Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/500

484. But neither of these men could find a conclusive argument. Huxley follows them here. The three are to be met in the same way. The philosophy of all of them is erroneous. Man has the capacity to discover that, by the very nature of things, everything that begins to be must have a cause. If a world begins to be, if there be a fitting of things to one another in the world, then there must be an adequate cause in a power and purpose on the part of an intelligent Being. Our agnostics can answer this only by making man incapable of knowing anything of the nature of things.

8. According to the philosophy of Hume, there is and can be no evidence of the immortality of the soul. If mind be the product of matter, specially of the collection of nerves, then, on the dissolution of the body generally, and especially of the brain, there is no proof that the soul survives; indeed, there remain no means, in fact no possibility, of its action. The moral argument so powerfully urged by Kant in favor of a judgment-day and a life to come to satisfy the full demand of the law, is entirely undermined in a philosophy which does not admit of an authoritative and imperative morality, and does not call in a God to make the moral law work out its effects. This skepticism is to be met by showing-that mind and matter are made known to us by different organs, the one by the self-consciousness, and the other by the senses; and that they are known as possessing essentially different properties, the one as thinking and feeling, and the other as extended and resisting our energy. That the body dies, is no proof that the soul must also die. If these truths be established, it is seen that the usual arguments for another life retain their force. Believing in God, and in his law, we are convinced that he will call all men to judgment.

9. But it may be urged that, though the philosophic or scientific arguments in behalf of religion fail us, we may resort to revelation. But both Hume and Huxley deprive us of this refuge. Hume does not, like certain bewildered German speculators, deny the possibility of a miracle. His position is, that there is no evidence to support any given miracle. He defines miracles as "a violation of the laws of nature," and labors to show that the testimony in behalf of a miracle is more likely to be false than that the order of nature should be violated. Huxley objects to his definition of a miracle, as many had done before. But he urges the same objection in a somewhat different form: "The more a statement of fact conflicts with previous experiences, the more complete must be the evidence to justify us in believing it" (p. 133). He decides that there is no such evidence as is fitted to sustain an occurrence so contrary to our experience as a miracle. Huxley advances nothing new on this subject, and the defenders of Christianity maintain that they can meet the objections he adopts. They show, first, that they can produce testimony in favor of certain miracles, such as the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, more full and explicit,