certain, and the most authoritative of all of our cognitions. If a man is shut up to deny either the testimony of his senses or the . trutlis of reason, on the one hand, or the testimony of his moral nature on the other, all experience shows that he will give up sense and reason, and bow to the authority of conscience. He cannot help it. No man can free himself from the sense of sin, or of accountability. These moral convictions involve in them, or, at least, necessitate the belief in a God to whom we must give an ac- count. But Materialism, in banishing all mind in man, leaves nothing to be accountable ; and in banishing all mind from the uni- verse, leaves no Being to whom an account can be rendered. To substitute for an intelligent, extramundane, personal God, mere "inscrutable force," is a mockery, an insult. Our whole moral and religious nature declares any such theory to be false. It cannot be true unless our whole nature be a lie. And our nature cannot be a lie, unless, as Sir William Hamilton says, the whole universe be "a dream of a di-eam." To call upon men to worship gravitation, and sing hallelujahs to the whirlwind, is to call upon them to dera- tionalize themselves. The attempt is as idle as it is foolish and wicked.
This argument from the facts of consciousness against Material- ism, is met by the assertion that consciousness is not to be trusted. Dr. Maudsley devotes the greater part of the first chapter of his book on tlie " Physiology of the Mind," to the establishment of this point. He argues that self-consciousness is unreliable in the information which it does give, and incompetent to give any ac- count of a large part of our mental activity. It gives no account of the mental phenomena of the infant, of the uncultivated adult, and of the insane; no account of the bodily conditions which un- derlie every mental manifestation ; no account of the large field of unconscious mental action exhibited, not only in the unconscious assimilation of impressions, but in the registrations of ideas and of their associations, in their latent existence and influence when not active, and their recall into activity ; and no account of the influ- ence organically exerted on the brain by other organs of the body. That is, consciousness does not tell us all things, and sometimes tells us wrong. Cannot the same be said of the senses ? Can they inform us of everything which goes on in the body ? Do they not often deceive us ? Are not the sensations of the delirious and the maniac altogether untrustworthy ? Does it follow from this that 3ur senses are never to be relied upon ? What then becomes of the physical sciences, Avhich are founded on the trustworthiness of
280 PART I — THEOLOGY. [Ch. m. — Anti-Thkism.
the senses. The fact is that if the testimony of consciousness is not to be received as to our mental operations, it cannot be le- ceived as to our sensations. If we have no trustworthy evidence of the existence of mind, we have no vahd evidence of the exist- ence of matter ; and there is no universe, no God. All is noth- ing.
Happily men cannot emancipate themselves from the laws of their nature. They cannot help believing the well-attested testi- mony of their senses, and they cannot help believing the testimony of consciousness as to their personal identity, and as to the real, objective existence of the soul as the subject of their thoughts, feel- ings, and volitions. As no man can refuse to believe that he has a body, so no man can refuse to believe that he has a soul, and that the two are distinct as the Self and the Not-Self.
Materialism contradicts the Truths of Reason.
1. It is intuitively true that every effect must have a cause. This does not mean merely that every effect must have an antece- dent ; or, as Hume says, that anything may be the cause of any- thing. Nor does it mean merely that every effect must have an efficient cause. But it means that the antecedent or cause of every effect must have that kind and degree of efficiency which will rationally account for the effect.
There are two general classes of effects with which we are ftxmil- iar, and which are specifically different, and therefore must have specifically different causes. The one class consists of effects which do not, the other of those which do indicate design. In the latter we see evidence of a purpose, of foresight, of provision for the future, of adaptation, of choice, of spontaneity, as well as of power. In the former all these indications are absent. We see around us innumerable effects belonging to each of these classes. We see water constantly flowing from a higher to a lowe;r level ; vapor constantly ascending from the sea ; heat producing expan- sion, cold contraction, water extinguishing fire, alkahes correcting acidity, etc., etc. On the other hand, the world is crowded with works of human intelligence ; with statues, pictures, houses, ships, complicated machines for different purposes, with books, libraries, hospitals prepared for the wants of tiie sick, with institutions of learning, etc., etc. No man can help believing that these classes of effects are specifically different, nor can he help believing that they ai'e due to causes •specifically different. In other words, it is self-evident that an unintelligent cause cannot produce an intelli-