Few people have the reasoning tendency
sufficiently developed to follow out this view to its logical result in
Pantheism. Yet short of that, there is no really stable resting-place.
Let us glance, however, for a moment at the ordinary application of the
doctrine. The theologian agrees with the man of science in admitting
that we are governed by unalterable laws, or, as the man of science
prefers to say, that the world shows nothing but a series of invariable
sequences and co-existences. The difference is, in other words, that the
theologian puts a legislator behind the laws, whilst the man of science
sees nothing behind them but impenetrable mystery. The difference, so
far as any practical conclusions are concerned, is obviously nothing.
The laws of Nature, you tell us, are the work of infinite goodness and
wisdom. But we are utterly unable to say what infinite goodness and
wisdom would do, except by showing what it has done. Therefore, the
ultimate appeal of the theologian, is as unequivocally to the laws as
the primary appeal of the man of science. He has made a show of going to
a higher court only to be referred back again to the original tribunal.
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