"[13] I say this is very instructive, because it shows
that in Hamilton's view each theory was alike irreconcilable with "the
deliverance of consciousness," and that he only chose the one in preference
to the other, because, although not any more conceivable a solution, it
seemed to him a more possible one.[14]
Sec. 21. Such, then, is the speculative basis on which, according to Sir W.
Hamilton, our belief in a Deity can alone be grounded.
Those who at the present day are still confused enough in their notions
regarding the Free-will question to suppose that any further rational
question remains, may here be left to ruminate over this _bolus_, and to
draw from it such nourishment as they can in support of their belief in a
God; but to those who can see as plainly as daylight that the doctrine of
Determinism not only harmonises with all the facts of observation, but
alone affords a possible condition for, and a satisfactory explanation of,
the existence of our ethical faculty,--to such persons the question will
naturally arise:--"Although Hamilton was wrong in identifying a known fact
with a false theory, yet may he not have been right in the deductions which
he drew from the fact?" In other words, granting that his theory of
Free-will was wrong, does not his argument from the existence of a moral
sense in man to the existence of a moral Governor of the Universe remain as
intact as ever? Now, it is quite true that whatever degree of cogency the
argument from the presence of the moral sense may at any time have had,
this degree remains unaffected by the explosion of erroneous theories to
account for such presence.
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