 Preface to Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Preface. Pamphilus to Hermipus. It has been remarked by Hermipus that though the ancient philosophers conveyed most of their instruction in the form of dialogue, this method of composition has been little practiced in later ages, and has seldom succeeded in the hands of those who have attempted it. Accurate and regular argument, indeed, such as is now expected of philosophical inquirers, naturally throws a man into the methodical and didactic manner, where he can immediately without preparation explain the point at which he aims, and then proceed without interruption to deduce the proofs on which it is established. To deliver a system in conversation scarcely appears natural, and while the dialogue writer desires by departing from the direct style of composition to give a freer air to his performance and avoid the appearance of author and reader, he is apt to run into a worse inconvenience and convey the image of pedagogue and pupil. Or if he carries on the dispute in the natural spirit of good company, by throwing in a variety of topics and preserving a proper balance among the speakers, he often loses so much time in preparations and transitions that the reader will scarcely think himself compensated by all the graces of dialogue for the order, brevity, and precision which are sacrificed to them. There are some subjects, however, to which dialogue writing is peculiarly adapted, and where it is still preferable to the direct and simple method of composition. Any point of doctrine, which is so obvious that it scarcely admits of dispute, but at the same time so important that it cannot be too often inculcated, seems to require some such method of handling it, where the novelty of the manner may compensate the triteness of the subject, where the vivacity of conversation may enforce the precept, and where the variety of lights presented by various personages and characters may appear neither tedious nor redundant. Any question of philosophy, on the other hand, which is so obscure and uncertain that human reason can reach no fixed determination with regard to it, if it should be treated at all, seems to lead us naturally into the style of dialogue and conversation. Simple man may be allowed to differ, where no one can reasonably be positive. Opposite sentiments, even without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement, and if the subject be curious and interesting, the book carries us, in a manner, into company, and unites the two greatest and purest pleasures of human life, study and society. Happily these circumstances are all to be found in the subject of natural religion. What truth so obvious, so certain, as the being of a God, which of the most ignorant ages have acknowledged, for which of the most refined geniuses have ambitiously striven to produce new proofs and arguments? What truth so important as this, which is the ground of all our hopes, the surest foundation of morality, the firmest support of society, and the only principle which ought never to be a moment absent from our thoughts and meditations? But in treating of this obvious and important truth, what obscure questions occur concerning the nature of that divine being, his attributes, his decrees, his plan of providence? These have always been subjected to the disputations of men, concerning these human reason has not reached any certain determination. But these are topics so interesting that we cannot restrain our restless inquiry with regard to them, though nothing but doubt, uncertainty, and contradiction have as yet been the result of our most accurate researches. This I had lately occasioned to observe, while I passed, as usual, part of the summer season with Cleantheys, and was present at those conversations of his with Philo and Demia, of which I gave you lately some imperfect account. Your curiosity, you then told me, was so excited that I must of necessity enter into a more exact detail of their reasonings, and displayed those various systems which they advanced with regard to so delicate a subject as that of natural religion. The remarkable contrast in their characters still further raised your expectations, while you opposed the accurate philosophical turn of Cleantheys to the careless skepticism of Philo, or compared either of their dispositions with the rigid and flexible orthodoxy of Demia. My youth rendered me a mere auditor of their disputes, and that curiosity, natural to the early season of life, as so deeply imprinted in my memory the whole chain and connection of their arguments, that I hope I shall not omit or confound any considerable part of them in the recital. End of Preface to Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume Part 1 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume Part 1 After I joined the company whom I found sitting in Cleantheys library, Demia paid Cleantheys some compliments on the great care which he took of my education, and on his unwary perseverance and constancy in all his friendships. The father of Pamphilus, said he, was your intimate friend, the son is your pupil, and may indeed be regarded as your adopted son. Were we to judge by the pains which you bestow in conveying to him every useful branch of literature and science? You are no more wanting I am persuaded in prudence than in industry. I shall therefore communicate to you a maxim, which I have observed with regard to my own children, that I may learn how far it agrees with your practice. The method I follow in their education is founded on the saying of an ancient, that students of philosophy ought first to learn logics, then ethics, next physics, last of all the nature of the gods. This science of natural theology, according to him, being the most profound and obstruous of any, required the maturest judgment in its students, and nothing but a mind enriched with all the other sciences, can safely be entrusted with it. Are you so late, says Philo, in teaching your children the principles of religion? Is there no danger of their neglecting, or rejecting altogether, those opinions of which they have heard so little during the whole course of their education? It is only as a science, replied Demia, subjected to human reasoning and disputation, that I postpone the study of natural theology. To season their minds with early piety is my chief care, and by continual precept in instruction, and I hope to, by example, I imprint deeply on their tender minds an habitual reverence for all the principles of religion. While they pass through every other science, I still remark the uncertainty of each part, the eternal disputations of men, the obscurity of all philosophy, and the strange, ridiculous conclusions which some of the greatest geniuses have derived from the principles of mere human reason. Having thus tamed their mind to a proper submission and self-difference, I have no longer any scruple of opening to them the greatest mysteries of religion, nor apprehend any danger from that assuming arrogance of philosophy which may lead them to reject the most established doctrines and opinions. Your precaution, says Philo, of seasoning your children's minds early with piety is certainly very reasonable, and no more than is requisite in this profane and irreligious age. But what I chiefly admire in your plan of education is your method of drawing advantage from the very principles of philosophy and learning which, by inspiring pride and self-sufficiency, have commonly in all ages been found so destructive to the principles of religion. The vulgar, indeed, we may remark, who are unacquainted with science and profound inquiry, observing the endless disputes of the learned, have commonly a thorough contempt for philosophy, and rivet themselves the faster, by that means, in the great points of theology which have been taught them. Those who enter a little into study and inquiry, finding many appearances of evidence in doctrines the newest and most extraordinary, think nothing too difficult for human reason, and presumptuously breaking through all fences, profane the inmost sanctuaries of the temple. But, Clanthe's will, I hope, agree with me, that after we have abandoned ignorance, the surest remedy, there is still one expedient left to prevent this profane liberty. Let Demia's principles be improved and cultivated. Let us become thoroughly sensible of the weakness, blindness, and narrow limits of human reason. Let us duly consider its uncertainty and endless contrarieties, even in subjects of common life and practice. Let the errors and deceits of our very senses be set before us, the insuperable difficulties which attend first principles in all systems, the contradictions which adhere to the very ideas of matter, cause and effect, extension, space, time, and motion, and in a word, quantity of all kinds, the object of the only science that can fairly pretend to any certainty your evidence. When these topics are displayed in their full light, as they are by some philosophers, and almost all divines, who can retain such confidence in this frail faculty of reason, as to pay any regard to its determinations in points so sublime, so obstruous, so remote from common life and experience? When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended, when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory, with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity? While Philo pronounced these words, I could observe a smile in the countenance both of Demia and Cleanthes. That of Demia seemed to imply an unreserved satisfaction in the doctrines delivered. But in Cleanthes' features I could distinguish an air of finesse, as if he perceived some railery or artificial malice in the reasonings of Philo. You propose, then, Philo, said Cleanthes, to erect religious faith on philosophical skepticism, and you think that if certainty or evidence be expelled from every other subject of inquiry, it will all retire to these theological doctrines, and they require a superior force and authority. Whether your skepticism be as absolute and sincere as you pretend, we shall earn by and by when the company breaks up. We shall then see whether you go out at the door or the window, and whether you really doubt if your body has gravity, or can be injured by its fall, according to popular opinion derived from our fallacious senses and more fallacious experience. In this consideration Demia may, I think, fairly serve to abate our ill-will to this humorous sect of the skeptics. If they be thoroughly in earnest, they will not long trouble the world with their doubts, cavals, and disputes. If they be only in jests, they are perhaps bad railers, but they can never be very dangerous, either to the state, to philosophy, or to religion. In reality Philo, continued he, it seems certain that though a man in a flush of humor, after intense reflection on the many contradictions and imperfections of human reason, may entirely renounce all belief and opinion, it is impossible for him to persevere in this total skepticism, or make it appear in his conduct for a few hours. External objects press in upon him, passions solicit him. His philosophical melancholy dissipates, and even the utmost violence upon his own temper will not be able, during any time, to preserve the poor appearance of skepticism. And for what reason impose on himself such a violence? This is a point in which it will be impossible for him ever to satisfy himself, consistently with his skeptical principles. So that, upon the whole, nothing could be more ridiculous than the principles of the ancient Peronians, if in reality they endeavored, as as pretended, to extend throughout the same skepticism which they had learned from the declamations of their schools, and which they ought to have confined to them. In this view there appears a great resemblance between the sects of the Stoics and the Peronians, though perpetual antagonists. And both of them seem founded on this erroneous maxim, that what a man can perform sometimes and in some dispositions he can perform always, and in every disposition. When the mind by stoical reflections is elevated into a sublime enthusiasm of virtue, and strongly smitten with any species of honor or public good, the utmost bodily pain and sufferings will not prevail over such a high sense of duty, and it is possible perhaps by its means, even to smile and exult in the midst of tortures. If this sometimes may be the case in fact in reality, much more may a philosopher in his school, or even in his closet, work himself up to such an enthusiasm, in support in imagination, the acutist pain or most calamitous event which he can possibly conceive. But how shall he support this enthusiasm itself? The bent of his mind relaxes and cannot be recalled at pleasure, avocations lead him astray, misfortunes attack him unawares, and the philosopher sinks by degrees into the plebeian. I allow of your comparison between the Stoics and the Skeptics, replied Philo, but you may observe at the same time that though the mind cannot in stoicism support the highest flights of philosophy, yet even when it sinks lower, it still retains somewhat of its former disposition, and the effects of the Stoics' reasonings will appear in his conduct in common life and through the whole tenor of his actions. The ancient schools, particularly that of Zeno, produced examples of virtue and constancy which seem astonishing to present times. Quote, vain wisdom all and false philosophy, yet with the pleasing sorcery could charm, pain for a while or anguish and excite, fallacious hope or arm the obdurate breast with stubborn patience as with triple steel. In like manner, if a man has accustomed himself to skeptical considerations on the uncertainty and narrow limits of reason, he'll not entirely forget them when he turns his reflection on other subjects. But in all his philosophical principles and reasoning, I dare not say in his common conduct he'll be different from those who either never formed any opinions in the case or have entertained sentiments more favorable to human reason. To whatever length anyone may push his speculative principles of skepticism he must act, I own, and live, and converse, like other men, and for this conduct he is not obliged to give any other reason than the absolute necessity he lies under of so doing. If he ever carries his speculations further than this necessity constrains him, and philosophizes either on natural or moral subjects, he is alert by a certain pleasure and satisfaction which he finds in employing himself after that manner. He considers besides that everyone, even in common life, is constrained to have more or less of this philosophy, that from our earliest infancy we make continual advances in forming more general principles of conduct and reasoning, that the larger experience we acquire, and the stronger reason we are endued with, we always render our principles the more general and comprehensive, and that what we call philosophy is nothing but a more regular and methodical operation of the same kind. To philosophize on such subjects is nothing essentially different from reasoning on common life, and we may only expect greater stability, if not greater truth, from our philosophy on account of its exacter and more scrupulous method of proceeding. But when we look beyond human affairs and the properties of the surrounding bodies, when we carry our speculations into the two eternities, before and after the present state of things, into the creation and formation of the universe, the existence and properties of spirits, the powers and operations of one universal spirit existing without beginning and without end, omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, infinite, and incomprehensible, we must be far removed from the smallest tendency to skepticism not to be apprehensive, that we have got here quite beyond the reach of our faculties. So long as we can find our speculations to trade or morals or politics or criticism, we make appeals every moment to common sense and experience, which strengthen our philosophical conclusions, and remove at least in part the suspicion which we so justly entertain, with regard to every reasoning that is very subtle and refined. But in theological reasonings we have not this advantage, while at the same time we are employed upon objects which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp, and of all others require most to be familiarized to our apprehension. We are like foreigners in the strange country, to whom everything must seem suspicious, and who are in danger every moment of transgressing against the laws and customs of the people with whom they live and converse. We know not how far we ought to trust our vulgar methods of reasoning in such a subject, since even in common life and in that province which is peculiarly appropriated to them, we cannot account for them, and are entirely guided by a kind of instinct or necessity in employing them. All skeptics pretend that if reason be considered in an abstract view, it furnishes invincible arguments against itself, and that we can never retain any conviction or assurance on any subject, or not the skeptical reasoning so refined and subtle that they are not able to counter-poise the more solid and natural arguments derived from senses and experience. But it is evident, whenever our arguments lose this advantage, and run wide of common life, that the most refined skepticism comes to be upon a footing with them, and is able to oppose and counterbalance them. The one has no more weight than the other. The mind must remain in suspense between them, and it is that very suspense or balance which is the triumph of skepticism. But I observe, says Cleanthes, with regard to you, Philo, and all speculative skeptics, that your doctrine and practice are as much at variance in the most obstruous points of theory as in the conduct of common life. Wherever evidence discovers itself, you adhere to it, notwithstanding your pretended skepticism. And that can observe, too, some of your sect to be as decisive as those who make greater professions of certainty and assurance. In reality, would not a man be ridiculous, who pretended to reject Newton's explication of the wonderful phenomenon of the rainbow because that explanation gives a minute anatomy of the rays of light, a subject for sooth to refine for human comprehension? And what would you say to one who, having nothing particular to object to the arguments of Copernicus and Galileo for the motion of the earth, should withhold as a scent on that general principle that these subjects are too magnificent and remote to be explained by the narrow and fallacious reason of mankind? There is indeed a kind of brutish and ignorant skepticism, as you well observed, which gives the vulgar a general prejudice against what they do not easily understand, and makes them reject every principle which requires elaborate reasoning to prove and establish it. This species of skepticism is fatal to knowledge, not to religion, since we find that those who make the greatest profession of it give often their assent not only to the great truths of theism and natural theology, but even to the most absurd tenets which a traditional superstition has recommended to them. They firmly believe in witches, though they will not believe nor attend to the most simple proposition of Euclid. But the refined and philosophical skeptics fall into an inconsistence of an opposite nature. They push their researches into the most abstruse corners of science, and their assent attends them in every step, proportion to the evidence which they meet with. They are even obliged to acknowledge that the most abstruse and remote objects are those which are best explained by philosophy. Light is in reality anatomized. The true system of the heavenly bodies is discovered and ascertained. But the nourishment of the bodies by food is still an inexplicable mystery. The cohesion of the parts of matter is still incomprehensible. These skeptics, therefore, are obliged, in every question, to consider each particular evidence apart, and proportion their assent to the precise degree of evidence which occurs. This is their practice in all natural, mathematical, moral, and political science. And why not the same, I ask, in the theological and religious? Why must conclusions of this nature be alone rejected on the general presumption of the insufficiency of human reason, without any particular discussion of the evidence? Is not such an unequal conduct at plain proof of prejudice and passion? Our senses, you say, are fallacious, our understanding erroneous, our ideas, even of the most familiar objects, extension, duration, motion, full of absurdities and contradictions. You defy me to solve the difficulties, or reconcile the repugnancies which you discover in them. I have not capacity for so great an undertaking. I have not leisure for it. I perceive it to be superfluous. Your own conduct, in every circumstance, refutes your principles, and shows the firmest reliance in all the received maxims of science, morals, prudence, and behavior. I shall never assent to so harsh an opinion as that of a celebrated writer, who says that the skeptics are not a sect of philosophers, they are only a sect of liars. I may, however, affirm, I hope without offense, that they are a sect of gestures or railers. But for my part, whenever I find myself disposed to mirth and amusement, I shall certainly choose my entertainment of a less perplexing and abstruse nature. A comedy, a novel, or at most a history, seems a more natural recreation than such metaphysical subtleties and abstractions. In vain would the skeptic make a distinction between science and common life, or between one science and another. The arguments employed in all, if just, are of a similar nature, and contain the same force and evidence. Or if there be any difference among them, the advantage lies entirely on the side of theology and natural religion. Many principles of mechanics are founded on very abstruse reasoning, yet no man who has any pretensions to science, even though speculative skeptic, pretends to entertain the least doubt with regard to them. The Copernican system contains the most surprising paradox, and the most contrary to our natural conceptions, to appearances, and to our various senses, yet even monks and inquisitors are now constrained to withdraw their opposition to it. And shall Philo, a man of so liberal a genius and extensive knowledge, entertain any general undistinguished scruples with regard to the religious hypothesis, which is founded on the simplest and most obvious arguments, and, unless it meets of artificial obstacles, has such easy access and admission into the mind of man? And here we may observe, continued he, turning himself towards Demia, a pretty curious circumstance in the history of the sciences. After the union of philosophy with the popular religion, upon the first establishment of Christianity, nothing was more usual among all religious teachers than declamations against reason, against the senses, against every principle derived merely from human research and inquiry. All the topics of the ancient academics were adopted by the fathers, and then propagated for several ages in every school and pulpit throughout Christendom. The reformers embraced the same principles of reasoning, or rather, declamation, and all panagerics on the excellency of faith were sure to be interlarded with some severe strokes of satire against natural reason. A celebrated prelate, too, of the Romish Communion, a man of the most extensive learning, who wrote a demonstration of Christianity, has also composed a treatise which contains all the cavals of the boldest and most determined Peronism. Locke seems to have been the first Christian who ventured openly to assert that faith was nothing but a species of reason, that religion was only a branch of philosophy, and that a chain of arguments similar to that which established any truth in morals, politics, or physics was always employed in discovering other principles of theology, natural and revealed. The ill use which Bale and other libertines made of the philosophical skepticism of the fathers and first reformers still further propagated the judicious sentiment of Mr. Locke, when it is now in a manner avowed by all pretenders to reasoning and philosophy, that atheists and skeptics are almost anonymous. And as it is certain that no man is in earnest when he professes the latter principle, I would faint hope that there are as few who seriously maintain the former. Don't you remember, said Philo, the excellent saying of Lord Bacon on this head, that a little philosophy, replied Clanthys, makes a man an atheist, a great deal converts him to religion? That is a very judicious remark, too, said Philo. But what I have in my eye is another passage, where having mentioned David's fool, who said in his heart there is no God, this great philosopher observes that the atheists nowadays have a double share of folly, for they are not contented to say in their hearts there is no God, but they also utter that impiety with their lips, and are thereby guilty of multiplied indiscretion and imprudence. Such people, though they were ever so much an earnest, cannot, me thinks, be very formidable. But though you should rank me in this class of fools, I cannot forbear communicating a remark that occurs to me, from the history of the religious and irreligious skepticism with which you have entertained us. It appears to me that there are strong symptoms of priestcraft and the whole progress of this affair. During ignorant ages, such as those which followed the dissolution of the ancient schools, the priests perceived that atheism, deism, or heresy of any kind could only proceed from the presumptuous questioning of received opinions, and from a belief that human reason was equal to everything. Education had then a mighty influence over the minds of men, and was almost equal and forced to the suggestions of the senses and common understanding by which the most determined skeptic must allow himself to be governed. But at present, when the influence of education is much diminished, and men from a more open commerce of the world have learned to compare the popular principles of different nations and ages, our sagacious divines have changed their whole system of philosophy and talked the language of stoics, plateness, and parapetetics, not that of Peronians and academics. If we distrust human reason, we now have no other principle to lead us into religion. Thus skeptics in one age, dogmatists in another. Whichever system best suits the purpose of these reverend gentlemen, and giving them an ascendant over mankind, they are sure to make it their favorite principle, an established tenant. It is very natural, said Cleanthes, for men to embrace those principles by which they find they can best defend their doctrines, nor need we have any recourse to priestcraft to account for so reasonable an expedient. And surely nothing can afford a stronger presumption that any set of principles are true, not to be embraced, than to observe that they tend to the confirmation of true religion, and serve to confound the cavals of atheists, libertines, and free thinkers of all denominations. End of Part 1 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. Part 2 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 2. I must own, Cleanthes, said Demia, that nothing can more surprise me than the light in which you have all along put this argument. By the whole tenor of your discourse, one would imagine that you were maintaining the being of a god against the cavals of atheists and infidels, and were necessitated to become a champion for that fundamental principle of all religion. But this, I hope, is not by any means a question among us. No man, no man at least of common sense, I am persuaded, ever entertained a serious doubt with regard to a truth so certain and self-evident. The question is not concerning the being, but the nature of God. This I affirm from the infirmities of human understanding, to be altogether incomprehensible and unknown to us. The essence of that supreme mind is attributes, the manner of his existence, the very nature of his duration, these and every particular which regards so divine a being, are mysterious to men. Finite weak and blind creatures, we ought to humble ourselves in his august presence, in conscious of our frailties, adore and silence his infinite perfections, which I hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. They are covered in a deep cloud from human curiosity. Is profaneness to attempt penetrating through these sacred obscurities? And next to the impiety of denying his existence, is the temerity of prying into his nature in essence, decrees and attributes. The less you should think that my piety has here got the better of my philosophy, I shall support my opinion, if it needs any support, by a very great authority. I might cite all the divines, almost, from the foundation of Christianity, who have ever treated of this or any other theological subject. But I shall confine myself at present to one equally celebrated for piety and philosophy. It is Father Malbranche, who, I remember, thus expresses himself. Quote, One ought not so much, says he, to call God a spirit in order to express positively what he is, as in order to signify that he is not matter. He is a being infinitely perfect, of this we cannot doubt, but in the same manner as we ought not to imagine, even supposing incorporeal, that he is clothed with a human body, as the anthropomorphites asserted, under color that that figure was the most perfect of any. So neither ought we to imagine that the spirit of God has human ideas, or bears any resemblance to our spirit, under color that we know nothing more perfect than a human mind. We ought rather to believe that as he comprehends the perfections of matter without being material, he comprehends also the perfections of created spirits without being spirit, in the manner that we conceive spirit, that his true name is, he that is, or in other words, being without restriction, all being, the being infinite and universal. After so great an authority to me replied Philo, as that which you have produced, and a thousand more which you might produce, it would appear ridiculous in me to add my sentiment, or express my approbation of your doctrine. But surely where reasonable men treat these subjects, the question can never be concerning the being, but only the nature of the deity. The former truth, as you well observe, is unquestionable and self-evident. Nothing exists without a cause, and the original cause of this universe, whatever it be, we call God, and piously ascribe to him every species of perfection. Whoever scruples this fundamental truth deserves every punishment which can be afflicted among philosophers, to wit the greatest ridicule, contempt, and disapprobation. But as all perfection is entirely relative, we ought never to imagine that we comprehend the attributes of this divine being, or to suppose that his perfections have any analogy or likeness to the perfections of a human creature. Wisdom, thought, design, knowledge, these we justly ascribe to him, because these words are honorable among men, and we have no other language or other conceptions by which we can express our adoration of him. But let us beware lest we think that our ideas anywise correspond to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these qualities among men. He is infinitely superior to our limited view and comprehension, and is more the object of worship in the temple than of disputation in the schools. In reality, Clanthes continued he, there is no need of having recourse to that effected skepticism so displeasing to you, in order to come at this determination. Our ideas reach no further than our experience, we have no experience of divine attributes and operations. I need not conclude my syllogism, you can draw the inference yourself. And it is a pleasure to me, and I hope to you too, that just reasoning and sound piety here concur in the same conclusion, and both of them establish the adorably mysterious and incomprehensible nature of the Supreme Being. Not to lose any time in circumlocutions, said Clanthes, addressing himself to Demia, much less than replying to the pious declamations of Philo, I shall briefly explain how I conceived this matter. Look round the world, contemplate the whole and every part of it, you will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other, with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance, of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Thus therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble, and that the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence. I shall be so free, Cleantheys, said Demia, as to tell you that from the beginning I could not approve of your conclusion concerning the similarity of the deity to men. Still less can I approve of the mediums by which you endeavor to establish it. What, no demonstration of the being of God, no abstract arguments, no proofs a priori, are these which have hitherto been so much insisted on by philosophers, all fallacy, all sophism? Can we reach no further in this subject than experience and probability? I will not say that this is betraying the cause of a deity, but surely by this effected candor you give advantages to atheists, which they could never obtain by the mere dent of argument and reasoning. What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said Philo, is not so much that all religious arguments are by Cleantheys reduced to experience, as that they appear not to be even the most certain and irrefutable of that inferior kind. That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a thousand times, and when any new instance of this nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the accustomed inference. The exact similarity of the cases gives us a perfect assurance of a similar event, and a stronger evidence is never desired nor sought after. But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionally the evidence, and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy, which is confessedly liable to error and uncertainty. After having experienced the circulation of the blood in human creatures, we make no doubt that it takes place in Taishius and Mevius, but from its circulation in frogs and fishes, it is only a presumption, though a strong one, from analogy, that it takes place in men and other animals. The analogical reasoning is much weaker when we infer the circulation of the sap and vegetables from our experience that blood circulates in animals, and those who hastily followed that imperfect analogy are found by more accurate experiments to have been mistaken. If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude with the greatest certainty that it had an architect or builder, because this is precisely that species of effect which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm that the universe bears such a resemblance to a house that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy is here entire and perfect. The dissimilitude is so striking that the utmost you can here pretend to is a guest, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause, and how that pretension will be received in the world I leave you to consider. It would surely be very ill-received, replied Cleanthes, and I should be deservedly blamed and detested. Did I allow that the proofs of a deity amounted to no more than a guest or conjecture? What is the whole adjustment of means to ends in a house, and in the universe so slight or resemblance? The economy of final causes? The order, proportion, and arrangement of every part? Steps of a stair are plainly contrived that human legs may use them in mounting, and this inference is certain and infallible. Human legs are also contrived for walking and mounting, and this inference I allow is not altogether certain, because of the dissimilarity which you remark, but does it therefore deserve the name only of presumption or conjecture? Good God! cried Dumia, interrupting him. Where are we? Zealous defenders of religion allow that the proofs of a deity fall short of perfect evidence? And you, Philo, on whose assistance I depended, in proving the adorable mysteriousness of the divine nature, do you ascent to all these extravagant opinions of Cleanthes? For what other name can I give them? For why spare my censure, when such principles are advanced, supported by such an authority, before so young a man as Panthelus? You seem not to apprehend, replied Philo, that I argue with Cleanthes in his own way, and by showing him the dangerous consequences of his tenets hope at last to reduce him to our opinion. But what sticks most with you, I observe, is the representation which Cleanthes has made of the argument Aposteriori, and finding that that argument is likely to escape your hold and vanish into air, that you can scarcely believe it to be set in its true light. Now, however much I may dissent, in other respects, from the dangerous principles of Cleanthes, I must allow that he has fairly represented that argument, and I shall endeavor so to state the matter to you, that you will entertain no further scruples with regard to it. Were a man to abstract from everything which he knows or has seen, he would be altogether incapable, merely from his own ideas, to determine what kind of scene the universe must be, or to give the preference to one state or situation of things above another. For as nothing which he clearly conceives could be esteemed impossible or implying a contradiction, every chimera of his fancy would be upon an equal footing, nor could he assign any just reason why he adheres to one idea or system and rejects the others which are equally possible. Again, after he opens his eyes, and contemplates the world as it really is, it would be impossible for him at first to assign the cause of any one event, much less of the whole of things, or of the universe. He might set his fancy a rambling, and she might bring him in an infinite variety of reports and representations. These would all be possible, but being all equally possible, he would never of himself give a satisfactory account for his preferring one of them to the rest. Experience alone can point out to him the true cause of any phenomenon. Now, according to this method of reasoning Demia, it follows, and is indeed tacitly allowed by Cleantis himself, that order, or the adjustment of final causes, is not of itself any proof of design, but only so far as it has been experienced to proceed from that principle. For ought we can know a priori matter may contain the source or spring of order originally within itself, as well as mine does, and there is no more difficulty in conceiving that the several elements from an internal unknown cause may fall into the most exquisite arrangement, then to conceive that their ideas, in the great universal mind, from a like internal unknown cause fall into that arrangement. The equal possibility of both these suppositions is allowed. But by experience, we find, according to Cleantis, that there is a difference between them. Throw several pieces of steel together without shape or form, they will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch, stone and mortar and wood without an architect never erect a house. But the ideas in a human mind, we see, by an unknown inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so as to form the plan of a watch or house. Experience, therefore, proves that there is an original principle of order in mind, not in matter. From similar effects, we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means to ends is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resembling. I was, from the beginning, scandalized, I must own, with this resemblance, which is asserted between the deity and human creatures, and must conceive it to imply such a degradation of the supreme being as no sound theist could endure. With your assistance, therefore, Demia, I shall endeavor to defend what you justly call the adorable mysteriousness of the divine nature, and shall refute this reasoning of Cleanthe's, provided he allows that I made a fair representation of it. When Cleanthe's head assented, Philo, after a short pause, proceeded in the following manner. That all inferences, Cleanthe's, concerning fact, are founded on experience, and that all experimental reasonings are founded on the supposition that similar causes prove similar effects, and similar effects similar causes, I shall not at present much dispute with you. But observe, I entreat you, with what extreme caution all just reasoners proceed in the transferring of experiments to similar cases. Unless the cases be exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence in applying their past observation to any particular phenomenon. Every alteration of circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the event, and it requires new experiments to prove, certainly, that the new circumstances are of no moment or importance. A change in bulk, situation, arrangement, age, disposition of the air, or surrounding bodies, any of these particulars may be attended with the most unexpected consequences. And unless the objects be quite familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect with assurance after any of these changes, an event similar to that which before fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate steps of the philosophers here, if anywhere, are distinguished from the precipitated march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the smallest similitude, are incapable of all discernment or consideration. But can you think, Cleantheys, that your usual flim and philosophy have been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken when you compare to the universe, houses, ships, furniture, machines, and from their similarity in some circumstances inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than one in the springs and principles of the universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred others which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause by which some particular parts of nature we find produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hare, can we learn anything concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leafs blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree? But allowing that we were to take the operations of one part of nature upon another, for the foundation of our judgment concerning the origin of the whole, which can never be admitted, yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a principle as the reason and design of animals is to be found upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little agitation of the brain, which we call thought, that we must thus make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our own favor does indeed present itself on all occasions, but sound philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an illusion. So far from admitting, continued Philo, that the operations of a part can afford us any just conclusion concerning the origin of the whole, I will not allow any one part to form a rule for another part, if the latter be very remote from the former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude that the inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence, reason, or anything similar to these faculties and men? When nature has so extremely diversified her manner of operation in this small globe, can we imagine that she incessantly copies herself throughout so immense a universe? And if thought, as we may well suppose, be confined merely to this narrow corner, and has even there so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety can we assign it for the original cause of all things? The narrow views of a peasant who makes his domestic economy the rule for the government of kingdoms is in comparison a pardonable sophism. But were we ever so much assured that a thought and reason resembling the human were to be found throughout the whole universe, and were its activity elsewhere vastly greater and more commanding than it appears in this globe, yet I cannot see why the operations of a world constituted, arranged, adjusted, can with any propriety be extended to a world which is in its embryo state, and is advancing towards that constitution and arrangement. By observation we know somewhat of the economy, action, and nourishment of a finished animal, but we must transfer with great caution that observation to the growth of a fetus and the womb, and still more in the formation of an animalcule and the loins of its male parent. Sure we find, even from our limited experience, possesses an infinite number of springs and principles which insistently discover themselves on every change of her position and situation, and what new and unknown principles would actuate her in so new and unknown a situation as that of the formation of the universe we cannot, without the utmost temerity, pretend to determine. A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us, and do we then pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole? Admirable conclusion, stone, wood, brick, iron, brass have not, at this time, in this minute globe of earth, an order or arrangement without human art and contrivance, therefore the universe could not originally attain its order and arrangement without something similar to human art. But is a part of nature a rule for another part very wide of the former? Is it a rule for the whole? Is a very small part a rule for the universe? Is nature in one situation a certain rule for nature in another situation vastly different from the former? And can you blame me, Cleantheys, if I here imitate the prudent reserve of Simonides, who, according to the noted story, being asked by Hiro, what God was, desired a day to think of it, and then two days more, and after that manner continually prolonging the term, without ever bringing in his definition or description? Could you even blame me, if I answered at first, that I did not know, and was sensible that this subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties? You might cry out skeptic and ralliar as much as you pleased, but having found, in so many other subjects, much more familiar, the imperfections and even contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from its feeble conjectures and the subject so sublime and so remote from the sphere of our observation. When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other, and this I call an argument from experience. But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain. And will any man tell me, with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it? To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds, and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance. Philo was proceeding in this vehement manner, somewhat between jest and earnest, as it appeared to me, when he observed some signs of impatience in Cleanthes, and then immediately stopped short. "'What I had to suggest,' said Cleanthes, is only that you would not abuse terms, or make use of popular expressions to subvert philosophical reasonings. You know, that the vulgar often distinguished reason from experience, even where the question relates only to matter of fact and existence, though it is found where that reason is properly analyzed, that it is nothing but a species of experience. To prove by experience the origin of the universe from mind is not more contrary to common speech than to prove the motion of the earth from the same principle. And a cavaler might raise all the same objections to the Copernican system, which you have urged against my reasonings. Have you other earths, might he say, which you have seen to move, have—'Yes,' cried Philo, interrupting him, we have other earths. Is not the moon another earth, which we see to turn round its center, is not Venus another earth, where we observe the same phenomenon, or not the revolutions of the sun also a confirmation from analogy of the same theory? All the planets, are they not earths, which revolve about the sun, are not the satellites' moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn, and, along with these primary planets, round the sun. These analogies and resemblances, with others which I have not mentioned, are the sole proofs of the Copernican system, and to you it belongs to consider whether you have any analogies of the same kind to support your theory. In reality, Cleanthes, continued he, the modern system of astronomy, is now so much received by all inquirers, and has become so essential a part, even of our earliest education, that we are not commonly very scrupulous in examining the reasons upon which it is founded. It has now become a matter of mere curiosity to study the first writers in that subject, who had the full force of prejudice to encounter, and were obliged to turn their arguments on every side in order to render them popular and convincing. But if we peruse Galileo's famous dialogues concerning the system of the world, we shall find that that great genius, one of the sublimest that has ever existed, first spent all his endeavors to prove that there was no foundation for the distinction commonly made between elementary and celestial substances. The schools proceeding from the illusions of sense had carried this distinction very far, and had established the latter substances to be ingenerable, incorruptible, unalterable, impassable, and had assigned all the opposite qualities to the former. But Galileo, beginning with the moon, proved its similarity in every particular to the earth, its convex figure, its natural darkness were not illuminated, its density, its distinction into solid and liquid, the variations of its phases, the mutual illuminations of the earth and moon, their mutual eclipses, the inequalities of the lunar surface, etc. After many instances of this kind, with regard to all the planets, men plainly saw that these bodies became proper objects of experience, and that the similarity of their nature enabled us to extend the same arguments and phenomena from one to the other. In this cautious proceeding of the astronomers, you may read your own condemnation, Cleanthes, or rather may see that the subject in which you are engaged exceeds all human reason and inquiry. Can you pretend to show any such similarity between the fabric of a house and the generation of a universe? Have you ever seen nature in any such situation as resembles the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under your eye, and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomenon from the first appearance of order to its final consummation? If you have, then cite your experience and deliver your theory. Part 2 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume Part 3 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 3 Not the most absurd argument, replied Glanthys, in the hands of a man of ingenuity and invention, may acquire an air of probability. Are you not aware, Philo, that it became necessary for Copernicus and his first disciples to prove the similarity of the terrestrial and celestial matter because several philosophers blinded by old systems and supported by some sensible appearances had denied that similarity? But that it is by no means necessary that theists should prove the similarity of the works of nature to those of art because the similarity is self-evident and undeniable. The same matter, alike form, one more is requisite to show an analogy between their causes and to ascertain the origin of all things from a divine purpose and intention. Your objections, I must freely tell you, are no better than the obstruous cavals of those philosophers who denied motion, and ought to be refuted in the same manner, by illustrations, examples, and instances, rather than by serious argument and philosophy. Suppose, therefore, that an articulate voice were heard in the clouds, much louder and more melodious than any which human art could ever reach. Suppose that this voice were extended in the same instant over all nations, and spoke to each nation in its own language and dialect. Suppose that the words delivered not only contain a just sense and meaning, but convey some instruction altogether worthy of a benevolent being superior to mankind. Could you possibly hesitate a moment concerning the cause of this voice, and must you not instantly ascribe it to some design or purpose? Yet I cannot see but all the same objections, if they merit that appellation, which lie against the system of theism may also be produced against this inference. Could you not say, that all conclusions concerning fact were founded on experience, that when we hear an articulate voice in the dark, and thence in for a man, it is only the resemblance of the effects which leads us to conclude that there is a like resemblance in the cause, but that this extraordinary voice by its loudness, extent, and flexibility to all languages bears so little analogy to any human voice that we have no reason to suppose any analogy in their causes, and consequently that a rational, wise, coherent speech preceded, you know not wince from some accidental whistling of the winds, not from any divine reason or intelligence. You see clearly your own objections in these cavals, and I hope too you see clearly that they cannot possibly have more force in the one case than in the other. But to bring the case still nearer the present one of the universe, I shall make two suppositions, which imply not any absurdity or impossibility. Suppose that there is a natural, universal, invariable language common to every individual of human race, and that books are natural productions which perpetuate themselves in the same manner with animals and vegetables by descent and propagation. Several expressions of her passions contain a universal language. All brute animals have a natural speech which, however limited, is very intelligible to their own species. And as there are infinitely fewer parts and less contrivance in the finest composition of eloquence than in the coarsest organized body, the propagation of an Iliad or a Neid is an easier supposition than that of any plant or animal. Suppose therefore that you enter into your library, thus people by natural volumes containing the most refined reason in most exquisite beauty. Could you possibly open one of them and doubt that its original cause bore the strongest analogy to mind and intelligence? When it reasons and discourses, when it expostulates, argues, and enforces its views and topics, when it applies sometimes to the pure intellect, sometimes to the affections, when it collects, disposes, and adorns every consideration suited to the subject, could you persist in asserting that all this, at the bottom, has really no meaning, and that the first formation of this volume and the loins of its original parent proceeded not from thought and design? Your obstinacy, I know, reaches not that degree of firmness. Even your skeptical play and wantonness would be abashed at so glaring and absurdity. But if there be any difference, Philo, between this supposed case and the real one of the universe, it is all to the advantage of the latter. The anatomy of an animal affords many stronger instances of design than the perusal of livy or tacitus, and any objection which you start in the former case, by carrying me back to so unusual and extraordinary a scene as the first formation of worlds, the same objection has place on the supposition of our vegetating library. Choose then your party, Philo, without ambiguity or evasion. Assert either that irrational volume is no proof of rational cause, or admit of a similar cause to all the works of nature. Let me here observe, too, continued Cleanthes, that this religious argument, instead of being weakened by that skepticism so much affected by you, rather acquires force from it, and becomes more firm and undisputed. To exclude all argument or reasoning of every kind is either affectation or madness. The declared profession of every reasonable skeptic is only to reject obstruous, remote, and refined arguments, to adhere to common sense and the plain instincts of nature, and to assent, wherever any reason strike him with so full a force that he cannot, without the greatest violence, prevent it. Now the arguments for natural religion are plainly of this kind, and nothing but the most perverse, obstinate metaphysics can reject them. Consider, anatomize the eye, survey its structure and contrivance, and tell me, from your own feeling, if the idea of a contriver does not immediately flow in upon you, with a force like that of sensation. The most obvious conclusion, surely, is in favor of design, and it requires time, reflection, and study, to summon up those frivolous, though obstruous objections which can support infidelity. Who can behold the male and female of each species, the correspondence of their parts, and instincts, their passions, and whole course of life before and after generation, but must be sensible that the propagation of the species is intended by nature? Millions and millions of such instances present themselves through every part of the universe, and no language can convey a more intelligible, irresistible meaning than the curious adjustment of final causes. To what degree, therefore, of blind dogmatism must one have attained, to reject such natural and such convincing arguments? Some beauties in writing we may meet with, which seem contrary to rules, and which gain the affections and animate the imagination in opposition to all the precepts of criticism, and to the authority of the established masters of art. And if the argument for theism be, as you pretend, contradictory to the principles of logic, its universal, its irresistible influence proves clearly that there may be arguments of a like irregular nature. Whatever cavals may be urged, an orderly world as well as a coherent, articulate speech will still be received as an incontestable proof of design and intention. It sometimes happens, I own, that the religious arguments have not their due influence on an ignorant savage and barbarian, not because they are obscure and difficult, but because he never asks himself any question with regard to them. Wince arises the curious structure of an animal, from the copulation of its parents, and these wins from their parents. A few removes set the objects at such a distance that to him they are lost in darkness and confusion, nor is he actuated by any curiosity to trace them further. But this is neither dogmatism nor skepticism, but stupidity, a state of mind very different from your sifting inquisitive disposition, my ingenious friend. You can trace causes from effects, you can compare the most distant and remote objects, and your greatest errors proceed not from barrenness of thought and invention, but from too luxuriant of fertility, which suppresses your natural good sense by perfusion of unnecessary scruples and objections. Here I could observe Hermibus that Philo was a little embarrassed and confounded, but while he hesitated in delivering an answer, luckily for him Demia broke in upon the discourse and saved his countenance. Your instance, Cleanthes, said he, drawn from books and language, being familiar has, I confess, so much more force on that account, but is there not some danger to in this very circumstance, and may it not render us presumptuous by making us imagine we comprehend the deity and have some adequate idea of his nature and attributes? When I read a volume, I enter into the mind and intention of the author. I become him, in a manner, for the instant, and have an immediate feeling and conception of those ideas which revolved in his imagination while employed in that composition. But so nearly an approach we never surely can make to the deity. His ways are not our ways. His attributes are perfect, but incomprehensible. And this volume of nature contains a great and inexplicable riddle more than any intelligent discourse or reasoning. The ancient Platonists, you know, were the most religious and devout of all the pagan philosophers, particularly Plotinus, expressly declare that intellect or understanding is not to be ascribed to the deity and that our most perfect worship of him consists not in acts of veneration, reverence, gratitude, or love, but in a certain mysterious self-annihilation, or total extinction of all our faculties. These ideas are perhaps too far stretched, but still it must be acknowledged that by representing the deity as so intelligible and comprehensible and so similar to a human mind we are guilty of the grossest and most narrow partiality and make ourselves the model of the whole universe. All the sentiments of the human mind, gratitude, resentment, love, friendship, approbation, blame, pity, emulation, envy, have a plain reference to the state and situation of man, and are calculated for preserving the existence and promoting the activity of such a being in such circumstances. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to transfer such sentiments to a supreme existence, or to suppose him actuated by them, and the phenomena besides of the universe will not support us in such a theory. All our ideas derived from the senses are confusedly false and elusive, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to have a place in the supreme intelligence. And as the ideas of internal sentiment added to those of the external senses compose the whole furniture of human understanding, we may conclude that none of the materials of thought are, in any respect, similar in the human and in the divine intelligence. Now, as to the manner of thinking, how can we make any comparison between them, or suppose them anywise resembling? Our thought is fluctuating, uncertain, fleeting, successive, and compounded. And were we to remove these circumstances, we absolutely annihilate its essence, and it would, in such a case, be in abusive terms to apply to it the name of thought or reason. At least if it appear more pious and respectful, as it really is still to retain these terms, when we mention the supreme being, we ought to acknowledge that their meaning in that case is totally incomprehensible, and that the infirmities of our nature do not permit us to reach any ideas which, in the least, correspond to the ineffable sublimity of the divine attributes. End of Part 3 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. Part 4 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 4. It seems strange to me, said Cleantheys, that you, Demia, who are so sincere in the cause of religion, should still maintain the mysterious, incomprehensible nature of the deity, and should insist so strenuously that he has no manner of likeness or resemblance to human creatures. The deity, I can readily allow, possesses many powers and attributes of which we can have no comprehension. But if our ideas, so far as they go, be not just inadequate and correspond to his real nature, I know not what there is in this subject worth insisting on. Is the name, without any meaning, of such mighty importance? Or how do you mystics, who maintain the absolute incomprehensibility of the deity, differ from skeptics or atheists, who assert that the first cause of all is unknown and unintelligible? Their temerity must be very great if, after rejecting their production by a mind, I mean a mind resembling the human, for I know of no other, they pretend to assign, with certainty, any other specific intelligible cause, and their conscience must be very scrupulous indeed, if they refuse to call the universal unknown cause a god or deity, and to bestow on him as many sublime eulogies and unmeaning epithets as you shall please to require of them. Who could imagine, replied Demia, that Cleanthes, the calm, philosophical Cleanthes, would attempt to refute his antagonist by affixing a nickname to them, and like the common bigots and inquisitors of the age, have recourse to invective and declamation instead of reasoning? Or does he not perceive that these topics are easily retorted, and that anthropomorphite is an appellation as invidious, and implies as dangerous consequences as the epithet of mystic, with which he is honored us? In reality, Cleanthes, consider what it is you assert when you represent the deity as similar to a human mind and understanding. What is the soul of man? A composition of various faculties, passions, sentiments, ideas, united indeed into one self or person, but still distinct from each other. When it reasons, the ideas, which are the parts of its discourse, arrange themselves in a certain form or order, which is not preserved entire for a moment, but immediately gives place to another arrangement. New opinions, new passions, new affections, new feelings arise, which continually diversify the mental scene and produce in it the greatest variety and most rapid succession imaginable. How is this compatible with that perfect immutability and simplicity, which all truth-ists ascribe to the deity? By the same acts, say they, he sees past, present, and future. His love and hatred, his mercy and justice, are one individual operation. He is entire in every point of space, and complete in every instant of duration. No succession, no change, no acquisition, no diminution. What he is implies not in it any shadow of distinction or diversity. In what he is this moment he has ever been, and ever will be, without any new judgment, sentiment, or operation. He stands fixed in one simple, perfect state. Nor can you ever say, with any propriety, that this act of his is different from that other, or that this judgment or idea has been lately formed, and will give place by succession to any different judgment or idea. I can readily allow, said Cleanthes, that those who maintain the perfect simplicity of the Supreme Being, to the extent in which you have explained it, are complete mystics, and chargeable with all the consequences which I have drawn from their opinion. They are, in a word, atheists, without knowing it. For though it be allowed, that the deity possesses attributes of which we have no comprehension, yet ought we never to ascribe to him any attributes which are absolutely incompatible with that intelligent nature essential to him. A mind whose acts and sentiments and ideas are not distinct and successive, one that is wholly simple and totally immutable, is a mind which has no thought, no reason, no will, no sentiment, no love, no hatred, or, in a word, is no mind at all. It is an abuse of terms to give it that appellation, and we may as well speak of limited extension without figure, or of number without composition. Pre-consider, said Philo, whom you are at present in vang against, you are honouring with the appellation of atheists all the sound orthodox divines almost who have treated of this subject, and you will at last be yourself found, according to your reckoning, the only sound theist in the world. But if idolaters be atheists, as I think may justly be asserted, and Christian theologians the same, what becomes of the argument so much celebrated derived from the universal consent of mankind. But because I know you are not much swayed by names and authorities, I shall endeavour to show you, a little more distinctly, the inconveniences of that anthropomorphism which you have embraced, and shall prove that there is no ground to suppose a plan of the world to be formed in the divine mind, consisting of distinct ideas, differently arranged, in the same manner as in architect forms in his head the plan of a house, which he intends to execute. It is not easy, I own, to see what is gained by this supposition whether we judge of the matter by reason or by experience. We are still obliged to mount higher in order to find the cause of this cause, which you had assigned as satisfactory and conclusive. If reason, I mean abstract reason derived from inquiry's a priori, be not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect, this sentence at least it will venture to pronounce, that a mental world, or universe of ideas, requires a cause as much as does a material world, or universe of objects, and if similar in its arrangement must require a similar cause. For what is there in this subject which should occasion a different conclusion or inference? In an abstract view they are entirely alike, and no difficulty attains the one supposition which is not common to both of them. Again when wheel needs force experience to pronounce some sentence, even on these subjects which lie beyond her sphere, neither can she perceive any material difference in this particular between these two kinds of worlds, but finds them to be governed by similar principles, and to depend upon an equal variety of causes in their operations. We have specimens in miniature of both of them. Our own mind resembles the one, a vegetable or animal body the other. Let experience therefore judge from these samples. Nothing seems more delicate with regard to its causes than thought, and as these causes never operate in two persons after the same manner, so we never find two persons who think exactly alike. Nor indeed does the same person think exactly alike at any two different periods of time. A difference of age, of the disposition of his body, of weather, of food, of company, of books, of passions, any of these particulars or others more minute are sufficient to alter the curious machinery of thought, and communicate to it very different movements and operations. As far as we can judge, vegetables and animal bodies are not more delicate in their motions, nor depend upon a greater variety or more curious adjustment of springs and principles. How therefore shall we satisfy ourselves concerning the cause of that being whom you suppose the author of nature, or according to your system of anthropomorphism, the ideal world into which you trace the material? Have we not the same reason to trace that ideal world into another ideal world, or new intelligent principle? But if we stop and go no further, why go so far? Why not stop at the material world? How can we satisfy ourselves without going on an infinite item? And after all, what satisfaction is there in that infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world, this ideal world must rest upon some other, and so on, without end. It were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world. By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God, and the sooner we arrive at that divine being, so much the better. When you go one step beyond the mundane system, you only excite an inquisitive tumor, which it is impossible ever to satisfy. To say that the different ideas which compose the reason of the supreme being fall into order of themselves and by their own nature is really to talk without any precise meaning. If it has a meaning, I would faint no why it is not as good sense to say that the parts of the material world fall into order of themselves and by their own nature. Can the one opinion be intelligible while the other is not so? We have indeed experience of ideas which fall into order of themselves and without any known cause, but I am sure we have a much larger experience of matter which does the same, as in all instances of generation and vegetation, where the accurate analysis of the cause exceeds all human comprehension. We have also experience of particular systems of thought and of matter which have no order, of the first and madness of the second in corruption. Why then should we think that order is more essential to one than the other, and if it requires a cause in both, what do we gain by your system in tracing the universe of objects into a similar universe of ideas? The first step which we make leads us on forever. It were therefore wise in us to limit all our inquiries to the present world without looking further. No satisfaction can ever be attained by these speculations which so far exceed the narrow bounds of human understanding. It was usual with the parapetetics, you know, Cleanthes, when the cause of any phenomenon was demanded to have recourse to their faculties or occult qualities, and to say, for instance, that bread nourished by its nutritive faculty and sena purged by its purgative, but it has been discovered that this subterfuge was nothing but the disguise of ignorance, and that these philosophers, the less ingenuous, really said the same thing with the skeptics or the vulgar, who fairly confessed that they knew not the cause of these phenomena. In like manner, when it is asked what cause produces order in the ideas of the supreme being, can any other reason be assigned by you anthropomorphites, then that it is a rational faculty, and that such is the nature of the deity? But why a similar answer will not be equally satisfactory in accounting for the order of the world, without having recourse to any such intelligent creator as you insist on, may be difficult to determine? It is only to say that such is the nature of material objects, and that they are all originally possessed of a faculty of order and proportion. These are only more learned and elaborate ways of confessing our ignorance, nor has the one hypothesis any real advantage above the other, except in its greater conformity to vulgar prejudices. You have displayed this argument with great emphasis, replied Cleanthes. You seem not sensible how easy it is to answer it. Even in common life, if I assign a cause for any event, is it any objection, Philo, that I cannot assign the cause of that cause, and answer every new question which may incessantly be started? And what philosophers could possibly submit to so rigid a rule? Philosophers who confess ultimate causes to be totally unknown, and are sensible that the most refined principles into which they trace the phenomena are still to them as inexplicable as these phenomena themselves are to the vulgar. The order and arrangement of nature, the curious adjustment of final causes, the plain use and intention of every part in organ, all these bespeak in the clearest language an intelligent cause or author. The heavens and the earth join in the same testimony. The whole chorus of nature raises one hymn to the praises of its creator. You alone, or almost alone, disturb this general harmony. You start up struced doubts, cabals, and objections. You ask me, what is the cause of this cause? I know not. I care not. That concerns not me. I have found a deity, and here I stop my inquiry. Let those go farther, who are wiser or more enterprising. I pretend to be neither, replied Philo. And for that very reason I should never perhaps have attempted to go so far, especially when I am sensible that I must at last be contented to sit down with the same answer which, without further trouble, might have satisfied me from the beginning. If I am still to remain in utter ignorance of causes, and can absolutely give an explication of nothing, I shall never esteem it any advantage to shove off for a moment a difficulty, which you acknowledge must immediately in its full force recur upon me. Naturalists indeed very justly explain particular effects by more general causes. Though these general causes themselves should remain in the end totally inexplicable. But they never surely thought it satisfactory to explain a particular effect by a particular cause which is no more to be accounted for than the effect itself. An ideal system, arranged of itself, without a precedent design, is not a whit more explicable than a material one, which attains its order in a like manner, nor is there any more difficulty in the latter supposition than in the former. End of part four of dialogues concerning natural religion by David Hume. Part five of dialogues concerning natural religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part five. But to show you still more inconveniences, continued Philo, in your anthropomorphism, please to take a new survey of your principles. Like effects prove like causes. This is the experimental argument, and this you say too, is the sole theological argument. Now it is certain that the like or the effects are which are seen, and the like or the causes which are inferred, the stronger is the argument. Every departure on either side diminishes the probability and renders the experiment less conclusive. You cannot doubter this principle. Neither ought you to reject its consequences. All the new discoveries in astronomy, which prove the immense grandeur and magnificence of the works of nature, are so many additional arguments for a deity according to the true system of theism. But according to your hypothesis of experimental theism, they become so many objections by removing the effects still farther from all resemblance to the effects of human art and contrivance. For if Lucretius, even following the old system of the world, could exclaim, cuis regeri immensi suma, cuis haberi profandi in duman validas, potis est moderantar habenas, cuis pari tarcoelos onnis convertere, et onnis ingibis itiris terres sufirei felakes, onnibos inquist loces esse omnitimpori presto. Translation note. From On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, Book II, lines 1095 through 1102, translated by William Ellery Leonard. Who hath the power, I ask, who hath the power to rule the sum of the immeasurable, to hold with steady hand the giant rains of the unfathomed deep? Who hath the power at once to roll a multitude of skies, at once to heat with fires ethereal all the fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds, to be at all times in all places near? In translation note. If Tully esteemed this reasoning so natural as to put it into the mouth of his Epicurean, cuibes enim ocullos animi intuerri potuet wester plato fabrikum ilam tanti operas, cua construi adeo aque edificari mundum facit, cua molitio, cua ferramenta, cui vectis, cua macinae, cui minstritanti muneres fuerrand, cuem ad modum, autum obedire et parere volentati architecti aer, ingas, acua, terra, potuerrand. Translation note. From On the Nature of the Gods by Cicero, Book 1, Section 8, translated by C. D. Young. For with what eyes of the mind was your Plato able to see that workhorse of such stupendous toil in which he makes the world to be modeled and built by God? What materials, what tools, what bars, what machines, what servants were employed in so vast work? How could the air, fire, water and earth pay obedience and submit to the will of the architect? End. Translation note. If this argument, I say, had any force in former ages, how much greater must it have it present when the bounds of nature are so infinitely enlarged and such a magnificent scene is open to us? It is still more unreasonable to form our idea of so unlimited a cause from our experience of the narrow productions of human design and invention. The discoveries by microscopes as they open a new universe and miniature are still objections according to you, arguments according to me. The further we push our researchers of this kind, we are still led to infer the universal cause of all to be vastly different from mankind or from any object of human experience and observation. And what say you to the discoveries in anatomy, chemistry, botany? These surely are no objections, replied Cleantis. They only discovered new instances of art and contrivance. It is still the image of mind reflected on us from innumerable objects. Add a mind like the human, said Philo. I know of no other, replied Cleantis. And the likeer the better, insisted Philo. To be sure, said Cleantis. Now Cleantis, said Philo, with an air of alacrity and triumph, mark the consequences. First, by this method of reasoning you renounce all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the deity. For as the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite. What pretensions have we upon your suppositions to ascribe that attribute to the divine being? You will still insist that by removing him so much from all similarity to human creatures, we give in to the most arbitrary hypothesis, and at the same time weaken all proofs of his existence. Secondly, you have no reason on your theory for ascribing perfection to the deity, even in his finite capacity, or for supposing him free from every error, mistake, or incoherence in his undertakings. There are many inexplicable difficulties in the works of nature, which, if we allow a perfect author to be proved a priori, are easily solved, and become only seeming difficulties from the narrow capacity of man who cannot trace infinite relations. But according to your method of reasoning, these difficulties become all real, and perhaps will be insisted on as new instances of likeness to human art and contrivance. At least you must acknowledge that it is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system contains any great faults, or deserves any considerable praise, if compared to other possible and even real systems. Could a peasant, if the Aeneid were read to him, pronounce that poem to be absolutely faultless, or even assign to it its proper rank among the productions of human wit, he who had never seen any other production? But were this world ever so perfect a production? It must still remain uncertain whether all the excellences of the work can be justly ascribed to the workmen. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine? In what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic, who imitated others, and copied an art which, through a long succession of ages, after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies, had been gradually improving? Many worlds might have been botched and bungled throughout an eternity. ere this system was struck out, much labor lost, many fruitless trials made, and a slow but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. In such subjects who can determine where the truth, nay, who can conjecture where the probability lies amidst a great number of hypotheses which may be proposed, and a still greater which may be imagined? In what shadow of an argument, continued Philo, can you produce from your hypothesis to prove the unity of the deity? A great number of men joined in building a house or ship, in rearing a city, in framing a commonwealth. Why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world? This is only so much greater similarity to human affairs. By sharing the work among several we may so much further limit the attributes of each, and get rid of that extensive power and knowledge which must be supposed in one deity, in which according to you can only serve to weaken the proof of his existence. And if such foolish, such vicious creatures as man, can yet often unite in framing and executing one plan, how much more those deities or demons whom we may suppose several degrees more perfect? To multiply causes without necessity is indeed contrary to true philosophy, but this principle applies not to the present case. Were one deity antecedently proved by your theory, who were possessed of every attribute requisite to the production of the universe, it would be needless, I own, though not absurd, to suppose any other deity existent. But while it is still a question whether all these attributes are united in one subject, or dispersed among several independent beings, by what phenomena in nature can we pretend to decide the controversy? Where we see a body raised in a scale, we are sure that there is in the opposite scale, however concealed from sight, some counter-poising weight equal to it, but it is still allowed to doubt whether that weight be an aggregate of several distinct bodies, or one uniform, united mass, and if the weight requisite very much exceeds anything which we have ever seen conjoined in any single body, the former supposition becomes still more probable and natural. An intelligent being of such vast power and capacity as is necessary to produce the universe, or to speak in the language of ancient philosophy, so prodigious an animal, exceeds all analogy and even comprehension. But further, Cleanthes, men are mortal, and renew their species by generation, and this is common to all living creatures. The two great sexes of male and female, says Milton, animate the world. Why must this circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited deities? Behold, then, the theogony of ancient times brought back upon us. And why not become a perfect anthropomorphite? Why not assert the deity or deities to be corporeal, and have eyes, a nose, mouth, ears, etc. Epicurus maintained that no man had ever seen reason but in a human figure, therefore the gods must have a human figure. In this argument, which is deservedly so much ridiculed by Cicero, becomes, according to you, solid and philosophical. In a word, Cleanthes, a man who follows your hypothesis is able, perhaps, to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like design, but beyond that position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance, and is left afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis. This world, for odd he knows, is very faulty and imperfect, compared to a superior standard, and was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance. It is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity, and is the object of derision to his superiors. It is the production of old age and dotage, and some superannuated deity, and ever since his death has run on at adventures from the first impulse and active force which it received from him. You justly give signs of horror to Mia, at these strange suppositions, but these, and a thousand more of the same kind, are cleant these suppositions, not mine. From the moment the attributes of the deity are supposed finite, all these have place, and I cannot, for my part, think that so wild and unsettled a system of theology is, in any respect, preferable to none at all. These suppositions I absolutely disown, cried cleant these. They strike me, however, with no horror, especially when proposed in that rambling way in which they drop from you. On the contrary, they give me pleasure, when I see that, by the utmost indulgence of your imagination, you never get rid of the hypothesis of design in the universe, but are obliged at every turn to have recourse to it. To this concession I adhere steadily, and this I regard as a sufficient foundation for religion. End of Part 5 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. Part 6 of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leon Meyer. Part 6. It must be a slight fabric indeed, said Demia, which can be erected on so tottering a foundation. While we are uncertain whether there is one deity or many, whether the deity or deities to whom we owe our existence be perfect or imperfect, subordinate or supreme, dead or alive, what trust or confidence can we repose in them, what devotion or worship address to them, what veneration or obedience pay them. To all the purposes of life the theory of religion becomes altogether useless, and even with regard to speculative consequences its uncertainty according to you must render it totally precarious and unsatisfactory. To render it still more unsatisfactory, said Philo, there occurs to me another hypothesis which must acquire an air of probability from the method of reasoning so much insisted on by Calanthi's, that like effects arise from like causes, this principle he supposes the foundation of all religion, but there is another principle of the same kind, no less certain, and derive from the same source of experience, that where several known circumstances are observed to be similar, the unknown will also be found similar. Thus if we see the limbs of a human body we conclude that it is also attended with a human head, though hid from us. Thus if we see through a chink in the wall, a small part of the sun, we conclude that where the wall removed we should see the whole body. In short, this method of reasoning is so obvious and familiar that no scruple can ever be made with regard to its solidity. Now if we survey the universe, so far as it falls under our knowledge, it bears a great resemblance to an animal, or organized body, and seems actuated with a like principle of life and motion. A continual circulation of matter in it produces no disorder. A continual waste in every part is incessantly repaired. The closest sympathy is perceived throughout the entire system, and each part or member in performing its proper offices, operates both to its own preservation and to that of the whole. The world therefore, I infer, is an animal, and the deity is the soul of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it. You have too much learning, Cleanthes, to be at all surprised by this opinion, which you know was maintained by almost all the theists of antiquity, and chiefly prevails in their discourses and reasonings. For though sometimes the ancient philosophers reason from final causes, as if they thought the world the workmanship of God, yet it appears rather their favorite notion to consider it as his body, whose organization renders it subservient to him. And it must be confessed that as the universe resembles more a human body than it does the works of human art and contrivance, if our limited analogy could ever with any propriety be extended to the whole of nature, the inference seems juster in favor of the ancient than the modern theory. There are many other advantages too in the former theory, which recommended to the ancient theologians. Nothing is more repugnant to all their notions, because nothing is more repugnant to common experience than mind without body, a mere spiritual substance which fell not under the senses nor comprehension, and of which they had not observed one single instance throughout all nature, mind and body they knew because they felt both, an order, arrangement, organization, or internal machinery, in both they likewise knew after the same manner, and it could not but seem reasonable to transfer this experience to the universe, and to suppose the divine mind and body to be also co-evil, and to have both of them order and arrangement naturally inherent in them, and inseparable from them. Here, therefore, is a new species of anthropomorphism, Cleanthes, on which you may deliberate, and a theory which seems not liable to any considerable difficulties. You are too much superior surely to systematically prejudices to find any more difficulty in supposing an animal body to be originally of itself, or from unknown causes, possessed of order and organization than in supposing a similar order to belong to mind. But the vulgar prejudice that body and mind ought always to accompany each other ought not, one should think, to be entirely neglected, since it is founded on vulgar experience, the only guide which you profess to follow in all these theological inquiries. And if you assert that our limited experience is an unequal standard by which to judge of the unlimited extent of nature, you entirely abandon your own hypothesis, and must thenceforward adopt our mysticism, as you call it, and admit the absolute incomprehensibility of the divine nature. This theory, I own, replied Cleanthes, has never before occurred to me, though a pretty natural one, and I cannot readily, upon so short an examination and reflection, deliver any opinion with regard to it. You are very scrupulous, indeed, said Philo, or I to examine any system of yours, I should not have acted with half that caution in reserve in starting objections and difficulties to it. However, if anything occurred to you, you will oblige us by proposing it. Why, then, replied Cleanthes, it seems to me that, though the world does, in many circumstances, resemble an animal body, yet is the analogy also defective in many circumstances the most material. No organs of sense, no seed of thought or reason, no one precise origin of motion and action. In short, it seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an animal, and your inference would be so far inconclusive in favor of the soul of the world. But in the next year, theory seems to imply the eternity of the world, and that is a principle which I think can be refuted by the strongest reasons and probabilities. I shall suggest an argument to this purpose, which I believe has not been insisted on by any writer. Those who reason from the late origin of arts and sciences, though their inference once not force, may perhaps be refuted by considerations derived from the nature of human society, which is in continual revolution between ignorance and knowledge, liberty and slavery, riches and poverty, so that it is impossible for us from our limited experience, to foretell with assurance what events may or may not be expected. Ancient learning and history seemed to have been in great danger of entirely perishing after the inundation of the barbarous nations, and had these convulsions continued a little longer or been a little silent, we should not probably have now known what passed in the world a few centuries before us. Nay, were it not for the superstition of the popes, who preserved a little jargon of Latin, in order to support the appearance of an ancient and universal church, that tongue must have been utterly lost, in which case the western world, being totally barbarous, would not have been in a fit disposition for receiving a Greek language and learning, which would not have been in the modern world. When learning and books had been extinguished, even the mechanical arts would have fallen considerably to decay. And it is easily imagined that fable or tradition might ascribe to them a much later origin than the true one. This vulgar argument, therefore, against the eternity of the world, seems a little precarious. Though that tree thrives so well in many European climates, that it grows in the woods without any culture. Is it possible that throughout a whole eternity, no European had ever passed into Asia, and thought of transplanting so delicious a fruit into his own country? Or if the tree was once transplanted and propagated, how could it ever afterwards perish? Empires may rise and fall, liberty and slavery succeed alternately, ignorance and knowledge give place to each other, but the cherry tree will still remain in the woods of Greece, Spain, and Italy, and will never be affected by the revolutions of human society. It is not 2,000 years since vines are transplanted into France, though there is no climate in the world more favorable to them. It is not three centuries since horses, cows, sheep, swine, dogs, and so on. In the world of a whole eternity there never arose a Columbus who might open the communication between Europe and that continent. We may as well imagine that all men would wear stockings for 10,000 years and never have the sense to think of garters to tie them. All these seem convincing proofs of the youth, or rather infancy of the world, as being founded less than a total convulsion of the elements will ever destroy all the European animals and vegetables which are now to be found in the western world. And what argument have you against such convulsions? replied Philo. Strong and almost incontestable proofs may be traced over the whole earth that every part of this globe has continued for many ages entirely covered by many susceptible of many and great revolutions through the endless periods of eternal duration. The incessant changes to which every part of it is subject seem to intimate some such general transformations though at the same time it is observable that all the changes and corruptions of which we have ever had experience are but passages from one state of order seen the parts we may infer in the whole at least that is the method of reasoning on which you rest your whole theory. And were I obliged to defend any particular system of this nature which I never willingly should do I esteem none more plausible than that which ascribes an eternal inherent principle of order to the world though attended with great and continual revolutions and alterations. And by being so general is not entirely complete and satisfactory it is at least a theory that we must sooner or later have recourse to whatever system we embrace. How could things have been as they are were there not an original inherent principle of order somewhere in thought or in matter and it is very indifferent to which of these we give the preference chance has no place on any hypothesis skeptical or possible loss and were the inmost essence of things laid open to us we should then discover a scene of which at present we can have no idea instead of admiring the order of natural beings we should clearly see that it was absolutely impossible for them in the smallest article ever to admit of any other disposition. Were anyone inclined to revive the ancient pagan theology which maintained by 30,000 deities who arose from the unknown powers of nature you would naturally object that nothing is gained by this hypothesis and that it is as easy to suppose all men animals beings more numerous but less perfect to have sprung immediately from a like origin. Push the same inference a step further and you will find a numerous society of deities as explicable as one universal deity within himself the powers and perfections of the whole society all these systems then of skepticism polytheism and theism you must allow on your principles to be on a like footing and that no one of them has any advantage over the others you may then learn the fallacy of your principles end of part six of dialogues concerning natural religion by David Hume