CH. II.] ANTHEOPOMOBPHIG THEISM. 389 



• 

 which requires in the Eirst Cause a more than Hegelian 

 capacity for uniting contradictory attributes. Else we must 

 suppose its causal action to be confined to man, and those 

 other animals which manifest intelligence and volition, 

 while the rest of the universe either seeks another First 

 Cause, or goes without one. All these are alike conclusions 

 which philosophy cannot for a moment tolerate, and which 

 are as shocking to science as to religion. 



A still more fatal criticism remains to be made. Con- 

 sidered as a modification of the Cartesian doctrine, Mr. 

 Adam's theory is entirely illegitimate : it is the product of 

 a gross misconception of the Cartesian doctrine. All these 

 causes and effects, so carefully but unskilfully compared by 

 Mr. Adam, are phenomenal antecedents and consequents ; and 

 even supposing the universal resemblance of phenomenal 

 causes to phenomenal effects to be fully made out, the anthro- 

 pomorphic argument is not helped in the least. Until a 

 phenomenal effect can be brought into juxtaposition and 

 compared with its noumenal cause, the argument has no 

 logical validity; but, because of the relativity of all know- 

 ledge, this can never be done. To call the First Cause a 

 phenomenon is to make a statement that is self-contradictory; 

 since phenomena exist only by virtue of their relation to 

 human (or animal) consciousness. The First Cause being 

 absolute and infinite, is a noumenon, and no amount of 

 resemblance, alleged or proved, between various orders of 

 its phenomenal effects, can bear witness to any resemblance 

 between a phenomenal effect and the noumenal Cause. The 

 phenomena of motion, for example, exist as phenomena only 

 in so far as they are cognized ; and the very constitution of 

 the thinking process renders it impossible for us to assert 

 similarity between the phenomenon and the thing in itself. 

 Indeed a comparison between the various phenomena of 

 motion gives us good ground for believing that there can be 

 no such thing as resemblance between the phenomena and 



