The argument from inconceivability, therefore, admits of being
turned with quite as terrible an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be
made to exert on Atheism.
Hence this more refined form of teleology which we are considering, and
which we saw to be the last of the possible arguments in favour of Theism,
is met on its own ground by a very crushing opposition: by its metaphysical
character it has escaped the opposition of physical science, only to
encounter a new opposition in the region of pure psychology to which it
fled. As a conclusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved on us to
determine the relative magnitudes of these opposing forces. And in doing
this we first observed that, if the supporters of metaphysical teleology
objected _a priori_ to the method whereby the genesis of natural law was
deduced from the datum of the persistence of force, in that this method
involved an unrestricted use of illegitimate symbolic conceptions; then it
is no less open to an atheist to object _a priori_ to the method whereby a
directing Mind was inferred from the datum of cosmic harmony, in that this
method involved the population of an unknowable cause,--and this of a
character which the whole history of human thought has proved the human
mind to exhibit an overweening tendency to postulate as the cause of
natural phenomena. On these grounds, therefore, I concluded that, so far as
their respective standing _a priori_ is concerned, both theories may be
regarded as about equally suspicious.
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