The unknown relations in our attempted induction being wholly indefinite,
both in respect of their number and importance, as compared with the known
relations, it is impossible for us to determine any definite probability
either for or against the being of a God. Therefore, although it is true
that, so far as human science can penetrate or human thought infer, we can
perceive no evidence of God, yet we have no right on this account to
conclude that there is no God. The probability, therefore, that nature is
devoid of Deity, while it is of the strongest kind if regarded
scientifically--amounting, in fact, to a scientific demonstration,--is
nevertheless wholly worthless if regarded logically. Notwithstanding it is
as true as is the fundamental basis of all science and of all experience
that, if there is a God, his existence, considered as a cause of the
universe, is superfluous, it may nevertheless be true that, if there had
never been a God, the universe could never have existed.
Hence these formal considerations proved conclusively that, no matter how
great the probability of Atheism might appear to be in a relative sense, we
have no means of estimating such probability in an absolute sense. From
which position there emerged the possibility of another argument in favour
of Theism--or rather let us say, of a reappearance of the teleological
argument in another form. For it may be said, seeing that these formal
considerations exclude legitimate reasoning either for or against Deity in
an absolute sense, while they do not exclude such reasoning in a relative
sense, if there yet remain any theistic deductions which may properly be
drawn from experience, these may now be adduced to balance the atheistic
deductions from the persistence of force.
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