Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/131

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ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY

ceptions of a producing Creator, dwelling in his peculiar quarter of space called Heaven, and its mechanical theory of his communication with the world by way of “miracle” alone — by way, that is, independent or even subversive of the process from means to end in Nature.^[1]

But while thus marred by mechanical limitations, deism must be allowed its relative merit too. This lies in the judgment it passes upon the mechanical method of sensuous theism. If in the interest of distinguishing the Creator from the creation, God

↑ I must be understood here as reflecting only upon the popular thaumaturgical conceptions of the supernatural. The genuine doctrine of miracle has a speculative truth at its basis, profound and irrefragable: namely, that the causal organisation of Nature — the system of evolution, ever ascending from cause to differing effect — can never be accounted for in terms of the sensible antecedents alone, but requires the omnipresent activity of a transcendingly immanent personal cause; and that the system of Nature is therefore in this sense a Perpetual Miracle. But the natural order flowing from this Intelligible Miracle is immutable, and irreconcilable with “miracle” in the usual sense. [I would now add (1899) that this immanent personal cause is, at closest hand to Nature, human nature; or, more generally, the intelligences other than God, in coöperation with the remoter and quite indirect causality of God as their Type and Ideal. The operation of the non-divine causation in Nature is alone direct and efficient; the divine causation is indirect and final only. But see, for the fuller account of this, the essays on “The Limits of Evolution” and “The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom.”]

[1] I must be understood here as reflecting only upon the popular thaumaturgical conceptions of the supernatural. The genuine doctrine of miracle has a speculative truth at its basis, profound and irrefragable: namely, that the causal organisation of Nature — the system of evolution, ever ascending from cause to differing effect — can never be accounted for in terms of the sensible antecedents alone, but requires the omnipresent activity of a transcendingly immanent personal cause; and that the system of Nature is therefore in this sense a Perpetual Miracle. But the natural order flowing from this Intelligible Miracle is immutable, and irreconcilable with “miracle” in the usual sense. [I would now add (1899) that this immanent personal cause is, at closest hand to Nature, human nature; or, more generally, the intelligences other than God, in coöperation with the remoter and quite indirect causality of God as their Type and Ideal. The operation of the non-divine causation in Nature is alone direct and efficient; the divine causation is indirect and final only. But see, for the fuller account of this, the essays on “The Limits of Evolution” and “The Harmony of Determinism and Freedom.”]

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