of extensive evil. We found that the views of modern science disclosed a progress towards good, which went a long way to counteract the ill inference which the existence of evil suggests. But, upon the other hand, the recognition of general in the place of special purpose, which those views require, gives an idea of God essentially different, though not of necessity incompatible, with that which religion requires. The result is, that we do need some other independent source of information. I will now enter on the next topic of my essay-the consideration of other arguments which have been thought to indicate the existence or the attributes of God.

PART II.

First I will speak of the à priori argument, the ontological argument, as it is sometimes called. It is an argument which has, I should think, little or no influence at the present day. But as it has been put forward by eminent men in past times, as Anselm and Descartes, I wish to say a few words concerning it.

The argument has been presented in two forms. 1. Man, it is said, has in his mind the idea of a

perfect being.

This idea includes the notion of necessary existence, and consequently the idea must have an objective counterpart, i. e. there must be a God.

2. The like inference is drawn from the alleged existence of this idea, by the simpler reasoning that such an idea could never have arisen except from the actual existence of its counterpart.

I would, in the first place, remark that it is very doubtful whether we have this alleged idea of a perfect being at all, if by those words is meant the idea of a being of infinite attributes, such as God is generally thought to be. And further, what is very important to our present inquiry, so far as we have any such idea, it is pretty clear that it did not come to us from without through sensation, or inference therefrom, but that we made it for ourselves by putting together certain abstract ideas.

The mere presence of an idea in our minds does not prove the existence of a corresponding reality outside our minds. We have an abundance of ideas, which, as we know, give no such warrant of an objective counterpart. An attempt, indeed, is made to get over this difficulty in the first form of our argument. We are told that necessary existence is a part of the idea in question, and therefore there must be something existing, which corresponds to this idea. But the presence of an idea of necessary

existence in the mind can by itself no more prove that it has an objective counterpart-that is to say, that something necessarily exists, than the presence of any other idea. If, indeed, this idea of the perfect being had come to us from without, then we should have warrant for the external existence of all the predicates which we by analysing that idea could find out. But, as I have pointed out, such is not the The idea is a creation, or composition of the mind itself, and consequently its components exist only in the mind. All that we really can show is that the notion of necessary existence is part of the meaning which we give to the words Perfect Being.

case.

I do not think it needful to dwell longer upon this argument, for, as I have said, the day of its influence is past. But I must allow that eminent

writers, as Professor Max Müller for instance, do still use language in which its principles seem to me to lurk. They speak of man as having a direct intuition of the Infinite Being. The alleged universality of the idea of such a being has been brought forward as proof of this intuition. But with our present knowledge of the various races of men, past and present, we must I think admit that the idea of God, at least as we think of Him, has been far from universal.1 A sense of some superior being, or the pre

Sir J. Lubbock's 'Origin of Civilisation,' chap. iv.

sence in the heart of feelings readily attributed to such a being, may be conceded as very widely prevalent. Perhaps this may be all that Professor Max Müller would contend for. An actual intuition of God, revealing his nature, is a notion beset with the greatest metaphysical difficulties, as was conclusively shown by Sir W. Hamilton in his criticism of Schelling, and it is a notion which certainly has no support from the actual history of religion.

PART III.

I will now speak of several arguments in succession, which may I think be classed together under the general name of first cause arguments. They all have this in common, that they seek to show that the series of phenomena which we see going on around us cannot have been going on for ever. The present laws of succession must at some period have had a start, or in other words the Universe an absolute beginning, and here, they say, is evidence of an uncaused cause or creator. God, it will be seen, is thus brought before us as the origin rather than the designer of the Universe. Accordingly, we have from these arguments confessedly less evidence for

his moral or intellectual attributes than from the

Design argument. But it has been thought that some at least of these arguments did more to show his eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence, in short, the infinity of his nature; that side of his character as to which the Design argument was obviously defective. If this view be sound we shall clearly have a valuable supplement to our former reasoning.

I will speak first of what may be called the old form of the argument; what has been called the cosmological argument.

Something, it is said, exists.1 That something must have had a cause; that cause again a cause; and so on. But we cannot believe in an infinite series of dependent causes. We must stop at last at an uncaused cause or a first cause. This first cause must plainly be self-existent and eternal. By some questionable reasoning it is further sought to be shown that there can be but one such first cause, and that therefore all things depend upon that first cause, and by a little further exercise of ingenuity we are carried on from this point to the complete conclusion that the first cause must be independent, necessary, eternal, almighty, omnipresent. But into these details I do not mean to enter. My criticism will be directed to the earlier stages of the argument.

1 See Dr. Samuel Clark's 'Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God,' Sect. III., for an account of this argument.