ent,
personal Cause.

This is peculiarly the Socratic proof. He recognized the necessity and
the irresistibility of the conviction that the choice and adaptation of
means to ends is the effect of Purpose, the expression of Will.[893]
There is an obviousness and a directness in this mode of argument which
is felt by every human mind. In the "Memorabilia" Xenophon has preserved
a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus in which he develops this
proof at great length. In reading the dialogue[894] in which Socrates
instances the adaptation of our organization to the external world, and
the examples of design in the human frame, we are forcibly reminded of
the chapters of Paley, Whewell, and M'Cosh. Well might Aristodemus
exclaim: "The more I consider it, the more it is evident to me that man
must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it
infinite marks of the love and favor of Him who has thus formed it." The
argument from Final Causes is pursued by Plato in the "Timaeus;" and in
Aristotle, God is the Final Cause of all things.[895]

[Footnote 893: "Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of
parts like this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of
wisdom and contrivance?"--"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 894: "Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv.]

[Footnote 895: Aristotle clearly recognizes that an end or final cause
implies Intelligence. "The appearance of ends and means is a proof of
Design."--"Nat. Ausc.," bk. ii. ch. viii.]

(4.) The Ontological or Ideological proof, or the argument grounded on
necessary and absolute ideas, which may be thrown into the following
syllogism:

Every attribute or quality implies a subject, and absolute
modes necessarily suppose an Absolute Being. Necessary and
absolute truths or ideas are revealed in human reason as
absolute modes.

Therefore universal, necessary, and absolute ideas are modes
of the absolute subject--that is, God, the foundation and
source of all truth.

This is the Platonic proof. Plato recognized the principle of substance
([Greek: ousia ypokeimenon]), and therefore he proceeds in the "Timaeus"
to inquire for the real ground of all existence; and in the "Republic,"
for the real ground of all truth and certitude.

The universe consists of two parts, permanent existences and transient
phenomena--being and genesis; the one eternally constant, the other
mutabl