Butler is a typical instance of the English philosophical mind. He will admit no speculative theory of things. To him the universe is no realization of intelligence, which is to be deciphered by human thought ; it is a constitution or system, made up of individual facts, through which we thread our way slowly and inductively. Complete know ledge is impossible ; nay, what we call knowledge of any part of the system is inherently imperfect. " We cannot have a thorough knowledge of any part without knowing the whole." So far as experience goes, " to us probability is the very guide of life." Reason is certainly to be accepted; it is our natural light, and the only faculty whereby we can judge of things. But it gives no completed system of knowledge, and in matters of fact affords only probable conclusions. In this emphatic declaration, that knowledge of the course of nature is merely probable, Butler is at one with Hume, and some of his expressions are exactly paralleled in the writings of the great sceptic, who was a most diligent student of the bishop s works. What can come nearer Hume s celebrated maxim, "Anything may be the cause of anything else," than Butler s conclusion, " so that any one thing whatever may, for aught we know to the contrary, be a necessary condition to any other! "
It is this strong grasp of the imperfect character of our knowledge of nature and of the grounds for its limitation that makes Butler so formidable an opponent to his deistical contemporaries. He will permit no anticipations of nature, no a priori construction of experience. " The constitution of nature is as it is," and no system of abstract principles can be allowed to take its place. He is willing with Hume to take the course of experience as the basis of his reason ing, seeing that it is common ground for himself and his j antagonists. In one essential respect, however, he goes beyond Hume. The course of nature is for him an un meaning expression, unless it be referred to some author ; and he therefore makes extensive use of the teleological method. This position is assumed throughout the treatise, and as against the deists with justice, for their whole argument rested upon the presupposition of the existence of God, the perfect Ruler of the world.
The premises, then, with which Butler starts are the exist ence of God, the known course of nature, and the necessary limitation of our knowledge. What does he wish to prove 1 It is not his intention to prove God s perfect moral government over the world or the truth of religion. His work is in no sense a philosophy of religion. His purpose is entirely defensive ; he wishes to answer objections that have been brought against religion, and to examine certain difficulties that have been alleged as insuperable. And this is to be effected in the first place by showing that from the obscurities and inexplicabilities we meet with in nature we may reasonably expect to find similar difficulties in the scheme of religion. If difficulties be found in the course and constitution of nature, whose author is admitted to be God, surely the existence of similar difficulties in the plan of religion can be no valid objection against its truth and divine origin. That this is at least in great part Butler s object is plain from the slightest inspection of his work. It has seemed to many to be an unsatisfactory mode of arguing and but a poor defence of religion ; and so much the author is willing to allow. But in the general course of his argument a somewhat wider issue appears. He seeks to show not only that the difficulties in the systems of natural and revealed religion have counterparts in nature, but also that the facts of nature, far from being adverse to the principles of religion, are a distinct ground for inferring their probable truth. He endeavours to show that the balance of probability is entirely in favour of the scheme of religion, that this probability is the natural conclusion from an inspection of nature, and that, as religion is a matter of practice, we are bound to adopt the course of action which is even probably the right one. If, we may imagine him saying, the precepts of religion arc entirely analogous in their partial obscurity and apparent difficulty to the ordinary course of nature dis closed to us by experience, then it is credible that these precepts are true ; not only can no objections be drawn against them from experience, but the balance of probability is in their favour. This mode of reasoning from what is known of nature to the probable truth of what is contained in religion is the celebrated method of analogy.
Although Butler s work is peculiarly one of those which ought not to be exhibited in outline, for its strength lies in the organic completeness with which the details are Avrought into the whole argument, yet a summary of his results will throw more light on the method than any description can.
Keeping clearly in view his premises the existence of God and the limited nature of knowledge, Butler begins by inquiring into the fundamental prerequisite of all natural religion the immortality of the soul. Evidently the stress of the whole question is here. Were man not immortal, religion would be of little value. Now, Butler does not attempt to prove the truth of the doctrine ; that proof comes from another quarter. The only questions he asks are Does experience forbid us to admit immortality as a possibility? Does experience furnish any probable reason for inferring that immortality is a fact ? To the first of these a negative, to the second an affirmative answer is returned. All the analogies of our life here lead us to conclude that we shall continue to live after death ; and neither from experience nor from the reason of the thing can any argument against the possibility of this be drawn. Immortality, then, is not unreasonable ; it is probable. If, he continues, we are to live after death, it is of importance for us to consider on what our future state may depend ; for we may be either happy or miserable. Now, whatever speculation may say as to God s purpose being necessarily universal benevolence, experience plainly shows us that our present happiness and misery depend iipon our conduct, and are not distributed indiscriminately. Therefore no argument can be brought from experience against the possibility of our future happiness and misery likewise depending upon conduct. The whole analogy of nature is in favour of such a dispensation ; it is therefore reasonable or probable. Further, we are not only under a government in which actions considered simply as such are rewarded and punished, but it is known from experience that virtue and vice are followed by their natural consequents happiness and misery. And though the distribution of these rewards is not perfect, all hindrances are plainly temporary or acci dental. It may therefore be concluded that the balance of probability is in favour of God s government in general being a moral scheme, where virtue and vice are respectively rewarded and punished. It need not be objected to the justice of this arrangement that men are sorely tempted, and may very easily be brought to neglect that on Avhich their future welfare depends, for the very same holds good in nature. Experience shows man to be in a state of trial so far as regards the present ; it cannot, therefore, be unreasonable to suppose that we are in a similar state as regards the future. Finally, it can surely never be advanced as an argument against the truth of religion that there are many things in it which we do not comprehend, when experience exhibits to us such a copious stock of incom prehensibilities in the ordinary course and constitution of nature.
course of argument the conclusion is invariably from experience of the present order of things to the reasonable ness or probability of some other system of a future state.
The inference in all cases passes beyond the field of
