Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/157

 The major proposition runs thus: Contingent things presuppose an absolutely necessary Cause; this proposition, taken in a general sense, is quite correct, and expresses the connection between what is contingent and what is necessary, and, in order to obviate captious criticisms which would otherwise be made, one does not require to say they presuppose an absolutely necessary Cause, for this expresses a relation between finite things; but we can say they presuppose the absolutely necessary in such a way that this is conceived of as Subject. The proposition, accordingly, further contains a contradiction in reference to external necessity. Contingent things have causes; they are necessary, that by means of which they exist in this form may itself be contingent only, and so we are referred back from the cause to contingent things in endless progression. The proposition cuts short this style of reasoning, and is perfectly justified in doing so. What is only contingently necessary would be no necessity at all, and the real necessity stands in contrast to that implied in this proposition. The connection is in a general way correctly expressed too, contingent things presuppose absolute necessity; but the mode of the connection is incomplete, the union being defined as something presupposed or demanded. This is a connection belonging to untutored reflection, and implies that contingent things are placed on one side and necessity on the other, and thus while a transition is made from the one to the other, both sides are firmly opposed to each other. Owing to the fixity of Being in this form, contingent things become the conditions of the Being of necessity. This is still more plainly expressed in the minor proposition: There are contingent things, consequently there is an absolutely necessary Cause. Since the connection is thus constituted in such a way that one form of Being conditions the other, it would seem to be implied in this that contingent things condition absolute necessity; the one conditions the other, and