In the middle ages 215

of absolute fixity. But he must finally call a halt

in this work of excavation, under penalty of not

ever beginning the work of building. Thus we

must conclude, from the very existence of the house,

that the builder did in fact halt at some point in

the earth, there to set his first stone.

Just so with the scholastic argument which we

are considering. Change exists as a fact even as

the house exists as a fact. The fact is there; it

stares us in the face; it fills the universe. If there

were not a halting place in the chain of efficient

causation, the change itself could not exist. One

is in no position to choose whether the world shall

evolve or not; for evolution is the law of the uni-

verse itself. To conceive that one may make an

endless regressus in the causal nexus, would be like

conceiving that he might suspend a weight to the

one end of a chain whose other end requires the

ceaseless adding of link upon link, to lengthen out

the chain to infinity!

It all comes then to this: if any fact is real, the

totality of things, without which the reality of that

fact would be compromised, is no less real. It fol-

lows, therefore, that scholastic philosophy dem-

onstrates God's existence by making His existence

a necessary condition of the explanation of reality.

Accordingly, from the standpoint of metaphysics.

He exists only for the world. Hence God is not,

as one might suppose, a further mystery requiring

216 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

explanation, in addition to the general mystery of

the world. The scholastic argument for the exis-

tence of God has just the value of the principles of

contradiction and of efficient causation. The first

is a point of support; the second is a lever which

thought employs to lift the things which change to

the plane of the Being who changes not. Remove

the point of support or destroy the lever, and

thought falls impotent before the world's enigma.

God, adds Thomas Aquinas, having in Himself

no potentiality, is mjinitude, absolute perfection;

and at this point his mind is suddenly lifted and

borne upwards, and it attains to the most penetrat-

ing insight concerning divinity. In order to bring

this home to our full realization, I shall avail my-

self of a simile, — although in such matters com-

parison is inadequate.

Imagine a series of vessels, with different capa-

cities, which are to be filled with water; let there be

tiny vessels, and vessels that will contain gallons,

and great receptacles which are to serve as reser-

voirs. Clearly the volume of water, which may be

stored in each vessel, must be limited by the capa-

city of the vessel itself. Once a vessel is filled, not

a drop can be added to its content; were the very

ocean itself to flow over it, the contents of the ves-

sel would not increase.

Now existence in a finite being may be likened to