McCosh, also, though evidently with some hesitation, teaches that "we can conceive proportion in space, and if we take any of these proportional sections, and divide it into two, thought will compel us to say that the two make up the whole. In this sense the parts make up the whole—that is, the subsections make up the section. If the question be extended beyond this, and it be asked, Is infinite space made up of parts? I answer, that as we can have no adequate notion of infinite space, so we can not be expected to answer all the questions which may be put regarding it. It is certain that neither infinite space nor finite space is made up of separate parts. We can speak intelligibly of proportions in finite space, and determine their relations to each other and the whole. I tremble to speak of the proportions of infinite space, lest I be using language which has or can have no proper meaning, and the signification attached to which by me or others might be altogether inapplicable to such a subject. Still there are propositions which we might intelligibly use. It is self-evident that any proportion of space must be less than infinite space. And if infinite space can be conceived as having proportions, and we could conceive all these proportions, then these proportions would be equal to the whole!"[88] Well may the author say that he is "in a region dark and pathless;" for the language here employed "can have no proper meaning" in regard to infinite space. Well may he "tremble to speak of the proportions of infinite space," for what can proportion (pro, for portio, a part) mean except a numerical relation of parts? Proportions—numerical relations—are measurable quantities, therefore finite quantities, and no addition of finite quantities, can make the infinite. What confusion and contradiction is here wrought by this word-jugglery with "the whole and parts" of space!
Cousin, also, falls into the same inaccuracy and confusion. He tells us that "human reason can conceive of a space determined and limited,"[89] therefore divisible, measurable, and finite; and yet at the same time he teaches that "space is illimitable, absolutely continuous, an indivisible unity."[90]
And now let us note the contradictions which flow from this confounding of space with extension, and both with immensity. Space is cognized à posteriori, space is cognized à priori. Space has parts and proportions, space has no parts or proportions. Space is divisible, space is indivisible—an absolute unity. Space is finite, space is infinite. Space is susceptible of exact measurement, space is immeasurable—that is, absolute immensity.
Space and extension are not identical. Extension is simply an attribute of body—the continuity of matter. Space is place, distance, direction, relations of bodies. Space is a certain correlation of finite existences. Immensity is the attribute of the unconditioned Being, the absolute Spirit—that is, God. He is incorporeal, boundless, spaceless, infinite.
2. The same confusion pervades the writings of philosophers in regard to TIME, DURATION, and ETERNITY.
Succession is confounded with duration,[91] duration with time,[92] and time with eternity.[93]
If succession and duration are identical, then, there is no permanent substance underlying the fugitive phenomena of the outer world, and no personal existence which remains the same through all the changes of our mental states. The human mind is simply "a series of feelings," a succession of mental states without any enduring ground principle constituting our personal identity, and we are thus landed in the constructive Idealism of John Stuart Mill.[94] On the other hand, if there be a permanent substance or essence underlying all mental phenomena, whose continuance in existence is measured by phenomenal change, time succession, then duration can not be identical with time, any more than permanence can be the same as change. With finite duration there is necessarily given change; the past is like the future—always a minus in relation to the present.
Furthermore, if time is synonymous with eternity, then eternity is divisible, measurable, it has limits and parts. Time, say the philosophers, has one dimension, while space has three. "We," says McCosh, "represent time as a line,"[95] it must therefore be divisible, and, if divisible, it is legitimate to speak, with Hamilton, of "time and its parts." "Time has succession, or priority and posteriority."[96] And yet this same writer in the same work tells us, "Time has no limits," and "Time can not be divided into separable parts."[97] If time and eternity are identical, eternity has a past, a present, and a future—"eternity ab ante and eternity a post."[98] The eternity past is bounded by the present, it ends now; the eternity to come begins now. We may with propriety ask, How can that which has succession, which is capable of exact measurement, which has a beginning and an end, be infinite? That which had a beginning can not be unbeginning, that which will come to an end can not be endless. Is not the "eternity of time" a contradiction in terms? Is not "absolute time" an absurdity?
Mark, then, the contradictions which flow from the confounding of succession and duration, time and eternity. Time has limits, time has no limits. Time is divisible, time is indivisible. Time is finite, time is infinite. Time is relative, time is absolute. Time is moving, "it flows;" time is immovable, "it does not flow."[99]
Duration and succession, eternity and time, are not identical. Duration is the continuance in existence of finite creatures, a continuance which is measured by the equable motion of planetary orbs, and imperfectly by phenomenal changes in our mental states. Succession is simply an order of phenomena, the recurrence, at regular or irregular intervals, of like changes, or the series of different states in the same existence. Time is a certain correlation of successive existences. Eternity is an attribute of the absolute Being—the timelessness of God. He is not subject to the law of change, and therefore not to the law of time, therefore his absolute being can not be measured by successive epochs.
Let us now endeavor to dismiss from our thought all this perplexing necromancy of words, and humbly pray, with Themistocles, for "some sweet voluptuous art of forgetting." Let us fix our mental gaze upon the objects of thought which are denoted by the terms time and space, and ask what are they? Are they existences or attributes, are they ideal or real, are they entities or relations? Have we any clear and definite notions of which these are the unequivocal signs? The solution of these questions is the essential condition of a true philosophy of time and space.
First of all, is it not self-evident that, if time and space are for us the objects of thought, they must be conceived under the categories of Being or Quality or Relation? If they can not be thought as real existences, or as attributes of existing things, or as relations among existing things, they can not be thought at all—they are non-entities, and we can not think about nothing. "Thought can only be realized by thinking something ... this something must be thought as existing ... and we can only think a thing as existing, by thinking it as existing in this or that determinate manner of existence; and whenever we cease to think of something as existing—something existing in a determinate manner of existence—we cease to think at all."[100]
McCosh asserts that time and space are "neither substances, modes, nor relations."[101] What, then, are they? He answers, "They seem to be entitled to be put in a class by themselves, and resemble substances, modes, relations only in that they are existences, entities, realities."[102] But if they are entitled to be put in a class by themselves, what is the name of that class, and by what characteristic marks shall we distinguish it? If they are realities, they must have being, or inhere in something that has being, or be relations of something in being. If they are existences, they must be the objects of sense perception, or rational intuition, or immediate judgment, otherwise they can not be cognized at all, for "the mind can not create objects of its own cognition."
We ask again, What are space and time? McCosh and Dr. Porter both answer: 1. They are not substances. This no one will dispute. They are not material substances having sensible qualities which can be the objects of sense perception. Space and time are not perceived by the senses.[103] Neither are they spiritual substances. We do not know them as having power and performing acts. 2. They both reply, They are not attributes or qualities of matter or spirit. This, also, no one will dispute, if the word "time" is not used as a synonym for "eternity," and the word "space" is not used as a synonym for "immensity," because "eternity" and "immensity" are attributes of the absolute Spirit. 3. They both assert, They are not relations. This is disputed by many: by Leibnitz, by Hamilton, by Saisset, by Calderwood, and by others. Leibnitz says, "Space is the order of things co-existing. Time is the order of things successive."[104] Hamilton says, "Space, like time, is only the intuition or the conception of a certain correlation of existence."[105] Calderwood defines time "as a certain correlation of existence," and "space as the recognized relation of extended objects."[106] And Saisset regards time and space as standing in the same category with mathematical relations.[107] These are, to say the least, distinguished names in philosophy. The opinions of men who have for years pondered these profound problems are at any rate entitled to proper consideration, and if in opposition to their views it is affirmed that time and space as understanding-concepts are not relations, some reasons should be assigned. All the proof offered by Dr. McCosh is that "we know no two or more things which by their relation could yield space and time" (p. 211). We answer, promptly, duration and change do yield the relation of time. "The consciousness of succession in our mental states is in reality our consciousness of time."[108] The co-existence of two or more extended objects must yield the relation of space, for "empty space is nothing more than the relative distance of extended objects from each other, measured on a standard similar to that which applies to the bodies themselves. In this way it is equally accurate to say that there is a certain specified distance between the bodies, and that there is nothing between them, because space is nothing but their relation to each other."[109] Annihilate all finite existences, and what remains? Nothing but the immensity of God. Let one atom of matter be created, and we have extension. Let a second atom be created, and there is now a relation of distance, position, direction—that is, there is space.
The only remark made by Dr. Porter which has a direct bearing on this important discussion is that "Space and time are neither relations nor correlations, but correlates to beings and events" ("The Human Intellect," p. 568). It may seem an act of presumption in one who has spent much less time on these studies than Dr. Porter to offer a criticism on this final deliverance. But when he tells us that space and time are neither relations nor correlations, after having through four pages "On the relations of space and time concepts to motion" labored to sustain the doctrine of Trendelenberg that "the categories of space and time are derived from the universal and all-pervading motion which is common to both" (p. 526), we confess we are amazed. Let it be granted that the spatial and temporal relations can be, in their last analysis, resolved into motion, still the question remains, How can we conceive of motion except as the result of force?—that is, of power actually exerted somewhere. In the last analysis, therefore, the relations of space, time, and motion are resolved into "the relation of causality." The conclusion seems inevitable that time and space are correlations of finite existences. Annihilate all finite existences and finite duration, and there is neither space nor time—that is, there is "pure nothing." Or, more properly, there is the Omnipotence, the Immensity, the Eternity of God, whose causation may give existence to finite beings with all their necessary as well as contingent relations. "Whoever maintains a beginning of the world must also adopt a beginning of time, for only worldly being, which according to its notion has not its ground in itself, but is an originated being, can at all have time for the form of its existence."[110]
And now, in summing up, let us see if we can clearly disengage three classes of distinct notions:
1. The notion of concrete and finite EXTENSION as the essential quality of matter; and the notion of finite DURATION as a quality of changeful dependent existence.
2. The notion of SPACE as the relation of co-existing material things—that is, the relation of position, distance, direction, hereness, thereness; and the notion of time as the relation of successive existence—that is, the relation of priority and posteriority, of past, present, and future.
3. The notion of IMMENSITY and ETERNITY—that is, an absolute continuity and illimitability of being, the absence of all limit, all quantity, all beginning and end, the attributes of the unconditioned Being. Let us endeavor sharply to define these notions, which unhappily are too often confounded.
1. The external senses in their different degrees, especially sight and touch, give us the knowledge of objects that are extended and figured. The body I grasp with the hand or survey with the eye has limits, outlines, angles, surfaces—that is, it has more or less EXTENSION. The inner sense gives us the knowledge of the changes and successions of our mental life. But, amid all these changes, I am conscious there is a something which endures. What is that permanent something which I apprehend under all the varying mental states? It is that principle of personal identity which I call I—myself. To feel and know that I am the same person under all modifications of my mental activity is to endure. Through the aid of memory, which enables me to recall past mental states, and the immediate consciousness of personal existence, through all these changes I obtain the notion of DURATION. The notions of Extension and Duration are clear to my mind.
2. Besides the notion of extended bodies, I have also the notion of position, distance, direction among extended bodies. They exist in various relations to each other; they are here or there, above or below, near at hand or indefinitely remote. It may be the distance between two particles of dust in the sunbeam, or the walls of the room, or between the earth and the sun, or between the sun and the outermost planet of our system, or between the earth and the remotest star which twinkles at the outposts of the universe. Position, distance, direction are all relations. And to all these relations I prefer, with Sir John Herschel, to give the generic name SPACE.[111] Then I have no confusion of thought, and no difficulty or contradiction in using the language of Cousin, Hamilton, and McCosh, when they speak of "determinate and limited space," "particular spaces," "parts of space," and "proportions of space."
Along with the notion of duration (and succession of different states in the same existence), I am conscious that this duration is capable of admeasurement by common standards, and ideally divided into periods of longer or shorter duration. This duration may be measured by successive states of consciousness, or facts of domestic history, or, better still, by the succession of day and night, or the relative position of the sun in the heavens, the revolutions of the moon around the earth, or of the earth around the sun. These are really world-measurements of duration. Since, then, duration can be measured from any point and in any proportions, it is clear that measurement is a purely relative thing—a relation. Of any such thing as "pure time" or "absolute time" we have no knowledge. Time is the measure of finite duration—the correlation of things successive. And if I confine myself to this usage, I am under no necessity of using the paradoxical language of many philosophers, "time is eternity!"
3. We come, lastly, to the notions or ideas of IMMENSITY and ETERNITY, and we ask, Are these necessary ideas of the reason, or can they be confounded with the relations of co-existence and succession on the one hand, or with the attributes of finite extension and duration on the other?
This is not a mere question of systems of philosophy or theology—it is a question of facts. Are the ideas of Absolute Infinity and Eternity necessary intuitions of the reason? The world of sense-perception, the world of science, is phenomenal and contingent. All that is offered to our observation is limited and temporal. The universe surrendered to our science is one of quantities and quantitative relations. It is conditioned by number and form. Its extensions, spaces, and motions are capable of admeasurement. Its worlds and systems are subject to numeration. The phenomena of the universe are all subject to change, they have beginning, succession, and end. But beyond the notions of the limited and the temporal, we find in consciousness the ideas of the illimitable and the eternal; the latter always appearing to reason as the necessary correlates of the former. The finite necessarily supposes the infinite; the temporal necessarily supposes the eternal. The two classes of notions are essentially different, and defy all attempts to generalize them under higher concepts. The infinite is not the totality of finite existences; eternity is not the prolongation of finite durations. Immensity and eternity are absolutely and unconditionally necessary ideas. I can easily conceive the non-existence of any finite thing. I can, without any contradiction, suppose the whole world to be destroyed. All which has a derived and a dependent existence may cease to be. But we can not conceive the source of all existence annihilated. There is one notion which it is impossible for me to annihilate in thought, and that is the notion of absolute being—underived, unconditioned, changeless, eternal being. Despite the destruction of all determinate extension and all finite duration, there remains a Supreme Reality, unlimited, unbeginning, and endless, as an absolute necessity of thought.
Here, then, are two absolute ideas found in the depths of consciousness—the ideas of IMMENSITY and ETERNITY; ideas as real, as natural, and as necessary as the notions of extension and duration. Immensity and Eternity are attributes of God. Extension and Duration are attributes of finite, dependent existence. Space and time are relations between co-existing things and successive events.
If by this somewhat abstruse and, perhaps, too lengthy discussion we have succeeded in proving that Time and Space are simply relations between co-existent things and successive events, which, apart from things and events, have no reality, and are "nothing but the bare possibility of body and change," then we have disentangled the Christian doctrine of absolute creation from the embarrassment occasioned by supposing "the coeval and co-eternal existence of Time and Space as the necessary conditions of the Divine activity." If Time and Space are relations between things and events, then God, as the almighty cause of things and relations, is the efficient cause of space and time, and the creative act was not conditioned by them.
The affirmation of the necessary existence of Space, Time, and Number as co-eternal with and independent of God,[112] prepared the way for and rendered plausible the further affirmation of "the coeval existence of matter as the condition and medium of the Divine agency and manifestation."[113] For if Space, Time, and Number are eternal, why may not Matter be eternal? But why stop with the assertion of the eternity of Space, Time, Number, and Matter? "If we admit that there may be something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause of anything." If we admit the eternity of Matter, how can we deny the eternity of Force? We can not conceive of the existence of substance without some properties or qualities, and of all the properties of matter, gravitation or weight seems to approach nearest to an essential, necessary quality. And if we concede the eternity of matter and gravitating force, why not admit the eternity of law—that is, "uniformity of properties and relations;" uniformity in the results arising from the motions and changes of matter? And when so much is granted, why not grant that a consequent Order of the universe must also be eternal? why not grant that the universe is an infinite succession of orderly phenomena without a beginning and end? After the first concession that matter is uncreated and eternal, how can any one refute the doctrine of Hume that the universe never had a beginning, and that under some one or another possible phase—amid the infinite possibility of phases—it is both eternal and infinite? How, after this admission, can we deny that the universe is "a series of events existing eternally in a state of order without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws of matter?"
It would be easy to show that all those writers on "Natural Theology" who have made the least concession in regard to this fundamental question have involved themselves in entanglements and difficulties from which they could not logically extricate themselves.
Dr. Chalmers contends that the mere existence of matter with its properties and laws would not involve the affirmation of an Absolute First Cause. The proof, he says, lies solely in the disposition, collocation, and arrangement of these properties and laws in their relation to each other, so as to secure harmonious and beneficial results. So far as the argument for the existence of God is concerned, he provisionally concedes that matter, with all its laws, may be eternal.[114] True, he says that he grants the eternity of matter simply for the purposes of his argument. But what right has he to grant it for the purposes of his argument, and then to deny it in obedience to the decisive affirmation of a "well-accredited revelation?" If Divine revelation teaches the non-eternity of matter, this is for the Christian a truth—a fundamental truth; and whoever surrenders or compromises a fundamental position must finally fail in his management of the Theistic argument. The intuitions of reason and the doctrines of revelation are but separate rays from the one eternal fountain of light; and if we ignore or compromise the fundamental truths of revelation, reason will refuse to place her imprimatur upon and give her indorsement to our lame and halting proofs. This is strikingly illustrated by Chalmers's failure to "construct an argument for a God" that satisfies the reason, after he has affirmed "the eternity of matter for the purpose of bringing out his conclusion" (p. 79). But Dr. Chalmers can not stop with the simple concession that matter is eternal. Only grant its necessary existence, and "it is impossible to imagine that along with existence it should not have properties ... and laws" (p. 75). Now, if the admission that a finite, composite, divisible substance may be self-existent, and have eternal properties and laws, is not logically inconsistent, how can he show that these properties and laws in their eternal action and reaction are not adequate to the production of a series of phenomena which to our understanding may appear harmonious? Can eternal laws produce any thing but order? The existing order of things is the only possible order that could arise from the necessary operation of eternal laws, and there can be no choice, design, or purpose in the universe. Collocation, arrangement, adaptation, are only subjective anthropomorphic conceptions we impose upon nature. If matter and its laws are eternal, how will Chalmers extricate himself from this dilemma? By this admission he places a weapon in the hands of the anti-Theist, by which the latter may cut the teleological argument to pieces.
My esteemed friend, Dr. Mahan, in his zeal to overthrow the ontological proof of the being of God, and to vindicate for the etiological proof the sole claim to validity, has been betrayed into a similar inconsistency. That there is any à priori proof of the being of God is in his estimation a "wild chimera." "Formation from pre-existing materials" constitutes "the exclusive basis" of Natural Theology.[115] Matter, then, may be eternal, and an infinite series of events existing in a state of order is conceivable and possible. At page 85 of his "Natural Theology" he writes: "Mr. Hume has undeniably announced the truth as it is upon this subject, to wit, that the idea of a nature eternally existing in a state of order without a cause other than the eternally inhering laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an eternally existing and infinite mind who originated this order—a mind existing without a cause." After several pages disfigured by a labored effort to prove the possibility and logical consistency of an "infinite series of events existing in an orderly succession," he sums up with the imperious assertion that "the argument against the possibility of an infinite series of events stands revealed as a logical absurdity" (p. 88).
It is our deliberate conclusion, however, that the "logical absurdity" lies in the position of Dr. Mahan. "The idea of order in the Finite without a cause is no more self-contradictory than the idea of order in the Infinite without a cause." Mark the two points which stand out clearly in this strange assertion. First, the Finite here is nature—that is, matter and its laws. Secondly, the Infinite is the Supreme Mind. Dr. Mahan asserts that this finite may be conceived as eternally existing—that is, as existing through infinite time; in other words, the finite may be infinite. For a thing or being, or for a series of things or beings, to be at once "finite" and "infinite" Dr. Mahan says "is not self-contradictory." This is on a par with the logic of Hegel—"Contradictory opposites are identical." Again, we ask, Is there no difference between "finite matter" and "Infinite Mind?" Is not matter composite, extended, divisible, and limited? Is not Infinite Mind unextended, incomposite, indivisible, and illimitable? The mere existence of matter does not necessarily involve the idea of Order. There are nebulæ existing in the universe "utterly devoid of all symmetry of form, ... irregular and capricious in their shapes and convolutions to a most extraordinary degree."[116] Wherever order is presented, we instinctively and infallibly ascribe it to mind. Mind for all of us, and forever, is the analogon and exponent of Order in every sphere, irrespective of all knowledge on our part as to when or how it had a beginning.
Furthermore, on the main issue we affirm briefly—if matter is extended, it is measurable; if it is measurable, it must have definite limits; if it has definite limits, it can not be infinite. Now that which is finite, limited, quantitive, conditioned, can not be self-existent, can not be infinite. Infinitude is illimitation by kind, quantity, or degree—illimitation by temporal, spatial, or numerical relations. An "infinite series" is therefore a contradiction in adjecto. "As every number, although immeasurably and inconceivably great, is impossible without unity as its basis, so every series, being itself a number, is impossible unless a first term is given as its commencement.... Even if it should be allowed that the series has no first term, but has originated ab æterno, it must always at each instant have a last term; the series as a whole can not be infinite."[117] If one thing more can be added to the number of existing things in the universe, then it is not infinite in number or in extent. In short, a series implies a succession of terms, or members, or links; if there is a last term, there must be a first term; if there is a last link, there must be a first. Through an Unconditioned First Cause, originating and conditioning all the members thereof, is a series conceivable or possible. To apply to number or quantity the designation of infinitude is surely the "absurdity" in presence of which all others pale. We grant that the term "infinite series" is employed by mathematicians in a loose manner, to denote that which exceeds our powers of mensuration or conception, but which nevertheless has bounds or limits—the indefinite, but not the infinite;[118] such loose use of terms in philosophy, however, is inadmissible. The final reply of Dr. Mahan, "that the series under consideration is one which by hypothesis has no first," is the extreme of absurdity. It is as though a man should talk of a "round square" or a "bilinear figure," and when remonstrated with as to the contradictory character of these phrases, should reply, "Yes, but the 'square' under consideration is one which by hypothesis is 'round,' and the 'figure' is one which by hypothesis is formed by 'two lines!'" Men may make all kinds of strange hypotheses, but the strangest of all is that of an infinite-finite.
These incautious writers of "Natural Theology" all assert, as a fundamental doctrine, that God is the Absolute and Unconditioned Cause. We might ask, Whence do they derive this fundamental truth that God is "absolute and unconditioned," if not by an à priori rational intuition? We let that pass, however, to press the more pertinent question—How can God be "the absolute cause," if matter is coeval with and independent of Him? And how can He be the "unconditioned cause," if space, time, number, and matter necessarily exist as the conditions of the Divine agency and manifestation? If matter, with its essential properties and laws, exist independent of the Deity, do not these impose conditions upon the action of the Deity, and determine it to certain necessary modes? If so, God can not be the unconditioned Cause. Instead of one supreme, sole First Principle, there are at least two principles, God and Necessity, and may be more. No system of Natural Theology can maintain its integrity and consistency except by holding fast to the fundamental postulate—God is the Absolute and Unconditioned Cause of all things, of matter and form, quality and relation, purpose and law.
And now, in conclusion, we may properly ask, Whence arises the necessity for assuming the coeval and co-eternal existence of matter besides and independent of God? Why should the theologian feel himself under the necessity of prejudicing the Biblical conception of Creation by any such concession? The only reasons we have seen assigned are, first, that "creation out of nothing is discredited by the discoveries of modern science;"[119] secondly, that "an absolute origination is inconceivable and self-destructive."[120] In attempting an estimate of the weight of these reasons, we would first suggest that the question of absolute creation has been prejudiced by the persistent employment of the old formula of "creation out of nothing," as though "nothing" contained the cause of existence, and the universe was developed out of nothing. The Christian Fathers, who first employed the phrase κτίσις ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, never indulged in such representations. The idea they sought to express was that the production of "otherness," the awarding of existence to something besides Himself, was an absolutely free act of God which was not conditioned by any thing external to Himself—in a word, that God is the positive original ground of all existence.
But who shall decide that this doctrine has been discredited by the progress of science? What special discovery of modern science has so revealed to us the ultimate constitution of matter, that we can affirm its absolute reality and its eternal existence? Nay, are the most advanced physicists and physiologists agreed as to whether, apart from our subjective, ideal conceptions, matter has any reality? If we are not utterly mistaken, the entire tendency of science is to reduce matter from the rank of entities to the rank of phenomena. "The old speculations of Philosophy, which cut the ground from Materialism by showing how little we know of matter, are now being daily reinforced by the subtle analysis of the physiologist, the chemist, and the electrician. Under that analysis matter dissolves and disappears, surviving only as the phenomena of Force."[121] We offer no opinion as to the validity of this new doctrine, but are sure it is the doctrine of modern science as represented by Faraday, Owen, McVicar, Bayma, Exley, Wallace, Poisson, Poyntong, Laycock, and, we think, Huxley. If modern science has resolved all our external sensations, even the feeling of resistance, into "phenomena of Force," then, according to the doctrine of Mr. Martineau, it had a beginning—"phenomena demand causation.... Supreme Entity needs no cause." "The universe resolves itself into a perpetual genesis," and "the Theist is perfectly justified in treating it as disqualified for self-existence."[122]
Sir William Hamilton contends that "an absolute commencement" is inconceivable. All the conception we can possibly form of Creation is "merely as the evolution of new forms of existence by the fiat of the Deity." "Let us suppose the very crisis of creation. Can we realize it to ourselves in thought, that the moment after the universe came into manifested being there was a larger complement of existence in the universe and its Author together than there was the moment before in the Deity himself alone? This we can not imagine."[123]
There are, we presume, very few Hamiltonians who are prepared to indorse this bold statement of their master. Mansel, the editor and annotator of his "Lectures," has very distinctly and emphatically expressed his dissent. "Whether it be true or not that we can not conceive the quantity of existence to be increased or diminished, there is at any rate no such inability as regards the quantity of matter. It may be true as a fact that no material atom has been added to the world since the Creation; but the assertion, however true, is certainly not necessary. The power which created once must be conceived as able to create again, whether that ability is actually exercised or not. The same conclusion is still more evident when we proceed from the consideration of matter to that of mind. Of matter, we maintain that the creation of new portions is perfectly conceivable—as a result, at least, if not as a process; of mind, we believe that such creation actually takes place. Every man who comes into the world comes into it as a distinct individual, having a personality and consciousness of his own, and that personality is a distinct accession to the number of persons previously existing.... Every new person that comes into the world is a new existence."[124] Hence we are not justified in asserting that all actual existences are only different modes of one identical reality. We can not merely conceive, but we know, as a primary fact of consciousness, that the sum of existence, of personal conscious being, which is the most fundamental reality, may be increased in the universe.[125]
We readily confess that the act of creation—that is, causing wholly new existence—is utterly incomprehensible to us; so are thousands of other things. I am told by the physicist that eight hundred billions of ether-impulses impinge on the retina of the eye in a second of time to produce the sensation of deep violet;[126] and I believe it, but at the same time it is to me incomprehensible. My reason affirms that the First Cause must be infinite; and I believe it, but I can not comprehend Infinity. No logician of the present day teaches that comprehensibility is a test of truth. Is our finite capacity of conceiving or of doing a standard for Omnipotence? The only question here involved is, Can Infinite Power produce that mode of being we call matter? Does such an exercise of Infinite Power involve a contradiction? I conscientiously submit this question to my own reason, and I confess I am unable to see any contradiction. To my experiential knowledge matter presents "the essential characteristics at once of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent."[127] "This," says the distinguished Prof. Maxwell, "precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent.... It must have been created."[128] The notion of its origination by a Power which is unconditioned and every way unlimited, satisfies my reason, and affords the best solution of the problem of its existence. That it is self-existent, independent, eternal—"a second other God"—is directly contradictory. The original, primitive fountain of existence is Mind. This must stand at the fountain-head. God is the sole and absolute Cause of all things—of time, and all temporal relations; of space, and all spatial relations; of the primordial element, and all its properties. The creative act was not conditioned by Time or Space or Matter.[129]
"The laws of nature can not account for their own origin."—J. S. Mill.
Creation was the absolutely free act of God, unconditioned by any pre-existing thing. Matter with its properties and forms, its temporal, spatial, and numerical relations; Spirit with its life and feeling, its ideas and laws—these had all their origin in the creative Word of God. Whatever is, and is not God, is the creature of God. This is the Biblical conception of Creation.
Origination and formation are so immediately and inseparably united in the Biblical notion of Creation that the revelation of the one is the revelation of the other, and we can not deny the former without logically involving ourselves in the denial of the latter. He who gave to matter its forms must have given it its essential properties, upon which many of its forms depend; and He who gave to matter its essential properties must have given it origination, for how can we conceive of substance devoid of all attributes? Whether, therefore, the account in Genesis "be found to have in view, mainly or solely, a universal or a partial creation; whether the principium there mentioned be the particular beginning of the special work there described, or the principium principiorum,—the beginning of all beginnings—the Bible is in either case a protest against the dogma of the eternity of the world, or of the eternity of matter."[130]
This notion of Creation as a pure supernatural origination is the only one which reason can accept as adequate, satisfactory, and complete. Formation without origination is a conception of creation which is logically incomplete. It fails to meet the demand of reason for an Absolute First Principle adequate to the production and explanation of all existence. There are outlying elements of the problem which it can not grasp in the unity of a Fundamental Idea. Matter with its properties, Number, Time, and Space, with their relations, are still lying outside of its field, and setting themselves up as self-existent and independent realities, which by their apparent or conceded independence must necessarily impose conditions upon the Divine activity, and perpetually embarrass the human mind in its effort to think of God as the free and unconditioned Cause. Reason demands that absolute unity shall stand at the fountain-head of being, and every system of philosophy which allows of more than one self-existent and independent and underived reality bewilders and staggers the understanding, and vitiates all its processes of thought. After this concession every argument for the being of God seems to us a petitio principii.
Reason and Revelation, then, are agreed in the affirmation that the Universe, both as to its matter and form, had its origin in the creative Word and Will of God. How far this affirmation is sustained by the à posteriori inductions of physical science is a question of the deepest interest, and to this we now invite attention.
This question naturally divides itself into two subordinate inquiries, one relating to the form, the other to the matter of the universe, which may be thus presented:
1. Had the existing Order of the universe a beginning? Had the forms, relations, laws, and harmonies of the universe a beginning?
2. Had that which is the ground of all forms, the subject of all changes and relations, a beginning? Had the Matter of the universe a beginning?
In regard to the first question, we remark in general: The common conviction of our race in all ages has been that the existing order of the universe had a beginning, and will have an end.
It has been affirmed by some mental philosophers that mankind has an intuitive and natural belief in the uniformity of nature, and the consequent stability and permanence of the universe. Reid, the father of the Scottish school of philosophy, says, "God has implanted in the human mind an original principle by which he believes in and expects the continuance of the course of nature." It is a matter of surprise that so acute a thinker should have fallen into so flagrant an error. He has evidently confounded our natural belief in causation with our acquired experiences of uniformity. That "like causes will always produce like effects" is a native intuition; but that "the same causes will always continue in operation, and always operate with the same intensity," is a mere presumption. Our faith in the uniformity and permanent stability of nature is an induction from experience, and not a natural and necessary intuition of the mind.[131]
Far from entertaining a belief in the permanence and stability of the present order of nature, the great mass of mankind in earlier times regarded the system of things as liable to constant interference on the part of supernatural powers. In all ages of the world the existing order of nature has been regarded as temporal, and the flow of terrestrial and even of cosmical events has been conceived as liable to be broken up by universal revolutions. The historical evidence of this universal belief in "geological catastrophes" has been fully brought forward by Dr. Winchell in his "Sketches of Creation."[132] Traditions of a primal chaos and of periodic cataclysms are found among the Greeks, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Chaldæans, Hebrews, Persians, Arabians, Hindoos, South Sea Islanders, and the Aztecs. And among those nations in which the physical sciences have been cultivated the same conceptions are still entertained. As science has extended our acquaintance with natural phenomena in all parts of the earth, and beyond the earth into the celestial spaces, men have gradually attained a belief in the uniformity of nature. But the doctrine of periodical catastrophes has not been abandoned by scientific men. When men now speak of the uniformity of nature, they use that term in a very large sense, and even loose sense, as including catastrophes and convulsions of an intense and extensive kind;[133] and, as we shall presently see, the most advanced and exact modern science teaches us to contemplate a grand final catastrophe in which all life will be extinguished on the earth, and the globe itself shall be "ensepulchred in an extinguished sun." The attempt, therefore, to represent the belief in the uniformity of nature as a universal and necessary truth is vain. We have no à priori ground for believing in the permanence of the universe.
The common conviction of our race that the universe had a beginning, that it has been the subject of great catastrophal changes, and that it will finally come to an end, is not to be regarded as an insignificant fact. As Herbert Spencer justly remarks, "We must presume that beliefs that have long existed and have been widely diffused ... beliefs that are perennial and universal ... have some foundation, and some amount of verity."[134] Universal beliefs must rest on some common ground. That common ground can not be experience. A belief which was as clearly and confidently held four thousand years ago as it is held to-day can not have been gradually attained by successive generalizations. It is grounded on the fundamental antithesis between Becoming and Being, phenomena and reality, the changeful and the permanent, the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, which has been a necessary form of thought to all minds in all ages. The human mind has never been able to conceive these contradictory opposites as predicable of the same subject. The universe as presented to sense is a perpetual genesis, a ceaseless change; therefore it can not be permanent. It is a time-march of phenomena; therefore it can not be eternal. It is limited by quantity and quantitative relations; therefore it can not be infinite. Thus reason has always conceived the universe as having a beginning, and has confidently predicted that it will come to an end. All systems of philosophy, and, indeed, many systems of religion, have been attempts to explain "the beginning or origin of things"—that is, they have been "à priori theories of the universe."[135] Even Atheism itself comes under this definition: it is an attempt to explain the origin of the universe and of man on the à priori assumption of the self-existence of Matter, Space, and Motion. Thus all systems of thought, ancient and modern, have had their birth in the innate conviction that there is something to be explained, and that human reason is adequate to the task of furnishing an explanation. They all assume that the universe had a beginning, and their one, central problem is, "How are we to conceive aright the origin of things?"
In what does this differ from the problem of modern science? It is true that Comte would limit positive science to "the study of phenomena in their orders of co-existence, resemblance, and succession," an idea which the word "positive" by no means conveys. And Tyndall asserts that "the man of science, if he confine himself within his own limits, will give no answer to the question" as to the origin of things. At the same time he admits that "he can clearly show that the present state of things may be derivative."[136] The great masters of science, however, refuse to acknowledge any such arbitrary limitations. "The essence of science," says Sir William Thomson, "consists in inferring antecedent conditions, and anticipating future evolutions from phenomena which have actually come under observation."[137] If this be the essence of science, then we presume that it is competent to throw some light on the primitive condition of the universe, and give some prevision of its future destiny. Did not Comte himself teach that the solar system was once all nebula, and that it will yet collapse into an exhausted and extinguished sun?[138] Is it true, then, that physical science by its inductive inference of "antecedent conditions," does really furnish a solid confirmation of the à priori and native conviction of our race that the universe had a beginning? Then most assuredly even physical science is carrying us forward toward the ultimate unity of all truth—a unity which can be realized perfectly only by the constant mutual determination of à priori and empirical knowledge, a synthesis and equipoise of physical and metaphysical truths.
This is the most obvious tendency of modern science in its relation to the question under consideration. Nothing is more remarkable in the present aspect of physical research than what has been aptly called "the transcendental character of its results." As George Henry Lewes observes, "the fundamental ideas of modern science are as transcendental as any of the axioms of ancient philosophy."[139] Palætiological science in general has advanced by sure and steady steps, through careful observation and experiment, inductive inference, and the application of exact mathematical calculus to the recognition of the truth long ago announced by Paul: "The things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal." Dynamical Geology, Astronomical Palætiology, Cosmogony, Molecular Physics, Abstract Dynamics, have all landed in the same inevitable conclusion that "the existing order of things had a beginning." Sir William Thomson's doctrine of the "Dissipation of Energy" leads us, by sure steps of deductive reasoning, to the necessary future of the universe—necessary, that is, if physical laws remain unchanged—"so it enables us distinctly to say that the present order of things has not been evolved through infinite past time by the agency of laws now at work, but must have had a distinctive beginning, a state beyond which we are totally unable to penetrate—a state which must have been produced by other than the now acting causes."[140]
The science of Geology reduces all terrestrial phenomena to the great law of finite duration. If there be one scientific induction which may be fairly pronounced legitimate and irrefragable, it is this one—that the existing terrestrial economy had a beginning. "All organic existence, recent or extinct, vegetable or animal, had a beginning; there was a time when they were not. The geologist can indicate that time, if not by years, at least by periods, and show what were its relations to the periods that went before and that came after." He can carry us back to the time when man did not exist upon the earth, when no mammals existed; to the time when no birds, no reptiles, no fishes existed—when even Huxley's protoplasm had no being; "when all creation, from its centre to its circumference, was a creation of dead inorganic matter,"[141] and when there was not one spore or monad or atom of life throughout its dark domain. The form of the earth itself clearly reveals its history, and points us to that beginning. Its bulging equator and flattened poles, its pavement of congealed lava, which in some cases we name granite; nay, the oldest water-worn pavement composed of the detritus of the igneous rocks—all attest the emergence of our planet from a molten condition, and a temperature[142] in which no life could exist; so that even Tyndall admits "there are the strongest grounds for believing that during a certain period of its history the earth was not, nor was it fit to be, the theatre of life."[143]
The earth was once a molten mass heated to incandescence—a self-luminous globe. On this point there is scarcely any difference of opinion among scientific men. Furthermore, a large majority of modern scientists regard themselves as justified in the affirmation of a still anterior nebulous condition. If the nebular hypothesis is accepted, then we are required to contemplate a period when the earth did not exist, and when even the matter which now enters into its constitution was an undistinguished part of the nebula from which the whole solar system was evolved.
Many exact observations and mathematical computations as to the secular cooling of the earth give results which are in strict accordance with this theory of its primitive igneous condition. The observed facts clearly indicate that the earth is becoming, on the whole, cooler from age to age, and that the natural current of events is carrying it inevitably to a state of total refrigeration.[144] The fossil remains now found within the arctic circle indicate that at a period, not extremely remote, tropical vegetation flourished, and forms of animal life subsisted there which are now confined to the torrid zone. Mammoths lived in the now uninhabited polar regions, and tree-ferns and the tropical shell-fish found there a home.[145] The surface of the earth was then warmed by internal heat which since that period has waned; that heat has been gradually dissipated in the surrounding space, as a red-hot ball suspended even in the warm air of a room must, according to the well-known laws of radiation and absorption, necessarily part with its heat.
Many experiments carefully conducted in our time show that the temperature of the earth increases with the depth to which we penetrate: "In boring for the artesian well at Grenelle, which is 546 metres deep, it was observed that the temperature augmented at the rate of 1° Centigrade for every 30 metres. The same result was obtained by observations in the artesian well at Mondorf, in Luxemburg; this well is 671 metres in depth, and its waters 34° warm." As the result of many investigations in mines and borings, Sir William Thomson concludes that the average inference may be thus stated—there is on the whole about 1° Fahr. of elevation of temperature per 50 British feet of descent.[146] If this increase is uniform—and we have no reason to suppose the contrary—then at the depth of 50 miles there exists, says Helmholtz, a heat sufficient to fuse all our minerals.
The fact that the temperature of the earth increases with the depth necessarily involves a continual loss of heat from its interior by conduction outward into and through the upper crust, according to a well-known law of equilibrium of temperatures. "Hence, since the upper crust does not become hotter from year to year, there must be a secular loss of heat from the earth."[147] Thus it appears that from the surface of the earth and the ocean, from thermal springs, and from three hundred active volcanoes, the internal heat of the globe is incessantly radiated into space and is practically lost.
Now this average loss of heat may be at least approximately measured, and data are thereby furnished for determining the probable age of the earth, or, perhaps more correctly, its phase of life. If a man were to find a hot ball of iron suspended in a room, and if he were carefully to observe the distribution of heat in the ball, he would be able easily to determine whether the ball were becoming hotter or cooler. If he found that the inside were hotter than the outside, he would conclude that the ball was cooling, and had therefore been hotter than when he found it. So far common-sense would be his guide; but with the aid of mathematics, and some knowledge of the physical properties of iron and air, he could go much further, and be able to calculate how hot the ball must have been at any given moment, if it had not been interfered with. Thus he would be able to say, the ball must have been hung up less than, say, five hours ago, for at that time the heat of the metal would have been such that it would have been in a state of fusion, and hence not capable of hanging as a solid mass. Precisely analogous reasoning holds with regard to the earth: it is such a ball; it is hotter inside than outside. The distribution of the heat near its surface is approximately known—1° Fahr. of elevation in temperature for 50 British feet of descent.[148] The properties of the matter of which it is composed are approximately known. The temperature at which granite rocks are fusible has been found to be about 7000° Fahr. This must therefore have been the temperature of the earth in its primitive igneous condition. From these data, Sir William Thomson has, by rigid mathematical calculations, reached the conclusion that the consolidation of the earth's crust commenced 98,000,000 years ago.[149] The rates of increase of temperature inward in a great amount of average rock at various periods after the commencement of cooling, from the primitive heat of 7000° Fahr., are estimated by Sir William Thomson as follows:
"At 10,000 y'rs after commencement of cooling we should have 2° per ft.
At 40,000 " " " " 1° "
At 160,000 " " " " 1/2° "
At 4,000,000 " " " " 1/10° "
At 100,000,000 " " " " 1/50° "
It is therefore probable that for the last 96,000,000 years the rate of increase of temperature under ground has gradually diminished from 1/10 to about 1/50 of a degree Fahrenheit per foot, and that the thickness of the crust through which any stated degree of cooling has been experienced has gradually increased during that period from 1/5 of its present thickness to what it now really is."[150]
We freely admit our inability to sit in judgment on the validity of Sir William Thomson's conclusions. There are eminent geologists who entertain the opinion that the secular cooling of the earth has proceeded with much greater rapidity. It is, however, sufficient for our purpose that the most distinguished physicists of the day are agreed in teaching that the existing terrestrial economy had a beginning.
There are other terrestrial changes which engage the attention of the geologist, and which force upon him the conclusion that the existing terrestrial order had a beginning and must have an end. The surface of the earth has at intervals undergone great changes in the disposition of its land and water. That which is now dry land was once the ocean-bed, and the ocean waves now roll and murmur over what was once dry land. Sudden, or comparatively sudden, catastrophes have extinguished the then existing creations, and the earth has been repeopled by new orders of life. Changes are now in progress which are gradually reducing the populous regions of the earth to the condition of the Sahara of Africa and the Desert of Arabia. Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, the seat of the ancient monarchies of Chaldæa, Assyria, and Babylonia, now present "vast tracts of arid plain—yellow, parched, and sapless—which have now become a bare and uninhabited desert." That ancient continent drained by the Colorado, once as fertile as the Valley of the Mississippi, is now the Great American Desert. "Every freshet burdens the streams with a load of sediment; and the Mississippi bears daily to the Gulf material sufficient for a cotton plantation. From the slopes of the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains, from the broad acres over which the Mississippi and the Ohio reach their silver fingers to filch from the land, the sediments are stolen and carried away to the sea. The Western States are slowly traveling toward the Gulf. The hills are melting, and even the mountain cliffs are lowering under the ceaseless conflict with storm and frost. The summits of the Alleghanies have come down 3000 feet from their original altitudes. Give time enough, and the inequalities of the land will disappear. The ocean will be filled, and again assert a triumph over the continents which in the beginning were wrested from his dominion." Thus by the storms of heaven, the erosion of the atmosphere, the blasting power of frost, the gnawing of the tidal wave, the mountains are being leveled, and the rocks and soils carried onward by the rivers to fill up the basin of the sea. The headlong rush of the avalanche, the murmuring of the brook, the roaring of the sea, the voice of the storm—all proclaim, "The things which are seen are temporal!"—"The existing order of things had a beginning and must come to an end!"[151]
Astronomical Palætiology reduces all celestial phenomena to the same great law of finite duration. It teaches that planets, stars, systems, have their birth, their process of formation, their maturity, and their slow, protracted decay. The ephemeron perishes in an hour, man endures his three-score years and ten; continents and islands have their ages and æons; the stars of heaven are not exempt from this universal law of change and decay. According to the Nebular Hypothesis, the formation of this our system of sun, planets, and satellites was a process of the same kind as that which is still going forward in the heavens. One after another, nebulæ condense into separate masses, which begin to revolve about each other in obedience to dynamical laws, and form systems of which our system is a matured example. The present aspect of this planetary system is, however, but a passing phase in the history of its fleeting life. Our planet was once a self-luminous orb; it has now become opaque, and shines only with a borrowed light. The moon is probably in a state of total refrigeration; its lunar air and lunar seas have been changed by intensity of cold into the solid form.[152] The sun itself is radiating heat into space in quantities incomparably greater than it receives, and, as Helmholtz affirms, "the inexorable laws of mechanics show that its store of heat must be finally exhausted."[153] The planets in their motions encounter resistance from the interstellar ether; they must, therefore, necessarily move in shorter and shorter orbits, and at last fall into the sun. Thus the Nebular Hypothesis, combined with the doctrine of a resisting medium, teaches us that the solar system is wending its way, through successive changes, from a past of vaporous unity to a future of consolidated reunion. "It was once all nebula; it will, if left to physical agencies alone, collapse into an extinguished and exhausted sun."
The astronomer who has been accustomed to regard every question relating to his favorite science as almost exclusively a problem in mathematics, will pronounce the above "a crude and adventurous" attempt on the part of the physicist to solve a problem which belongs to "the calculus of variations." Is the universe a Conservative or a Dissipative system? Under its present laws will it run on forever, or will these very laws in the end lead to its subversion? Will the mechanism of the heavens finally run down as surely as the weights of a clock run down to their lowest position, or are we authorized on scientific grounds to assert the permanent stability of the solar system? This question has been earnestly discussed by the most distinguished astronomers since the days of Newton. Until recently, the general conclusion—reached mainly on mathematical grounds—seems to have been that the universe is a thoroughly conservative system, and that the celestial machinery by a species of perpetual motion will run on forever. But must not all applied mathematical reasoning obtain its data from the exact observation of material facts? The mathematician must also be a good natural philosopher; he must lay his account with all the facts of the universe, otherwise his symbols have no contents, and his reasoning, however faultless in its processes, will be fallacious in its results. The discoveries of the present century respecting the correlation of the various forms of energy, the nature of the solar light and heat, the motions of comets, and especially the new doctrine of the "Dissipation of Energy," have introduced new elements into the great problem, which seem to indicate that gravitation is by no means the only force by which the motions of the heavenly bodies are influenced, and that causes are now in operation which are slowly but surely undermining the system. We now find, therefore, such high authorities as Whewell, Sir John Herschel, Sir William Thomson, Balfour Stewart, Prof. Maxwell, Dr. J. R. Mayer, Helmholtz, Tyndall, Littrow, Comte, Adolph Fick, asserting that the solar system is not a self-winding clock which may run forever, but that it is a dissipative system which must ultimately lose all motion, unless some power capable of controlling the laws of material nature interfere to preserve it. We have no more valid reason for concluding that the Deity intended the system should be eternal than that He intended the earthly life of man should be eternal.[154] A few general statements may assist the reader in appreciating the merits of the discussion.