I answer that the argument would only be valid after the
possibility of any more proximate causes having been in action has been
excluded--else the theistic explanation violates the fundamental rule of
science, the Law of Parcimony, or the law which forbids us to assume the
action of more remote causes where more proximate ones are found sufficient
to explain the effects. Consequently, the validity of the argument now
under consideration is inversely proportional to the number of
possibilities there are of the aspirations in question being due to the
agency of physical causes; and forasmuch as our ignorance of psychological
causation is well-nigh total, the Law of Parcimony forbids us to allow any
determinate degree of logical value to the present argument. In other
words, we must not use the absence of knowledge as equivalent to its
presence--must not argue from our ignorance of psychological possibilities,
as though this ignorance were knowledge of corresponding impossibilities.
The burden of proof thus lies on the side of Theism, and from the nature of
the case this burden cannot be discharged until the science of psychology
shall have been fully perfected. I may add that, for my own part, I cannot
help feeling that, even in the present embryonic condition of this science,
we are not without some indications of the manner in which the aspirations
in question arose; but even were this not so, the above considerations
prove that the argument before us is invalid. If it is retorted that the
fact of these aspirations having had _proximate_ causes to account for
their origin, even if made out, would not negative the inference of these
being due to a Deity as to their _ultimate_ cause; I answer that this is
not to use the argument from the presence of these aspirations; it is
merely to beg the question as to the being of a God.

Sec. 6. Next, we may consider the argument from consciousness. Many persons
ground their belief in the existence of a Deity upon a real or supposed
necessity of their own subjective thought. I say "real or supposed,"
because, in its bearing upon rational argument, it is of no consequence of
which character the alleged necessity actually is. Even if the necessity of
thought be real, all that the fact entitles the thinker to affirm is, that
it is impossible for _him_, by any effort of thinking, to rid himself of
the persuasion that God exists; he is not entitled to affirm that this
persuasion is necess