LITMIR.BIZ

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      Throughout the whole of his argument against the rationality of belief in the order of nature, the rigorous precision which Dr. Mozley unrelentingly demands from his antagonists is remarkable. They are not permitted to deviate by a hair's breadth from the line of strict logic, and the most absolute exactness of demonstration is required. Anything like an assumption or argument from analogy is excluded; induction is allowed to add no reason to bare and isolated facts; and the belief that the sun will rise to-morrow morning is, with pitiless severity, written down as mere unintelligent impulse. Belief in the return of day, based upon the unvarying experience of all past time, is declared to be without any ground of reason. We find anything but fault with strictness of argument; but it is fair that equal precision should be observed by those who assert miracles, and that assumption and inaccuracy should be excluded. Hitherto, as we have frequently pointed out, we have met with very little or nothing but assumption in support of miracles; but, encouraged by the inflexible spirit of Dr. Mozley's attack upon the argument from experience, we may look for similar precision from himself.

      Proceeding, however, from his argument against the rationality of belief in the order of nature to his more direct argument for miracles, we are astonished to find a total abandonment of the rigorous exactness imposed upon his antagonists, and a complete relapse into assumptions. Dr. Mozley does not conceal the fact. "The peculiarity of the argument of miracles," he frankly admits, "is, that it begins and ends with an assumption; I mean relatively to that argument."(1) Such an argument is no argument at all; it is a mere petitio principii, incapable of proving anything. The nature of the assumptions obviously does not in the slightest degree affect this conclusion. It is true that the statement of the particular assumptions may constitute an appeal to belief otherwise derived, and evolve feelings which may render the calm exercise of judgment more difficult, but the fact remains absolute, that an argument which "begins and ends with an assumption" is totally impotent. It remains an assumption, and is not an argument at all.

      Notwithstanding this unfortunate and disqualifying "peculiarity" we may examine the argument. It is as follows: "We assume the existence of a Personal Deity prior to the proof of miracles in the religious sense; but with this assumption the question of miracles is at an end; because such a Being has necessarily the power to suspend those laws of nature which He has Himself enacted."(1) The "question of miracles," which Dr. Mozley here asserts to be at an end on the assumption of a "Personal Deity," is of course merely that of the possibility of miracles; but it is obvious that, even with the precise definition of Deity which is assumed, instead of the real "question" being at an end, it only commences. The power to suspend the laws of nature being assumed, the will to suspend them has to be demonstrated, and the actual occurrence of any such suspension, which, it has already been shown, is contrary to reason. The subject is, moreover, complicated by the occurrence of Satanic as well as Divine suspensions of the order of nature, and by the necessity of assuming a Personal Devil as well as a Personal Deity, and his power to usurp that control over the laws of nature, which is assumed as the prerogative of the Deity, and to suspend them in direct opposition to God. The express ascription of miracles to the special intervention of a Personal God is also, as we have seen, excluded by the Scriptural admission that there are other supernatural beings capable of performing them. Even Dr. Newman has recognized this, and, in a passage already quoted, he says: "For the cogency of the argument from Miracles depends on the assumption, that interruptions in the course of nature must ultimately proceed from God; which is not true, if they may be effected by other beings without His sanction."(1) The first assumption, in fact, leads to nothing but assumptions connected with the unseen, unknown and supernatural, which are beyond the limits of reason.

      Dr. Mozley is well aware that his assumption of a "Personal" Deity is not susceptible of proof;(2) indeed, this is admitted in the statement that the definition is an "assumption." He quotes the obvious reply which may be made regarding this assumption:—"Everybody must collect from the harmony of the physical universe the existence of a God, but in acknowledging a God, we do not thereby acknowledge this peculiar doctrinal conception of a God. We see in the structure of nature a mind—a universal mind—but still a mind which only operates and expresses itself by law. Nature only does and only can inform us of mind in nature, the partner and correlative of organized matter. Nature, therefore, can speak to the existence of a God in this sense, and can speak to the omnipotence of God in a sense coinciding with the actual facts of nature; but in no other sense does nature witness to the existence of an Omnipotent Supreme Being. Of a universal Mind out of nature, nature says nothing, and of an Omnipotence which does not possess an inherent limit in nature, she says nothing either. And, therefore, that conception of a Supreme Being which represents him as a Spirit independent of the physical universe, and able from a standing-place external to nature to interrupt its order, is a conception of God for which we must go elsewhere. That conception is obtained from revelation which is asserted to be proved by miracles. But that being the case, this doctrine of Theism rests itself upon miracles, and, therefore, miracles cannot rest upon this doctrine of Theism."(1) With his usual fairness, Dr. Mozley, while questioning the correctness of the premiss of this argument, admits that, if established, the consequence stated would follow, "and more, for miracles being thrown back upon the same ground on which Theism is, the whole evidence of revelation becomes a vicious circle, and the fabric is left suspended in space, revelation resting on miracles and miracles resting on revelation."(2) He not only recognizes, however, that the conception of a Person al" Deity cannot be proved, but he distinctly confesses that it was obtained from revelation,(3) and from nowhere else, and these necessary admissions obviously establish the correctness of the premiss, and involve the consequence pointed out, that the evidence of revelation is a mere vicious circle. Dr. Mozley attempts to argue that, although the idea was first obtained through this channel, "the truth once possessed is seen to rest upon grounds of natural reason."(4) Why, then, does he call it an assumption? The argument by which he seeks to show that the conception is seen to rest upon grounds of natural reason is: "We naturally attribute to the design of a Personal Being a contrivance which is directed to the existence of a Personal Being. … From personality at one end I infer personality at the other." Dr. Mozley's own sense of the weakness of his argument, however, and his natural honesty of mind oblige him continually to confess the absence of evidence. A few paragraphs further on he admits:—"Not, however, that the existence of a God is so clearly seen by reason as to dispense with faith;"(1) but he endeavours to convince us that faith is reason, only reason acting under peculiar circumstances: when reason draws conclusions which are not backed by experience, reason is then called faith.(2) The issue of the argument, he contends, is so amazing, that if we do not tremble for its safety it must be on account of a practical principle, which makes us confide and trust in reasons, and that principle is faith. We are not aware that conviction can be arrived at regarding any matter otherwise than by confidence in the correctness of the reasons, and what Dr. Mozley really means by faith, here, is confidence and trust in a conclusion for which there are no reasons.

      It is almost incredible that the same person who had just been denying grounds of reason to conclusions from unvarying experience, and excluding from them the results of inductive reasoning—who had denounced as unintelligent impulse and irrational instinct the faith that the sun, which has risen without fail every morning since time began, will rise again to-morrow, could thus argue. In fact, from the very commencement of the direct plea for miracles, calm logical reasoning is abandoned, and the argument becomes entirely ad hominem. Mere feeling is substituted for thought, and in the inability to be precise and logical, the lecturer appeals to the generally prevailing inaccuracy of thought.(1) "Faith, then," he concludes, "is unverified reason; reason which has not yet received the verification of the final test, but is still expectant." In science this, at the best, would be called mere "hypothesis," but accuracy can scarcely be expected where the argument continues: "Indeed, does not our heart bear witness to the fact that to believe in a God"—i.e., a Personal God—"is an exercise of faith?" &c.(2)

      It does not help Dr. Mozley that Butler, Paley, and all other divines have equally been obliged to commence with the same assumption; and, indeed, as we have already remarked, Dr. Mozley honestly admits the difficulty of the case, and while naturally making the most of his own views, he does not disguise the insecurity of the position. He deprecates that school which maintains that any average man, taken out of a crowd,

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