The Reign of Causality; A Vindication of the Scientific Principle of Telic Casual Efficiency

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ...regard for accuracy of thought or speech. No unprejudiced intelligence can survey the heavens in all the magnificence of their marshalled array, and in all the matchless orderliness of their mighty evolutions, without ascribing to that First Cause, which both Atheists and Agnostics recognise, the possession of a wisdom and a power, before which the mightiest finite intellects should bow with holy reverence and sacred awe. The Agnostic attitude toward such a cause is as unscientific as it is profane. The theist, however, is not restricted to the science of Astronomy in adducing arguments to demonstrate the essential nature of this Ultimate Cause. There is not a single department of science from which he may not draw verdicts in condemnation of the Agnostic doctrine. The whole realm of nature, whether organic or inorganic, stands ready for his summons, and eager to appear at the bar of human Reason, to bear testimony to the intelligence, goodness, will, and power of its originating Cause. Surely it is not too much to claim that the Cause of earth's flora must understand botany, or that the Cause of earth's fauna must understand zoology and physiology, or that the Cause of moral agents must understand ethics, or that the cause of earth's philosophers and scientists must be "the Light which lighteneth every man that cometh into-the world." He who acknowledges that there exists an Ultimate Cause to which all these marvellous phenomena, not only may, but must, be referred, and yet pronounces its nature inscrutable, must stand rebuked and silenced in the presence of such testimony. Shall the Cause that planted the ear, not hear? Shall the Cause that formed the eye, not see? Shall the Cause which teacheth man knowledge, not know? In the domain of actual...