faith opens to our higher nature the supremest object of its love. Having reached this point, intellectual schemes explanatory of the universe and its cause are considered; and the Mathematical Pantheism of Spinoza is placed beside the Monadology of Leibnitz. The former presents us with a God who is the Infinite Substance of which bodies and souls are merely the modes. God and the universe are one. Separation between them is an abstract effort. Material forms are not His manifestation, they are His life, His very self. Everything is the substance of God. He is extended, yet incorporeal; thinks, but without understanding; is free, without will; an unique substance, but without personality; ever known, yet unknowable; infinite, yet finite; the author of nothing but good, yet it co-exists with evil; at once His infinite self, and His creature. He "sleeps in the mineral, dreams in the animal, and wakens into consciousness in the man.' Thus the very framework of Pantheism is contradiction. It is the Absolute, constrained by law! Substance is the cause, yet there is that outside and above it by which it is compelled! Law subserves substance, yet substance has no intelligence to produce law! Leibnitz sought, by a method which he purposed to be equally rigorous, to refute this, and give to the individual its philosophy in relation to The All. The elements of the universe were monads-simple unextended forces-in which the idea of substance rests. Some have no perception, and form the material world; others have mere vitality, as in the brute; but others yet are the self-conscious souls of men, bearing in themselves the fountains of necessary truth. But there must be a sufficient reason for the existence of all these, and that is, the One Supreme Infinite, the Monas Monadum, the cause and explanation of all that is. Every monad was launched into being with a determinate eternal history. "From the given state of any monad at any time, the Eternal "Creation by Law." 103 Geometer can find the state of the Universe past, present, and to come." There is no interaction between soul and body, but simply pre-arranged harmony; and the end of the scheme is the disclosure of Divine Perfection. Thus, in striving to give a place to the individual, the theory virtually destroys an external world, and robs us of our moral nature. Neither system meets the necessities of mind; while between the Pantheism of Spinoza and Atheism there is but a verbal difference. In spite of this, Pantheism is the fountain that pours out the streams of current sceptical thought. Its subtilties repeat themselves in a thousand forms: but substance and modes, subject and attributes, include all that can be, while causality is utterly excluded. Evolution, natural selection, physicochemical theories of life, and the molecular origin of thought, are all the outcome of its fascinations. It is an intense effort to unify every agent and activity. Creation is treated with scorn; and "evolution" is set up in its place. The chapters on this and cognate subjects are the most brilliant and masterly in this book. They expose triumphantly the tissue of subtilties by which hypotheses are deified and Deity ignored. Diverging somewhat from Mr. Leifchild's path, we will discuss it. What is the meaning of nature? What was its source? Did it spring from a self-developing power inherent in matter? or is it the product of an infinite and intelligent mind? Our prejudices apart, can law construct the universe? What is law? "It is the invariable relation between two distinct phenomena according to which one depends on another."* Clearly, then, it is not a power. It is neither intelligent nor volitional. It is neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. It is purely "a method of intelligent agency." To us laws are nothing but formulæ. They express, of necessity, the modes of action of an actor behind them. They are not that which rules nature, but the method by which it is ruled. "Creation by law" can have no meaning unless as the expression of what we are able to observe as to the methods by which the Omnipotent created. Shift the ground by declaring that it is an activity impressed upon matter; still it exists outside matter and is dependent upon Divine energy. To attempt, therefore, to use the expression as equivalent to creation without God, is sophistry. The taunt that God's government in person involves "incessant interference," and is unworthy of His nature, is meaningless. It originates with the opponent; it has no place in our conception. The Omni * Lewes, Hist. Phil. II. 701. † P. 243. |