Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical InquiryCurtis, George Ticknor
Religion
Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry
Curtis, George Ticknor
Creation; Evolution
Whatever may be said of the rational force of the evidence derived from
phenomenal manifestations which we can observe when we reason about
other phenomenal manifestations which we can not measure, it can not
be said that we have reached a term in the relation that is beyond
the sphere of thought. What I understand Mr. Spencer to mean when he
speaks of "symbolizing" out of the materials which the phenomenal
manifestations give us, may be a process liable to error, but it does
not involve or lead to the "insoluble difficulties" that are supposed
to arise. For example, when, from the existence and power of man, a
being whom we know, and whose phenomenal manifestations lead us to a
knowledge of his limited faculties, we reason to the existence of a
being whose faculties are boundless, we may be in danger of conclusions
into which imperfection will find its way; but it certainly is not
true that in thinking of unlimited power or goodness, or any other
unlimited quality, we transcend the sphere of thought. When we have
expressed in figures the greatest measurable idea of space that can
be so expressed, what do we "symbolize," when we say that beyond that
measured space there stretches a space that we can not measure, and to
which there is of necessity no limit? Does a thinkable relation cease
to exist, because one of the terms is immeasurable to us? As soon as we
have formed an idea of a measurable portion of space, we necessarily
have an idea of endless and immeasurable space; and in this deduction
we have employed no "symbol" formed out of the materials which the
measurable manifestations have given us. We have simply reached a
conclusion that is inevitable. We are all the while thinking of space,
whether it is definite space that we can measure, or indefinite space
that we can not measure.
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