Let us then turn upon
science herself, and question her right to be our sole guide in this
matter. Undoubtedly we have no alternative but to conclude that the
hypothesis of mind in nature is now logically proved to be as certainly
superfluous is the very basis of all science is certainly true. There can
no longer be any more doubt that the existence of a God is wholly
unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of the universe, than there is
doubt that if I leave go of my pen it will fall upon the table. Nay, the
doubt is even less than this, because while the knowledge that my pen will
fall if I allow it to do so is founded chiefly upon empirical knowledge (I
could not predict with _a priori_ certainty that it would so fall, for the
pen might be in an electrical state, or subject to some set of unknown
natural laws antagonistic to gravity), the knowledge that a Deity is
superfluous as an explanation of anything, being grounded on the doctrine
of the persistence of force, is grounded on an _a priori_ necessity of
reason--_i.e._, if this fact were not so, our science, our thought, our
very existence itself, would be scientifically impossible.
But now, having thus stated the case as strongly as I am able, it remains
to question how far the authority of science extends. Even our knowledge of
the persistence of force and of the primary qualities of matter is but of
relative significance.
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