the perfection of wisdom compared with the stupidity that denies contrivance even in a bad watch or in an eye of imperfect sight. A third philosopher, and we are told that this type is often found in Eastern sages, cannot believe in design or contrivance in anything which, like human bodies or the parts of plants, grows or is put forth by insensible degrees. Design or contrivance for such minds, in other words, exists only in the artificial and is excluded from whatever is natural. Had no such objection ever been put forward in good faith, we might be tempted to dismiss it at once as senseless and contemptible. But lest any one should suspect that it contains a real difficulty, it may be worth while to say that design or contrivance is precisely the same conception in whatever material it be shown; that it can be seen as plainly in bones and skin and sinews, as in glass, metals, and wood; that the contriving mind and skilful hand of a human being are themselves a part of nature, and what they do is hence really though indirectly nature's work. The point of the difficulty, if it deserved to be called such, may perhaps be illustrated by remembering how a skilful performer on a musical instrument began by slow, painful, and deliberate production of the several notes, the labor of which is scarcely conceivable when we compare it with the rapid, easy, instinctive touch of the accomplished player. No one could regard it as wisdom to deny the identity of a tune when performed by the scholar and when performed by the adept in music. The atheist's objection to design-namely, that it is an accidental collocation of atoms out of myriads of other possible collocations is clearly and fairly met by the mathematical

Or, quick effluvia darting through the brain,

Die of a rose in aromatic pain?

If nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres,

'It is worth while perhaps to recall Bentley's energetic exposure of this doctrine as an account of the formation of man. "What can be said more [he means than a threat of

How would he wish that heaven had coercion] to such persons, that are

left him still

The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!"

Essay on Man, Ep. I., 193.

either so disingenuous or so stupid as to profess to believe that all the natural powers and acquired habits

doctrine of chances, by which it is shown, that while the collocation in a given organ is vastly improbable, the exact combination of a large number of organs in a single body involves improbabilities, which, though expressed in figures, transcend the imagination. To believe in such a chance would argue the wildest credulity. Here perhaps it may be suitable to quote a sentence from Mr. Darwin. "To suppose that the eye," says Mr. Darwin, "with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to dif ferent distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree." So far, then, as this philosopher is concerned, we have his admission that the only possible alternative to an intelligent Creator that his system can offer is itself "absurd in the highest possible degree "—a form of speech held in geometry to be a full admission of the opposite hypothesis. There remains finally the modern scientific man, of whom we may take Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire as a type, who, when confronted with the argument from design, thinks that he may, in polite parlance, give it the cut direct. He simply declines to see any design in nature. The eye is an instrument which sees, and the ear another which hears; they grew by an inexplicable evolution to be what they are, and they perform their work, and that is all. There

of the mind, that penetrating understanding and accurate judgment, that strength of memory and readiness of wit, that liberality and justice and prudence and magnanimity, that charity and beneficence to mankind, that ingenuous fear and awful love of God, that comprehensive knowledge of the histories and languages of so many nations, that experienced insight into the works and wonders of nature, that rich vein of poetry and inexhausted fountain of eloquence, those lofty flights of thought and

almost intuitive perceptions of abstruse notions, those exalted discoveries of mathematical theorems and divine contemplations, all the admirable endowments and capacities of human nature, which we sometimes see actually existent in one and the same person, can proceed from the blind shuffling and casual clashing of atoms?" Second Boyle Sermon, 1792, Bentley's Works, III., pp. 43, 44.

'Quoted in Mozley's Essays, Vol. II., p. 404.

is no contrivance in their construction, no agreement or correspondence with a foreseen work: the work proceeds from the instrument because it happens to be able to do that and nothing else. Saint-Hilaire ridicules design by this illustration: "You might as well say that a man who uses crutches was originally designed to the misfortune of having one of his legs paralyzed or amputated." SaintHilaire has here certainly drawn a most lame conclusion from what are very like lame premises. If the professors of science habitually reasoned thus, it is safe to say that little credit would come through their temper or sagacity to their favorite pursuits. To draw such a lesson in design from the sight of a lame man, is as if one should meet an explanation of the benevolent purposes of a lighthouse, with the sneer that it was far more likely designed for shipwrecks. People of ordinary sense and feeling are at no loss to draw a lesson, and a sound one, on the subject of design from the crutches of a man who has lost a limb. They would say, for instance, that the crutches were designed to supply the place of the missing limb. No scientific oracle could persuade them that there was any absurdity in that. But men would say with equal certainty that the legs of man were designed by his Maker to promote the movements of this creature over the earth's surface with head erect. The design is just as certain in the construction of the legs as in the construction of the crutches, although there is an infinite disparity between the skill displayed in the one case and in the other. The science that cannot see this is a science that has greater skill in closing its eyes to a truth it does not like than in keeping them open to all truth.

The proofs, then, of the existence of God, and that striking proof especially that comes from the argument from design, can never be overthrown by metaphysical

1À raisonner de la sorte, vous ses jambes paralysée ou amputée." diriez d'un homme qui fait usage de -Principes de Philosophie Zoolobéquilles, qu'il était originairement gique, p. 66. destiné au malheur d'avoir l'une de

objections. This last great proof brings into special prominence the personality of the Creator. This being established, there is so far from being any à priori objec tion to miracles, that, on the contrary, a strong proba bility seems to arise for their occurrence. The unifor mity of nature, and, to take an example from its most conspicuous law, gravitation itself seem finally to depend only upon the Maker's will. He, then, who made man,who still loves His creatures amid their errors and miseries-it seems certain will in some way interfere, in answer to their prayers, to guide them, and to save them, that they miss not the great end for which they were made. And the miracle is the sole conceivable proof of the reality of this merciful interposition.

LECTURE II.

SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIONS.

THE consideration we have just given to metaphysical objections to religion we believe to be the best introduction to the review upon which we now propose to enter, of such objections to the doctrines of revelation as have lately seemed to take new vitality from the developments of science in many directions. We propose to devote two lectures to this subject-one to the grounds or fundamental principles of the sciences in general, and one to some of the leading and favorite doctrines of the present time, e. g., the question involved in evolution. The battle-ground where the conflict will have to be fought out between religion and such science as has become irreligious will be found at length, I believe, in the region of metaphysics. Some preparation therefore in the technical details of this abstract science I earnestly recommend as of very great importance to the champion of faith. What I recommend is not any exclusive or protracted devotion to the teaching of any one school, though I have my own opinion as to the soundest school of metaphysics, but that you acquire sufficient knowledge of the subject to be able to state briefly, and with precision, the nature of the controversies raised concerning substance, cause, the primary laws of thought, the nature of law, the differences between mathematical, logical, and physical necessity, and some of the more celebrated doctrines on these and kindred topics. Even a very elementary