Hume admitted: "No one can look up at that sky without feeling that it must have been put in order by an intelligent being." Well had it been for some men, if they heeded the words of Dr. McCosh: "The laws of the physical world are to be determined by scientific men, proceeding in the way of a careful induction of facts; and, so far as they follow their method, I have the most implicit faith in them, and I have the most perfect confidence that the truth which they discover will not run counter to any other truth. But when they pass beyond their own magic circle they become as other men" (Christianity and Positivism, pp. 6, 7).
Order prevails not only in the domain of physical, but also in that of moral causes. For the "conscience," says the same author (Psychology: the Motive Powers, pp. 199, 200), "points to a law above itself, which determines what is good and what is evil. . . . There is no intelligent being so fallen that he does not possess the moral discernment; it may be sadly perverted, but there it is in its fundamental form; and this by the appointment of God, that it may so far punish him and enable him to measure the depth of his degradation." And what is the following passage but the argument of St. Thomas molded to suit the English mind? "We see higher and higher products appearing and manifesting higher perfections of God. The blind forces are made to work out Ideas in the Platonic sense. The Mundus Sensibilis becomes a Mundus Intelligibilis, taking forms with geometric proportions and of aesthetic beauty, and clothed with melodious and harmonious colors. . . . Crowning all, we have Mind and the Law written in the heart, and declaring that right is alone might; and we have the good advancing in the midst of opposition, and in the face of opposition, asserting that it will at last subdue all to itself and rule in the name of God. And we now see what God reckons highest of all,—higher than order, higher than intelligence, higher than sensation; and this is holiness,—a holiness not independent of intelligence, but a holy intelligence; not independent of love, but a holy love" (Christianity and Positivism, p. 92).
