As we saw, the whole inquiry began with questions about religion and
morality; and it is precisely in reference to the alleged universality and
innateness of the belief in God and the moral law that Locke is most
successful. And the more modern anthropology teaches us about primitive
man, the stronger becomes the case against the transcendental side in the
controversy. Where his analysis breaks down is in dealing with the
difficult and important ideas of Space, Time, Substance, and
Causality--with the fatal result that such questions as, How is experience
itself possible? or, How from a partial experience can we draw universal
and necessary conclusions? find no place in his theory of knowledge. Of
course, his contemporaries are open to the same {69} criticism--nor,
indeed, had the time come even for the statement of such problems.
Meanwhile, the facility with which the founder of epistemology accepts
fallacies whence Spinoza had already found his way out shows how little he
was master of his means. According to Locke, it is "a certain and evident
truth that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being,
which whether anyone will please to call God it matters not." On
examination the proof appears to involve two unproved assumptions. The
first is that nothing can begin to exist without a cause. The second is
that effects must resemble their causes. And from these it is inferred that
an all-powerful being must have existed from all eternity. The alternative
is overlooked that a succession of more limited beings would answer the
purpose equally well, while it would also be more consistent with our
experience. But a far more fatal objection to Locke's theism results from
his second assumption. This, although not explicitly stated, is involved in
the assertion that for knowledge such as we possess to originate from
things without knowledge is impossible. For, on the same principle, matter
must have been made by something material, pain by something that is
pained, and evil by something that is evil. It would not even be going too
far to say that by this logic I myself must have existed from all eternity;
for to say that I was created by a not-myself would be to say that
something may come from nothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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