The Collapse of the Faith [pp. 164-184]

THE COLLAPSE OF FAITH.
The evidence that he is unknowable he finds in the general
truth that all finite force or matter is unknowable in its essence
and is only known by its manifestations or effects, and therefore,
by analogy or some sort of salto mortale, he concludes that the
infinite beyond cannot be known. Q.E.D.!
We have considered these theories in detail that we might
satisfactorily answer our main question; viz., whether faith in a
self-existent and personal God is in danger of final collapse
because of the discoveries of modern science, and especially
by reason of the general popularity of the doctrine of evolution. We have compared the atheism of Von Holbach, so
far as its logic is concerned, with the atheism of Physicus and
the agnosticism of Spencer. We submit the question whether
atheism has gained anything in its logic during the past century
-from the wonderful discoveries of modern science or from the
suggestions which these discoveries have made to philosophy.
The thought may occur to some that argument does not always
win. We reply that if argument does not win in science and philosophy, nothing else can. We believe that argument always
wins in the long-run, and that this was never so true as at the
present time, when criticism was never so sharp and critics were
never so numerous.
The temporary popularity of an imposing and ambiguous formula is no new event in the domain of science or philosophy.
The only security or remedy against it for either scientists or
philosophers is that both should become better logicians and
never fail to remember that A is always A, and A can never be
self-evolved into not-A. Let these time-honored rules be but
faithfully applied and it will soon be discovered that both atheistic and agnostic evolutionism are products of a natural tendency
in speculative men to hypostasize logical abstractions into real
agents. If the same agent under varying conditions produces
varying effects in any fixed order, these effects can very easily be
conceived as developed from the agent which begins the series,
provided the order be fixed and the phenomena are more and
more varied and complex as they proceed. By the aid of modern
science we find this progressive and intelligible order more and
more signally manifested in the structure and past history of the
universe itself, indicating and implying a plan which no single
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