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strictly so called. We know by experience that 

 mind can control matter where it exists, but we 

 do not know by experience that mind can bring 

 matter into existence. Accordingly, all that this 

 argument entitles us to infer is, that a God 

 supreme over matter exists. On the further ques- 

 tion of the causation of matter, it throws no light. 

 It may be doubted, however, whether Kant's 

 further criticism is well founded namely, that 

 from this defect the argument is insufficient to 

 furnish ' a theology which is itself to be the basis 

 of religion.' It may not, perhaps, furnish the 

 absolute and all-sufficient Deity demanded by the 

 metaphysicians. But the average mind does not 

 require to be satisfied of the completeness of the 

 metaphysical definition of its God before consent- 

 ing to be religious. It is sufficient for the pur- 

 poses of practical piety that it should feel itself in 

 the presence of One who is manifestly master of 

 the universe. 



a. The Cosmological Argument 



That dependence of matter on the fiat of a 

 Creator, to the establishment of which we have 

 seen that the Teleological argument is unequal, is 

 supposed to be made out in what is called the 

 Cosmological argument It is so called (kosmos, 

 world) from its being based on the fact that there 

 is a world, considered not in reference to its order 

 or contents, but merely as a form of actual exist- 

 ence. It is also called the argumentum a con- 

 tingentia mundi, or argument from the contingency 

 of the world, because its validity depends upon 

 the accuracy of the principle that the world exists 

 not necessarily, but contingently. Contingent 

 existence is that which we can annihilate in 

 thought, or imagine out of existence, without 

 involving ourselves in a contradiction. Necessary 

 existence is that which we cannot so annihilate 

 in thought. Now, we know by experience that 

 something exists. The world and we ourselves 

 exist If something exists, something necessarily 

 exists. Much that exists may exist contingently ; 

 it may, without contradiction, be conceived as 

 removed from existence, but while it exists, it can 

 do so only as dependent upon something which 

 exists necessarily. Once given existence, it is 

 impossible to shape the conception of all exist- 

 ence as non-existent. Something must remain, 

 capable of accounting for the rest The existence 

 of the contingent is therefore a pledge of the 

 existence of the necessary, which must also be 

 eternal, and capable of supplying a cause for 

 contingent existences as they come and go. The 

 question accordingly comes to be, whether the 

 world is a contingent or a necessary existence ? 

 Can we, without contradicting some datum of 

 reason or experience, conceive it out of existence, 

 or must we conceive it as eternally existing ? In 

 the latter case, it is necessary and self-sufficing ; 

 in the former case, it postulates some necessary 

 and primal Being equal to its causal explanation 

 when it enters as a novelty upon the field of 

 existence. 



Natural theology maintains the contingent char- 

 acter of the world's existence, by means of various 

 arguments designed to shew, not only that it may, 

 but that it must, have had a beginning, that it 

 can be wholly annihilated in thought, and that 

 therefore, so far from being self-existent, it must 

 be regarded simply as an effect explicable by the 



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causation of a supreme, necessary, primal Being, 

 Some of these arguments are of questionable 

 validity. It is said, for example, that history 

 points to a comparatively recent creation of the 

 human race, and that geology discloses new genera 

 and species of plants and animals, which must 

 have been created during the comparatively later 

 periods of the history of our earth. But even 

 supposing such arguments to have made good 

 their position against the evolution theory, they 

 do not touch the real difficulty in the present case 

 namely, the creation, properly so called, of 

 matter. The creation of new genera spoken of is 

 creation only in a figurative sense. It is nothing 

 more than the working up of pre-existent matter 

 into a fresh set of forms, which we have seen, in 

 connection with the Teleological argument, to be 

 perfectly within the competency of a supreme 

 world-artist, but not to imply a Creator in the 

 true sense of the title. What we want to know 

 is, whether the pre-existent matter is contingent 

 or necessary in its character ; and statements as 

 to new applications of matter assumed to be 

 already existent, cannot, even if true, help us to- 

 settle the question whether it is eternal or orig- 

 inated. 



The philosophers of antiquity regarded all the 

 forms of nature as contingent ; while matter was 

 considered by them as primal and necessary. 

 Kant regards this attempt to retain the eternity 

 of the essence of matter, while dispensing with the 

 eternity of its form, as involving a confusion, for 

 which he endeavours to account. ' If they had 

 regarded matter,' he says, 'not relatively as the 

 substratum of phenomena, but absolutely and in 

 itself as an independent existence, this idea of 

 absolute necessity would have immediately dis- 

 appeared. There is nothing,' he goes on to say, 

 'absolutely connecting reason with such an exist- 

 ence ; on the contrary, it can annihilate it in 

 thought, always and without self-contradiction.' 

 His argument is, that matter, which, apart from 

 its form, is simply extension and impenetrability^ 

 is necessary only as the substratum of the phenom- 

 enal and perceptible ; and that in thinking away 

 the phenomenal, which it is always possible to do r 

 we simultaneously think away the necessity of its 

 substratum, and leave matter and its form alike 

 contingent It is indeed impossible to conceive 

 extension and impenetrability left standing apart 

 from any particular form or determination of thing 

 extended or impenetrable, and those who saw 

 that the forms of nature were neither necessary 

 nor eternal, ought to have seen that the same 

 held good of their subjacent matter. 



The eternity of matter is a difficulty which 

 natural theologians have found so formidable that 

 they not seldom pass it over in silence. The criti- 

 cism of Kant, at this point, therefore, is peculiarly 

 valuable, more especially when regard is had to 

 his unfavourable attitude to all the speculative 

 arguments for the existence of God, excepting the 

 Moral argument He has done further service in 

 the same direction by contributing an argument 

 from another point of view, to shew that the 

 material universe must have begun in time. His 

 argument bases itself upon the principle, that an 

 elapsed eternity, or infinite series of successive 

 states or conditions of things, is an impossibility. 

 Infinity of series, he holds, consists in the fact, 

 that it never can be completed by the process of 



