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Nature, the Utility of Religion, and Theism
Nature the Utility of Religion and Theism Author:John Stuart Mill General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1885 Original Publisher: Longmans, Green Subjects: Nature Religion Theism God Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free ... more »trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PAET II ATTBIBTJTES question of the existence of a Deity, in its purely scientific aspect, standing as is shown in the First Part, it is next to be considered, given the indications of a Deity, what sort of a Deity do they point to ? What attributes are we warranted, by the evidence which Nature affords of a creative mind, in assigning to that mind ? It needs no showing that the power if not the intelligence, must be so far superior to that of Man, as to surpass all human estimate. But from this to Omnipotence and Omniscience there is a wide interval. And the distinction is of immense practical importance. It is not too much to say that every indication of Design in the Kosmos is so much evidence against the Omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by Design ? Contrivance: the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity for contrivance -- the needof employing means -- is a consequence of the limitation of power. Who would have recourse to means if to attain his end his mere word was sufficient ? The very idea of means implies that the means have an efficacy which the direct action of the being who employs them has not. Otherwise they are not means, but an incumbrance. A man does not use machinery to move his arms. If he did, it could only be when paralysis had deprived him of the power of moving them by volition. But if the employment of contrivance is in itself a sign of limited power, how much more so is the careful and skilful choice of contrivances? Can any wisdom be shown in the selection of means, when the ...« less