For the
position which I wish to establish is this, that fully accepting the
logical cogency of the reasoning whereby the action of every law is deduced
from the primary data of science, I wish to show that when this train of
reasoning is followed to its ultimate term, it leads us into the presence
of a fact for which it is inadequate to account. If, then, my contention be
granted--viz., that to human faculties it is not conceivable how, in the
absence of a directing intelligence, general laws could be so correlated as
to produce universal harmony--then I have brought the matter to this
issue:--Notwithstanding the scientific train of argument being complete in
itself, it still leaves us in the presence of a fact which it cannot
conceivably explain; and it is this unexplained residuum--this total
product of the operation of general laws--that I appeal to as the logical
justification for a system of metaphysical teleology--a system which offers
the only conceivable explanation of this stupendous fact.
'And here I may further observe, that the scientific train of reasoning is
of the kind which embodies what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls "symbolic
conceptions of the illegitimate order."[26] That is to say, we can see how
such simple laws as that action and reaction are equal and opposite may
have been self-evolved, and from this fact we go on generalising and
generalising, until we land ourselves in wholly symbolic and--a paradox is
here legitimate--inconceivable conceptions.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118