Core Concepts Of Accounting Information Systems 12th Edition Simkin Solutions Manual

Visit https://testbankfan.com to download the full version and
browse more test banks or solution manuals
Core Concepts Of Accounting Information Systems
12th Edition Simkin Solutions Manual
_____ Press the link below to begin your download _____
https://testbankfan.com/product/core-concepts-of-accounting-
information-systems-12th-edition-simkin-solutions-manual/
Access testbankfan.com now to download high-quality
test banks or solution manuals

We believe these products will be a great fit for you. Click
the link to download now, or visit testbankfan.com
to discover even more!
Core Concepts Of Accounting Information Systems 12th
Edition Simkin Test Bank
information-systems-12th-edition-simkin-test-bank/
Core Concepts of Accounting Information Systems 13th
Edition Simkin Solutions Manual
Core Concepts of Accounting Information Systems 14th
Edition Simkin Solutions Manual
Physics of Everyday Phenomena A Conceptual Introduction to
Physics 8th Edition Griffith Solutions Manual
https://testbankfan.com/product/physics-of-everyday-phenomena-a-
conceptual-introduction-to-physics-8th-edition-griffith-solutions-
manual/

Medical Terminology Language for Healthcare 3rd Edition
Edition Thierer Test Bank
https://testbankfan.com/product/medical-terminology-language-for-
healthcare-3rd-edition-edition-thierer-test-bank/
Advanced Accounting 13th Edition Beams Solutions Manual
https://testbankfan.com/product/advanced-accounting-13th-edition-
beams-solutions-manual/
Marketing An Introduction 11th Edition Armstrong Solutions
Manual
https://testbankfan.com/product/marketing-an-introduction-11th-
edition-armstrong-solutions-manual/
Computer Security Principles and Practice 4th Edition
Stallings Solutions Manual
https://testbankfan.com/product/computer-security-principles-and-
practice-4th-edition-stallings-solutions-manual/
Strategic Management A Competitive Advantage Approach
Concepts 16th Edition David Test Bank
https://testbankfan.com/product/strategic-management-a-competitive-
advantage-approach-concepts-16th-edition-david-test-bank/

Personal Nutrition 9th Edition Boyle Test Bank
https://testbankfan.com/product/personal-nutrition-9th-edition-boyle-
test-bank/

SM 8.1
Chapter 8
Accounting Information Systems and Business Processes:
Part II
Discussion Questions
8-1. Four data items that both payroll and personnel functions would use are: employee
number (or SSN), employee name, department, and title. Personnel data would also include data
such as date hired, date of birth, and contact and family data. Payroll data would include pay rate,
job code, and information about deductions.
8-2. Accounting transactions for payroll processing involve essentially the same steps for
each employee. Gross pay, deductions, and net pay must all be calculated. These calculations
involve a lot of basic math (e.g., footing and cross-footing). Outside service bureaus may be less
expensive for payroll processing. They may also offer some advantages in terms of confidentiality.
8-3. Data items likely to be added when inputting a new raw materials inventory item
include: merchandise number, description, quantity measure (e.g., yard, pound, pair, etc.), vendor,
and cost. When a worker records time spent on a production line, data to be input include: worker
identification number, time started and stopped, department to be charged, and rate. In both these
examples, there are other data items that an AIS may capture, depending on the nature of the
reports to be output.
8-4. Nonfinancial information that an AIS might capture about a manufacturing firm’s
production process would primarily consist of information that would help in evaluating productivity
and performance. For example, information needed for control would be the amount of wasted
materials and machine downtime. Productivity information would relate to the amount of time
needed to produce a product or each product component. AISs tend to focus on dollar
measurements, but in many cases, measurements of quantities are equally important to a
business organization.
8-5. The basic concepts are a commitment to eliminate waste, simplify procedures and
speed up production. There are five areas that drive lean manufacturing, and they are cost, quality,
delivery, safety, and morale. Non-value added activities (waste) are eliminated through continuous
improvement efforts (http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/lean_production_main.html).
The concepts that are at the heart of lean production/manufacturing are total quality management
and continuous improvement.
8-6. AIM Industries, a metal stamping company, located in Grand Haven, MI has been in
business for over 40 years. Jeanne Duthler had 10 employees when she bought the plant in 1984.
Now there are 37, and last year’s sales were $5 million. The company is doing the same numbers
dollar wise as they did last year, but showing more profit as a result of lean manufacturing. For
2007, the company expected to increase profitability by 10%.
Lean practices at AIM include:
• Consolidating production steps
• Having raw materials set up at hand to save time and increase productivity
• Moving presses to make production flow smoother
• Finishing a product in one space rather than walking to another room for finishing

SM 8.2
For more examples, see Karen Kroll, “The Lowdown on Lean Accounting,” The Journal of
Accountancy (July 2004), pp. 69-76.
8-7. For examples, see Karen Kroll, “The Lowdown on Lean Accounting,” The Journal of
Accountancy (July 2004), pp. 69-76.
8-8. Both homebuilders and cement companies have information needs related to their
manufacturing processes. The primary difference between these two companies concerns the
need to maintain a job order versus a process costing system. The homebuilder is likely to track
many costs for each individual house built. The cement company will use an AIS that uses input
and output data to calculate costs for specific quantities. This distinction is likely to impact the type
of accounting software a company chooses. Some software packages are specially designed for
either job order or process costing manufacturing environments.
8-9. This chapter discussed AISs for the professional services, health care, and not-for-profit
industries. Some students feel that “the absence of merchandise inventory” is the unique
characteristic of service organizations that causes the greatest problem in their AISs (i.e., budget
forecasting of “returns-on-assets employed” can be difficult). However, the greatest problem may
be the difficulty in measuring the quantity and quality of output, which gives rise to difficulties in
budgetary planning activities, as well as developing preestablished operational quality goals for its
intangible products. These difficulties can cause various negligence suits against service
organizations.
Other vertical market industries include insurance, banking, construction, manufacturing, retail,
hospitality, and government organizations. Each is somewhat unique in its AIS needs. Insurance
has many special issues including co-insurance. The insurance industry is quite diverse and
various kinds of insurers need a variety of accounting information. An important issue for the
insurance industry is fraud. The banking industry must deal with check clearing, credit ratings and
credit histories, as well as information about financial markets. The construction industry is
concerned with projects and has a need for job cost accounting systems and bidding capabilities.
Retailers use POS (point-of-sale) systems to collect a variety of data helpful in analyzing sales.
Manufacturing systems need inventory control systems that allow them to efficiently manage a
variety of inventories. These systems may be quite sophisticated and can include MRP II and/or
ERP capabilities (input technologies might also be used, such as RFIDs and bar codes). The
hospitality industry includes restaurants and hotels and so its information systems vary.
Restaurants are concerned with monitoring costs and perishable inventories. Hotels need
sophisticated reservation systems that can handle various billing rates. AISs for government
entities are built around fund accounting and must comply with governmental accounting
standards. These are just a few of the issues you might discuss relative to these industries.
8-10. To ensure that a business reengineering effort is successful, managers will want to
“champion” the effort. This means obtaining a buy in from employees and showing unwavering
commitment and enthusiasm for the project. Honesty is important because many workers equate
reengineering with downsizing. Managers should be realistic about jobs that may be lost and
should prepare to retrain workers or provide career counseling to affected employees.
Management should be conservative in estimating the benefits to accrue from reengineering
efforts, as well as the costs that may be incurred. The cost of reengineering can be high. Several
good reference articles on this topic are:
“Change Champions,” J. Berk, The Internal Auditor, April 2006, pp.64-68.

SM 8.3
“Get Ready: The Rules are Changing,” K. Melymuka, Computerworld, June 13, 2005, p. 38.
“Are Companies Really Ready for Stretch Targets?” C. Chen and K. Jones, Management
Accounting Quarterly, Summer 2005, pp.10-18.
Problems
8-11. This question requires students to do some outside research. It is useful for students
since it helps them to understand how industries vary in their accounting information needs.
Students might be randomly assigned to investigate health care, insurance, banking, construction,
manufacturing, retail, professional service, hospitality, not-for-profit, or government organizations.
Each of these organizations has very specialized AIS needs. Students may find that accounting
systems for these organizations consist of generic accounting software, supplemented by
spreadsheets and databases. They may also learn that many of the organizations use very
specific programs. For instance, a student who looks at catering firms might learn about catering
software and its special complexities. Students can be sent to doctor's offices, retail stores,
restaurants, and so on to interview employees about the accounting software used. There are
many sources of information about vertical market software programs, including personal
interviews and accounting magazines/journals.
Students might also use an Internet search engine, such as Yahoo or Google, to find sites for
many accounting software programs. Using the terms “construction software,” “health software,”
and “retail software,” students will find many specialized software vendors. You may want to ask
students to print web pages for specific vendors, or to do some analysis of the special features
associated with software for each industry. For example, the following web sites offer information
on software for dentists to manage their practice:
http://www.dentrix.com
http://gbsystems.com/os96i.htm
http://www.dentalexec.com/dental-exec
8-12. As you might imagine there are a wide variety of choices that students might identify for
this problem. The important point to make with the students is that the solution should match the
company size, needs, and other factors that the supervisor “should” identify before the search is
conducted. However, the following are a representative sampling of the choices available:
• ADP Payroll Software for Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting
(http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/office/accounting/payroll-software.mspx)
• ZPay Payroll Systems offers technical support, tutorials, and a free 30-day trial
(http://www.zpay.com/)
• PenSoft Payroll Solutions is designed for small to mid-sized businesses, and can process
virtually any payroll and related tax requirements. (http://www.pensoft.com/aboutus.asp)
8-13. Again, there are a wide variety of choices that students might identify to help CEOs and
CFOs deal with the compliance requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, specifically the Section
302 and Section 404 reviews. Many business process management solutions are already
available to managers. The following web sites offer information on this type of BPM software:
http://www.longview.com
http://www.approva.net/products

SM 8.4
8-14. An automated time and billing system could help this firm in several ways. First, by
investing in an in-house time and billing software, it may be possible to significantly reduce the
expense associated with the outside accountant. Since this type of software may be integrated with
a complete AIS, the outside accountant would not need to compile financial statements. The
system would do this automatically.
Another way the automated time and billing system would help is by capturing more detail. A
manual system cannot keep track of so many items without becoming unwieldy. The automated
system can keep track of specific charges by customer and therefore reduce overhead to be
allocated. With an automated system, many indirect costs may become direct costs. For
instance, secretarial work, phone expenses, and copying may all be directly related to a
particular client.
An automated system will be able to analyze data in many different ways. Each lawyer's
billable hours can be computed and compared for various periods, for example. Productivity
reports and reports highlighting budget overruns can be produced easily with an automated
system. What an automated system cannot do is to force lawyers to record their activities on a
timely basis. This is frequently a problem in professional service firms. Some organizations
resolve the problem by holding up paychecks until time sheets are filled out completely and
accurately. Other solutions lie in technology that makes it easier for professionals to record
their time or automatically records the time for individuals.
Lawyers who use computers may record time spent on a client's work in the following way. Every
time the lawyer logs into a particular file, software can keep track of the time the file is in use.
Alternatively, a professional might keep track of time in an on-line organizer. As the individual
begins work on a particular client's file, he or she might enter the time in the organizer and then
enter the time when finished. Online time sheets work the same way.
By assigning a special code to a customer that is used when copying, the amount spent for
copying can be captured directly. Special codes entered into the telephone can help record
phone charges, particularly long distance charges. Use of customer codes when special mail
services are necessary, such as Federal Express, also allows for tracking expenses directly.
Software: A number of companies offer this type of software, such as QuickBooks
(http://quickbooks.intuit.com) and Imagine Time (http://www.imaginetime.com).
Features include: Time & billing (tracks billable time; some programs create reports for individual
billing; stopwatch feature accurately times tasks; billable time can be recorded on an hourly,
contingent, transactional, or user defined fee rate individually or firm-wide); due date monitor;
calendar/contacts; integrated scheduling; client relations manager; credit card processing; and
others.

SM 8.5
Case Analyses
8-15 Public Accounting Firm (Modeling Human Resource Management)
8-16. Hammaker Manufacturing I (AIS for New Manufacturing Firm)
1. Many companies are turning to an AIS or ERP to help them better manage inventory.
Automated systems are able to react faster than manual ones. An AIS may place automatic
orders when inventories fall below specified levels. Use of e-business or EDI can also help as
electronic orders are faster than the ones that rely on phone or mail systems. Data analysis
and logistics tools can help to manage inventories by considering variables such as lead times,
delivery schedules, routing, safety stocks, and others.
2. There are many data elements that the system may include about inventory items. Vendor,
delivery time, safety stock, lead times, and average order size are a few of them. As an
example of the complexity of configuring a system to manage inventories, consider McDonalds’
distributors. McDonald’s has nine distributors and hundreds of suppliers. They need frozen
foods and other perishable food items, in addition to restaurant supplies. They must estimate
inventory needs with very tight windows. Further, they need to take into account items such as
promotions (remember when McDonald’s ran out of beanie babies?). Delivery times can be
very tight. For example, a store may want frozen goods delivered each Tuesday between noon
and 12:30 p.m. – leaving only a ½ hour window. As it happens, McDonald’s distributors use JD
Edwards software. The software had to be customized to allow for different fields when
suppliers used EDI versus manual orders, among other data items needed to accommodate
the special needs of this particular business.

SM 8.6
8-17. Hammaker Manufacturing II (Business Process Reengineering or Outsource)
1. Students might select any of the documentation tools identified in Chapter 3 (flowcharts,
process maps, or one of the graphical tools such as CASE tools). Most likely, HMC would work
on the manufacturing processes – or they might limit their efforts to the inventory process first.
By restructuring the manufacturing process or by looking into just-in-time inventory purchasing,
the company might be able to save money and jobs.
2. Students might locate a variety of sources that list reasons for outsourcing. The Introduction
section of Part Two of the textbook, identifies several reasons: global pressures to cut costs, to
reduce capital expenditures, and to become as efficient as possible at core competencies.
Additional reasons that different companies might use are:
• access resources that are not available within the company (people, capacity, technology)
a. To access innovative ideas, solutions, expertise of individuals
b. To provide flexibility to meet changing volume requirements – to increase or decrease
capacity as needed
c. To access plant and equipment without the time and cost of building
d. To gain quick access to new process, production, or information systems technology
(perhaps too costly or unproven so company is not ready to buy it yet – if at all)
• To improve speed-to-market of products
• To accelerate reengineering benefits
• To share risks
• To take advantage of offshore capabilities (human capital, lower cost)
• To better manage difficult or non-core processes and functions
• To enjoy economies of scale (vendor can accomplish process on much larger scale)
Some believe that investors want companies to expense context work (anything that is not
considered a core process of the firm) rather than invest in it. That is, investors would rather
see it on the income statement than the balance sheet, which in effect would free up resources
(employees) to focus on the processes that generate revenue, and increase share value. For
example, if we outsource the accounting function, then we might be able to better use the
talents of the staff accountants in analyzing other business opportunities, analyzing and
improving business processes, etc. So we could use our human capital in endeavors more
directly related to our core processes.
Hammaker might consider a number of these reasons to decide to outsource. Of course, the
first question is: What process (or processes) might Dick want to outsource? Denise does
not know the answer to this question, so the company should study the various processes
discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 to make this determination. Since frequently outsourced
processes are human resources, finance and accounting, customer services, learning services
and training, janitorial services, and information technology, these should probably be
examined first. Once one or several of these processes have been identified as possible
candidates for outsourcing, we would then ask: Which of these processes are core to our
business?
Of course, in the effort to examine each of these processes, Dick might want his employees to
determine where efficiencies may be realized through Business Process Reengineering.
3. We would probably all agree that producing automotive parts is a core business process for
Hammaker. It’s the primary thing the company does. It’s what the company does to generate

SM 8.7
revenue. It’s also whatever you do to differentiate your company’s products from your
competitors’ products.
4. The answer is yes, businesses do sometimes outsource what we would call core processes. A
number of examples may be cited here. Probably the best known example is Nike. This
sneaker company doesn’t manufacture any sneakers. The entire production process has been
outsourced. Insurance companies are another example. Several of their core business
processes are risk management, information services, underwriting, claims administration, and
customer service. Both customer service and underwriting are processes that are now
outsourced by some insurance companies.
Why would companies outsource a core process? There is no one answer for every situation,
but most likely firms would do this for the same reasons cited above in the answer to
requirement #2. Sometimes this becomes a strategic alliance with another company (or
companies) so that the company that does the outsourcing can focus on other products or on
other services to generate revenue.
5. Most likely any business decision that displaces employees will have social and legal
implications. Socially responsible organizations are typically admired by the community and
the marketplace, so developing options for the displaced workers is always an important
consideration. If the employee’s job is deleted, what other jobs might the person do for
Hammaker? Is training required? What if there are no employment choices? Should
Hammaker offer transition-assistance packages to those employees to help them find jobs at
other firms? At what cost? These are all important questions that should be asked.
Regarding legal implications, we need to know if the company employees are represented by a
union. We might have restrictions that are in contracts with the union that would limit what
options we can and cannot exercise. In this case, we know that Hammaker Manufacturing is
not limited by any union contracts. The company might have other contractual obligations that
it needs to honor. For example, is there a mortgage on the manufacturing complex or is there
a long-term lease? The lease contract might have certain penalties for breaking the contract if
the facilities are no longer needed.
6. This is certainly a case that has many facets and interesting possibilities. Unfortunately, we
don’t really have enough information at this point to make an informed recommendation, but
many intriguing clues may be found in the case to suggest that some sort of outsourcing would
be advantageous to Hammaker.
8-18. Hammaker Manufacturing III (Lean Production/Lean Accounting)
1. To adopt lean production, HMC would probably want to focus on the five principles of lean
thinking that are identified in an article in Strategic Finance, May 2007 (How do your
measurements stack up to lean? By Kennedy et al.). These include:
• Customer Value: Lean enterprises continually redefine value from a customer’s standpoint.
This means that HMC would need to get feedback from their customers.
• Value Stream: The lean enterprise is organized in value streams. This means that HMC
would need to rethink how they collect data for decision making.
• Flow and Pull: In a lean enterprise the customer order triggers or pulls production. This
might represent the biggest change in philosophy for HMC – which would be a change from
stockpiling inventory to more of a JIT philosophy.
• Empowerment: Lean enterprises’ employees are empowered with the authority to interpret

SM 8.8
information and to take necessary actions.
• Perfection: Lean enterprises seek perfection, defined as 100% quality flowing in an
unbroken flow at the pull of the customer. HMC is already committed to quality products so
this does not represent a change from current thinking.
2. Firms that implement lean production concepts typically benefit in the following ways:
• Waste reduction
• Production cost reduction
• Labor reduction
• Inventory reduction
• Production capacity increase
• Employee involvement and empowerment (multi-skilled workforce)
• Higher quality products
• More information: http://www.1000ventures.com/presentations/production_systems.html
3. Denise and her financial analysts might gain the following benefits from attending a Lean
Accounting Summit:
• Perhaps the most important benefit is the ability to network with professionals at other
organizations who have already implemented lean production concepts to gain insights
from their efforts – i.e., lessons learned from those who have already worked with these
concepts
• Learn cutting-edge thoughts and ideas
• Discover helpful software packages and accounting methods that support lean production
• Identify some best practices from companies currently using lean production concepts
• Identify companies to benchmark these concepts

Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content

'Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, Eternal Word.
From Thee departing they are lost, and rove
At random, without honour, hope, or peace;
From Thee is all that soothes the life of man—
His high endeavour, and his glad success,
His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.
But oh! Thou bounteous Giver of all good,
Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown;
Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor,
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away.'
Art. II.—Theism—Desiderata in the Theistic Argument.
It is a philosophical commonplace that all human questioning leads
back to ultimate truths which cannot be further analysed, and of
which no other explanation can be given than that they exist. Every
explanation of the universe rests and must rest on the inexplicable.
The borders of the known and the knowable are fringed with
mystery, and all the data of knowledge recede into it by longer or
shorter pathways. Thus, while it is the very mystery of the universe
that has given rise to human knowledge, by quickening the curiosity
of man, it is the same mystery which prescribes a limit to his insight,
which continues to overshadow him in his researches, and to girdle
him, in his latest discoveries, with its veil. In wonder all philosophy is
born; in wonder it always ends: and, to adopt a well-known
illustration, our human knowledge is a stream of which the source is
hid, and the destination unknown, although we may surmise
regarding both.
But the mystery which thus envelopes the origin and the destination
of the universe is not absolutely overpowering; nor does it lay an
arrest on the human faculties in their efforts to understand that
universe as a whole. Man strives to penetrate farther and farther into

the shrine of nature, and records in the several sciences the stages
of his progress. These sciences are of necessity inter-related and
dependent. Each section of human knowledge has a doorway
leading into these on either side, and one which opens behind into
the region of first principles. Separate inquirers may content
themselves with their special region of phenomena and its laws,
which they seek to understand more perfectly and to interpret more
clearly, and never so beyond their own domain. It is by such division
of labour and concentration of aim that the achievements of modern
science have been won. But it is only by forsaking the narrow region,
and, without entering the borderland of some new science, receding
behind it, and contemplating it from a distance, that its value as a
contribution to our knowledge of the universe can be discerned.
Each of the sciences has its own ideal, but the goal of universal
science is the discovery of one ultimate principle which will be
explanatory of all observed phenomenon.
And the speculative thinker has a similar aim. The perennial question
of philosophy is the discovery of the central principle of Existence, its
haunting problem is the ultimate explanation of the universe of
being. The universe—what is it? whence is it? whither is it tending?
can we know anything beyond the fleeting phenomena of its ever
unfolding and ever varying history? Is its source, and therefore its
central principle, accessible to our faculties of knowledge?
And this is the distinctive problem of rational theology. Philosophy
and science both lead up to theology as the apex of human
knowledge. The latter may be fitly called the scientia scientiarum.
Questions as to the nature and origin of Life upon our planet, the
nature of Force or energy, the problems of Substance and of Cause,
the questions of the Absolute and Infinite, all centre in this, are all
the several ways of expressing it from the point of view which the
questioner occupies, 'What is the ultimate principle of the universe,
the ἀρχὴ of all existence?' Speculative philosophy and science deal
proximately, it is true, with the problems of finite existence,
existence as presented to us in the surrounding universe, and the

laws which regulate it; but they covertly imply and remotely lead up
to the question we have stated. They are the several approaches to
that science which sits enthroned on the very summit of human
knowledge.
Nevertheless, the science of speculative theology is as yet
lamentably incomplete. We have scores of treatises devoted to the
subject, and numerous professed solutions of the problem. But we
have not, in the English language, a single treatise which even
contemplates a philosophical arrangement and classification of the
various theories, actual and possible, upon the subject. It is
otherwise with the great questions of intellectual and ethical
philosophy. We have elaborate and almost exhaustive schemes of
theories on the nature of perception, or our knowledge of the
external world, the laws of association, the problem of causality, and
the nature of conscience. But we look in vain for any similar attempt
to classify the several lines of argument, or possible modes of
theistic proof, so as to present a tabular view of the various doctrines
on this subject. We are limited to the well-known but precarious
scheme of proofs à priori and à posteriori,[11] and to the more
accurate classification of Kant, the ontological, the cosmological, and
the physico-theological proofs, with his own argument from the
moral faculty or practical reason. In addition, we are not aware of
any English treatise specially devoted to the history of this branch of
philosophical literature, with the exception of a brief essay by Dr.
Waterland, in which he traverses a small section of the whole area;
and that not as the historian of philosophical opinion, but in the
interest of a special theory.[12]
The present condition of 'natural theology' in England is scarcely
creditable to the critical insight of the British mind. There has been
little earnest grappling with the problem in the light of the past
history of opinions; and traditionary stock-proofs have been relied
upon with a perilous complacency. The majority of theologians trust
to an utterly futile and treacherous argument, from what has long
been termed 'final causes,' and when beaten from that field, at once

by the rigour of speculative thought and the march of the inductive
sciences, the refuge that is taken in the region of our moral nature is
scarcely less secure, while the character of the theistic argument
from conscience is suffered to remain in the obscurity which still
shrouds it.
In the following pages we propose to show the invalidity of some of
the popular modes of proof, and to suggest a few desiderata in the
future working out of the problem.
It may be useful to preface our criticism by a classification of the
various theistic theories, rather as a provisional chart of opinion,
than as an exhaustive summary of all the arguments which have
been advanced, or of all possible varieties in the mode of proof.
Many thinkers, perhaps the majority, and notably the mediæval
schoolmen, have combined several distinct lines of evidence; and
have occasionally borrowed from a doctrine which they explicitly
reject some of the very elements of their argument. They have often
forsaken their own theory at a crisis, and not observed their
departure from the data on which they profess exclusively to build.
The first class of theories are strictly ontological or ontotheological.
They attempt to prove the objective existence of Deity from the
subjective notion of necessary existence in the human mind, or from
the assumed objectivity of space and time which they interpret as
the attributes of a necessary substance.
The second are the cosmological or cosmo-theological proofs. They
essay to prove the existence of a supreme self-existent cause from
the mere fact of the existence of the world, by the application of the
principle of causality. Starting with the postulate of any single
existence whatsoever, the world or anything in the world, and
proceeding to argue backwards or upwards, the existence of one
supreme cause is held to be 'a regressive inference' from the
existence of these effects. As there cannot be, it is alleged, an
infinite series of derived or dependent effects, we at length reach
the infinite or uncaused cause. This has been termed the proof from

contingency, as it rises from the contingent to the necessary, from
the relative to the absolute. But the cosmological proof may have a
threefold character, according as it is argued: 1. That the necessary
is the antithesis of the contingent; or, 2. That because some being
now exists, some being must have always existed; or, 3. That
because we now exist and have not caused ourselves, some cause
adequate to produce us, must also now exist.
A third class of proofs are somewhat inaccurately termed physico-
theological, a phrase equally descriptive of them and of those last
mentioned. They are rather teleological or teleotheological. The
former proof started from any finite existence. It did not scrutinise
its character, but rose from it to an absolute cause, by a direct
mental leap or inference. This scrutinises the effect, and finds traces
of intelligence within it. It detects the presence or the vestiges of
mind in the particular effect it examines, viz., the phenomena of the
world, and from them it infers the existence of Deity. One branch of
it is the popular argument from design, or adaptation in nature, the
fitness of means to ends implying, it is said, an architect or designer.
It may be called techno-theology, and is variously treated according
as the technologist (α) starts from human contrivance and reasons
to nature, or (β) starts from nature's products and reasons toward
man. Another branch is the argument from the order of the universe,
from the types or laws of nature, indicating, it is said, an orderer or
law-giver, whose intelligence we thus discern. It is not, in this case,
that the adjustment of means to ends proves the presence of a mind
that has adjusted these. But the law itself, in its regularity and
continuity, implies a mind behind it, an intelligence animating the
otherwise soulless universe. It might be termed nomo-theology or
typo-theology. Under the same general category may be placed the
argument from animal instinct, which is distinct at once from the
evidence of design and that of law or typical order. To take one
instance: The bee forms its cells, following unconsciously, and by
what we term 'instinct,' the most intricate, mathematical, laws.
There is mind, there is thought in the process; but whose mind,
whose thought? Not the animal's, because it is not guided by

experience. The result arrived at is a result which could be attained
by man only through the exercise of reason of the very highest
order. And the question arises, are we not warranted in supposing
that a hidden pilot guides the bee, concealed behind what we call its
instinct. We do not, meanwhile, discuss the merit of this argument;
but merely indicate the difference between it and the argument from
design, and that from law and order. It is not a question of the
adjustment of phenomena. It is the demand of the intellect for a
cause adequate to account for a unique phenomenon. It approaches
the cosmo-theological argument as closely as it approaches the
techno-theological one; yet it is different from both. The cosmo-
theological rises from any particular effect, and by a backward
mental bound reaches an infinite first cause. The techno-theological
attempts to rise from the adjustment of means to ends, to an
adjuster or contriver. This simply asks, whence comes the mind that
is here in operation, perceived by its effects?
The next class of arguments are based upon the moral nature of
man. They may be termed in general ethico-theological; and there
are, at least, two main branches in this line of proof. The former is
the argument from conscience as a moral law, pointing to Another
above it; the law that is 'in us, yet not of us'—not the 'autonomy' of
Kant, but a theonomy—bearing witness to a legislator above. It is
the moral echo within the soul of a Voice louder and vaster without.
And, as evidence, it is direct and intuitive, not inferential. The latter
is the argument of Kant, (in which he was anticipated by several,
notably by Raimund of Sabunde.) It is indirect and inferential, based
upon the present phenomena of our moral nature. The moral law
declares that evil is punishable and to be punished, that virtue is
rewardable and to be rewarded; but in this life they are not so:
therefore, said Kant, there must be a futurity in which the
rectification will take place, and a moral arbiter by whom it will be
effected.
Finally, there is the argument, which, when philosophically unfolded,
is the only unassailable stronghold of theism, its impregnable

fortress, that of intuition. As it is simply the utterance or attestation
of the soul in the presence of the Object which it does not so much
discover by searching, as apprehend in the art of revealing itself, it
may be called (keeping to the analogy of our former terms) eso-
theological or esoterico-theological. It is not an argument, an
inference, a conclusion. It is an attestation, the glimpse of a reality
which is apprehended by the instinct of the worshipper, and through
the poet's vision, as much as by the gaze of the speculative reason.
It is not the verdict of one part of human nature, of reason, or the
conscience, the feelings, or the affections; but of the whole being,
when thrown into the poise or attitude of recognition, before the
presence of the self-revealing object. There are several phases of
this, which we term the eso-theological proof. We see its most
rudimental traces in the polytheism of the savage mind, and its
unconscious personification of nature's forces. When this crude
conception of diverse powers in partial antagonism gives place to the
notion of one central power, the instinct asserts itself in the common
verdict of the common mind as to One above, yet kindred to it. It is
attested by the feeling of dependence, and by the instinct of
worship, which witnesses to some outward object corresponding to
the inward impulse, in analogy with all the other instincts of our
nature. It is farther attested by the poet's interpretation of nature,
the verdict of the great seers, that the universe is pervaded by a
supreme Spirit, 'haunted for ever by the eternal mind.' We find its
highest attestation in that consciousness of the Infinite itself which is
man's highest prerogative as a rational creature. We have thus the
following chart of theistic theories.
I. Onto-theological—
1. From necessary notion to reality.
(α) Anselm's proof.
(β) Descartes' first argument.
2. From space and time, as attributes to their substance.
II. Cosmo-theological—
1. Antithetic.
2. Causal.

3. 'Sufficient reason.' (Leibnitz.)
III. Teleo-theological—
1. Techno-theology.
2. Typo-theology.
3. (Animal instinct.)
IV. Ethico-theological—
1. Deonto-theological. (direct.)
2. Indirect and inferential. (Kant.)
V. Eso-theological—
1. The infinite. (Fenelon. Cousin.)
2. The world soul.
3. The instinct of worship.
In addition, we might mention several subsidiary or sporadic proofs
which have little or no philosophical relevancy, but which have some
theological suggestiveness, viz., 1. The historical consensus. 2. The
felicity of the theist. 3. The testimony of revelation.
It is unnecessary to discuss all these alleged proofs at length; but
the powerlessness of the most of them to establish the transcendent
fact they profess to reach, demands much more serious thought
than it has yet received.
The ontological proof has always possessed a singular fascination for
the speculative mind. It promises, and would accomplish so much, if
only it were valid. It would be so powerful, if only it were conclusive.
But had demonstration been possible, the theistic argument, like the
proofs of mathematics, would have carried conviction to the majority
of thinkers long ago. The historical failure is signal. Whether in the
form in which it was originally cast by Augustine, Anselm, and
Aquinas, or in the more elaborate theory of Descartes, or as
presented by the ponderous English minds of Cudworth, Henry More,
and Dr. Samuel Clarke, it is altogether a petitio principii. Under all its
modifications, it reasons from the necessary notion of God, to his
necessary existence; or from the necessary existence of space and
time, which are assumed to be the properties or attributes of a

substance, to the necessary existence of that substance. A purely
subjective necessity of the reason is carried from within, and held
conclusive in the realm of objective reality. But the very essence of
the problem is the discovery of a valid pathway by which to pass
from the notions of the intellect to the realities of the universe
beyond it; we may not, therefore, summarily identify the two, and at
the outset take the existence of the one as demonstrative of the
other. In the affirmation of real existence we pass from the notion
that has entered the mind (or is innate), to the realm of objective
being, which exists independently of us who affirm it; and how to
pass warrantably from the ideal world within to the real world
without is the very problem to be solved. To be valid at its starting-
point, the ontological argument ought to prove that the notion of
God is so fixed in the very root of our intelligent nature that it cannot
be dislodged from the mind; and this some thinkers, such as Clark,
have had the hardihood to affirm. To be valid as it proceeds, it ought
to prove that the notion thus necessary in thought, has a real
counterpart in the realm of things, in order to vindicate the step it so
quietly takes from the ideal notion to the world of real existence. It
passes from thought to things, as it passes from logical premiss to
conclusion. But to be logical, it must rest contented with an ideal
conclusion deduced from its ideal premises. And thus, the only valid
issue of the ontological argument is a system of absolute idealism, of
which the theological corollary is pantheism. But as this is not the
Deity the argument essays to reach, it must be pronounced illogical
throughout.
Thus the ontological argument identifies the logical and the real. But
the illicit procedure in which it indulges would be more apparent
than it is to à priori theorists, if the object they imagine they have
reached were visible in nature, and apprehensible by the senses. To
pass from the ideal to the real sphere by a transcendant act of
thought is seen at once to be unwarrantable in the case of sense-
perception. In this case, it is the presence of the object that alone
warrants the transition, else we should have as much right to believe
in the real existence of the hippogriff as in the reality of the horse.

But when the object is invisible, and is at the same time the
supreme being in the universe, the speculative thinker is more easily
deceived. We must, therefore, in every instance ask him, where is
the bridge from the notion to the reality? What is the plank thrown
across the chasm which separates these two regions, (to use an old
philosophical phrase) 'by the whole diameter of being?' We can
never, by any vault of logic pass from the one to the other. We are
imprisoned within the region of mere subjectivity in all à priori
demonstration, and how to escape from it, is (as we said before) the
very problem to be solved.
Anselm, who was the first to formulate the ontological proof, argued
that our idea of God is the idea of a being than whom we can
conceive nothing greater. But inasmuch as real existence is greater
than mere thought, the existence of God is guaranteed in the very
idea of the most perfect being; otherwise the contradiction of one
still more perfect would emerge. The error of Anselm was the error
of his age, the main blot in the whole mediæval philosophy. It first
seemed to him that reason and instinctive faith were separated by a
wide interval. He then wished to have a reason for his faith, cast in
the form of a syllogism. And he failed to see, or adequately to
understand, that all demonstrative reasoning hangs upon axiomatic
truths which cannot be demonstrated, not because they are inferior
to reason, but because they are superior to reasoning—the pillars
upon which all ratiocination rests. This was his first mistake.
Dissatisfied with the data upon which all reasoning hangs, he
preferred the stream to the fountain-head, while he thought
(contradictory as it is) that by going down the stream he could reach
the fountain! But his second mistake was the greater of the two. He
confounded the necessities of thought with the necessities of the
universe. He passed without a warrant from his own subjective
thought to the region of objective reality. And it has been the same
with all who have since followed him in this ambitious path. But after
witnessing the elaborate tortures to which the mediæval theologians
subjected their intellects in the process, we see their powers fail, and
the chasm still yawning between the abstract notions of the mind

and the concrete facts of the universe. It is remarkable that any of
them were satisfied with the accuracy of their reasonings. We can
explain it only by the intellectual habit of the age, and the (misread)
traditions of the Stagyrite. They made use, unconsciously, of that
intuition which carries us across the gulf, and they misread the
process by which they reached the other side. They set down to the
credit of their intellect what was due to the necessities of the moral
nature, and the voice of the heart.
Descartes was the most illustrious thinker, who, at the dawn of
modern philosophy, developed the scholastic theism. While
inaugurating a new method of experimental research, he
nevertheless retained the most characteristic doctrine of mediæval
ontology. He argues that necessary existence is as essential to the
idea of an all-perfect being, as the equality of its three angles to two
right angles is essential to the idea of a triangle. But though he
admits that his 'thought imposes no necessity on things,' he
contradicts his own admission by adding, 'I cannot conceive God
except as existing, and hence it follows that existence is inseparable
from him.' In his 'Principles of Philosophy' we find the following
argument:—
'As the equality of its three angles to two right angles is necessarily
comprised in the idea of the triangle, the mind is firmly persuaded
that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; so
from its perceiving necessary and external existence to be comprised
in the idea which it has of an all-perfect being, it ought manifestly to
conclude that this all-perfect being exists.'—(Pt. i. sec. 14.)
This argument is more formally expounded in his 'Reply to
Objections to the Meditations,' thus:—
'Proposition I. The existence of God is known from the consideration
of His nature alone. Demonstration: To say that an attribute is
contained in the nature or in the concept of a thing, is the same as to
say that this attribute is true of this thing, and that it may be affirmed
to be in it. But necessary existence is contained in the nature or the
concept of God. Hence, it may be with truth affirmed that necessary
existence is in God, or that God exists.'

A slight amount of thought will suffice to show that in this elaborate
array of argumentation, Descartes is the victim of a subtle fallacy.
Our conception of necessary existence cannot include the fact of
necessary existence, for (to repeat what we have already said) the
one is an ideal concept of the mind, the other is a fact of real
existence. The one demands an object beyond the mind conceiving
it, the other does not. All that the Cartesian argument could prove
would be that the mental concept was necessary, not that the
concept had a counterpart in the outer universe. It is, indeed, a
necessary judgment that the three angles of a triangle are equal to
two right angles, because this is an identical proposition; the subject
and the predicate are the same, the one being only an expansion of
the other. We cannot, therefore, destroy the predicate and leave the
subject intact. But it is otherwise when we affirm that any triangular
object exists, we may then destroy the predicate 'existence,' and yet
leave the subject (the notion of the triangle) intact in the mind.
It is true that Descartes has not limited himself to this futile à priori
demonstration. He has buttressed his formal ontology by a much
more suggestive though logically as inconclusive an argument. He
again reasons thus in his 'Principles:' We have the idea of an all-
perfect being in the mind, but whence do we derive it? It is
impossible that we can have an idea of anything, unless there be an
original somewhere in the universe whence we derive it, as the
shadow is the sign of a substance that casts it. But it is manifest that
the more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, and that which
knows something more perfect than itself is not the cause of its own
being. Since, therefore, we ourselves are not so perfect as the idea
of perfection which we find within us, we are forced to believe that
this idea in us is derived from a more perfect being above us, and
consequently that such a being exists.
It will be observed that this second argument of Descartes is partly
cosmological,—though ultimately it merges in the ontological, and
falls back upon it for support. Hence, Descartes himself called it an à

posteriori argument. And it may therefore serve as a link of
connection and transition to the second class of arguments.
But before passing to these, we may observe that all the à priori
theorists, professing to conduct us to the desired conclusion on the
level road of demonstration (while they all contradict their own
principles, and furtively introduce the contingent facts of
experience), have but a faint conception of the magnitude of the
question at issue. To work out a demonstration as with algebraic
formulæ, to contemplate the problem as one of mathematical
science, under the light and guidance of the reason alone, and
unaided by the moral intuitions, betokens a lack of insight into the
very problem in question. The object of which we are in search is
not a blank colourless abstraction, or necessary entity. Suppose that
a supreme existence were demonstrable, that bare entity is not the
God of theism, the infinite Intelligence and Personality, of whose
existence the human spirit desires some assurance, if it can be had.
And a formal demonstration of a primitive source of existence (more
geometrico) is of no theological value. It is an absolute zero,
inaccessible alike to the reason and to the heart, before which the
human spirit freezes; and as a mere ultimatum its existence is
conceded by every philosophic school.
The germs of the cosmological argument (as of the ontological) are
found in the scholastic philosophy, though its elaboration was left to
the first and second periods of the modern era. Diodorus of Tarsus,
John Damascenus, Hugo of St. Victor, and Peter of Poitiers, have
each contributed to the development of this mode of proof. It is the
argument à contingentia mundi, or ex rerum mutabilitate; and may
be briefly stated thus: If the contingent exists, the necessary also
exists. I myself, the world, the objects of sense, are contingent
existences, and there must be a cause of these, which cause must
be also an effect. Go back, therefore, to the cause of that cause, and
to its cause again, and you must at length pause in the regress; and
by rising to a First Clause, you escape from the contingent and reach
the necessary. From the observation of the manifold sequences of

nature you rise to the causal fountain-head, as you cannot travel
backwards for ever along an infinite line of dependent sequences.
But this argument is as illusory as the ontological one, from which,
indeed, it borrows its strength, and of which it shares the weakness.
For why should we ever pause in the regressive study of the
phenomena of the universe, of which we only observe the slow
evolution through immeasurable time? How do we reach a fountain-
head at all? We are not warranted in saying that because we cannot
think out an endless regress of infinite antecedents, therefore we
must assume a first cause. For that assumption of the ἀρχὴ, of an
uncaused cause, when we have wearied ourselves in mounting the
steps of the ladder of finite agency, is to the speculative reason
equally illicit as is its assumption while we are standing on the first
round of the ladder. Why should we not assume it, step over to it at
the first, if we may do so, or are compelled to do so, at the last? The
argument starts from the concrete and works its way backward
along the channel of the concrete, till it turns round, bolts up, takes
wing, and 'suddenly scales the height.' The speculative reason at
length essays to cross over the chasm between the long series of
dependent sequences, and the original or uncreated cause; but it
does so furtively. It crosses over by an unknown path to an unknown
source, supposed to be necessary.
But again, what light is cast by this ambitious regress on the nature
of the fountain-head. How is the being we are supposed to have
reached at length, the source of that series of effects which are
supposed to have sprung from his creative fiat? If we experienced a
difficulty in our regress in connecting the last link of the chain with
the causa causans, we experience the same or a counter-difficulty in
our descent, in connecting the first link of the chain with the creative
energy. And how, it may be asked, do we connect that supreme
cause with intelligence, or with personality? We have called the
assumption of this ἀρχὴ a leap in the dark, and we ask how can we
ever escape from the phenomenal series of effects which we
perceive in nature, to the noumenal source of which we are in

search? By the observation of what is or what has been, we merely
ascend backwards in time, through the ever-changing forms of
phenomenal energy (our effects being but developed causes, and
our causes potential effects), but we never reach a noumenal
source. That is reserved for the flight of the speculative reason vainly
soaring into the empyrean, beyond the very atmosphere of thought.
The admission that some kind of being or substance must have
always existed in the universe, is the common property of all the
systems of philosophy. Materialist and idealist, theist and atheist,
alike admit it, but its admission is theologically worthless. 'The notion
of a God,' says Sir William Hamilton, in his admirable manner, 'is not
contained in the notion of a mere first cause; for, in the admission of
a first cause, atheist and theist are as one.' The being that is
assumed to exist is, therefore, a mere blank essence, a zero, an
'everything = nothing,' so far as this argument can carry us. Nature
remains a fathomless abyss, telling us nothing of its whence and
whither. It is still the fountain-head of inscrutable mystery, which
overshadows and overmasters us. The natura naturata casts no light
on the natura naturans. The systole and diastole of the universe
goes on; the flux and reflux of its phenomena are endless. That
something always was, every one admits. The question between the
rival philosophic schools is as to what that something was and is. We
may choose to call it 'the first cause,' (an explanation which implies
that our notion of endless regression has broken down) and we may
say that we have reached the notion of an uncaused cause. But is
that a notion at all? Is it intelligible, conceivable? Do we not, in the
very assumption, bid farewell to reason, and fall back on some form
of faith?
Finally, the moment that supposed cause is reached, does not the
principle that was supposed to bring us to it break down? And by
thus destroying the bridge behind us, the very principle of casuality
which was valid in our progress and ascent, valid in the limited area
of experience—now emptied of all philosophical meaning when we
desert experience and rise to the transcendental—invalidates the

whole series of effects which are supposed to have sprung from it?
We need not rise above any single event, contingent and finite, to
any other event as the proximate cause of it; if, when we have
essayed to carry out the regress, we stop short, and, crying εὕρηκα,
congratulate ourselves that we have at length reached an uncaused
cause.
Thus when the cosmological theorist asks: Does the universe contain
its own cause within itself? and answering in the negative, asserts
that it must therefore have sprung from a supra-mundane source,
we may validly reply, may it not have been eternal? May not its
history be but the ceaseless evolution, the endless transformation of
unknown primeval forces? So far as this argument conducts us, we
affirm that it may. And to pass from the present contingent state of
the universe to its originating source, the theorist must make use of
the ontological inference, of which we have already indicated the
double flaw. There is one point of affinity between all forms of the
cosmological and ontological arguments. They all profess to reach a
necessary conclusion. They are not satisfied with the contingent or
the probable. But the notion of necessity is a logical notion of the
intellect. It exists in thought alone. Whoever, therefore, would
escape from that ideal sphere must forego the evidence of necessity.
Real existence is not and never can be synonymous with necessary
existence. For necessary existence is always ideal. It is reached by a
formal process. It is the product of pure thought.
But the teleological argument is that which has been most popular in
England. It has carried (apparent) conviction to many minds that
have seen the futility of the à priori processes of proof. It is the stock
argument of British 'natural theology;' in explanation and defence of
which volume upon volume has been written. It is, as Kant
remarked, 'the oldest, the clearest, and the most adapted to the
ordinary human reason.' Nevertheless, its failure is the more signal,
considering that its reputation has been so great, and its claim so
vast. The argument has at least three branches, to which we have
already referred. We confine ourselves meanwhile to the first of the

three, the techno-theological argument, or that which reasons from
the phenomena of design.
Stated in brief compass, that argument amounts to the following
inference. We see marks of adaptation, of purpose, or of foresight in
the objects which, as we learn from experience, proceed from the
contrivance of man. We see similar marks of design or adaptation in
nature. We are therefore warranted in inferring a world-designer;
and from the indefinite number of these an infinite designer; and
from their harmony His unity. Or thus,—we see the traces of wise
and various purpose everywhere in nature. But nature could not of
herself have fortuitously produced this arrangement. It could not
have fallen into such harmony by accident. Therefore the cause of
this wise order cannot be a blind, unintelligent principle, but must be
a free and rational mind. The argument is based upon analogy (and
might be termed analogical as strictly as technological). It asserts
that because mind is concerned in the production of those objects of
art which bear the traces of design, therefore a resembling mind was
concerned in the production of nature.
The objections to this mode of proof are indeed 'legion.' In the first
place, admitting its validity so far, it falls short of the conclusion it
attempts and professes to reach. For,
1. The effects it examines, and from which it infers a cause, are
finite, while the cause it assumes is infinite; but the infinity of the
cause can be no valid inference, from an indefinite number of finite
effects. The indefinite is still the finite; and we can never perform
the intellectual feat of educing the infinite from the finite by any
multiplication of the latter. It has been said by an acute defender of
the teleological argument, that the number of designed phenomena
(indefinitely vast) with which the universe is filled, is sufficient to
suggest the infinity of the designing cause. And it may be admitted
that it is by the ladder of finite designs that we rise to some of our
grandest conceptions of divine agency; but this ascent and survey
are only possible after we have discovered from some other source
that a divine being exists. The vastest range of design is of no

greater validity than one attested instance of it, so far as proof is
concerned. It is not accumulation, but relevancy of data that we
need. But,
2. At the most we only reach an artificer or protoplast, not a creator,
—one who arranged the phenomena of the world, not the originator
of its substance,—the architect of the cosmos, not the maker of the
universe. Traces of mind discoverable amid the phenomena of the
world cast no light upon the fact of its creation, or the nature of its
source. There is no analogy between a human artificer arranging a
finite mechanism, and a divine creator originating a world; nor is
there a parallel between the order, the method, and the plan of
nature, and what we see when we watch a mechanician working
according to a plan to produce a designed result. The only real
parallel would be our perception by sense of a world slowly evolving
from chaos according to a plan previously foreseen. From the
product you are at liberty to infer a producer only after having seen
a similar product formerly produced. But the product which supplies
the basis of this argument is unique and unparalleled, 'a singular
effect,' in the language of Hume, whose reasoning on this point has
never been successfully assailed. And the main difficulty which
confronts the theist, and which theism essays to remove, is precisely
that which the consideration of design does not touch, viz., the
origin and not the arrangements of the universe. The teleological
analogy is therefore worthless. There is no parallel, we repeat,
between the process of manufacture, and the product of creation,
between the act of a carpenter working with his tools to construct a
cabinet, and the evolution of life in nature. On the contrary, there
are many marked and sharply defined contrasts between them. In
the latter case there is fixed and ordered regularity, no deviation
from law; in the former contingency enters, and often alters and
mars the work. Again, the artificer simply uses the materials, which
he finds lying ready to hand in nature. He detaches them from their
'natural' connections. He arranges them in a special fashion. But in
nature, in the successive evolution of her organisms there is no
detachment, no displacement, no interference or isolation. All things

are linked together. Every atom is dependent on every other atom,
while the organisms seem to grow and develop 'after their kind' by
some vital force, but by no manipulation similar to the architect's or
builder's work. And yet again, in the one case, the purpose is
comprehensible—the end is foreseen from the beginning. We know
what the mechanician desires to effect; but in the other case we
have no clue to the 'thought' of the architect. Who will presume to
say that he has adequately fathomed the purposes of nature in the
adjustment of one of her phenomena to another? But,
3. The only valid inference from the phenomena of design would be
that of a phenomenal first cause. The inference of a personal Divine
Agent or substance from the observation of the mechanism of the
universe is invalid. What link connects the traces of mind which are
discerned in nature (those vestigia animi) with an agent who
produced them? There is no such link. And thus the divine
personality remains unattested. The same may be said of the divine
unity. Why should we rest in our inductive inference of one designer
from the phenomena of design, when these are so varied and
complex? Or grant that in all that we observe a subtle and pervading
'unity' is found, and as a consequence all existing arrangements
point to one designer, why may not that Demiurgos have been at
some remote period himself designed? And so on ad infinitum.
But, in the second place, not only is the argument defective
(admitting its validity so far as it goes), even partial validity cannot
be conceded to it. The phenomena of design not only limit us to a
finite designer, not only fail to lead us to the originator of the world,
or to a personal first cause, but they confine us within the network
of observed designs, and do not warrant faith in a being detached
from or independent of these designs, and therefore able to modify
them with a boundless reserve of power. These designs only suggest
mechanical agency, working in fixed forms, according to prescribed
law. In other words, the phenomena of the universe which distantly
resemble the operations of man, do not in the least suggest an
agent exterior to themselves. We are not intellectually constrained to

ascribe the arrangement of means to ends in nature to anything
supra-mundane. Such constraint would proceed from our projecting
the shadow of ourselves within the realm of nature, and investing it
with human characteristics, a procedure for which we have no
warrant. Why may not the arrangements of nature be due to a
principle of life imminent in nature, the mere endless evolution and
development of the world itself? We observe that phenomenon a fits
into phenomena b, c, and D, and we therefore infer that a was fitted
to its place by an intelligent mind. But suppose that A did not fit into
b, c, or d, it might in some way unknown fit into x, y, or z,—it would
in any case be related to its antecedent and consequent phenomena.
But our perception of the fitness or relationship gives us no
information beyond the fact of fitness. Any other (larger) conclusion
is illegitimate.
It is often asserted that the phenomenal changes which we observe
in nature, bear witness to their being effects. But what are effects?
Transformed causes, modified by the transformation—mere changed
appearances. We see the effects of volitional energy in the
phenomena which our consciousness forces us to trace back to our
own personality as the producing cause. But where do we see in
nature, in the universe, phenomena which we are similarly
warranted in construing as the effects of volitional energy, or of
constructive intelligence? We are not conscious of the power of
creation, nor do we perceive it. We have never witnessed the
construction of a world. We only perceive the everlasting flux and
reflux of phenomena, the ceaseless pulsation of nature's life,—
evolution, transformation, birth, death, and birth again. But nature is
herself dumb as to her whence or whither. And, as we have already
hinted, could we detect a real analogy between the two, we are not
warranted in saying that the constructive intelligence which explains
the one class of phenomena is the only possible explanation of the
other.[13]
And thus it is that no study of the arrangements and disposition of
the mechanism can carry us beyond the mechanism itself. The

teleological argument professes to carry us above the chain of
natural sequence. It proclaims that those traces of intelligence
everywhere visible hint that long ago mind was engaged in the
construction of the universe. It is not that the phenomena 'give forth
at times a little flash, a mystic hint' of a living will within or behind
the mechanism, a personality kindred to that of the artificer who
observes it. With that we should have no quarrel. But the teleological
argument is said to bring us authentic tidings of the origin of the
universe. If it does not carry us beyond the chain of dependent
sequence it is of no value. Its advocates are aware of this, and
assert that it can thus carry us beyond the adamantine links. But this
is precisely what it fails to do. It can never assure us that those
traces of intelligence to which it invites our study, proceeded from a
constructive mind detached from the universe; or that, if they did,
another mind did not fashion that mind, and so on ad infinitum. And
thus the perplexing puzzle of the origin of all things remains as
insoluble as before.
But farther, the validity of the teleological argument depends upon
the accuracy of our interpretation of those 'signs of intelligence' of
which it makes so much, and which it interprets analogically in the
light of human nature. But the 'interpreter' is ever 'one among a
thousand.' Who is to guarantee to us that we have not erred as to
the meaning of Nature's secret tracery? Who is to secure us against
inerrancy in this? Before we deduce so weighty a conclusion from
data so peculiar, we must obtain some assurance that no further
insight will disallow the interpretation we have given. But is not this
presumptuous in those who are acquainted in a very partial manner
with the significance of a few of nature's laws? Who will presume to
say that he has penetrated to the meaning of any one of these laws?
And, if he has not done so, can he validly single out a few
resemblances he has detected, and explain the nature of the infinite,
by a sample of the finite? Nature is so inscrutable that, even when a
law is discerned, the scientific explorer will not venture to say that
he has read its character, so as to be sure that the law reflects the
ultimate meaning of the several phenomena it explains. Nay, is he

not convinced that other and deeper meanings must lie within them?
A law of nature is but the generalized expression of the extent to
which our human insight has as yet extended into the secret
laboratory of her powers. But as that insight deepens, our
explanations change. We say the lower law is resolved back into a
higher one, the more detailed into the more comprehensive. But if
our scientific conceptions themselves are thus constantly changing,
progressing, enlarging, how can we venture to erect our natural
theology on the surface interpretation of the fleeting phenomena of
the universe? 'Lo, these are a part of His ways, but how little a
portion is known of Him!'
And this conclusion we advance against those who as dogmatically
deny that there can be any resemblance between the forces of
nature as a revelation of the Infinite, and the volitional energy of
man. Both assumptions are equally arbitrary and illegitimate. We
shall shortly endeavour to show on what grounds (remote from
teleology) we are warranted in believing that a resemblance does
exist.
But, to return, if the inference from design is valid at all, it must be
valid everywhere—all the phenomena of the world must yield it
equally. No part of the universe is better made than any other part.
Every phenomenon is adjusted to every other phenomenon nearly or
remotely as means to ends. Therefore, if the few phenomena which
our teleologists single out from the many are a valid index to the
character of the source whence they have proceeded, everything
that exists must find its counterpart in the divine nature. If we are at
liberty to infer an Archetype above from the traces of mind beneath,
must not the phenomena of moral evil, malevolence, and sin be on
the same principle carried upwards by analogy?—a procedure which
would destroy the notion of Deity which the teleologists advocate. If
we are at liberty to conclude that a few phenomena which seem to
us designed, proceed from and find their counterpart in God, reason
must be shown why we should select a few and pass over other
phenomena of the universe. In other words, if the constructor of the

universe designed one result from the agency which he has
established, must he not have designed all the results that actually
emerge; and if the character of the architect be legitimately deduced
from one or a few designs, must we not take all the phenomena
which exist to help out our idea of his character? Look, then, at
these phenomena as a whole. Consider the elaborate contrivances
for inflicting pain, and the apparatus so exquisitely adjusted to
produce a wholesale carnage of the animal tribes. They have existed
from the very dawn of geologic time. The whole world teems with
the proofs of such intended carnage. Every organism has parasites
which prey upon it; and not only do the superior tribes feed upon
the inferior (the less yielding to the greater), but the inferior prey at
the very same time no less remorselessly upon the superior. If,
therefore, the inference of benevolence be valid, the inference of
malevolence is at least equally valid: and as equal and opposite, the
one notion destroys the other.
But lastly, while we are philosophically impelled to consider all events
as designed, if we interpret one as such, nay, to believe that the
exact relation of every atom to every other atom in the universe has
been adjusted in 'a pre-established harmony,' the moment we do
thus universalize design, that moment the notion escapes us, is
emptied of all philosophical meaning or theological relevancy. Let it
be granted that phenomenon a is related to phenomenon b, as
means to an end. Carry out the principle (as philosophy and science
alike compel us to do), and consider a as related by remoter
adaptation to all the other phenomena of the universe; in short,
regard every atom as interrelated to every other atom, every change
as co-related to every other change; then the notion of design
breaks down, from the very width of the area it covers. We can
understand a finite mechanician planning that a finite phenomenon
shall be related to another finite phenomenon so as to produce a
desired result; but if the mechanician himself be a designed
phenomenon, and all that he works upon be equally so, every single
atom and every individual change being subtilly interlaced and all
reciprocally dependent, then the very notion of design vanishes.

Seemingly valid on the limited area of finite observation and of
human agency, it disappears when the whole universe is seen to be
one vast network of interconnected law and order.
Combining this objection with what may seem to be its opposite, but
is really a supplement to it, we may again say, that we, who are a
part of the universal order, cannot pronounce a verdict as to the
intended design of the parts, till able to see the whole. If elevated to
a station whence we could look down on the entire mechanism, if
outside of the universe (a sheer impossibility to the creature), we
might see the exact bearing of part to part, and of link with link, so
as to pronounce with confidence as to the intention of the contriver.
If, like the wisdom of which Solomon writes, any creature had been
with the Almighty 'in the beginning of His way, before His works of
old, set up from everlasting, or even the earth was;' had a creature
been with Him 'when as yet He had not made the world, when He
prepared the heavens, and gave His decree' to the inanimate and
animated worlds as they severally arose, he might be able to
understand the meaning of their creation. And yet the moment this
knowledge was gained, the value of the perception would disappear;
because 'being as God,' he should no longer require the circuitous
report or inference.
Thus the teleological argument must be pronounced fallacious. It is
illusive as well as incomplete: and were we to admit its relevancy, it
would afford no basis for worship, or the recognition of the object it
infers. The conception of deity as a workman, laying stress upon the
notion of cleverness in contrivance, and subordinating moral
character to skill, would never lead to reverence, or the adoration of
the architect.
It must be conceded, however, that there is a subsidiary value in this
as in all the other arguments, even while their failure is most
conspicuous. They prove (as Kant has shown) that if they cannot
lead us to the reality we are in search of, the phenomena of nature
cannot discredit its existence. They do not turn the argument the
other way, or weight the scales on the opposite side. They are

merely negative, and indeed clear the ground for other and more
valid modes of proof.
They are of farther use (as Kant has also shown) in correcting our
conceptions of the Divine Being, when from other sources we have
learned his existence, in defining and enlarging our notions of his
attributes. They discourage and disallow some unworthy
conceptions, and enlarge the scope of others. But to leave those
celebrated lines of argument which have gathered around them so
much of the intellectual strife of rival philosophies, it is needful now
to tread warily when we are forced to come to so decided a
conclusion against them.
We do not deny that the idea of God exists in the human mind as
one of its ultimate and ineradicable notions: we only dispute the
inference which ontology has deduced from its existence there. We
do not deny that by regressive ascent from finite sequences we are
at length constrained to rest in some causal fountain-head; we only
dispute the validity of the process by which that fountain-head is
identified with the absolute source of existence, and that source of
existence with a personal God. We do not deny the presence of
design in nature when by that term is meant the signs or indices of
mind in the relation of phenomena to phenomena as means to ends;
we only assert that these designs have no theistic value, and are
only intelligible after we have discovered the existence of a supreme
mind within the universe, from another and independent source. Till
then the book of nature presents us only with blank, unilluminated
pages. Thereafter it is radiant with the light of design, full of that
mystic tracery which proclaims the presence of a living will behind it.
To a mind that has attained to the knowledge or belief in God, it
becomes the 'garment it thereafter sees Him by,' as one might see a
pattern issuing from a loom while the weaver was concealed, and
infer some of the designs of the workman from the characteristics of
his work.
The remaining lines of proof, followed, though not worked out in the
past, are the intuitional and the moral. And it is by a combination of

the data from which they spring and a readjustment of their
respective parts and harmonies, that the foundations of theism can
alone be securely laid. As the evidence of intuition is of greatest
value, and is also most generally disesteemed, we shall take its
testimony first, and examine the moral evidence of conscience
afterwards.
The modern spirit is suspicious of the evidence of intuition. It is
loudly proclaimed on all sides by the teachers of positive science that
instinct is a dubious guide, liable to the accidents of chance
interpretation, variously understood by various minds; that in
following it we may be pursuing an ignis fatuus; that it is at best
only valid for the individual who may happen to feel its force; that it
is not a universal endowment (as it should be if trustworthy), but
often altogether wanting; and that it can never yield us certainty,
because its root is a subjective feeling or conviction, which cannot be
verified by external test. These charges cannot be ignored, or lightly
passed over. And for the theist merely to proclaim, as an ultimate
fact, that the human soul has an intuition of God, that we are
endowed with a faculty of apprehension of which the correlative
object is divine, will carry no conviction to the atheist. Suppose that
he replies, 'This intuition may be valid evidence for you, but I have
no such irrepressible instinct; I see no evidence in favour of innate
ideas in the soul, or of a substance underneath the phenomena of
nature of which we can have any adequate knowledge;' we may
close the argument by simple re-assertion, and vindicate our
procedure on the ground that in the region of first principles there
can be no farther proof. We may also affirm that the instinct being a
sacred endowment, and delicate in proportion to the stupendous
nature of the object it attests, it may, like every other function of the
human spirit, collapse from mere disuse. But if we are to succeed in
even suggesting a doubt in the mind of our opponent as to the
accuracy of his analysis, we must verify our primary belief, and
exhibit its credentials so far as that is possible. We must show why
we cannot trace its genealogy farther back, or resolve it into simpler

elements, and we must not keep its nature shrouded in darkness,
but disclose it so far as may be. This, then, is our task.
The instinct to which we make our ultimate appeal is in its first rise
in the soul, crude, dim, and inarticulate. Gradually it shapes itself
into greater clearness, aided, in the case of most men, by the myriad
influences of religious thought and of historical tradition,—
heightening and refining it when educed, but not creating it;
separating the real gold from any spurious alloy it may have
contracted. Like all our innate instincts this one is at first infantile,
and, when it begins to assert itself, it prattles rather than speaks
coherently. We do not here raise the general question of the
existence of à priori principles. We assume that the mind is not
originally an abrasa tabula, but the endowments with which it starts
are all gifts in embryo. They are not full-formed powers, so much as
the capacities and potentialities of mental life. Their growth to
maturity is most gradual, and the difference between their adult and
their rudimentary phases is as wide as is the interval between a
mature organization and the egg from which it springs. It is
therefore no evidence against the reality or the trustworthiness of
the intuition to which we appeal, that its manifestations are not
uniform, or that it sometimes seems absent in the abnormal states
of consciousness, or among the ruder civilizations of the world. We
admit that it is difficult for the uninitiated to trace any affinity
between its normal and its abnormal manifestations, when it is
modified by circumstances to any extent. We farther admit that while
never entirely absent, it may sometimes seem to slumber not only in
stray individuals, but in a race or an era, and be transmitted from
generation to generation in a latent state. It may hybernate, and
then awake as from the sleep of years, arising against the will of its
possessor and refusing to be silenced. Almost any phenomenon may
call it forth, and no single phenomenon can quench it. It is the
spontaneous utterance of the soul in presence of the object whose
existence it attests, and as such it is necessarily prior to any act of
reflection upon its character, validity, or significance. Reflex thought,
which is the product of experience, cannot in any case originate an

intuition, or account for those phenomena which we may call by that
name, supposing them to be delusive. Nothing in us, from the
simplest instinct to the loftiest intuition, could in any sense create
the object it attests, or after which it seeks and feels. And all our
ultimate principles, irreducible by analysis, simply attest and assert.
The very existence of the intuition of which we now speak is itself a
revelation, because pointing to a Revealer within or behind itself.
And however crude in its elementary forms, it manifests itself in its
highest and purest state at once as an act of intelligence and of
faith. It may be most fitly described as a direct gaze by the inner eye
of the spirit, into a region over which mists usually brood. The great
and transcendant Reality it apprehends lies evermore behind the veil
of phenomena. It does not see far into that reality, yet it grasps it,
and recognises in it 'the open secret' of the universe. This, then, is
the main characteristic of the theistic intuition. It proclaims a
supreme Existence without and beyond the mind, which it
apprehends in the act of revealing itself. It perceives through the
vistas of phenomenal sequence, as through breaks in the cloud, the
glimpses of a Presence which it can know only in part, but which it
does not follow in the dark, or merely infer from its obscure and
vanishing footprints. Unlike the 'necessary notion' of the Cartesian
school, unlike the space and time which are but subjective forms of
thought, unlike the 'regressive inference' from the phenomena of the
world, the conclusion it reaches is not the creation of its own
subjectivity. The God of the logical understanding, whose existence
is supposed to be attested by the necessary laws of the mind, is the
mere projected shadow of self. It has no more than an ideal
significance. The same may be said, with some abatements, of the
being whose existence is inferred from the phenomena of design.
The ontologist and the teleologist unconsciously draw their own
portrait, and by an effort of thought project it outwards on the
canvass of infinity. The intuitionalist, on the other hand, perceives
that a revelation has been made to him, descending as through an
opened cloud, which closes again. It is 'a moment seen, then gone;'

for while we are always conscious of our contact with the natural, we
are less frequently aware of the presence of the supernatural.
The difference between the evidence of intuition and the supposed
warrant of the other proofs we have reviewed is apparent. It is one
thing to create or evolve (even unconsciously) a mental image of
ourselves which we vainly attempt to magnify to infinity, and
thereafter worship the image that our minds have framed; it is
another to discern for a moment an august Presence, other than the
human, through a break in the clouds which usually veil Him from
our eyes. And it is to the inward recognition of this self-revealing
object that the theist makes appeal. What he discerns is at least not
a 'form of his mind's own throwing;' while his knowledge is due not
to the penetration of his own finite spirit, but to the condescension
of the infinite.
But we admit that this intuition is not naturally luminous. It is the
presence of the transcendant Object which makes it luminous.[14] Its
light is therefore fitful. It is itself rather an eye than a light; (a
passive organ, rather than an active power); and when not lit up by
light strictly supra-natural,—because emanating from the object it
discerns,—it is dull and lustreless. The varying intelligence it reports
of that object, corresponds to the changing perceptions of the
human eye in a day of alternate gloom and sunlight. It is itself a
human trust which ripens gradually into a matured belief, rather than
a clear perception, self-luminous from the first.
It may be needful, however, as the evidence of our intuitions is so
generally suspected, to examine a little more fully into the
credentials of this one, in common with all its allies.
Our knowledge of the object which intuition discloses is at first, in all
cases, necessarily unreflective. In the presence of that object, the
mind does not double back upon itself, to scrutinise the origin and
test the accuracy of the report that has reached it. And thus the
truth which it apprehends is at first only presumptive. It remains to

be afterwards tested by reflection, that no illusion be mistaken for
reality. What, then, are the tests of our intuitions?[15]
The following seem sufficient criteria of their validity and
truthworthiness. 1. The persistence with which they appear and
reappear after experimental reflection upon them, the obstinacy with
which they reassert themselves when silenced, the tenacity with
which they cling to us. 2. Their historical permanence; the
confirmation of ages and of generations. The hold they have upon
the general mind of the race is the sign of some 'root of endurance'
planted firmly in the soil of human nature. If 'deep in the general
heart of men, their power survives,' we may accept them as true, or
interpret them as a phase of some deeper yet kindred truth, of
which they are the popular distortion. 3. The interior harmony which
they exhibit with each other, and with the rest of our psychological
nature; each of the intuitions being in harmony with the entire circle,
and with the whole realm of knowledge. If any alleged intuition
should come into collision with any other and disturb it, there would
be good reason for suspecting its genuineness; and in that case the
lower and less authenticated must always yield to the higher and
better attested. But if the critical intellect carrying our intuition (if we
may so speak in a figure) round the circle of our nature, and in turn
placing it in juxtaposition with the rest, finds that no collision ensues,
we may safely conclude that the witness of that intuition is true. 4. If
the results of its action and influence are such as to elevate and
etherealize our nature, its validity may be assumed. This is no test
by itself, for an erroneous belief might for a time even elevate the
mind that held it; as the intellectual life evoked by many of the
erroneous theories and exploded hypotheses of the past has been
great. But no error could do so permanently. No illusion could
survive as an educative and elevating power over humanity; and no
alleged instinct could sustain its claim, and vindicate its presumptive
title, if it could not stand the test we mention. A theoretic error is
seen to be such when we attempt to reduce it to practice; as a
hidden crack or fissure in a metal becomes visible when a strain is
applied, or the folly of an ideal Utopia is seen in the actual life of a

mixed commonwealth. Many of those scientific guesses which have
served as good provisional hypotheses, have been abandoned in the
actual working of them out, and so the flaw that lurks within an
alleged intuition, (if there be a flaw) will become apparent when we
try to apply it in actual life, and take it as a regulative principle in
action. Thus, take the belief in the Divine existence, attested, as we
affirm, by intuition, and apply it in the act of worship or adoration.
Does that belief (which fulfils the conditions of our previous tests,—
for it appears everywhere and clings tenaciously to man, and comes
into collision with no other normal tendency of our nature, or
defrauds any instinct of its due) does it elevate the nature of him
who holds it? The reply of history is conclusive, and its attestation is
abundantly clear. The power of the theistic faith over the rest of
human nature is such that it has quickened the other faculties into a
more vigorous life. Its moral leverage has been vast, while it has
sharpened the æsthetic sense to some of its most delicate
perceptions, and in some instances brought a new accession of
intellectual power. The intuition which men trust in the dark,
gradually leads the whole nature towards the light. Its dimness and
its dumbness are exchanged for clearness and an intelligible voice;
and while it thus grows luminous, it gains new power, and our
confidence in its verdict strengthens.
We have now stated what seems to us the general nature of the
theistic intuition, and added one or two criteria by which all intuitions
must be tested. It remains that we indicate more precisely the
phases which it assumes; and the channels in which it works.
Though ultimate and insusceptible of analysis, it has a triple
character. It manifests itself in the consciousness which the human
mind has of the Infinite (an intellectual phase); in its perception of
the world-soul, which is Nature's 'open secret' revealed to the poet
(an æsthetic phase); and in the act of worship, in which an object
correlative to the worshipper is revealed in his very sense of
dependence (a moral and religious phase).

It is not only essential to the validity of the theistic intuition that the
human mind has a positive though imperfect knowledge of the
infinite, but the assertion of this is involved in the very intuition itself.
If we had no positive knowledge of the source it seeks to reach, the
instinct, benumbed as by an intellectual frost, and unable to rise,
would be fatally paralysed; or if it could move along its finite area, it
would wander helplessly, feeling after its object, 'if haply it might
find it.' And it will be found that all who deny the validity of our
intuition, either limit us to the knowledge of phenomena, or while
admitting that we have a certain knowledge of finite substance
adopt the cold theory of nescience. From the earliest Greek schools,
or from the earlier speculation of the Chinese mind, a powerful band
of thinkers have denied to man the knowledge of aught beyond
phenomena, and from Confucius to Comte the list is an ample one.
In our own day this school includes some of the clearest and
subtilest minds devoted to philosophy. Comte, Lewes, Mill, Mr. Bain,
Herbert Spencer, and the majority of our best scientific guides
(however they differ in detail) agree in the common postulate that
all that man can know, and intelligibly reason about, are
phenomena, and the laws of these phenomena, 'that which doth
appear.' There is, however, a positivist 'religion,' which consists now
in the worship of phenomena, and again in homage paid to mystery,
to the unknown and the unknowable which lies beyond the known.
Comte deified man and nature, in their phenomenal aspects, without
becoming pantheist; and the instinct of worship though outlawed
from his philosophy (which denies the existence of its object),
asserted itself within his nature—at least in the second period of his
intellectual career—and led him not only to deify humanity, but to
prescribe a minute and cumbrous ritual, as puerile as it is
inconsistent. It is true that worship is philosophically an excrescence
on his system. The advanced secularist who disowns it is logically
more consistent with the first principle of positivism. To adore the
grande être as personified in woman is as great a mimicry of worship
as to offer homage to the law of gravitation. Comte, says his acutest
critic, 'forgot that the wine of the real Presence was poured out, and
adored the empty cup.' But we may note in this latter graft upon his

earlier system a testimony to the operation of that very intuition
which positivism disowns; its uncouth form, when distorted by an
alien philosophy, being a more expressive witness to its irrepressible
character.
Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, with some of our scientific teachers,
bids us bow down before the unknown and unknowable power which
subsists in the universe. The highest triumph of the human spirit,
according to him, is to ascertain the laws of phenomena, and then to
worship the dark abyss of the inscrutable beyond them. But there is
surely neither humility nor sanity in worshipping darkness, any more
than there would be in erecting an altar to chaos: and the advice
seems strange coming from those who claim to be the special
teachers of clear knowledge and comprehensible law. If we must at
length erect an altar at all, we must have some knowledge of the
existence to whom it is erected, and have some better reason for
doing so than the blank and bland confession that we have not the
smallest idea of its nature! Mr. Spencer undertakes to 'reconcile' the
claims of science and religion; and he finds the rallying-point to be
the recognition of mystery, into which all knowledge recedes. But if
religion has any function, and a reconciliation between her and
science be possible, the harmony cannot be effected by first denying
the postulate from which religion starts, and quietly sweeping her
into the background of the inconceivable, consigning her to the
realm of the unknowable, and then proclaiming that the conciliation
is complete. This is to silence or annihilate one of the two powers
which the philosopher undertook to reconcile. It is annexation
accomplished by conquest, the cessation of strife, effected by the
destruction of one opposing force, not by an armistice, or the
ratification of articles of peace. Mr. Spencer does not come between
two combatants who are wounding each other needlessly, and bid
each put his sword into its sheath, for they are brethren; but he
turns round and (to his own satisfaction) slays one of them, and
then informs the other that the reconciliation is effected.

Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.
More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge
connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.
Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and
personal growth every day!
testbankfan.com

Core Concepts Of Accounting Information Systems 12th Edition Simkin Solutions Manual

More Related Content

Similar to Core Concepts Of Accounting Information Systems 12th Edition Simkin Solutions Manual (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

Core Concepts Of Accounting Information Systems 12th Edition Simkin Solutions Manual