SECTION III.

THE RELATION OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE

TO NATURAL THEOLOGY.

“Human knowledge is in truth the interpretation of those laws that God himself has impressed on his creation."

BABBAGE, (Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, p. 24.)

"Hæc cum meditaris studiosè, invenies Deum."

LUTHER, (Op., vi. 204.)

"Namque eos qui autumant nimiam scientiam inclinare mentem in Atheismum, ignorantiamque Secundarum Causarum pietati erga Primam obstetricari, libenter compellarem Jobi* questione, 'An oporteat mentiri pro Deo, et ejus gratiâ dolum loqui conveniat, ut ipsi gratificemur ? liquet enim Deum nihil operari ordinatio in naturâ, nisi per Secundus Causas, cujus diversum credi si vellent impostura mera esset, quasi in gratiam Dei, et nihil aliud quam Authori veritatis immundam mendacii hostiam immolare.'" BACON, (De Augm., i. 1.)

"Adeo ut tantum absit, ut causæ physicæ homines a Deo et providentiâ abducant, ut contrà potius philosophi illi qui in iisdem eruendis occupati fuerunt, nullum exitum rei reperiant, nisi postremo ad Deum et providentiam confugiant.” BACON, (De Augm., iii. 4.) '

Introduction.

IN the preceding remarks, we have pursued an inquiry into the nature of physical causes; and in introducing this discussion by an examination of the nature of inductive evidence, by which all

* Job xiii. 7.

our knowledge of physical causes must be obtained, it has probably been made sufficiently manifest how intimately the principle of inductive generalization is connected with all our substantial and satisfactory ideas of cause and effect.

It appeared in the first instance, that a belief in the permanence of uniformity, and the preservation of analogies throughout nature, is in fact the very soul of the inductive philosophy. This supplies at once the first conjectural guide to our belief in fixed physical laws, (without which the very process of induction could not be carried on). And the unlimited extension of it is the grand and universal conclusion to which all experimental evidence leads, and to which all induction ministers increasing and abundant confirmation. In considering further our natural persuasion of the intimate connexion of physical cause and effect, I have endeavoured to explain it by regarding it as dependent simply upon the continually accumulating force of inductive evidence, and the endless order and mutual dependence of vast series of physical laws, of successively higher generality and wider comprehensiveness.

Having thus examined the nature of physical causes, the extent to which we trace their influence, and the origin of our ideas of a necessary connexion or efficiency in them; and having further considered the entirely distinct nature of what is commonly described by the same term "cause," but which ought to be carefully distinguished in meaning when

thus used in the sense of moral causation, the effect being dependent upon volition or intelligence,—it will become necessary to examine further, What are the circumstances under which we can recognise the operation of moral causes? and What the evidence by which their existence is substantiated?

Evidence of Moral Causation.

In pursuing the inquiry into the evidence we have of the influence of moral causes, we have only to bear in mind the distinction at first laid down; by the aid of which, it will be apparent how the operation of moral causes is distinguishable from the succession of physical. Moral causation, as we have observed, implies volition and intelligence: it is consequently marked by the indications of intelligence in the results produced. In the illustration before given*, we supposed a known intelligent agent exerting a physical influence on matter. If we witness only effects produced on matter, how are we to recognise an unseen intelligent agent, is the question now before us.

To recur to an illustration similar to that before employed :-If a stone strike against an object, it may have been projected either by some merely mechanical power, or by a voluntary agent; and if we saw only the resulting impact, and not the origination of the motion, we should be unable to

* Above, p. 80.

decide which was the cause. But if we saw a number of such projectiles striking the object in succession, and all hitting it upon a certain mark, we should immediately conclude that the projectiles were aimed at that mark, and, therefore, that the. whole was the result of some moral volition. And further, if we should see that the balls were impelled by the aid of a machine, and should find that it was so constructed as to discharge a number successively, without the intervention of any manual agency, this surely would in no way diminish our impression, that the whole was designed, and originally set in action, by an intelligent agent. Nor, again, would it make any difference in our conclusion, whether or not we could discover any particular end which might be answered in striking the object; though, if we should perceive or conjecture such a design, it would of course add a further confirmation of our original impression.

If, on the contrary, we perceived the balls projected at random, at irregular intervals, and in various directions, we could not infer such design or intelligence. In a word, from results apparently capricious, from effects uncertain and interrupted, from action regulated by no seeming plan, but of an arbitrary and inconstant character, we could infer no design, no volition, no moral cause. It is when results are reducible to regular rules, when observed actions are found to be consistent with some fixed and constant system; when phenomena can be

traced up to their determinate laws, or in other words (agreeably to what has been above maintained), to their physical causes, then, and then alone, it is, that we can ascend to the idea of a regulating moral cause; and deduce the conclusion of superintending volition and designing intelligence.

In general then, the evidence and stamp of moral agency and intelligent influence, is found in the discovery of a uniform consistency in the results, in a regular arrangement of parts adapted to each other, and to the whole, such as to preclude at once the idea of caprice and chance, and that of blind unforeseeing fatality. And this may be distinguished into two kinds :-1st. Where a fixed end is discoverable, and we observe the direction of means to it, and changes taking place in furtherance of it. 2nd. Where, although no such end is discoverable, and no change takes place, yet we perceive things arranged in a certain invariable order and symmetry.

In the study of the actual laws, mechanism, and arrangement of the natural world, we have a magnificent field open before us, in which to pursue the inquiry, whether such indications of moral causation can be traced; and this inquiry is in fact, in its most essential point, already answered in the conclusions at which we arrive by inductive science, the universal order and invariable harmony pervading the material universe.

The application of the truths disclosed by the study of the laws of nature, and the dependence of