How then does it fare with the other stricture, or the consideration that,
"when the conclusion thus illegitimately[28] evolved is confronted with the
fact of cosmic harmony which it professes to explain, we find it to be
beyond the powers of human thought to conceive of such an effect as due to
such a cause"? The atheist may answer, in the first place, that a great
deal here turns on the precise meaning which we assign to the word
"conceive." For we have just seen that, by employing "symbolic
conceptions," we _are_ able to frame what we may term a _formal_ conception
of universal harmony as due to the persistence of force and the primary
qualities of matter. That is to say, we have seen that such universal
harmony as nature presents must be regarded as an effect of the collective
operation of general laws; and we have previously arrived at a formal
conception of general laws as singly and collectively the product of
self-evolution. Consequently, the word "conceive," as used in the theistic
argument, must be taken to mean our ability to frame what we may term a
_material_ conception, or a representation in thought of the whole history
of cosmic evolution, which representation shall be in some satisfactory
degree intellectually realisable. Observing, then, this important
difference between an inconceivability which arises from an impossibility
of establishing relations in thought between certain _abstract_ or
_symbolic_ conceptions, and an inconceivability which arises from a mere
failure to realise in imagination the results which must follow among
external relations if the symbolically conceivable combinations among them
ever took place, an atheist may here argue as follows; and it does not
appear that there is any legitimate escape from his reasonings.
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