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THE DESIGN ARGUMENT.

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ratively so. And thus the relation of the universe to him is not that of wife or daughter, but that of work, that of the watch to the watchmaker.

This reminds one of Paley's exploded fallacy of the design argument, and makes creation another term for fabrication out of nothing, in flat contradiction of the essayist's own definition on page 108 of the same book, where it is said that creation is but another term for generation, and again at 179, where it is said that all the varied phenomena of organic life present themselves as direct consequences of generative acts, and that such phenomena can never take place by any other cause than generative acts, and consequently that we must banish from legitimate science, at once and for ever, all ideas of creation by fiat, by word, by command, or mere act of volition.

Now if the Creator is not the primary parent, or generator of vitality in the universe, but is a fabricator only, existing as an entity, who is apart and distinct from this universe, then we are forcibly impressed with the truth of Mr. Thos. Carlyle's celebrated objection to this manufacturing or constructing hypothesis of universal phenomena. He says in his Misc. Essays, vol. iv, page 321:

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"The whole current hypothesis of the universe being a "machine, and then of an architect who constructed it, sitting, as it were, apart, and guiding it, and seeing it go, may turn out an inanity and nonentity, not much longer "tenable; with which result we shall in the quietest manner "reconcile ourselves."

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Mr. Jackson's opponent, in this "Future," controverts the notion that Deity can be actually, positively, and truly a generator, or parent of vital force. At page 173, we find the following arguments:

"If the Deity be a generator in any true sense of the "term, as distinguished from artificer and fabricator, then "he is necessarily Mother, or Female. Nay, more, he is "necessarily like his offspring, a universe of the same form "and structure as the universe which he has generated."

But if the universe is only phenomenally cognised as a

mode or condition of existence, then it is not the great existence per se, as it actually is, but it is an effect of that which includes it in a prior cause, which is confessedly bifold, that is, it is the union of two entities, more or less differing, which generates, (not fabricates,) a third and inter-existent nature; therefore it is hardly logical to say that the absolute and invisible generator is necessarily like his visible offspring, which is allowed to be revealed only as a condition of, and related to, this preceding absolute existence.

Further on the essayist remarks:

"If the universe be generated, its parent is a like universe, "either actually existing, or which has passed away; and "the type of this parent, as of the universe itself, is the "globule, and its correlative male is the unorganised, the "external chaos. And if the universe be a growth, or "development, it necessarily follows that it has been "generated, that it is a living organism, and conforms to all "the laws and analogies of other living organisms.

"Now if the Creator be external to his work, out of the "universe, then his action, as framer, belongs to a period "antecedent to this stream of generations; and if he be "within the universe, he is either a part of it, and conforms "to its changes, and lives and dies with it, or he is in the "relation of a man within his house, with the curious

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speciality that this house never contains the same thing for "two consecutive moments, but is perpetually changing "from a state of infantile immaturity, to maturity and "death, when the tenant must necessarily quit, and seek "another residence."

This reasoning is based upon the assumption, that the human mind, in its present embryonic condition, can have cognisance of the eternal and absolute primary parents as they exist per se. It cannot be these uncaused, unconditioned, and infinite first parents themselves that grow to maturity, decay, or change and die, for they must be eternally the same in very necessity of their unconditioned existence. It is only their offspring, in modes and conditions of their existence, that grow, change, and vanish, that is,

INFINITE PATERNITY VEILED IN MATERIALISM.

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perish, as related to the eternity of their parents, who cannot possibly be affected by the mutation of relative and phenomenal effects of their own unconditioned and absolute existence.

How can it be possible for a fabricator to generate existence by mere constructive, or artificial impulse? If the essayist had said that Deity, as an omnipresent Father, is hidden behind the veil of material gestation, he would have repeated a former admission, where it was said (v. p. 104,) that this earth, in its fœtal condition, derives its nourishment, mainly at least, in a direct stream from its mother, not the father; and again, it is said that mankind are almost wholly mother's, instead of being father's children.

To human cognition, the universe has undoubtedly an essentially maternal and material aspect. It is as though matter was omnipotent; and it is therefore quite correct to assert, that relatively to man, as he now is, in a fœtal stage, the female is superior to the male element in the universe.

But to man, elevated into higher modes or condition of that intelligence, of which he is now but an initial type, is it not probable, and possible, that there will be demonstrated an actual revelation of the reality of a great paternal existence, to which he is consciously related, positively and truly as a son; that is to say, where the paternal is not of a metaphorical, but of an actual character? If the literal meaning of the revelation of former sons, or prophets and messengers of Deity, can be accepted, then it is plain, past controversy, that the eternal and infinite existence of all, was literally or positively, and not metaphorically, their Father. They asserted that they were sons, revealing in themselves the paternal existence to which they were related and IN WHOM they lived, as condition of that one generator of vital force; and they were immortals, because begotten by that procreative energy by which the material universe was made to conceive its vital processes. Their genesis, then, was not origination by artistic making, constructing, or fabricating, but actual generating, for the eternal word incarnate, in material atoms, is "Thou art my

"Son, this day (conditioned in time) I have begotten thee," and thus it is not designed, fabricated, arranged, constructed, or created thee, but literally generated in its strictest sense, consequently, the son is for ever a mode, a relative existence of the Father's eternal "I AM," and is always revealed as incarnate in material personality. This relationship of the son to the eternal Father, in each individual instance, is man's only ground of hope for inheritance of the parental estate of immortality.

CHAPTER III.

THE BIBLE AND ITS INTERPRETERS.

SACERDOTALISM, in the garb of christian philosophy, has seized the Bible, and usurped its authority as a revealer of secrets, or the "Zaphnath-paaneah" of Deity, to supplement and support its illogical jargon. Therefore it is the duty and interest of the students and priests of natural philosophy to wrest this book from the grasp of sacerdotal conspirators, and to turn its artillery round to play upon the present 'spounders and 'splainers, who have sealed up this Bible as with seven seals, using the wax and stamp of fallible human tradition, fabricated out of barren, abstract, metaphysical speculation.

Now the foundation stone of sacerdotalism is the assumed immortality of the human soul. To demonstrate this dogma the union or marriage of the two primary eternal parents is divorced; for since nature, and all natural beings, are the offspring, by the union of imponderable force, or spirit, with matter generating a third nature, partaking of the qualities of both parents, it follows, by logical deduction from this premiss, that all mental and physical phenomena are now the attributes of a material or natural organization; and, consequently, the assumed existence of mind, as a self-existent entity, per se, apart from material conditions of force, is a purely speculative hypothesis, which science demonstrates to be positively irrational, absurd, and as baseless as the fleeting fabric of a dream.

Mr. Isaac Taylor, one of the great champions of the

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