484 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



verse. 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 disso- 

 lution 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 essen- 

 tially 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 na- 

 ture," 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 vio- 

 lated. 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 moi*e 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 sus- 

 tain 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, 



