* * * * *
CHAPTER VI.
THE ARGUMENT FROM METAPHYSICAL TELEOLOGY.
Sec. 42. Let us now proceed to examine the effect of the formal considerations
which have been adduced in the last chapter on the scientific
considerations which were dealt with in the previous chapters. In these
previous chapters the proposition was clearly established that, just as
certainly as the fundamental data of science are true, so certainly is it
true that the theory of Theism in any shape is, scientifically considered,
superfluous; for these chapters have clearly shown that, if there is a God,
his existence, considered as a cause of things, is as certainly unnecessary
as it is certainly true that force is persistent and that matter is
indestructible. But after this proposition had been carefully justified, it
remained to show that the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge compelled
us to carry our discussion into a region of yet higher abstraction. For
although we observed that the essential qualities of matter and of force
are the most ultimate data of human knowledge, and although, by showing how
far the question of Theism depended on these data, we carried the
discussion of that question to the utmost possible limits of scientific
thought, it still devolved on us to contemplate the fact that even these
the most ultimate data of science are only known to be of relative
significance.
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