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Agassiz, Louis – Essay on Classification – First cause as a Supreme Intelligence
Identifier
024952
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
ESSAY ON CLASSIFICATION By LOUIS AGASSIZ
We know what the intellect of Man may originate, we know its creative power, its power of combination, of foresight, of analysis, of concentration; we are, therefore, prepared to recognize a similar action emanating from a Supreme Intelligence to a boundless extent.
We need therefore not even attempt to show that such an Intellect may have originated all the Universe contains; it is enough to demonstrate that the constitution of the physical world and, more particularly, the organization of living beings in their connection with the physical world, prove in general the existence of a Supreme Being as the Author of all things.
The task of science is rather to investigate what has been done, to inquire if possible how it has been done, than to ask what is possible for the Deity, as we can know that only by what actually exists.
To attack such a position, those who would deny the intervention in nature of a creative mind must show that the cause to which they refer the origin of finite beings is by its nature a possible cause, which cannot be denied of a being endowed with the attributes we recognize in God.