Still less has he the right to pretend acquaintance with a process of
reasoning by which such
Eternal, mighty, causeless God
can be believed in consistently with the conviction that cause is effect
realised, and means only CHANGE.
Ancient Simonides, when asked by Dionysius to explain the nature of
Deity, demanded a day to 'see about it,' then an additional two days,
and then four days more, thus wisely intimating to his silly pupil, that
the more men think about Gods; the less competent they are to give any
rational account of them.
Cicero was sensible and candid enough to acknowledge that he found it
much easier to say what God was not, than what he was. Like Simonides,
he was _mere_ Pagan, and like him, arguing from the known course of
nature, was unable, with all his mastery of talk, to convey positive
ideas of Deity. But how should he convey to others what he did not,
could not, himself possess? To him no revelation had been vouchsafed,
and though my Lord Brougham is quite sure, without the proof of natural
Theology, revelation has no other basis than mere tradition, we have
even better authority than his Lordship's for the staggering fact that
natural Theology, without the prop of revelation, is a 'rhapsody of
words,' mere jargon, analogous to the tale told by an idiot, so happily
described by our great poet as 'full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142