Mill,however,really goes further.He approves Hamilton's strange assertion that 'religious disbelief and philosophical scepticism are not merely not the same,but have no natural connection,'(122)and holds that all the real arguments for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul remain unaffected by the association theory.In his Logic Mill had accepted Comte's 'law of the three stages';but in his later study of Comte he expressly declares that this doctrine is reconcilable with the belief in a 'creator and supreme governor of the world.'It implies a belief in a 'constant order,'but that order may be due to a primitive creation,and even consistent with the continual superintendence of an,intelligent governor.'(123)In the posthumous essays this position was developed in such a way as to give some scandal to his disciples.(124)He not only leaves room for theistic beliefs,but he seems even to sanction their acceptance.
In the Three Essays on Religion Mill is clearly treading unfamiliar ground.He refers to the arguments of Leibniz,Kant,and Butler,but,as Professor Bain remarks,(125)was a comparative stranger to the whole sphere of speculation.He is not so much at home with his subject as he was in the Logic or the Political Economy;and therefore scarcely appreciates certain conditions of successful navigation of these regions made sufficiently obvious by the history of previous adventurers.Yet his candour and his resolution to give fair consideration to all difficulties are as conspicuous as his wish to appreciate the highest motives of his antagonists.Of the three essays,the first two,written before 1858(On 'Nature'and the 'Utility of Religion'),show less disposition than the last (upon 'Theism')to compromise with orthodoxy;and yet their principles are essentially the same.Mill,of course,is still a thorough empiricist.One version of theology is therefore inconsistent with his most essential tenets.The so-called a priori or ontological argument is for him worthless.It involves,he thinks,the unjustifiable assumption that we can infer 'objective facts from ideas or convictions of our minds.'The 'First Cause argument,'again,can only upon his view of causation suggest an indefinite series of antecedents,and one in which the 'higher'as often follows the 'lower'cause,as the lower the higher.
Matter may be the antecedent of mind,as well as mind of matter.
Moreover,no 'cause'is wanted for that which has no beginning;and as our experience shows a beginning for mind but no beginning for force or matter,the presumption is against mind.(126)If,indeed,the world be simply a series of separate phenomena,connected solely as preceding and succeeding,there is no possibility,it would seem,of inferring any unity or underlying cause or ground.The very attempt to reach unity is as hopeless as is the proverbial problem of weaving ropes from sand.The possibility of Philosophical theism is thus destroyed;for the God of philosophy corresponds to the endeavour to assert precisely the unity thus denied in advance.By 'God'Mill must really mean,not Spinoza's necessary substance nor Kant's 'Idea of the pure Reason,'but a being who is essentially one factor of the universe.The confusion is of critical importance.It is constantly assumed,as Mill assumes,that the 'a priori'and the empirical arguments are different moDes of proving the same conclusion.The word 'God'is no doubt used in both cases;but the word covers entirely different senses.The existence of Jehovah might be proved or disproved like the existence of Moses.
The God of Spinoza is proved from the logical necessity of the unity and regularity of the universe.One Being may interfere or superintend because he is only part of a whole.The other corresponds to the whole,and interferences or miracles become absurd.Mill,therefore,by calmly dismissing the a priori argument is really giving up the God of philosophy,and trying what he can do with the particular or finite being really implied in Paley.Theology on this showing can be only a part of natural science,and precisely that part in which we know nothing.
