Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/172

 world and from an arrangement and conformity to an end which have been reached merely by observation, and which express a merely contingent existence—what is said about existence is undoubtedly correct, the contingent is reached by observation—and goes on to infer the existence of a Cause proportionate to these, which works in accordance with an end. This remark is quite correct. We say that the arrangement in accordance with an end which we observe cannot have sprung up of itself; it demands the existence of a Power acting in accordance with ends; it is the content of this Cause, though we cannot know anything more of this wisdom than what we learn of it from observation. All observation gives nothing more than a relation; but no one can reason from Power to Almighty Power, from wisdom and unity, to an all-wise and absolute Unity, and so the physicotheological Proof gives us only a great Power, a great Unity. The content desired, however, is God, absolute Power, Wisdom; but this is not involved in what is contained in observation, a leap is made from what is great to what is absolute. This is a point thoroughly well established; the content from which the start is made is not that of God.

It is from conformity to an end that we start, and this category is got at empirically; these are finite contingent things, and they are also ordered in conformity to an end. What, then, is the character of this conformity? It is, of course, finite. The ends are finite, particular, and are accordingly contingent also; and it is here that the element of inadequacy which attaches to this physicotheological Proof comes in, a defect which is felt at once, and which raises a suspicion against this style of argument. Man uses plants, animals, light, air, water; and so too do animals and plants. The end is thus an entirely limited one; animals and plants are at one time ends and at another means—they eat and are eaten. This physico-theological way of looking at things is apt