Teleological argument

“ All teleological theories must therefore be confined within the limits of the Universe as it now exists. They are only admissible in the relation in which the several parts of the Universe stand to each other; but the purpose of the Universe as a whole cannot be accounted for. ”

“ In this connection we refer only to that kind of teleology which dominated the world previous to the teachings of Descartes and Spinoza, and previous to the advent of modern natural science, with its biological methods. Whether, after all, a theory of life might be possible which, while avoiding the reproach of superstition, might be traced to teleological prepossessions, is a question we can not here discuss. ”

“ From the fact of arrangement in accordance with an end, we reason to the existence of its author, who has established the teleology of the relations. We cannot therefore infer the existence of anything more than what, so far as content is concerned, is actually given in presently existing things, and is in conformity with the starting-point. The teleological arrangement strikes us as wonderfully grand, as one of supreme excellence and wisdom; but a wisdom which is very great and worthy of admiration is not yet absolute wisdom. ”

“ And yet we must not forget that the teleological attitudes, to become a teleological science, must be also logically reconstructed, as they must be teleologically connected, and thus in this way the totality of purpose-sciences might be, too, logically subordinated to the science of logic. ”

“ The teleological and the mechanical views of nature, are not necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe. ”

“ If we cannot predicate an anthropomorphic teleological mind at the beginning of things, nevertheless a teleology appears to be involved in biological developments and requires a naturalistic explanation. ”

“ Such imaginary lines of demarcation between earth and heavens were forever swept away by Newton, and the recent work of spectrum analysis simply completes the demonstration that the remotest bodies which the photographic telescope can disclose are truly part and parcel of the dynamic world in which we live. ”

“ On the other hand, if the teleologist assert that this, that, or the other result of the working of any part of the mechanism of the universe is its purpose and final cause, the mechanist can always inquire how he knows that it is more than an unessential incident—the mere ticking of the clock, which he mistakes for its function. ”

“ The science of our own time tells us a still stranger story. There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest, she says, but in his motion throbs like a mighty heart, still pulsating life to the worlds which circle round it. But while our powers of vision are limited to the narrow range of our present telescopes, we cannot watch the action of these great centres of energy, nor can we hope that the uproar of those remote fires will ever reach mortal ears, though to the mind's ear clear and distinct. ”

“ The belief, long persisting among the priest-scientists, that there were human beings on the earth, known to them as the Blue Sphere, as intelligent as themselves, it was perfectly natural that they should begin at once to try and contact, by wireless, the planet from which they had caught the beam of light.
For some reason or other, not made clear, they had failed. Perhaps their signaling was mistaken for static on our radios, and was unrecognizable among the weird chattering and apparitions, which scientists claim are caused by the auroras and echoes of radio signals sent from the earth. ”

“ Such, then, are the magnitudes and distances which the godlike human intellect has undertaken to determine. And still art vies with science to fashion lenses that shall gather at their focus still more and more of that luminous intelligence that discloses to the mind of man the secrets of the outside universe. But as the space-penetrating power of the telescope is increased, and the bright spots of light are resolved into groups of brilliant stars, more nebulous haze comes up from the deep distance, indicating that the visual ray is not yet long enough to fathom the mighty depths. ”

“ It will have to be no less than 6,000 miles long, and our 100,000,000 oranges will stretch in a straight line from England to China.
One hundred million stars, and of all these God is King. But these are but as a speck compared with His vast universe. Each telescope that is invented, which enables us to see a little further into space, discovers more and more worlds unseen before. Who can even guess how many still lie beyond, unseen, unnoticed, unheard of? The regions of space are endless, as God their Maker is endless. ”

“ And whilst succeeding astronomers have for the most part been content to follow Newton's example, the science has, nevertheless, advanced in a steady and continuous progression. So the conception of telepathy simply colligates the observed facts of spontaneous and experimental thought-transference, as instances of the action of one mind upon another. The nature of the action the theory does not discuss ”

“ By its aid we obtain a sensible demonstration that space is boundless—that the universe is replenished with innumerable suns and worlds—that the remotest regions of immensity, immeasurably beyond the limits of unassisted vision, display the energies of Creating Power, and that the Empire of the Creator extends far beyond what eye hath seen or the human imagination can conceive.
The telescope is an instrument of a much more wonderful nature than what most people are apt to imagine. ”

“ With equal justice might an astronomer be accused of asserting that the works of creation extended throughout infinite space, because he refuses to take for granted that the remotest stars now seen in the heavens are on the utmost verge of the material universe. Every improvement of the telescope has brought thousands of new worlds into view; and it would, therefore, be rash and unphilosophical to imagine that we already survey the whole extent of the vast scheme, or that it will ever be brought within the sphere of human observation. ”

“ Now it is this unity in the universe that scientists are everywhere affirming. This is the new note in science, and it is only one aspect of this truth to realize that wireless telegraphy and telepathy are both manifestations of the same principle,—that of setting up a magnetic disturbance in the ether, by utilizing the electricity in etheric currents. Thought is the most potent form of energy, and given the conditions of a certain rapport between two minds, and the result is the same as that discerned and verified by Marconi, in setting up two instruments that are attuned to each other. ”

“ On being viewed through a telescope, it resolves into distinct stars, and we thus catch a glimpse of an interminable range of systems upon systems, and firmaments upon firmaments; and, in contemplating the immensity of space that encircles them, the imagination becomes bewildered and lost. ”

“ The Copernican theory proving that our world is not, as was long believed, the centre of the universe, but a single planet moving with many others around a central sun, and the discovery, by the instrumentality of [Pg 199] the telescope, of the infinitesimally small place which our globe occupies in the universe, altered men's measure of probability and affected widely, though indirectly, their theological beliefs. ”

“ Thus has man applied his scale to the motions of an element, that literally leaps from world to world in the twinkling of an eye. This is one example of the great power which the invention of the telescope conferred on man.
Could we plant ourselves on the surface of this vast planet, we should see the same starry firmament expanding over our heads as we see now; and the same would be true if we could fly from one planetary world to another, until we made the circuit of them all; but the sun and the planetary system would present themselves to us under new and strange aspects. ”

“ But that knowledge, if we gained it, we must bring back ourselves, since there was no method of communication from our space-flier to Earth, the well-known "Heaviside layer" surrounding Earth being impenetrable to all radio and communication vibrations and making such communication impossible. ”

“ Nor is it likening great things to small when we compare the nebular hypothesis, or the theory of evolution, conceptions which have educated an age and vastly enlarged the boundary of human thought, to the theory of telepathy and the fact and power of the subliminal self. For if it was important that men should know the laws governing inanimate matter, to comprehend the orbits and motions of the planets ”

“ The difficulty becomes insuperable when we reflect that on the parallelistic view the physical series must be rigidly mechanical, as otherwise we shall have a breach with those mechanical postulates which are supposed to require the exclusion of psychical states from the determining conditions of physical occurrences. Thus, if teleology is to be recognised anywhere in our scientific constructions, it must be in our conception of the psychical series. ”

“ And the earth itself, hitherto seemingly the privileged centre of a very limited universe, was, after all, but an atom in an infinite world of starry space, then lately divined by candid intelligence, which the telescope was one day to present to bodily eyes. ”

“ It had long been my belief that human thought consists basically of atomic or molecular motion, convertible into ether waves of radiant energy like heat, light, and electricity. This belief had early led me to contemplate the possibility of telepathy or mental communication by means of suitable apparatus, and I had in my college days prepared a set of transmitting and receiving instruments somewhat similar to the cumbrous devices employed in wireless telegraphy at that crude, pre-radio period. ”

“ The fruitless search after final causes leads their pursuers a long way; but even those hardy teleologists, who are ready to break through all the laws of physics in chase of their favourite will-o’-the-wisp, may be puzzled to discover what purpose could be attained by the stunted legs of Seth Wright’s ram or the hexadactyle members of Gratio Kelleia. ”

“ Thus: the physical explanation, which is the symbolization of the world by means of feeling and thought, cannot in itself make feeling and thinking originate again and show its derivation: physics must rather construct the world of feeling, consistently without feeling or purpose right up to the highest man. And teleology is only a history of purposes , and is never physical. ”

“ The ether-waves employed in wireless telegraphy are physical pulses which obey the law of inverse squares; telepathy shows no conformity with that law, and has not been shown to be an affair of physical waves at all. I believe that it is not a physical process; that it occurs in the spiritual world, between mind and mind, not primarily between brain and brain. And, if so—if mind can communicate with mind independently of brain—the theory of materialism at least is exploded. If mind can act independently of brain, mind may go on existing after brain dies. ”

“ So true it is that on our planet the best intentions are often mixed up with a few grains of folly.
After steam, the electric light and the telegraph and the telephone, the discovery of unmistakable signs of the existence of humanity inhabiting another region of our solar archipelago, would that not be the most marvellous apotheosis of the scientific glory of the twentieth century? And cannot wireless telegraphy be some day applied to this problem? Electro-magnetism is an immense invisible world still insufficiently explored. ”

“ Are we entitled to suppose that the part of the universe accessible to our telescopes is fairly typical of the other parts of the universe, or are we to believe that the system we know is altogether exceptional; that there are stars in other parts quite unlike our stars, composed of different materials, acted upon by different laws, of which we have no conception? The presumption is that the materials of which our system is composed are representative of the materials elsewhere. ”

“ While there is no distinction of space in true telepathy, still in experiments such as I shall now describe, the physical nearness of the projector enables him to concentrate more forcibly, and also gives confidence to the new beginner in receiving mind-currents. The benefit is solely that of the psychological effect upon the minds of the two persons, and has nothing to do with the actual power of the telepathic waves. It is much easier for a person to concentrate his thought and will upon a person in actual physical sight before him, than upon one out of sight. ”

“ To be sure, our telescopes bring us data from stars that are so far away the human race will never reach them—but is not our telescope a "screen" that brings us only the one-inch rocks?
There may be and probably is a vast realm of reality co-existent with the reality we know, right around us; but it is "screened" from us. It may be possible that we know less than ten percent of actual reality around us due to the screening of our senses and our instruments that blocks completely, or permits to pass completely, every energy pattern that can't pass through the "holes" of our "screen." ”

“ But to predict in the solitude of the study, with no weapons other than pen, ink, and paper, an unknown and enormously distant world, to calculate its orbit when as yet it had never been seen, and to be able to say to a practical astronomer, "Point your telescope in such a direction at such a time, and you will see a new planet hitherto unknown to man"—this must always appeal to the imagination with dramatic intensity, and must awaken some interest in almost the dullest. ”