This reading is an excerpt from lecture III of Hastings Rashdall's book, "Philosophy and Religion," which was published in 1909. I have put Rashdall’s main argument into standard form:
P1) Relations are thought-determinations.
P2) The physical order is constituted by relations.
C1) Therefore, the physical order is constituted by thought-determinations. [From P1 and P2]
P3) Modern science has shown that the physical order existed long before any human or animal Minds (and the physical order stretches far beyond the reaches of any human or animal Minds); and unless modern science is a “mass of illusion,” there must have been (and continue to be) an existing Mind (i.e. God) for whom the physical order exists.
C2) Therefore, there must have been (and continue to be) an existing Mind (i.e. God) for whom the physical order exists. [From C1 and P3]
Defense of P1:
“We think of external objects as occupying space….It is of the essence of spaciality that the parts of the object shall be thought of as existing side by side, outside one another. But this side-by-sideness, this outsideness, is after all a way in which the things present themselves to a mind. Space is made up of relations; and what is the meaning of relations apart from a mind which relates, or for which the things are related? If spaciality were a quality of the thing-in-itself, it would exist no matter what became of other things. It would be quite possible, therefore, that the top of this table should exist without the bottom: yet everybody surely would admit the meaninglessness of talking about a piece of matter…which had a top without a bottom, or a right-hand side without a left. This space-occupying quality which is the most fundamental element in our ordinary conception of matter is wholly made up of the relation of one part of it to another. Now can a relation exist except for a mind? As it seems to me, the suggestion is meaningless. “Relatedness” only has a meaning when thought of in connection with a mind which is capable of grasping or holding together both terms of the relation. The relation between point A and point B is not in point A or in point B taken by themselves. It is all in the “between”: “betweenness” from its very nature cannot exist in any one point of space or in several isolated points of space or things in space; it must exist only in some one existent which holds together and connects those points. And nothing, as far as we can understand, can do that except a mind. Apart from mind there can be no relatedness: apart from relatedness no space: apart from space no matter. It follows that apart from mind there can be no matter.” (Rashdall, Philosophy and Religion, 9-12)
“Relation does not lie in objects and cannot, so to speak, be borrowed from them by sense perception and so first be taken up into the understanding; on the other hand, connection is exclusively an achievement of the understanding.” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B134)
Here is a link to the complete book:
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