Büchner. We differ very widely in many points, sir; but there is one point about which we shall have no difficulty in agreeing—the immutability of natural laws. In fact, you have already conceded that the laws of nature are unchangeable.
Reader. Yes, I admit the unchangeability of the laws of nature; but I most strongly protest against your rash inference that therefore miracles are impossible.
Büchner. Yet my reasoning is very plain. “The law of nature, observes Moleschott, is a stringent expression of necessity. There exists in it neither exception nor limitation; and no imaginable power can disregard this necessity. A stone not supported will in all eternity fall towards the centre of the earth; and there never was, and never will be, a command for the sun to stand still” (p. 33).
Reader. Is this what you call “reasoning”?
Büchner. Yes. “The experience of thousands of years has impressed upon the investigator the firmest conviction of the immutability of the laws of nature, so that there cannot remain the least doubt in respect to this great truth” (p. 34).
Reader. This I grant.
Büchner. “Science has gradually taken all the positions of the childish belief of the peoples; it has snatched thunder and lightning from the hands of the gods ...” (ibid.)
Reader. It was Christianity, not science, that conquered the gods.
Büchner. “The eclipse of the stars and the stupendous powers of the Titans of the olden times have been grasped by the fingers of man” (ibid.)
Reader. How can the fingers of man grasp the eclipses and the Titans?
Büchner. “That which appeared inexplicably miraculous, and the work of a supernatural power, has, by the torch of science, proved to be the effect of hitherto unknown natural forces” (ibid.)
Reader. You dream, doctor. Has “the torch of science” made known those hitherto unknown forces? No scientific work has yet explained how, by an act of the will, water can be changed into wine, how the deaf and dumb can be instantaneously cured, how the blind can be made to see, the paralytic to walk, and the dead to rise, at the sound of a voice, four days after burial, and when already in a state of advanced putrefaction. You may of course deny these facts, as you deny that the sun ever received a command to stand still; but to say that “the torch of science” has shown these facts to be the effect of unknown natural forces is to tell us the most stupid lie that can be uttered. Lies, you know, should at least be credible.
Büchner. “We have the fullest right, and are scientifically correct, in asserting that there is no such thing as a miracle. Everything that happens does so in a natural way—i.e., [pg 824] in a mode determined only by accidental or necessary coalition of existing materials and their immanent natural forces. No revolution on earth or in heaven, however stupendous, could occur in any other manner” (p. 34).
Reader. These are mere words. I deny that science gives you the least right to suppress miracles. How can you establish such a right?
Büchner. “Wherever fire and water meet, vapors must arise and exert their irresistible power. Where the seed falls in the ground, there it will grow; where the thunderbolt is attracted, there it will strike. Can there exist any doubt as to these truths?” (p. 35).
Reader. Please, doctor, come to the point.
Büchner. “How is it possible that the unalterable order in which things move should ever be disturbed without producing an irremediable gap in the world, without delivering us and everything up to arbitrary power, without reducing all science, every earthly endeavor, to a vain and childish effort?” (p. 36).
Reader. All this rhetoric is most absurd, doctor. “The order in which things move” is not unalterable; and He whom you call an “arbitrary power” can alter it when he pleases without asking your permission, or without reducing science to a childish effort.
Büchner. What? You contradict yourself, sir. For, if the order in which things move is changeable, the laws of nature cannot be unchangeable.
Reader. Not at all. You sophistically confound two things entirely different—the law of nature, and the course of nature. The first is unchangeable, because it is connected with the essence of things; but the second is changeable, as a constant and universal experience compels us to admit. However much you may hate “arbitrary power,” you cannot deny that, besides necessary causes, there are others which are free in their exertions. Can you deny, for instance, that a stone may be thrown upwards in spite of gravitation, or that we can catch hold of the stone from the window, and, in spite of gravitation, we can prevent it from falling back to the ground? Now, if we do this, we do not change the law of nature, and nevertheless we modify the course of nature by freely producing a phenomenon which nature would not produce.
Büchner. Would you call this a miracle?
Reader. The question is impertinent. I call it a change in the course of nature. Now, if the course of nature can be modified without the law of nature being altered, it is absurd to pretend that there is contradiction in holding the unchangeableness of the latter and the changeableness of the former. This being evident, let us go a step further, and draw an obvious conclusion. We can, when we please, catch the stone from the window, and prevent it from falling; and cannot God do the same? We are free to exert our power; but is not God free, or has he less power than we have? If you are honest, you will own that what can be done by us can be done by our Creator and Lord. Now, if he stops the stone in the air, a miracle will be wrought, and no law of nature violated. You cannot deny the possibility of miracles without denying God.
Büchner. “A spirit independent of nature cannot exist; for never [pg 825] has an unprejudiced mind cultivated by science perceived its manifestation” (p. 36).
Reader. Are you not ashamed, doctor, to repeat such a nonsensical assertion? You have already failed to prove it, and I have shown its absurdity in a preceding discussion. Must I answer it anew? The only answer you now deserve is that “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” Fools, in fact, deny God in their hearts, but cannot deny him in their minds, because atheism is not the result of intellectual knowledge, but of moral depravity. Our present question, however, is not theism or atheism, but the possibility of miracles without any breach of natural laws. Surely, if there were no God, no miracle would be possible; but your argument was that if the laws of nature are unchangeable, no miracle is possible; and this I have shown to be false. If there is a God, as we must now assume, miracles are possible. In the same manner, if a single true miracle has ever been wrought, there is a God.
Büchner. “Apparent exceptions from the natural order have been called miracles, of which there have been many at all times” (p. 36).
Reader. You should know better, doctor. The church is not satisfied with “apparent” exceptions from the natural order; the exception must be rigorously proved.
Büchner. “We should only waste words in our endeavor to prove the natural impossibility of a miracle. No educated, much less a scientific, person who is convinced of the immutable order of things can nowadays believe in miracles. We find it rather wonderful that so clear and acute a thinker as Ludwig Feuerbach should have expended so much logic in refuting the Christian miracles. What founder of religion did not deem it necessary, in order to introduce himself to the world, to perform miracles? And has not his success proved that he was right? What prophet, what saint, is there who has not performed miracles? The miracle-seeker sees them daily and hourly. Do not the table-spirits belong to the order of miracles? All such miracles are equal in the eye of science; they are the result of a diseased fancy” (pp. 36, 37).
Reader. This is miserable logic, doctor. Why do you speak of the natural impossibility of miracles? Have we ever taught that miracles are naturally possible? We know that nature works no miracles, and that all miracles are supernatural. It is therefore either a mean trick or a logical blunder on your part to pretend that the natural possibility of miracles is the point in question. That no educated or scientific man can nowadays believe in miracles is not only an empty boast, but also a disgraceful calumny. We Christians believe in miracles, and yet, I venture to say, we need not resort to you for lessons in science or education. As a reason for not believing in miracles, you allege “the immutable order of things”; that is, you assume what is to be proved. The order of things is so far from being immutable that we see it modified at every moment. It is the laws of nature, not the order of things, that are immutable. That Feuerbach “expended so much of logic in refuting Christian miracles” I will not deny; I only say that his logic, like your own, is mere sophism and cavil. Of course you call him “so clear and acute a thinker”; but we know what this means on the lips of Freemasons. If he was “so [pg 826] clear and acute a thinker,” why did he not furnish you with at least one good argument against Christian miracles?
Besides, you pretend that all founders of religion deemed it necessary to perform miracles. What then? Were it true, the fact would scarcely help your cause; for it would only prove that there have ever been impostors, as there have been quacks and coin-forgers. Now, who would think of selling counterfeited articles, if there had existed none genuine? Would there be quacks, had there been no doctors? And yet your reasoning leads to the conclusion that, because there are so many quacks, there can be no doctors. Are you, then, a mere quack yourself?
You say with a malicious sneer that all prophets and saints performed miracles. Yes; they performed miracles, or rather, to speak more correctly, God wrought miracles through them. Yet, in the teeth of sacred and ecclesiastical history which testifies to an infinite number of unquestionable miracles, you are shameless enough to conclude that no miracle has ever been performed, on the plea that miracle-seekers, table-spirits, and diseased fancy must have conspired to deceive the world. Is it necessary to refute such a silly assertion? Was Elymas the magician a miracle-seeker when S. Paul, to punish him for his opposition to Christianity, struck him blind with a word in the presence of the Roman centurion? Was it a trick of table-spirits that made the blind see, the lame walk, or the dumb speak? Was it diseased fancy that impressed on an immense crowd the belief that they had been miraculously fed by Christ in the desert, where no provisions were at hand? No, doctor, you are not silly enough to believe anything of the sort.
Büchner. But what do you answer to the following difficulties? First, if we admit miracles, “science will be reduced to a vain and childish effort” (p. 36). Secondly, how can we conceive “a supreme legislator who allows himself to be moved by prayers and sobs to reverse the immutable order which he himself has created, to violate his own laws, and with his own hand to destroy the action of natural forces?” (p. 38). Thirdly, “every miracle, if it existed, says Cotta, would lead to the conviction that the creation is not deserving the respect which all pay to it, and the mystics would necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfection of the created world the imperfection of the Creator” (p. 38). Fourthly, “is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course, and puts on a screw, etc., like the regulator of a watch? If the world has been created by God perfect, how can it require any repairs?” (p. 39). Fifthly, we see that nature works without superior control; “its action is frequently quite independent of the rules of a higher reason, now constructing, now destroying, now full of design, then again perfectly blind and in contradiction with all moral and rational laws. That in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies, which are constantly being renewed, there can be no direct governing reason at work is proved by the most striking facts. The nisus formativus inherent in nature is so blind and so dependent on external circumstances that the most senseless forms are frequently engendered, that it is often incapable of obviating [pg 827] or overcoming the slightest obstructions, and that frequently the contrary of what according to reason should happen is effected” (pp. 41, 42). These are serious difficulties, sir.
Reader. I hardly think them to be serious, doctor. The first entirely disappears when you reflect that the conclusions of physical science are all hypothetic, inasmuch as they regard phenomena which must take place under the action of given powers, to the exclusion of any other power extraneous to those taken into account. Such conclusions, therefore, imply the condition that no extraneous agent and no disturbing cause interferes with the production of the phenomena. If an extraneous power interferes, the conditions are changed, and with them the phenomena; but science is not upset. A stone not supported must fall. Not supported; such is the condition. Now, whether you, or I, or the roof, or God, or an angel support it, the consequence will be that the stone will not fall. Now, I ask you, is science “reduced to a vain and childish effort” because you or I or the roof prevent the stone from falling? I presume, doctor, that if such were the case, science would long since have disappeared from this world. Why, then, should science become a vain and childish effort as soon as God would do himself what we can freely do without destroying science? Take another example. Nature builds no stately palaces, no fine steamers, no locomotives, no railroads. All such things are our free creations. Yet surely you will not maintain that by building palaces or by boring mountains we destroy science, although we may interfere very materially with the works of nature.
Now, if our free action upon nature does not destroy science, why should God's free action destroy it? Answer me in the name of reason: What theory of natural science would be falsified were God to send angels to build you a palace, or devils to dig you a grave?
And now I come to your second difficulty. You assume that the supreme legislator cannot work a miracle without destroying the action of natural forces and violating his own laws, thus reversing the immutable order which he himself has created. But you are mistaken. The order of things is not immutable; this I have already shown. On the other hand, we have just seen that no law of nature is ever violated by a miracle. Lastly, God's action does not destroy the action of natural forces, but produces an effect superior to and independent of them. Nor is this strange; for we ourselves can do the like within the range of our limited powers. When we go up-stairs, do we destroy the action of gravity that urges us downwards? By no means. The action of gravity continues its work, but our contrary exertion prevails; and thus our body obeys the resultant of the two opposite actions, both of which obtain their effect. You see, therefore, that there is no need of destroying the action of natural forces in order to produce an effect which natural forces cannot produce. After these remarks, nothing remains of your second difficulty but “the prayers and sobs” which you cruelly ridicule as useless and superstitious. But our Father who is in heaven listens to such prayers and is moved by those sobs. This is abundantly proved by innumerable authentic facts; and this suffices for us.
[pg 828]Your third difficulty is based on Cotta's notion that the creation deserves respect on account of its perfection. Cotta may be one of your great men, but surely he does not know what he is speaking about. What “respect” do we owe to creation? Benighted barbarians thought, indeed, that the sun, the earth, and the stars deserved respect; but how can a man who pretends to be a philosopher, and who professes himself an enemy of superstition, adopt such a stale pagan view, unless he blinds himself and renounces reason by bestowing upon matter the worship which he refuses to the living God? To say that the world is “perfect” is a mere equivocation. The world is perfect after its own manner, inasmuch as it serves all the purposes for which it has been made; it is perfect in the same sense in which we say that a thermometer, a telescope, or an engine is perfect; it is a perfect instrument in God's hand for the attainment of a determinate end; and therefore its perfection is relative only, and might be greater and greater without end. Now, Cotta's argument overlooks this obvious restriction, and presents the world as absolutely perfect. If the world is imperfect, says he, God is imperfect; but miracles would show that the world is imperfect; and therefore miracles would show that God is imperfect. Now, is not this, doctor, asinine logic? We might as well argue thus: If an engine is imperfect, its maker is imperfect; but the opening of a turning-cock for admitting more steam shows that the engine is imperfect; and therefore that opening shows that the engine-maker is imperfect. And this leads me to your fourth difficulty, which is nothing but a repetition of the third.
You ask: “Is it a view worthy of God to represent him as a power which now and then gives a new impulse to the world in its course?” I answer, Yes; it is quite worthy of God to exercise his power in the world in the way he thinks fit. Shall we say, then, that God, “like the regulator of a watch, puts a screw on the world”? Why not? The watchmaker is not degraded by regulating his work. But, then, “the world requires repairs”? I say, Yes. And if you conclude that the world “has not been created perfect,” I reply that although it came out relatively perfect from the hands of the Creator, it has gradually and most sadly deteriorated by the malice of man. Moreover, the world, whether more or less perfect in itself, without a constant active intervention of its Creator can neither work nor last for a moment. The world is, therefore, constantly “repaired,” to use your expression, and has “screws put on it,” as history testifies; and other “screws” are undoubtedly ready for further “repairs” when they will be wanted.
Your last difficulty arises from your assumption that nature works without being controlled by a superior power. But how do you know that nature is not controlled? What are the “striking facts” which prove that “there is no direct governing reason at work” in the formation of organic and inorganic bodies? Your nisus formativus proves nothing. You say that the nisus is “blind.” You may well call it blind, inasmuch as it is a work of secondary causes; but you cannot deny that it is ruled by a superior reason. What does it matter if “most senseless forms are frequently engendered”? You yourself admit that the nisus formativus [pg 829] depends very much “on external circumstances,” which may mar or spoil the work of organization, and which nothing obliges the superior reason to alter or improve. On the other hand, such senseless forms are not so “frequently” engendered as you pretend; and if a few such senseless or monstrous forms can move you to doubt whether their formation is controlled by a superior reason, I do not see why the immensely greater number of other forms perfectly constituted should not constrain you to banish the doubt, and to recognize that matter not controlled and not directed by reason cannot co-ordinate its efforts towards the formation of an organism of which it knows neither the plan nor the object.
I trust, doctor, that these remarks suffice to solve your difficulties, and to show that the world is governed by a superior reason.
Büchner. It may be; yet “what this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal God, etc., is his own affair. The theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves; so the naturalists with their science. They both proceed by different routes” (p. 43).
Reader. This is no reply, doctor, and your remark is misplaced. The existence of a personal God, the possibility of miracles, and many other such truths, are proved by natural reason. Had I refuted your objections by quoting “theologians” and “articles of faith,” your reply might have some meaning. But since your allegations have been answered by reason, what does it avail to say that “theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves”? Moreover, you unwittingly condemn your own tactics. For if theologians are to be left to themselves, why do you, then, who are no theologian, and not even a philosopher, invade the province of theology, and fight against faith?
If you have any desire to know the truth about the reality of miracles, I will tell you what you have to do. M. Artus, a Frenchman, on the 23d of July, 1871, publicly challenged all the free-thinkers of the world to show the falsity of any two out of the many miracles registered in M. Lasserre's book entitled Notre Dame de Lourdes, and staked 10,000 francs upon the issue of the contest. This money was safely deposited by him in the hands of a notary-public in Paris; and fifty judges were appointed, some of whom were members of the French Institute, and others fellows of other celebrated institutions and academies, or members of the bar, including even a Protestant; so that there could be no suspicion of fanaticism, ultramontanism, or mysticism about them. Now, incredible as it may appear to you, none of your great braggarts has dared from that day till now to accept the challenge. It is for you, who are so peremptory in denouncing miracles, to come forward, and to blot out by an act of philosophical valor the stain which the cowardice of your enlightened friends has left on the glory of free-thinkerism. It is for you, I repeat; for if a man of your standing and reputation quails before the challenge, the world will most reasonably conclude that you have no faith whatever in your own doctrines.
Reader. The laws of nature are [pg 830] universal. Such is the subject of the seventh chapter of your Force and Matter. I need hardly say that, while admitting with you the universality of the natural laws, I cannot but condemn the materialistic spirit which disgraces your explanation of that obvious truth. But in the chapter which follows you speak of the heavens in a most objectionable style.
Büchner. “Every school-boy knows that the sky is not a glass shade covering the earth, but that, in contemplating it, we behold an immense space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds” (p. 51).
Reader. This I grant; but I am at a loss to understand how the contemplation of the heavens can furnish you an argument against the existence of God. Is it not strange that what has hitherto been considered to proclaim most loudly the existence, and magnify the power, of God, has become, in your hands, an evidence in support of atheism?
Büchner. The heavenly masses “are in constant motion—a motion singularly combined and complicated, yet in all its modifications merely the result of a single universal law of nature—the law of attraction.... All these motions may be determined and predicted with mathematical exactness. As far as the telescope of man reaches, the same law, the same mechanical arrangement, according to the same calculated mechanical formula, is found. Nowhere is there a trace of an arbitrary finger which has ordered the heavens or pointed out the path of comets. ‘I have searched the heavens,’ says Lalande, ‘but have nowhere found the traces of God.’ And when the Emperor Napoleon asked the celebrated astronomer Laplace why there was no mention of God in his Mécanique Céleste, he replied, ‘Sire, je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse.’ The more astronomy progressed in its knowledge of the laws and motions in the heavens, the more it repudiated the idea of a supernatural influence, and the easier it became to deduce the origin, grouping, and motions of the heavenly bodies from the properties inherent in matter itself. The attraction of atoms rendered the bodies compact, whilst the law of attraction, in combination with their primary motion, produced the mode of their reciprocal rotation which we now observe” (pp. 51, 52).
Reader. Waiving the more than problematic plausibility of your premises, and setting aside the blasphemies which you have diligently copied from the books of the French unbelievers, and which are too stolid to need an answer, I reply, doctor, that you are always too hasty in drawing your conclusions. Why did you not reflect that the matter of which the celestial bodies are formed must have had an origin, that the revolutions of those bodies cannot be ruled by an abstract law, and that their enormous distances, as well as the expanse of their orbits through the immensity of space, compel the admission of an infinite being ranging infinitely above matter and necessarily prior to it? You should not have overlooked the fact that the heavens proclaim God's existence by their immensity far more eloquently than by the revolutions of the celestial bodies. You speak of movements ruled by a law. I admit the movements and the law which rules our calculation of the movements. But without space there is no movement, and without [pg 831] God there is no space; therefore without God there is no movement. Extricate yourself, if you can. Do you concede that without space there is no movement?
Büchner. It is evident.
Reader. Do you admit that without God there is no space?
Büchner. This I deny.
Reader. Then what do you mean by “space”?
Büchner. I fancy that space is nothing but the volume of bodies.
Reader. How is this possible? A body moves through space. Now, does a body move through its own volume, or does it move through the volume of other bodies? On the contrary, the body cannot move without pushing away before it all other bodies and volumes whatever from the space they occupy. It is therefore evident that space, as such, is not the volume of bodies.
Büchner. Then I shall say that space is the capability of bodies and motion.
Reader. This definition of space may be admitted if properly understood. But what is such a capability? Is it, in your opinion, a real and positive entity?
Büchner. I should not think so, unless, indeed, it be occupied by bodies.
Reader. I know that many are of this opinion, that the reality of space depends on the presence of bodies; but I say that, if such were the case, then empty space would be mere nothing. Now, if you admit this, you will be compelled to admit also the absurdity that a mere nothing can be greater or smaller. For between two neighboring atoms there may be a greater or smaller interval of space; and such an interval, by the hypothesis, would be nothing. Hence it is evident that space, no matter whether occupied or unoccupied, must be something real.
Büchner. Then I say that space is a mere relation of material objects.
Reader. There are relations of bodies in space; but all such relations presuppose the existence of absolute space, and therefore space itself is none of those relations. Moreover, since all real relations have their reason in something real, which is the foundation of the relativity, it follows that space, as that through which one body is really related to another, is in itself a reality, independently of the relations which may result from the existence of bodies in it. And again, before bodies can be considered as related through space, they must be each located in space. But, evidently, they cannot be located in space if there is no space. And therefore there must be space before any local relation of bodies can be imagined as possible. Hence you cannot maintain that space is a mere relation.
Büchner. Perhaps I shall be obliged to say with Kant that space is only a subjective form of the mind.
Reader. Then you will entangle yourself still more. The assumption would imply the denial of all real distances, of all real volumes, of all real movements, of all real phenomena, and of all natural laws. For if space is only a subjective form of our mind, then there is no space out of the mind; and consequently there are no real distances and no real movements in the outside world, and science becomes an array of lies.
Büchner. What is, then, your notion of space?
Reader. Space is the region of [pg 832] all possible ubications and movements. Do you accept this definition?
Büchner. Why not? It is substantially the same as that which I have given by saying that space is the capability of bodies and motion.
Reader. Very well. Then, since I have shown that this capability of bodies and motion is a positive reality, space is a positive reality. Moreover, space is neither matter nor any of the forces of matter, nor dependent on matter, but prior to it, and is prerequired as a necessary condition for the existence of matter. Lastly, space is independent of time and motion, and therefore is absolutely and strictly eternal and unchangeable. Do you object to these conclusions?
Büchner. No, sir.
Reader. Then you concede that space is an infinite, eternal, unchangeable, independent reality, prior to matter and above matter, and therefore, according to your own theory, prior to the world and above it. Now, to concede so much, and then to deny God, would be an evident contradiction. For you must admit that absolute space is either a substance or not. If it is a substance, then it is an infinite, eternal, independent, unchangeable substance, embracing and transcending with its immensity all imaginable worlds; and a substance having such attributes is what we call God. If space is not a substance, it must still have the reason of its reality in a substance from which it borrows its infinity, its eternity, its immutability, and of which it is the extrinsic manifestation. Hence the contemplation of the heavens and of “the immense space interrupted by infinitely distant and scattered groups of worlds” affords an irresistible proof of God's existence, and leaves no room for your pretended “scientific” objections. If there is no God, there is no space; and if there is no space, science is a dream and scientists mere visionaries.188
Büchner. I cannot fight on this ground, sir. Space is a mystery which our reason has no power to explain; and I decline to argue about anything that transcends reason. The strongest argument in favor of the existence of a personal God was ever drawn from the necessity of a first mover, in order to account for the movement of the celestial bodies. But such a necessity has never been proved; and therefore “even in this remote position a personal creative power cannot hold its ground” (p. 52).
Reader. You cannot cover your retreat by pretending that space is a mystery; for if space is a mystery, then science also is a mystery—a conclusion which you do not accept. But while you thus implicitly acknowledge your defeat, you try to secure a safer position by alleging that the movement of the heavenly bodies may have originated in the powers of matter itself without any exterior impulse from a first mover. I wish you to remark that the words “first mover” can be understood in two manners; for not he only who directly imparts the first movement, but he also who governs the exertions and establishes the conditions on which the first movements depend, [pg 833] can be called “first mover.” The old philosophers, who did not know the fact of universal gravitation, proved the existence of God by affirming the necessity of a first mover—that is, of a first cause—giving the first impetus to the heavens, and governing their revolutions. But since gravitation became known philosophers have acknowledged that all matter could receive motion through the action of other matter, and therefore that the first movements in the material world could arise from matter itself, with no need of a special impulse from without. This, however, does not mean that we can dispense with a “first mover.” However great your effort to convince yourself that “matter is eternal, and the motion of matter as eternal as matter itself” (p. 53), you will not succeed. Matter is created; and He who created it placed it in definite conditions, that it could exert its powers in a definite manner and give rise to definite effects. To him, therefore, as to a first cause, are to be traced all the movements arising from his production and arrangement of all the proximate causes. Now, the first cause of all movements is a “first mover.” What can science object against this evident truth?
Büchner. “Why matter assumed a definite motion at a definite time is as yet unknown to us; but the investigations of science are as yet incomplete, nor is it impossible that we may get some clue as to the period of the first origin of individual worlds. Even at this day astronomers give cogent reasons that some of the nebular spots are worlds in embryo, which, by gradual condensation and rotation, will become worlds and solar systems. We have, therefore, concluding from analogy, a right to say that those processes through which the existing solar systems have arisen can have formed no exception to the general laws inherent in matter, and that the cause of the first definite motion must have existed in matter itself” (p. 53).
Reader. This is possible; but is it true?
Büchner. “We are the more justified in asserting this, as the many irregularities, contingencies, etc., in the economy of the universe and individual bodies, exclude the thought of an external personal activity” (ibid.)
Reader. What? Are you serious?
Büchner. “If it were the object of a personal creative power to create worlds and dwelling-places for men and animals, why, we may ask, these enormous, waste, useless spaces, in which but here and there suns and planets swim, floating about as imperceptible points? Why are not all planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man? Why is the moon without water and atmosphere, and consequently adverse to every organic development? Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of the planets of our solar system? Why the deficiency in order, symmetry, and beauty? Why have all comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, proved idle fancies? Why, asks Hudson Tuttle, did the Creator give rings to Saturn, which, surrounded by its eight moons, can have little need of them, while Mars is left in total darkness? And again, the moon's rotation round its axis is, in relation to that of the earth, such that it always presents to it the same [pg 834] surface. What is the reason of this? If there be design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect. Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred?” (pp. 53, 54).
Reader. Unfortunate man that you are! You have already received the just punishment of your rebellion against truth; you have been struck with blindness. The thing is evident, say what you will. You make a fool of yourself, as your preposterous queries prove nothing but your arrogance, ignorance, and malice. You will never be cured of your blindness till you lower your tone and humble your pride before the God whose works you disregard, and whose wisdom you call in question. You are a smoky little candle challenging the sun thus: “Why these enormous, waste, useless spaces?” Is it necessary to inform you that those spaces are not waste and useless? We have just seen that the expanse of the heavens reveals the infinity of the Creator; accordingly, the enormous spaces which you arrogantly call waste and useless proclaim most eloquently the highest truth, the necessary truth, the source of all truths. “Why are not all planets of our system so formed as to be inhabited by man?” In return let me ask you, Why is not the atmosphere so formed as to be inhabited by fishes? Indeed, if God has no need of peopling the air with fishes, it would be hard to say on what principle he can be obliged to people the planets with beings exactly similar to us in their organization. It is plain that man, though the best creature on earth, is not the last effort of Omnipotence; there can be rational beings made according to other patterns, having a different organization and different needs. But whether there are or not, it is not for you to ask why the planets are not so made as to be inhabited by man. It is no less preposterous to ask, “Wherefore the irregularities and enormous differences in the size and distances of the planets of our solar system?” If the planets were all alike, and their distances equal, would you not pronounce the world monotonous, and the plan of creation a limited conception of an unintelligent mind? But now it is variety that offends your æsthetics; and you denounce it as being “irregularity.” Did you never hear that variety is a source of beauty? To me, the musician who always harps on the same chord is a nuisance; and I am sure that you too would prefer a full orchestra, with all the “irregularities and enormous differences in the size, etc.,” of the instruments employed. You find in the heavens “a deficiency in order, symmetry, and beauty.” This only shows your bad taste. Do you think that symmetry is indispensable for beauty? An oak is beautiful, though its branches are not symmetrical. The sea-shore, the hill, the valley, the mountain, would lose much of their beauty, were they to be reduced to symmetrical forms. Then you speak of a want of “order.” What do you imagine order to be? Look on a chess-board when the game is going on. Is there any order? If you are no chess-player, you will not perceive order, but confusion; and yet there is order. Order is a suitable disposition of things in pursuance of an end, and must be different when it has to lead to a different end. [pg 835] He who has no knowledge of the end pursued cannot judge of the suitableness or deficiency of the arrangements made in view of such an end. When you think that the pieces are most disorderly mixed up on the chess-board, then perhaps they are in the most perfect order, and the intelligent player already knows that he is about to checkmate his adversary. So do not speak again of the order of the heavens until you are called into the secret council of Divinity. I thought, doctor, that you had some ability; yet how dull that man must be who asks “why all comparisons, analogies, speculations, in regard to the number and forms of the planets, have proved idle fancies”! The why is evident. It is because men are ignorant, and yet presumptuous. But does our ignorance show that there is a deficiency of order in the heavens? No; our ignorance only shows that the best thing we can do is to hold our tongue. As to the rings of Saturn, what do you know besides their existence? And how could you show that, because Saturn has eight moons, the rings can have no duty to perform? But then, you say, “Mars is left in total darkness.” I reply that twelve hours of darkness are not a total darkness. Moreover, the dense atmosphere and the small diameter of Mars are calculated to afford it a long crepuscle, which may shorten very sensibly the length of its night. And, after all, what need is there that Mars should have a moon? Could we not do on earth without our moon? But you are scandalized that our moon “always presents to us the same surface,” and never deigns to show its other side. What a disorder! What an evidence of a want of design! This it is that causes you to exclaim that “if there be design in this arrangement, it must be admitted that it is very imperfect.” I remark that you here admit with Tuttle that there may be design in this arrangement. But if there is a design, there is a designer. Who is he? Is he not the Omnipotent? For how can he fulfil his design if he does not hold the heavens in his hand? The design, however, in your judgment, is imperfect. Why? Only because your ignorance can put a question to which it cannot make an answer. You say: “Why did the Creator not impart to the celestial bodies that order from which the intention and the design could irresistibly be inferred”" Your curiosity, doctor, lacks modesty. What right have you to be instructed in detail of the intentions of the Creator? Is he not the Master? Is he obliged to discover his secrets to you, rebel and arrogant being, who disregard the most clear evidence of his very existence? Would you be able to understand his plan if he were willing to reveal it? The heavens proclaim God's existence and attributes; they glorify him by their beauty, variety, and harmony; they reveal the general scope of creation; but they withhold the secrets which God has reserved for himself. God's providence and his government of the world are infinitely wise, but they are inscrutable.
Büchner. Although you treat me with little regard, and apply to me very hard epithets, I wish to make a short remark on what you call “providence”: “Some perceive in the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars a designing providence; but they do not consider that they confound cause and effect, and that we should [pg 836] be differently organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing” (p. 55).
Reader. I think that you would have done better if you had withheld your remark. That I treat you with little regard I do not deny; but, in truth, I believe that if you deserve respect as a doctor, you deserve only contempt as the author of Force and Matter. Freemasons praise your person and extol your book; be satisfied with this. To us you are nothing but a blind and obstinate sophist. If we apply to you some hard epithet, you gave us the fullest right to do so; for remember that you have called our great men “charlatans.” We, at least, when we call you ignorant, arrogant, presumptuous, take care to prove that such epithets are well applied; whilst you make denunciations, and give no proofs.
And now as to your remark about Providence. “Some,” you say, “perceive in the position and relations of the earth to the sun, moon, and stars, a designing providence.” Indeed, all great philosophers, nay, all mankind, perceive that designing providence; but, from your words, it would seem that this is only a peculiar bias of a few obscure and eccentric thinkers. Hence those words, “some perceive,” are calculated to conceal or disguise a great historical truth—the testimony of mankind in favor of divine providence. This may be called a trick. But what follows is a real blunder. Those who recognize a providential order “do not consider,” according to you, “that they confound cause and effect.” Where is there confusion? Do you mean that what we call “Providence” is an effect of natural laws?
Büchner. Exactly so.
Reader. Natural laws are abstractions, and abstractions can produce nothing. Did you ever imagine that a law of geometry could make a circle, or that a law of harmony could write a quartetto? Laws do not produce facts, but are gathered from facts of which they exhibit the general expression. Thus the natural laws are not natural causes, but abstract formulas, and do not rule the world, as scientists too often assert, but only our calculations and scientific inductions. Your blunder is evident. But is it true, at least, that “we should be differently organized if the inclination of the ecliptic were different or not existing”? No, doctor, you are not happy in your illustration. A change of inclination of the ecliptic would only alter the distribution of heat on the terrestrial surface without altering its amount; and as now men can live under different latitudes and in different climes without being differently organized, so also they would live and thrive under some different inclination of the ecliptic without acquiring a different organization. And if so, it would appear that your physical knowledge is as limited as your philosophical attainments.
Büchner. Of course I am a doctor in medicine, not in physics or in philosophy; but this I know: “that empirical philosophy, wherever it may search for it, is nowhere able to find a trace of a supernatural influence, either in time or space” (p. 55).
Reader. Quite true. Your “empirical philosophy” is unable to find anything supernatural, wherever it may search for it. But are you so simple as to believe that, if there is a God, you should be able to reach him with the telescope, or [pg 837] to detect him by the microscope, or to get by the balance an indication of his presence, or to find him in a retort, as a residue after some chemical manipulation? Shame! shame! Is this your method of convincing yourself that there is no God? Then, by shutting yourself in a dark cellar, you should be able also to convince yourself that the sun does not exist. Is it not a mockery to pretend that there is nothing supersensible, because it cannot be reached by experimentation upon sensible things? I cannot but repeat that you have received the punishment of your rebellion against truth. A man of your ability would never fall into such absurdities from want of light; it is your hatred of truth that distorts your reason and instigates you to heap sophism upon sophism, and blasphemy upon blasphemy. You need not search for God; you know him, and try in vain, like Cain, to fly from his face.
Büchner. You make a sermon rather than a discussion.
Reader. But whose fault is it if your assertions are so openly incongruous as not to bear discussion? Even your “empirical philosophy” is a myth. Are you not ashamed to appeal to a science which has no existence? Chemistry is empirical, and other parts of physics may be empirical; but empirical philosophy is nothing but a bombastic word without meaning, a fit conclusion to a chapter wherein you try to make the heavens bear witness against their Maker.
Reader. After the heavens you try to enlist the earth also among your witnesses against God. But what can the earth say in your favor?
Büchner. “The investigations of geology have thrown a highly interesting and important light on the history of the origin and gradual development of the earth. It was in the rocks and strata of the crust of the earth, and in the organic remains, that geologists read, as in an old chronicle, the history of the earth. In this history they found the plainest indications of several stupendous successive revolutions, now produced by fire, now by water, now by their combined action. These revolutions afforded, by the apparent suddenness and violence of their occurrence, a welcome pretext to orthodoxy to appeal to the existence of supernatural powers, which were to have caused these revolutions in order to render, by gradual transitions, the earth fit for certain purposes. This successive periodical creation is said to have been attended with a successive creation of new organic beings and species. The Bible, then, was right in relating that God had sent a deluge over the world to destroy a sinful generation. God with his own hands is said to have piled up mountains, planed the sea, created organisms, etc.” (p. 56).
Reader. And so he did. But mark that these Biblical expressions are metaphorical.
Büchner. “All these notions concerning a direct influence of supernatural or inexplicable forces have melted away before the age of modern science” (p. 57).
Reader. Melted away? Indeed? And how?
Büchner. “Like astronomy, which with mathematical certainty has measured the spaces of the heavens, so does modern geology, by taking a retrospective view of the [pg 838] millions of years which have passed, lift the veil which has so long concealed the history of the earth, and has given rise to all kinds of religious and mysterious dreams” (ibid.)
Reader. To call our views “religious and mysterious dreams” is no argument, doctor. We have a history of the earth far more certain than all your modern geology; and that portion of geology which is not fiction and charlatanism not only does not contradict, but rather completes and confirms, the Mosaic history.
Büchner. This is what I cannot admit. “It is now known that there can be no discussion about those periodic creations of the earth of which so much was said, and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify with the so-called days of creation of the Bible; but that the whole past of the earth is nothing but an unfolded present” (ibid.)
Reader. You say, “It is known.” No, sir, it is not known; it is only wished. You infidels pretend to know a great many things of which you are ignorant. If you know that geology refutes the Bible, how does it happen that you cannot impart to us such a knowledge in a rational manner—that is, by proving what you assert?
Büchner. “Geology, supported by the knowledge of surrounding nature and its governing forces, is enabled to trace the history of what has happened in infinite periods of time with approximating exactness, frequently with certainty. It has proved that everywhere and at all times only those material and natural forces were in activity by which we are at present surrounded” (p. 59).
Reader. This cannot be proved by geology.
Büchner. “Nowhere was a point reached when it was necessary to stop scientific investigation, and to substitute the influence of unknown forces” (ibid.)
Reader. Not even for the origin of life?
Büchner. “Everywhere it was possible to indicate or to conceive the possibility of visible effects from the combination of natural conditions; everywhere existed the same law and the same matter” (ibid.)
Reader. Of course. But this does not exclude the intervention of a superior cause.
Büchner. “An enlightened intellect no longer requires the aid of that powerful hand which, acting from without, excites the burning spirits of the interior of the earth to a sudden rebellion, which pours the waters as a deluge over the earth, and shapes for its designs the whole structure like soft clay” (p. 60.)
Reader. This is openly false. All enlightened intellects acknowledge that He who declared his intention of desolating Sodom by fire and the world by the Deluge must have had a hand in the fulfilment of his menace.
Büchner. This is your Bible history, which we reject.
Reader. But can you refute it?
Büchner. “How curious and whimsical is not the conception of a creative power, which conducts the earth and its inhabitants through various transitions and immense periods of time to a more developed form, in order to make it finally a fit dwelling-place for the most organized animal—man! Can an arbitrary and almighty power require such efforts to attain its object? Can it not immediately and without delay do and create what seems good to it? Why these roundabouts? The natural difficulties [pg 839] alone which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations of its parts can explain to us the peculiarity of the origin of the organic and inorganic world” (p. 60).
Reader. It is ridiculous to speak of “efforts” of the Almighty; for no one but a fool could dream of such an absurdity. Moreover, you confound creation with formation. By creation matter received existence immediately, without “roundabouts”; for creation is not movement, and therefore needs no time. This creation of matter was the work of God alone; but the formation of the earth was successively brought about, according to God's plan, through the exertion of the natural powers, which were not created to remain idle, but to carry on the objects intended by their Creator. Now, the exertion of natural powers could not give rise to a perfect order of things “immediately and without roundabouts.” Hence your argument is worthless; and it is worthless precisely on account of the “difficulties which matter meets with in the gradual combinations and formations” of complex things. But matter meets with a much greater difficulty, which you omit to mention. The difficulty is that matter does not know how to form a molecule of hydrogen; and yet there is hydrogen.
Büchner. It chanced to be formed by nature.
Reader. Indeed? Chance might form one molecule, or two, but could not form millions of millions of them all perfectly equal to one another, for chance excludes uniformity. Nor does it avail to say that their formation is the work of nature; for nature, according to you, is only matter, and consequently it cannot do more than matter itself is capable of doing.
Büchner. Science is still imperfect; we cannot as yet explain everything. But geologists refute the Bible as to the six days of creation. “The so-called coal formation alone required, according to Bischof, 1,004,177; according to Chevandier's calculation, 672,788 years. The tertiary strata, about 1,000 feet in thickness, required for their development about 350,000 years; and before the originally incandescent earth could cool down from a temperature of 2,000 degrees to 200, there must, according to Bischof's calculation, have elapsed a period of 350 millions of years. Volger finally calculates that the time requisite for the deposit of the strata known to us must at least have amounted to 648 millions of years! From these numbers we may form some notion as to the extent of these periods of time. They give us, moreover, another hint. The enormous distances in the universe which stagger our imagination, in combination with these almost unlimited periods of time, lead us to acknowledge that both time and space are infinite and eternal” (p. 61).
Reader. You are always the same. Your conclusion that time is infinite is pinned on the statement that the periods of geology are almost unlimited—that is, not altogether without limit. I need not show that such a rash conclusion is contradicted by your very calculations. And again, as to the geological periods themselves, their length does not clash with the six days of creation as described by the Bible. The word “day” is often used in the Bible to express a great interval of time, and may be interpreted as an “epoch,” or, as you say, a “period.” This is, in fact, the interpretation of the [pg 840] word now accepted by our writers when explaining the days of creation. Only our writers, more prudent than you, do not pretend to determine the length of those epochs or periods; for they do not indulge in wild calculations or imaginary data. When we see a difference of 331,389 years between the results of two calculations regarding the period of the coal formation, we may well suspend our judgment, and not commit ourselves by the premature choice of either opinion. But we admit the periods, nor are we afraid of identifying them with the days of creation. The Bible has nothing to fear from geology or any other science. We might, on the contrary, prove from geology the truth and divine inspiration of the Mosaic narrative. Moses was no geologist, and could not know the order of the events which took place before the creation of man, except by supernatural revelation. Now, in his cosmogony we observe not only the description of an order of events like that deduced from modern geology, but “a system in the arrangement, and a far-reaching prophecy,” as Prof. Dana well remarks,189 “to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.” You see, doctor, that your geological periods, instead of refuting the Bible, furnish us with a new argument in support of its divine origin. Have you anything to reply?
Büchner. Your explanation of the Bible is quite new.
Reader. Be it so. Our ancient doctors, however, knew very well that the word “day” in the Bible frequently means a great length of time. Had they known geology, they would have unanimously interpreted the six days as six great geological periods, just as we do.
Büchner. But I have still other arguments deduced from the primeval generations.
Reader. I am ready to meet them. But I really think it is scarcely worth the trouble to continue the discussion, as you have hitherto uniformly failed in every point you have tried to establish.
(To Be Continued).