Equally in the writings of Plato and in those of not a few living men ofscience, we find it assumed that there is an analogy between the processof creation and the process of manufacture. Now not only is this conceptionone which cannot by any cumulative process of thought, or the fulfilmentof predictions based on it, be shown to answer to anything actual; but itcannot be mentally realized, even when all its assumptions are granted. Thoughthe proceedings of a human artificer may vaguely symbolize a method afterwhich the Universe might be shaped, yet imagination of this method does nothelp us to solve the ultimate problem; namely, the origin of the materialsof which the Universe consists. The artizan does not make the iron, wood,or stone, he uses, but merely fashions and combines them. If we suppose suns,and planets, and satellites, and all they contain to have been similarlyformed by a "Great Artificer," we suppose merely that certain pre-existingelements were thus put into their present arrangement. But whence the pre-existingelements? The production of matter out of nothing is the real mystery whichneither this simile nor any other enables us to conceive; and a simile whichdoes not enable us to conceive this may as well be dispensed with. Stillmore manifest becomes the insufficiency of this theory of things, when weturn from material objects to that which contains them -- when instead ofmatter we contemplate space. Did there exist nothing but an immeasurablevoid, explanation would be needed as much as it is now. There would stillarise the question -- how came it so? If the theory of creation by externalagency were an adequate one, it would supply an answer; and its answer wouldbe -- space was made in the same manner that matter was made. But the impossibilityof conceiving this is so manifest that no one dares to assert it. For ifspace was created it must have been previously non-existent. The non-existenceof space cannot, however, by any mental effort be imagined. And if the non-existenceof space is absolutely inconceivable, then, necessarily, its creation isabsolutely inconceivable. Lastly, even supposing that the genesis of theUniverse could really be represented in thought as due to an external agency,the mystery would be as great as ever; for there would still arise the question-- how came there to be an external agency? To account for this only thesame three hypotheses are possible -- self-existence, self-creation, andcreation by external agency. Of these the last is useless: it commits usto an infinite series of such agencies, and even then leaves us where wewere. By the second we are led into the same predicament; since, as alreadyshown, self-creation implies an infinite series of potential existences.
We are obliged, therefore, to fall back on the first, which is the one commonlyaccepted and commonly supposed to be satisfactory. Those who cannot conceivea self-existent Universe, and therefore assume a creator as the source ofthe Universe, take for granted that they can conceive a self-existent Creator.
The mystery which they recognize in this great fact surrounding them on everyside, they transfer to an alleged source of this great fact, and then supposethat they have solved the mystery. But they delude themselves. As was provedat the outset of the argument, self-existence is inconceivable; and thisholds true whatever be the nature of the object of which it is predicated.
Whoever agrees that the atheistic hypothesis is untenable because it involvesthe impossible idea of self-existence, must perforce admit that the theistichypothesis is untenable if it contains the same impossible idea.
Thus these three different suppositions, verbally intelligible thoughthey are, and severally seeming to their respective adherents quite rational,turn out, when critically examined, to be literally unthinkable. It is nota question of probability, or credibility, but of conceivability. Experimentproves that the elements of these hypotheses cannot even be put togetherin consciousness; and we can entertain them only as we entertain such pseud-ideasas a square fluid and a moral substance -- only by abstaining from the endeavourto render them into actual thoughts. Or, reverting to our original mode ofstatement, we may say that they severally involve symbolic conceptions ofthe illegitimate and illusive kind. Differing so widely as they seem to do,the atheistic, the pantheistic, and the theistic hypotheses contain the sameultimate element. It is impossible to avoid making the assumption of self-existencesomewhere; and whether that assumption be made nakedly or under complicateddisguises, it is equally vicious, equally unthinkable. Be it a fragment ofmatter, or some fancied potential form of matter, or some more remote andstill less imaginable mode of being, our conception of its self-existencecan be framed only by joining with it the notion of unlimited duration throughpast time. And as unlimited duration is inconceivable, all those formal ideasinto which it enters are inconceivable; and indeed, if such an expressionis allowable, are the more inconceivable in proportion as the other elementsof the ideas are indefinite. So that in fact, impossible as it is to thinkof the actual Universe as self-existing, we do but multiply impossibilitiesof thought by every attempt we make to explain its existence. §12. If from the origin of the Universe we turn to its nature, thelike insurmountable difficulties rise up before us on all sides -- or rather,the same difficulties under new aspects. We find ourselves obliged to makecertain assumptions; and yet we find these assumptions cannot be representedin thought.
