N. J. Gates

“ To say that God was the first cause seems at first an easy solution, but it is only another way of saying we do not know, for we ask at once, "Had God a beginning? and if not, then for an infinite period of time he was alone, or else matter has been coeternal with him, and we come back to the Hindoo idea that God is the universe. Our conception of God must be the essence of our conception of eternity, and of that the finite mind can of necessity form no conception. There is a mathematical ratio between a second of time and a million million centuries ”

“ The reader will bear in mind that we are not discussing the facts of the creation, but the incompetency of the human mind to grasp the facts, whatever they may be. However humiliating, then, it may be to the pride of human intellect, we are forced to the conclusion that there is a vast field of thought, open to anxious inquiry it is true, over the gateway of whose entrance we may well inscribe, "The Unknowable." Somewhere within this vast field, from which the human intellect is excluded, lie absolute time and space, and all we call creation, or primary causation. ”

“ As conscious physical beings (we are not discussing the question of immortality) , the cradle and the grave meet in one mystery. It is the putting on and the putting off of consciousness; all that lies between we call life—finite, limited life. ”

“ There was a time, in the infantile development of every man, when he was as unconscious of all his higher functions as the passive oyster; but there came a time when, through the special senses, he began to take on thought, which is an impression made upon the brain by external action, and these impressions multiply and accumulate as we come more and more in contact with surrounding objects, until the accumulated thoughts are called knowledge; that is to say, the mind is evolved from without, and not from within. ”

“ All attempts to find the relation existing between first cause and any sequence or effect must utterly fail, for, as we have already seen, it is an effort of the mind to comprehend infinite conditions—to produce something from nothing. ”

“ Let us compare an animal as low in the scale of existence as an oyster with one of the highest known type, man, and note the points of agreement and the points of divergence. An oyster, like man, is evolved from a germ, advances to the climax of animal vigor, and then, like him, declines and dies. An oyster's life is conditioned by the elements in which he lives, and so is man's. An oyster, like man, is propagated by well-defined laws, and like him is subject to disease and premature decay. ”

“ To say that God, in his creative energy, was the first cause, is to say that all the conditions of creation preëxisted in him, and, if all the conditions and possibilities of creation preëxisted in God, creation itself preëxisted in him, and consequently had no beginning, for the conditions by which creation was alone made possible, and which were its foundation-stones, were certainly first causes, and, if God created them, he created himself, which is absurd. ”

“ Now, we insist that a well-defined line may be drawn between simple forces of the infinite order and a result growing out of the changed relation of one force to another—a difference between simple and resultant forces—the one constant and unvarying, the other forever changing. We may fashion metallic wheels and put them into certain relations to each other, and by employing weights or springs construct a clock that shall mark time in minutes or seconds, and by changing the relation of parts we may measure weeks or months, omitting to note the subdivisions, varying these results at pleasure ”

“ It is now time for science to define, in some way, the limitations of human knowledge, and thus confine all research strictly within the sphere of the knowable. Is it not safe to assume that the finite mind is so conditioned that it cannot possibly perceive or comprehend ultimate antecedent causes? ”

“ We trace them one by one from highly-involved conditions, through the less and less involved, until at last the simple force, divorced from all associated relations, is lost in the azure blue of the infinite—infinite in the space it may occupy—infinite in its duration—infinite in the diversity of effects that may arise from association with other simple forces, and finite or comprehensible alone in the duration of these conditions. ”

“ If, by dint of deepest research, we cannot analyze the subtile law that connects the molecular movement of the brain with thought, how can we analyze the thoughts of an Infinite mind of which this law was but a thought? ”

“ So far as the finite mind can reason, it is as impossible for God to create something from nothing as it is for us to prove that a whole is not greater than any of its parts, for it is a self-contradiction. ”

“ It is the futile attempt to explore this field that has brought philosophers and theologians alike into deserved contempt—the old folly of perpetual motion by the construction of a clock that shall wind up itself. ”

“ The difference between organic and inorganic conditions of existence is not a difference in the powers or properties of matter traceable to first causes, but to changed relations due to secondary causes; just as the movement of pieces upon the chess-board does not change the number or the power of the pieces, but, from their changed relations to each other, arise new and highly-complicated effects, that are perhaps never repeated in playing a million games. ”

“ In man the nervous organization is exceedingly complicated, and centres in a massive brain unparalleled in its activity; to this are added the special senses (probably entirely wanting in the oyster) , through which alone all knowledge comes to the mind. Now, we observe that all the inflexible laws that, in the same way, limit and govern these extremes of organic life, are of the infinite order, having their beginnings beyond the scope of the senses, while the differences are of the finite order and grow out of the relation of one thing to another ”

“ That is to say, we rise from the smallest phenomenon in Nature by slow gradations, connecting cause with effect, until we reach the highest phenomenon above Nature, and this we assume came into existence without cause, or in other words the source of all other powers is itself an underived power, and either created itself or was never created, either of which is unthinkable. ”

“ ALL human knowledge is limited—limited by the power of the senses, limited by the scope of the senses, limited by the imperfections of the senses. The eye cannot see an atom, because of its minuteness ”

“ Let us give a simple illustration to show how utterly incompetent is the finite mind to grasp the idea, of creation—we mean absolute creation. It must be conceded that matter has either had an eternal existence (whatever that may mean) , or it has been called into being—created by a Creator. But it may not have occurred to every one that to the finite rational mind the latter s idea is as incomprehensible as the former, for we cannot conceive of the creation of something out of nothing. "From nothing, nothing can come." The science of geometry is based upon axioms not more self-evident. ”

“ We have pains so slight that we never feel them, yet in their aggregate effect they may be fatal; and a fatal blow that shall at once strike down every nerve of sensation would produce as little conscious pain. ”

“ Consciousness cannot mark its own beginnings or endings; it can only realize intermediate stages. We have no consciousness of how or when we began to see, or feel, or think, and we will probably have as little as to their mode of termination. ”

“ In bringing the wheels together, and making all the adjustments, we create neither force nor quality—in separating them and breaking the connections, we destroy nothing. The same is true of all mechanism, and indeed of all organisms. ”

“ They are conditions expressed in universal laws to which the entire organic kingdom is subjected, and over which human agency has little or no control. Let us now turn to those higher qualities in man which are either entirely wanting in the oyster, or are of the most rudimentary nature.
The nervous structure of an oyster is so low that we can no more detect consciousness than we can detect the physical structure of an atom. ”

“ The difficulty does not lie so much in the vastness of the idea itself as in the seeming impossibilities the idea involves. It is like attempting to show the necessity for a sixth sense, by expressing this want or necessity in terms of the five senses we already possess ”