CHAPTER II.

PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN.

"It is an assured truth, and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of Philosophy may incline the mind of Man to Atheism, but a farther proceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to Religion: for in the entrance of Philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion of the highest Cause; but when a man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence of causes and the works of Providence; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of Nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot ofJupiter'schair."Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning,Book I."Deus sine dominio, providentiâ, et causis finalibus nihil aliud est quam fatum et natura. A cæcâ necessitate metaphysicâ, quæ eadem est et semper et ubique, nulla oritur variatio. Tota rerum conditarum pro locis ac temporibus diversitas, ab ideis et voluntate entis necessario existentis solummodo oriri potuit."—Sir Isaac Newton, Scholium at close of Principia."Tax not my sloth that IFold my arms beside the brook;Each cloud that floated in the skyWrites a letter in my book."There was never mysteryBut 'tis figured in the flowers;Was never secret historyBut birds tell it in the bowers."Emerson's Poems.—The Apology.

Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning,Book I.

"Deus sine dominio, providentiâ, et causis finalibus nihil aliud est quam fatum et natura. A cæcâ necessitate metaphysicâ, quæ eadem est et semper et ubique, nulla oritur variatio. Tota rerum conditarum pro locis ac temporibus diversitas, ab ideis et voluntate entis necessario existentis solummodo oriri potuit."—Sir Isaac Newton, Scholium at close of Principia.

"Tax not my sloth that IFold my arms beside the brook;Each cloud that floated in the skyWrites a letter in my book."There was never mysteryBut 'tis figured in the flowers;Was never secret historyBut birds tell it in the bowers."Emerson's Poems.—The Apology.

"Tax not my sloth that IFold my arms beside the brook;Each cloud that floated in the skyWrites a letter in my book.

"Tax not my sloth that I

Fold my arms beside the brook;

Each cloud that floated in the sky

Writes a letter in my book.

"There was never mysteryBut 'tis figured in the flowers;Was never secret historyBut birds tell it in the bowers."

"There was never mystery

But 'tis figured in the flowers;

Was never secret history

But birds tell it in the bowers."

Emerson's Poems.—The Apology.

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER II.

This Chapter enters upon an examination of the kind of reasoning involved in the Argument from Design, and an inquiry into its special force. These investigations are accompanied by illustrative examples of Analogy in different shapes. The most powerful objections against this argument, and the various modes of stating it, are then described and criticised.

A re-statement of the whole line of thought is followed by the outline of a proposed method for the constructive science of Natural Theology.

The Chapter closes with a corollary on Efficient and Final Causes.

Analysis—Argument from Design—Its Popular Form, and the Popular Objections raised against it—Art and Nature dissimilar—Organic and Inorganic Worlds, their Unlikeness and their Likenesses—Difference between Similitude and Analogy, whether the latter be Illustrative or Illative, and easiest ways of stating both Analogies.

Scientific Difficulties—Charge of proving too much—Anthropomorphism and Dualism—Physical and Moral Antithesis—Was Paley to blame for introducing these Questions?—Answer to the charge of proving too much—On how many points need Analogy rest?—Examples.

Charge of proving too little—Design assumes Designer as a Foregone Conclusion—Process observed is test of Designer in Art, but fails in Nature—Criticism on these Objections.

Baden Powell compared with Paley—Wide Views and Inductions—Argument analysed intoGradationsof Proof, Order, and Intelligence—Means, Ends, and Foresight—Physical and Moral Causation—Argument analysed into variousLinesof Proof—Their Separate and Consilient Force.

Value of Powell's views on Causation—Objections against some peculiarities of his language—Natural Theology and Natural Religion distinguished—Professor Newman—Use of Words on subject of Design.

Statement of the Constructive Method now to be employed—Corollary on Efficient and Final Causes.

Additional Notes and Illustrations:——

A.—On the abstract reasonings involved in Natural Theology.

B.—On the phrase "Design implies a Designer."

C.—Hume on the analogies of Art and Nature.

D.—The Pantheistic consequences charged upon Physical Speculation.

E.—The extent and divisions of the Science of Natural Theology.

F.—On Teleology.

CHAPTER II.

PHILOSOPHY OF DESIGN.

The argument from Design in Nature has been made familiar to most readers in Natural Theology by Paley's well-known book. It is probable that no argument has ever been more praised, and at the same time more strongly controverted. Our business lies, of course, with the controversy; and we must say a few words on our present mode of dealing with it.

Nothing could be more useless than to repeat illustrative examples of Design already thrice told by an endless variety of treatises. Of so wide a subject everything may be quoted as an illustration, from a pebble to a world, if only the principle illustrated—the pivot on which the argument turns—be understood and admitted. In modern times, this turning-point is precisely the centre of the dispute. Untrained minds misapprehend the meaning of the word Design, and are further still from apprehending the real force of argument from analogy. And when these subjects come to be discussed by skilled writers, various questions are always raised which generally issue in irreconcilable differences of opinion.

Our plan here will be to take the argument in its best-known shape, and examine it from the points of view occupied by several classes of objectors, beginning, as is reasonable, with the most popular difficulties and misapprehensions. It does not seem necessary to load the page with references to controversialists of the ordinary sort, particularly as we endeavour to look at the whole question through their eyes.

Respecting the more philosophic questions it is necessary toobserve, that the Evolution-theory will not form a topic of the present chapter. It is excluded for two reasons. One, that we are now trying to put a value on the argument from Designper se, and not to compare it with rival theories. The other reason springs from the subject of Evolution itself—it is too extensive to be thus briefly treated—and the sum of this Essay must be taken together as furnishing a counter statement to the manner in which it has been employed by certain of its ardent advocates.[14]

We hope for a further advantage from the method proposed. The cause of truth ought to gain from being looked at on more than one side; and, whatever be the worth and true effect of reasoning from Design, we may expect by this method to display it adequately.

The word itself, like all figurative terms—or words used in a secondary sense—is by no means free from ambiguity. It has, in common parlance, several shades of signification. Design being the centre of Paley's argument, and containing the one idea which gives force to all the rest: his first object was to fix the sense in which he employed it. He did so by using an illustration.

To explain by comparison is always a popular resource, some serious drawbacks notwithstanding. Almost every one prefers that an author should use a sparkling similitude which tells a great deal, rather than write what looks like a grammar and dictionary of his science. Analysis and induction require thought on the part of him who employs them—thought also on the part of a reader determined to understand what he reads. Paley saw all this thoroughly, and at the beginning of his book employed the now celebrated comparison taken from a watchmaker and a watch. His judgment received support from the popularity he enjoyed, and from the way in which everybody borrowed his illustration.[15]

Yet Paley's deference to the popular understanding gave rise to the first general misapprehension of his treatise. He sets out from a kind of surprise—the surprise his readers would feel at finding a watch upon a heath. Now this feeling was immediately alleged as a conclusive objection against Paley's comparison, and as a ground for distrusting the whole argument founded upon it. The world, it was said, cannot be likened to a watch, nor yet to any other sort of mechanism. Between things natural, and the things which men make, the difference is not a mere contrast of perfection with imperfection. The real reason why we are surprised to see Paley's watch lying on a moor—and not at all surprised to see Paley'sstone lying beside it—springs from this very difference. And though the history of a stone, common, coarse, and worthless, is really more wonderful than the history of any watch, and though the stone has an infinitely longer pedigree, we should never speak or think of it in the same way. We feel that the objects are dissimilar, and our surprise testifies the fact. A heath is given up to nature, a watchmaker's shop to art. The watch is out of place among stones, the stone among watches. The idea raised at the outset, therefore, is that Art and Nature would seem to be thoroughly unlike.

At a first view of the subject, these remarks appear open to one obvious rejoinder. The sort of surprised feeling which Paley describes, is not in itself a proof of real unlikeness. A weed is a plant out of place; we do not expect thriving crops of cabbage or teazle in a carefully kept rose-garden, nor gooseberry bushes amongst azaleas. The proudest flower that blossoms is a weed in a vineyard, in a plot of opium-poppies, or mixed with other herbs medicinal. So, too, a rough diamond would not be out of place in a watchmaker's shop; but if we saw a stone of no selling value inside a case of watches we should certainly experience some surprise. And the feeling would remain even though we were quite unable to explain how the poor pebble differed chemically from the priceless gem. We know that the latter would appear to a jeweller's customers like a rose among flowers, but the former worthless as a weed. The jeweller would consider it a trespasser fit only to be turned out of doors.

But does this rejoinder satisfactorily dispose of the difficulty? Is not the true reason why we might observe with some wonder a watch lying upon a moor resolvable into the fact of our knowing its use and being quite sure that some one had dropped it there?[k]A savage might not feel in the leastsurprised, unless, indeed, he happened to suppose that the watch was a kind of animal he had never seen before, and took notice of the singular sound it made. In this event he would probably break it to pieces without discovering the purpose or mode of its contrivance.

Throughout all disputatious matter, a thought on one side leads to a thought upon the other—at least, amongst tolerably fair people. The idea which we have just imagined our savage to entertain respecting a watch suggests a further question. What effect ought in reason to be produced upon cultured minds by the contemplation of some unknown or half-comprehended phenomenon?—a question this, closely bearing upon the whole subject under discussion. Now surely it is from intelligent wonder—a contrast of the unknown with what we already know—a feeling of mystery to be solved by us, that inquiry and science perpetually spring. A fossil-shell, the former habitation of a marine animal, found upon some mountain top, presents a contrast and a mystery of this kind. Moreover, the highest triumph of inquiring science is the discovery, not of difference anywhere, but rather of resemblances in objects apparently diverse. An uninquiring mind will never perceive any common attribute, either ideal or structural, between a stone and a watch.

But did Paley himself perceive any such community of attribute? So far does he appear from the perception that he speaks of the stone as an "unorganised, unmechanised substance, without mark or indication of contrivance," and adds, "It might be difficult to show that such substance could not have existed from eternity." Paley's day was meagre in natural science, and Paley was as meagrely acquainted with its results as he was with metaphysical philosophy. Few people, however, even now-a-days, know enough of the laws which govern inorganic products to find their investigation a slight or easy task. For a purpose of comparison with any humanwork or mechanism, most inquirers will prefer having recourse with Paley to the world of organisation. The flower and fructification of a plant or shrub growing on the heath beside Paley's watch, though carelessly passed over a thousand times, and exciting no surprise from anything unusual in itshabitat, will, when observed, raise the most sincere admiration. And the same may be said of the bony skeleton of the lizard[16]racing round plant and shrub, the forehand of the mole which burrows beneath them, and the wing of the bat circling nightly in upper air.

Take, then, replies the objector, an organism, vegetable or animal, whichever you or Paley may prefer. The difficulty formerly urged at once recurs, slightly altered in shape, but with augmented point and force. Your organisms are not put together like the parts of a watch (undique collatis membris)—brass from this place, steel from that, and so on, with china dial-plate, covering-glass, and gold case. All these things were apart in nature, they were severally chosen, manipulated, and brought together. What we see is a successful union of materials possessing inherent adaptation to definite purposes—such as the freedom of brass from rust, or the superior elasticity of steel, qualities indicating the skill and workmanlike knowledge of some human artificer, and showing by their utilization the truth of what was before asserted. Watches and worlds, the products of Art and of Nature, are obviously and thoroughly unlike.

By way of answer, it might be observed that in organization we do really see very distinct constituents combined. In a plant, for instance, there is the combination of a growing point, a humus or pabulum that feeds it, and the stimuli, air, water, light, and all the "skiey influences" by which itspassive vitality is excited and sustained. We see plant life, by reason of these concurrent adaptations, swelling into leaf, stem, bud, corolla, and fruit, throughout all the brighter tribes of vegetable beauty that bloom apparent to the unassisted eye. And the like holds true respecting animals, but with increased variety and complication of conditions, made necessary by their higher mode of existence. The marvels of their many powers, habits, and perfections of form and movement are great, but greater still the vast multitude of ministering aids put in requisition to ensure their earliest appearance and after continuance in life and enjoyment. When we contemplate microscopic Nature, a like sweep of combination is again evident to the skilful naturalist, and excites his constant wonder, especially when observed in connection with the exquisite finish of minute creatures and their infinitesimal parts, both alike unperceived by our ordinary human senses. And a similar idea of invisible, and perhaps almost incomprehensible, harmony might be raised by a consideration of the elements, metallic and non-metallic, brought together in numberless inorganic productions, as well as of the forces which bind them in hard cohesion, and give them such properties as we may discover in the commonest block of granite. And what if we could extend our field of view to a world—to the universe?

The answer suggested by this last paragraph has its value, and the principle involved in it will occur for our scrutiny further on. But at present this train of thought, if pursued, might be likened to the weed we spoke of,—it would not be altogether in place here. The truth is that the whole objection thus parried appears more out of place still, and is therefore itself not a flower, but a weed of popular rhetoric. And the reason of its irrelevancy is plain. Paley's argument does not really turn upon the similitude of any two objects of simple apprehension, but upon an analogical comparison; the discovery, that is, of the likeness between two ratios, a process known in common life under the name of Proportion. Hence it is from the illative force of analogy that this topic of Design derives its value. The analogy does, in fact, serve a doublepurpose,—-firstto explain, andsecondlyto prove. We had better look at it from both points of view.

The easiest method for making anillustrativeanalogy intelligible is to state it in old-fashioned style as a rule of three sum; the fourth term being the conclusion which completes it. "As a watch is to the watchmaker, so is creation, (exemplified by such and such a specimen,) to its Creator." That is to say, there exists some ratio or relation connecting the watch and the watchmaker, which exists also between the world and its Creator.

To see itsillativeforce used as an argument, we need only alter the position of the four terms, and state our proportion as is more usual in modern day. "As the watch is to such and such specimens of creation, so is the watchmaker to the Author of any and all of these things."

In thefirststatement Paley's similitude is displayed in full as an asserted illustration of Design. The watch is a thing contrived—that is, a design realized, and the maker is its contriver. Just so, is the world a Design realized by its Creator. And it appears plainly implied in the assertion, that even as the little watch shows the limited power and intelligence of its maker, so the vast and unfathomable universe illustrates the infinite power and wisdom of its incomprehensible Author.

Thesecondmode of statement displays the force of Paley's analogy viewed as a chain of reasoning. The watch isnot likethe world, but there is something in common between them, and this something it is Paley's purpose, and the purpose of his various continuators, to show at the greatest convenient length. Now such community of character must be sufficient to establish a further community still. When we see a watch we are sure it had a designer,—the watchmaker; and here, again, Paley means to argue that from every example of contrivance which we can adduce and examine, the same inference ensues, and always must ensue. Therefore (he concludes) from the immeasurable designed world we infer the world's omnipotent Designer.

The chief Divine attributes (as, for example, omnipotence)are dwelt upon by Paley towards the close of his treatise. But it seems well to insert the adjective at once. Most thinking persons admit that whoever believes in a Creator may find from the physical Cosmos and its

"Mysterious worlds untravelled by the sun,"

ample reason for justifying the noblest of such adjectives. They generally go further, and allow that any Theist finds in these endless marvels a full confirmation of his faith—there is, as Coleridge says, a whole universe at hand to ratify the decision. But what many educated people who concede thus much disallow, is the sufficient witness of Design standing by itself to prove what it may fairly corroborate or even extend. To illustrate, confirm, or widen what is already held a truth is one thing; to serve as its sole sufficient witness is another. This conclusiveness some deny, and more scruple to affirm. And one of the drawbacks in arguing from analogy seems to be, that all except the most philosophically trained minds experience a sort of hesitation in estimating its force—a hesitation which they are at a loss to define in words. Consequently, the attack upon its adequacy is always difficult to answer; so many various shades of negation must be classed together for brevity's sake, and met by one or two general lines of defence. The safest way, probably, is to make the negative classes as wide as possible, and to put the scientific doubts in their most fatal form of expression. And it appears hard to imagine anything really destructive of evidence which may not be brought under one of the two following heads. There may be, first, a failure of evidence when it is not strong enough in its facts and circumstances to justify the conclusion drawn—when, in short, it proves too little. Secondly, it is worthless, if its acceptance so damages the position occupied by those who employ it, that their purpose is thereby destroyed, theirlocus standidemolished—in other words, they have proved too much.

May we not, then, presume it impossible to bring worse charges against any argument than whatever can be urged in support of these two accusations? And we willfirstput thewell-known analogy on its trial for proving too much, because it is from anxiety to avoid this charge that most analogical reasoners are apt to risk proving too little.

Admit, say Paley's most decided antagonists, the relevancy of an argument from human art. It must be taken to show the Creator of the Universe as Theists conceive and acknowledge Him. Let us at once ask in what light He is thereby represented? Is it not, so to speak, as a supreme Anthropomorphic[l]Craftsman sketching a vast plan or design, and moulding the materials necessary for its realization? We begin with the remark that His work—the world—must showsome traces of that plastic process and the hand of its Moulder. The requirement seems just and reasonable, and is commonly answered by an appeal to what have been termed the records of creation, the structure of the heavens, and the structure of the earth. Thus, for example, we are referred to Geology and Palæontology, and are led from age to age, and type to type. In passing from one formation to another we seem (as Goethe said) to catch Nature in the fact. At all events the plastic process is everywhere traceable, and to its evidences the Theist points with triumph.

But no intelligent objector can stop here. He will next inquire what on theistic principles was the origin of this material substance so constantly undergoing transformation. Most sceptical thinkers put the inquiry in a trenchant manner; they not only demand to be answered, but they prescribe beforehand the sort of answer to be returned. It is useless, they tell us, to speak of archetypes existing in the Divine mind, and to illustrate them by the creative thought of musician or sculptor, of painter or of poet. The hard, coarse world must be looked at as it is: an actual material habitation for sorrowing and sinful human creatures; its physical conditions, imperfect in that respect, unhappily corresponding too well with the low moralities of its tenants.

Now, they say, if we examine Paley's common-sense analogy no one can at all doubt what answer is suggested there. The steel of the watch-spring, the brass of the wheel-work, and other materials for all the curious mechanical contrivances required, were taken into account by the watch-designer when he formed his design. Had it been otherwise he could not have calculated on finding the necessary strength, elasticity, resistance to rust, and other properties on which Paley dwells so distinctly. In like manner, it has been said by some physical science Christians since Paley's time: "Let matter and its primary properties be presupposed, and the argument from Design is easy." True, but it seems quite as easy to suppose the world itself eternal. And we know that this supposition was adopted by pagan philosophers, to whom it appeared the easiest of all beliefs.

But other philosophic pagans, holding clearly that the world had a beginning, conceived its First Cause to be like Paley's Designer—analogous to an earthly workman. They carried out the analogy thoroughly—more thoroughly than modern writers, and believed both Artificer and the matter from which He shaped the visible universe, self-subsistent, indestructible, and co-eternal.

In this eternity of matter and its native inflexibilities, these great heathen thinkers found an apology for what they considered the failure of creative power—misshapen things, monstrosities, and imperfections. The Creator never desired them, but His will was thwarted by the material He worked in. Against this dualism the early Fathers protested. Will the modern Theist (his assailants ask) deny himself, and affirm two independent and self-existent principles; or will he deny the parallelism asserted in Paley's analogy? Can he conscientiously believe that its issue is a worthy representation of the Divine and omnipotent Creator? If not, it has failed by proving too much[m].raised. Who can help seeing that several of them lie equally against all rational theories which have ever been suggested to account for the origin of that sorrow and evil which we see and acknowledge everywhere? And does not the same remark apply to every attempt at solving the antithesis of mind and matter? Some thoughtful men have believed that they could see their way to a solution; others believe it altogether above human reason, and point with a kind of triumph to the failures of philosophy. However this may be, the mournful moral enigma,[17]and the unexplained antithesis underlying our knowledge of nature, attach themselves equally to every possible conception of the universe, religious or irreligious, common-sense or metaphysical. They have no special connection with our argument from Design, and ought not in fairness to be brought as objections against it.

The more real question just now is, whether Paley's mechanical analogy was to blame for introducing the problem of cosmical matter into the discussion.

On this question the opinions of competent and unprejudiced judges disagree. By an eminent and accomplished writer the case is summed up as follows, in the Harveian Oration for 1865. Having previously included the material factor under mechanical adaptation as distinguished from art in the highest sense, Dr. Acland goes on to say (page 13): "The illustration of the watch so quaintly employed by Nieuwentyt, and so entirely appropriated by Paley, only in a coarse way suggests the parallel between infinite art and common mechanical skill. It has done some mischief to the cause it advocates, by making familiar a rude illustration, which minds without imagination, or void of constructive power, have accepted as a recognised explanation of themethod of operationby an Infinite Creative Will."

Paley's critics should however observe, that he did not himself intend the objectionable inference. Probably he never even perceived that it might be drawn from his comparison.Abstract inquiries connected with Theism, he banished to the end of his book, where they are discussed in a manner little calculated to satisfy any readers who have ever felt them as substantial difficulties.[18]But then, he would most likely have referred these persons to the writings of professed metaphysicians. It may be wise for us to take warning both by what Paley did and by what he left undone. Some deeper questions are indispensable to the argument from Design, but we shall follow his example so far as to avoid such disquisitions as were current in his day under the name of metaphysics. On the other hand we shall draw the required data from that critical Fact-philosophy of Mind and Human Nature, which forms to so many thinkers the birth-star of a new science, one amongst the rising hopes of our nineteenth century.

Meantime, our business on hand is to rebut the present accusation of proving too much, brought against Paley's analogy. We shall try to complete our answer by setting his argument in the point of view under which he evidently meant it to be looked at.

Either as an illustration or as a means of proof, Analogy need not hold in more than a single point; provided only that this single point is clear and well-established—resting, for example, on a moral law or a causalnexus. Any one who desires to make an analytical investigation into this law of inference will receive valuable aid from Ueberweg's Logic, §§ 131 and 2, particularly if compared with § 129.

To a common-sense mind we may give sufficient satisfaction by adducing one or two good analogies. Thus, for instance, the duties of a religious minister are often explained by saying that he ought to be the shepherd of his flock; that is, his relation to his people ought to resemble that of the shepherd to his sheep. We all understand how truly is here expressed a world of watchful care. But are all points of the relation tobe implied? May the spiritual pastor ever become the slayer or the salesman of his flock?

Again,—writers upon political subjects some years ago used very commonly to quote from the days of Alfred the Great supposed precedents for our most modern constitutionaldicta. In many cases the thing defended was a legitimate outgrowth of the precedent cited; but to pronounce the twoidenticalseemed sufficiently absurd. In confutation of some such absurdities, clever men argued that the body corporate has, like the individual body, its childhood, growth, and maturity. The argument became generally accepted, and got extended to the distinctions between healthy increase and sickly degeneration, with other like inferences. The further conclusion was next drawn, that every national body resembles the human frame in a necessary decay, and inevitable mortality. Now, whatever opinion may be entertained as to the fact of a death-rate of nationalities, nothing seems more certain than that those who first employed the comparison never contemplated this particular corollary. Whether their first use of it was wise or unwise, has been, like Paley's Watch-analogy, a matter of some considerable dispute.

The general subject of Analogy, rightly or wrongly extended, admits of wider illustration.

Simile and metaphor are often compressed analogies, and many of them gain in beauty from expansion. Pope's celebrated comparison of the traveller ascending the Alps with the student who scales the heights of literature; and how

"Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise;"

is a good example of a poet's successfully expanding his own thought. Still more exquisitively true to nature is the final parallel drawn in Coleridge's description of the divided friends who stood apart,—

"Like cliffs which had been rent asunder,"

while the marks of a former union lingered indestructible. Perhaps few readers of "Christabel" ever looked at Lodore, and "its scars remaining," without feeling how aptly theyrepresent traces of thought and affection engraved upon the soul of man, deeper and more imperishable than the primæval rocks between which the "dreary sea" now flows.

The wonderful force of many among Shakespeare's metaphors is derived from compressed analogy. But by expanding

"The slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune,"

we should form no better conception of the goddess; and the next line,

"Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,"

might easily be turned into nonsense! Like Paley's "watch," the "sea" holds true only in one point. Shakespeare had before his eye the image of multitudinous vastness. But what arms could we take up to stem the billows of a swelling tide?

No one can read many commentators on the Scripture without feeling how groundless are numberless conclusions arrived at by extending Scriptural analogies beyond their just limits. Preachers and platform speakers are still more guilty. Not content with straining Holy Writ, they add to the mischief by pressing into their service comparisons of double meaning. The above quoted word "sea," has long been a much-enduring similitude in its relation to the countries and islands of the earth. What is it really to us, the earth's inhabitants? Our highway and bond of union? or a waste of waters given to divide rivals, as Horace phrases it, "Oceano dissociabili"? The last is the oldest metaphor.[19]

Enough has been said upon various analogies to show how frequently even in their widest use (that of illustration), the effect of extending them beyond their one salient point, is utter confusion. And with respect to illative analogy, this rule becomes obviously more stringent still. Paley meant it to be observed strictly as regards his own analogous reasoning.

But the caution itself must be cautiously applied, where thesalient point on which the inference turns is too superficial, or too weak to stand alone. And this is the very thing we have to discuss next,—because asecondaccusation brought against the argument from Design is, that by reason of weakness in its pivot, it proves far too little.

This second charge is less usual amongst popular than scientific writers, and most of us may learn something by sifting it. Their position may be described in few words as standing thus:—

All examples which men can, of their own knowledge, connect with Design, fall under one sole class, and from this class alone they can argue. It contains the products of human workmanship and manufacture—and nothing else. By its characteristic processes (which together with their result make the sum of what we know about this class) it is so essentially dissociated from the products of Nature, that any appearance of design common between them must be pronounced superficial in the absence of strongernexus. But since proof of suchnexusremains wanting, Paley's analogy is worthless. It will be observed that the effect of this position is to sever between human works and natural things quite as completely as did the popular objection which we put first in our list of assaults upon Paley. Yet, though these conclusions may seem suspiciously coincident, the grounds of argument are really distinct. Scientific persons do not compare two objects natural and artificial, nor yet their two sets of constituents, and say, "These are unlike." They argue rather that the relative or proportionate likeness asserted is insufficiently made out, and that when it is said "Design implies a designer," people are speaking of design worked out in the known way of workmen. We (they observe) need notdenya designer of the world, but we desiderate evidence of his actual workmanship. By this we shall know that he first conceived and then realized the alleged design. We do not feel convinced by being shown certain organicsomethingsin their perfect state, and being told to observe how very like contrivances they are. They may be very like, certainly, but we want assurances that they can be nothing else. We want to have shown us someworkbeingdone, and to ascertain that it is carried on in a workmanlike manner. Then we shall say with confidence, Here is the active hand of a designer. To compress our requisition into a single sentence,—We want not only to catch Nature in the fact, but also to ascertain that Nature's way of performing the fact has something essentially humanlike about it.

To see our meaning clearly (add these objectors) take the instance of some marvellous work of man's art previously unknown to us. We could, if we perceived themarksof human fabrication, reason from a watch, or some other well known machine, to the conclusion that some person had designed it. In other words, we should feel sure that we were looking at a new product of skill, which differed from what we had seen before in the degree of excellence attained. The difference we feel in our transition from Art to Nature appears, on the contrary, to be a difference not only between more or less perfect products or processes, but a thorough difference of kind in the wholemannerof bringing about the results placed before our eyes. Or put the case (they continue) as a piece of circumstantial evidence. We say positively of this or that machine, They are contrivances, things designed, because we know thehistoryof their manufacture. We feel positive, because we are arguing from a plain patent fact to a hidden but absolutely essential condition, without which the fact could not exist. As regards natural products we have not got the fact—we do not know the history of their production. We cannot say, Here is the process, because the processes of Nature are mostly unknown to us. Paley therefore would have us assume the fact and argue from it; first to design, next, to something more hidden still,—a Designer. Yet what wedoknow of natural processes is not encouraging; there is visible about them more unlikeness than likeness to the processes employed by man. The truth may be surmised, that Paley was always seeing in his own examples the footprints, as he thought, of a Designer. Hence he affirmed Design, and then argued back again in a never-ending circle. There is really no reason why he should have travelled round such acircuit. If his argument shows anything, it shows a Designer at once.[n]

With some risk of tediousness, this last attack on Paley has been detailed at great length, and placed (as the present writer believes) in several of its most formidable shapes[o]. But for additional security of fair dealing with the strongest of all objections—one which, if established, would be a death-blow to all argument on the subject (since itsultimatumis unconditional surrender)—for these reasons, then, and in order to satisfy the most rigorous understanding, let it be finally rehearsed in the words of a most eminent physicist whom no one will accuse of haste, oversight, or credulity. To this rehearsal the Professor adds what is to us more important still,—his judgment on the point at issue.

But before quoting Professor Baden Powell, it may be worth while to make two short notes on the few preceding paragraphs. Let us take the last paragraph first.

It really does appear that marks of Design and the footprints of a Designer are in common sense very nearly one and the same thing. If we concentrate our attention on the former, we are looking at an object on the side of certain properties,—that is, of certain subjectively perceived relations. For instance, we may think of the eye only as an optical instrument wonderfully constituted, and enumerate the parts of its visual apparatus. But the moment we speak of this apparatus as a provisionintentionallymade for sight, we have introduced the idea of a Designer in the strongest sense of the word. Now, it is difficult to think of anything as an example of intelligent arrangement, and at the same time give no hint even to our own thoughts of arranging Intelligence. We can hardly look through a pane of glass and admire the perfect transparency ofonesurface to the exclusion of theother! We are not now speaking of whatmightbe done, if attempted by a man so profoundly skilled in analytics that

"He could distinguish, and divideA hair 'twixt south and south-west side."

"He could distinguish, and divide

A hair 'twixt south and south-west side."

We are rather speaking of what it isnaturalto do. And it may be doubted whether anybody thinks of a designasdesign very long without thinking also of the Designer.

One other remark is suggested by the reference toprocessas contradistinguished fromproduct. Here, again, the real question is, How far is such a distinction maintainable in fact? Does it rest upon any definite separation in Nature? The exact contradictory is the truth; taking the world as it is, the distinction, though clear in thought, becomes essentially fluent when objectively regarded. What we call a production one moment, we say is a process the next. You have, for example, a galvanic current, produced by certain chemical combinations, and often a productper seof some importance. Yet the current itself is a part of the electrotyping process. Suppose this done, you have your electrotype—your coin,—a hard fact,—a solid production, bright, beautiful, admirable! But we will suppose you, while devising all this, to have a further view;—the coin is to be employed in the process of imposture. Here again comes a result—a great fraud committed; but this is not all. The fraudulent procedure turns out a very useful police-trap, and your chemical combination sends the last actor on the scene to Portland, for at least ten years. Consider in this brief history the scientific arrangements, material conditions, and workmanlike execution, discernible in its earlier parts; then, see how mind becomes gradually predominant, and how Law, based on ideas of corrective justice, enters the series. Add the judge and jury, and you admit the force of intellect,—deliberating, deciding, putting further activities in motion; till, perhaps, if the reformatory process succeeds, Portland may have the honour of giving to society the welcome product of (as times go) a passably honest man. We might really frame a curious inquiry as respects this flowing tide of process and production, production and process, with its commingling currents and waves which seem to interrupt each other like circles of diffracted light. We might ask which of all these parts of the moving diorama is mostdistinctly human. I believe most people would say, those scenes in which mind, not mere workmanship, is most evidently discernible.

Professor Powell seems to have thought so too. The difficulty we have been discussing he states as an objection requiring solution.[20]

"In those cases most nearly approaching the nature of human works, such as the varied and endless changes in matter going on in thelaboratory of nature, the results, even when most analogous to those obtained in human laboratories, yet present no marks of the process or of the means employed, by which to recognise the analogous workman; and in all the grander productions, the incessant evolutions of vegetable and animal life, which no human laboratory can produce,—in the structure of earth and ocean, or the infinite expanse of the heavens and their transcendent mechanism, still further must we be from finding any analogy to the works of man, or, by consequence, any analogy to a personal individual artificer."

The next paragraph contains his own judgment.

"But the more just view of the case is that which arises from the consideration that the real evidence is that ofmindandintelligence; for here we have a proper and strict analogy.Minddirecting the operations of the laboratory or the workshop, is no part of thevisible apparatus, nor are its operations seen inthemselves—they are visible only in theireffects;—and from effects, however dissimilar in magnitude or in kind, yet agreeing in the one grand condition oforder,adjustment, profound and recondite connexion and dependence, there is the same evidence and outward manifestation ofInvisible Intelligence, as vast and illimitable as the universe throughout which those manifestations are seen."

This second extract may be analysed into distinct propositions somewhat as follows:—

In a manufactory,—

Mind is no part of the visible apparatus—nor are its operations visible,—

But the effects make the operations manifest.—

In the universe,—

Effects may be seen differing from Human productions in many ways,—but agreeing in one common characteristic,—order—adjustment—hidden interdependence.

Such effects make manifest the operation of an Invisible Intelligence as vast as the Universe itself.

The majority of people might suppose this a conclusive inference from Nature to the Being of a Personal God. But Professor Powell does not so intend it; and therefore some readers may feel disposed to blame his use of words. It is, however, only fair that before so doing, they should carefully consider his whole mode of apprehending the subject in its completeness. And the easiest way of understanding Powell is, most probably, to compare him with Paley.

The latter is confident that when he has derived the design and arrangement of the world from a mind analogous to the mind of man, but immeasurably vast as the Universe which man inhabits,—little more need be said. He thinks the infinite intelligence thus demonstrated, is clearly no other than the Great First Cause, and Creator of all things. "Contrivance, if established, appears to me to prove everything which we wish to prove." This sentence begins Chap. xxiii., and the rest of Paley's Natural Theology is intended to demonstrate and verify its correctness.

Powell thinks that the step from a mind or intelligence, even if conceived illimitable as the Universe, to a First Cause, Supreme Mind, or Moral Cause, is a very much longer ascent[p]than Paley thought it. By these latter terms he meant—as Paley did—the Divine Personality believed in by Theists, and evidenced,first, as mind by a reign of law, order, and arrangement, so far as the world can evidence Him;—but manifest,secondly, in His higher nature as the fountain and originator of law—that is, a true Cause, a manifestation due to the causal structure of our own human minds. The point of difference is the length of the step to be taken from Law to Causation; but Powell agrees with his predecessor in asserting it, though arduous, to be absolutely safe. The point he insists on is that we cannot take it by a contemplation of the world without us only. "Ever-presentmind" he says,[21]"is a direct inference from the universal order of nature, or rather only another mode of expressing it. But of themodeof existence of that mind we can infer nothing."

From this view he draws conclusions in opposite directions. Pantheism,[22]the co-existence or identification of mind with matter, "is at best a mere gratuitous hypothesis, and as such wholly unphilosophical in itself, and leading to many preposterous consequences." There are also grounds on which Theism appears certain and Pantheism extravagant, absurd, and contradictory.[23]To see these grounds we are to carry out the analogy given us by the common characteristics of order, adjustment, and interdependence visible through their effects as in the human workshop or laboratory, so, too, in the vast illimitable Universe, and described in our second extract as manifestations of Mind or invisible Intelligence. In the paragraph immediately following that extract,[24]he continues:—

"It is byanalogywith the exercise of intellect, and the volition, or power of moral causation, of which we are conscious within ourselves, that we speak of theSupreme MindandMoral Causeof the Universe, of whose operation, order, arrangement and adaptation, are the external manifestations.Orderimplies what byanalogywe callintelligence; subserviency to an observed end implies intelligenceforeseeingwhich by analogy, we callDesign."

The last sentence of the paragraph now quoted is veryremarkable. The eminent writer directs attention to a distinction between two several inferences which can be drawn from the observed manifestations of Order, and of Foresight. From the first, he says, we infer Intelligence, from the latter we infer Design. It seems singular that Powell should have defined this distinction so clearly, and made no further use of it.

He might naturally have insisted upon the separate and diverse evidences thus afforded by the physical world. Amid the variety of human minds, some may feel impressed by the contemplation of Nature in one of these ways, some in the other. To many persons the magnificent spectacle of a law-governed Universe, infinitely manifold yet everywhere harmonious, appears to justify the belief in one supreme Reason and sovereign Will. Separate parts of this same Universe—or the whole in its entirety of vastness—when considered as manifesting purpose—that is, intentional adaptation to separate ends or to one end—are to other minds a more convincing line of thought.

With many writers on Natural Theology the different shades of meaning implied in the word Design[25]may prevent clearness of conception in this respect. But our author (like Paley) appears to use this word in its strongest signification.

And this usage of Powell's brings into view another point in his reasoning even more singular than the one to which we have just adverted. Surely, if in the natural world we observe the manifestations of an Intelligence foreseeing an End, and employing means in subserviency to that end, it seems strange to conclude that respecting the mode of existence of such Intelligence we can infer nothing, yet the words occur on the very next page. It would seem almost an impossibility to suppose such a mind existing as anything less than a Personality under the twofold aspect of a Reason and a Will. Paley's common sense drew this conclusion at once, and very profoundthinkers have agreed with Paley on the topic. "That," says F. H. Jacobi, "which, in opposition to Fate, makes God into a true God, is called Foresight. Where it is, there alone is Reason; and where Reason is, there also is Foresight. Foresight in itself is Spirit, and to that only which is of Spirit do those feelings of admiration, awe, and love, which announce its existence, correspond. We can indeed declare of any object that it is beautiful or perfect, without previously knowing how it became so, whether with or without the operation of Foresight;—but the power which caused it so to be,thatwe cannot admire, if it produced the object, without aim or purpose, according to laws of mere Necessity of Nature."[26]

In point of fact Professor Powell was himself of the same opinion, for in another place he writes thus:—

"Now, the bare fact of order and arrangement is on all hands undisputed, though commonly most inadequately understood and appreciated."The inference of design, intention, forethought, is somethingbeyondthe last mentioned truth, and not to beconfounded with it. This implies intelligent agency, or moral causation. Hence again, we advance to the notion of distinct existence, or what is sometimes called personality; and thence proceed to ascribe the other Divine attributes and perfections as centring in that independent Being."[27]

"Now, the bare fact of order and arrangement is on all hands undisputed, though commonly most inadequately understood and appreciated.

"The inference of design, intention, forethought, is somethingbeyondthe last mentioned truth, and not to beconfounded with it. This implies intelligent agency, or moral causation. Hence again, we advance to the notion of distinct existence, or what is sometimes called personality; and thence proceed to ascribe the other Divine attributes and perfections as centring in that independent Being."[27]

It appears only just to the Archdeacon that we should notice this variation of language on the part of his censor.[28]Of this variation itself the true account seems undoubtedly to be as follows. The writer was engaged in tracing the progress of conviction in his own mind. He first observes order, adjustment, interdependence, throughout the Universe. Hence he is penetrated by the impression of pervading Intelligence. Next, he perceives that these results could never have taken place unless foreseen and provided for by a designed subserviency ofmeans to ends, and this convinces him of the Personality of that universal Mind. Finally, he draws, from the analysis of Causation, a full definition of the great Originator of all things.

The fact, however, remains that each of these gradations of reasoning may be stated just as easily and more logically as separate and convergent lines of thought, because each can be rested on a separate combination of proofs. But the elucidation of this subject cannot be compressed into few words, and must be deferred to our fifth and sixth chapters.

Still there is a very peculiar and special satisfaction in following the path of argument which persuaded an acute and practised reasoner, accomplished in several departments of knowledge, and himself of a turn of mind which would appear naturally adapted to the utmost refinements of sceptical investigation. We shall, therefore, now return to our comparison of Powell with his predecessor.

These two distinguished writers do, in fact, come at last to the same conclusion. But they reach it through a difference in the paths travelled over by such logic of evidence as may after all seem natural enough to a theological pleader on one side, and on the other to a scientific physicist.

Professor Powell, of course, leads us more deeply than his predecessor into the thorny thickets surrounding Natural Theology. No one can read his essays without remarking the subtlety of his thought, which to many readers appears over refined, and to some as employed on points in themselves unimportant. Mr. Baden Powell's own deliberate judgment was the other way, as we find from the last[29]of his considerable performances on our subject. "Points," he writes, "which may be seen to involve the greatest difficulty to more profound inquirers, are often such as do not occasion the least perplexity to ordinary minds, but are allowed to pass without hesitation.... On the other hand, exceptions held forth as fatal by the shallow caviller are seen by the more deeply reflecting in all their actual littleness and fallacy."

We may add that a subtle argument is often like a sharp thin blade, cutting clean into the very heart of a question. If it indeed prove a home thrust, few things ought to be more fearlessly and cheerfully welcomed by those who desire to dissect out the naked, intrinsic truth. We will, therefore, dissect a little deeper, following the Professor's track of demonstration.

We find him, then, reaching down to aseptum, or, as botanists prefer to speak, a strong dissepiment between alaw of Natureorphysical causation, and atrue Causein the highest and most emphatic sense[q].

Such a separation is not to be sought from a writer of Paley's date, when the modern notion of law was unformed, or rather was in process of formation. Thus Newton's discoveries were thought by many persons irreligious, because the stability of the heavens appeared like something necessarily determined. Respecting this opinion, Powell observes (and from his point of view with truth), that "such necessity of reason is the highest proof of design." Paley, on the contrary, felt inclined to despair of discovering much evidence of Design in Astronomy, but he looked upon the starry heavens as affording the most ample and glorious confirmation of the agency of an intelligent Creator, when proved from some other source. In his next chapter (the 23rd) he proceeds to reprehend the mistaken sense of law, growing up amongst physicists in his own day. "It will," he says, "be made to take the place of power, and still more, of intelligent power," and will "be assigned for the cause of anything or of any property of anything that exists." In this remark he shows his accustomed penetration. Law, antecedent and consequent, with their series of physical evolutions, have been talked of by men who confuse physics and metaphysics, as if they could thereby account for a whole universe.[30]Now, from this cloudy confusion[r], Professor Powell is exempt. He accepts (as obviously he must accept) the natural-science idea of law, which looks at it as an orderly expression of force, and tells us that "law andorder, physical causation and uniformity of action are the elevated manifestations of Divinity, creation and providence."[31]But from the conception of Mind or Intelligence thus given us, which, though invisible to the eye, is yet, in its effects, plainly visible, he distinguishes, over and over again, the idea of a true originating first Cause.[32]We see the necessity of a moral Cause as distinguished from a physical antecedent, when we survey Nature. But Nature does not contain the idea in an explicit shape. She only necessitates its acceptance. This idea, we find, he tells us, manifest in our own moral nature,—by analogy we discern it in the Divine. He likewise severely blames those who commingle in words the two contrasted thoughts and lines of inference, and mentions Coleridge and Sterling[33]by way of example. As concerns his own mode of establishing the idea of causation in its proper and peculiar force, Professor Powell agrees with a large number of metaphysicians, ancient and modern. It might seem superfluous to name as an instance the late Dean Mansel, were not a passage in his "Prolegomena" so full of good matter on the topic.[34]

In this view of causation, then, Powell advanced nothing new. But what he did advance was really valuable. The man who can rise no higher than law or succession as he sees it impressed on outward nature, stands in a totally different position from the man whose insight into Reason and Will has shown him the idea of true Causation. For, he has seen that whoever is the author of his own act, does something which puts in movement a new series of antecedence and consequence,—a new train of events, the issue of which no man can foresee;—though of what has come, and is coming, he, the individual man, is the truly responsible cause[s]. But ifhecan introduce into the order of the outward world a new antecedent carrying after it a chain of new consequents, what shall he think respectingthe absolute Cause of all worlds, things and beings, the thinker himself included? Who shall persuade him to deny the reasonableness of a Providence following creation? Who can reprove the man when he feels and asserts his own moral power, for a belief in Miracles? Above all, who will demonstrate that prayer is inefficacious, if we can rise (as Baden Powell says we can rise) "byanalogywith the exercise of intellect, and the volition, or power of moral causation, of which we are conscious within ourselves, to the Supreme Mind and Moral Cause of the universe?"

It is no slight praise to say that Professor Powell clearly saw, and no less clearly expressed, a truth not always apprehended among physicists. By giving it expression, he rendered a substantial service to Natural Theology. It is, indeed, a serious drawback and impediment to Natural Theologians that their argument requires some acquaintance with more than one wide field of knowledge. They have to reason from the material world,—they have also to reason from the world of mind; and in countries like England, France, and Germany, where division of labour penetrates every calling, literary as well as manufacturing, a combination of this sort is a matter of infrequent occurrence. To this retarding circumstance may be ascribed the want of progress in several mixed sciences,[35]which, like the subject we are treating, occupy two distinct tracts of border-land territory.

The separating wall between Law and Cause built up by Professor Powell, was founded on fact, and will probably remain unshaken. But he added to it a theoretical limitation of the term, Natural Theology, which, like many changes in verbal usage, does not appear defensible,—particularly as its bad effects are plainly shown in Professor Powell's own book.

Within two pages of the passage on Causation last quoted, he startles the unwary reader by saying (p. 173) that "Natural Theology confessedly 'proves too little,' because it cannot rise to the metaphysical idea or scriptural representation of God." It is generally vain to inquire what may be meant by "Metaphysical." Few people are aware that everybody, learned or unlearned, talks metaphysics either well or ill; and usually (as M. Jourdain talked prose) without knowing it. The epithet "metaphysical" figures often enough as another name for what is unintelligible;—and most Englishmen apply it to all "ideas" not strictly commercial or practical. Here it seems to stand along with Scripture, in opposition to Natural Theology; while the latter term is in turn opposed to the science of the human mind. Yet does not Powell distinctly trace a Mind and Intelligence analogous to the mind and intelligence of Man, throughout the world of outward Nature; and does he not further determine that this same analogy, fairly carried out, leads to what henowcalls "the metaphysical idea, or scriptural representation of God?" In other words, when discussing the question of Evidence, he finds Mind pervading outward Nature,—he treats Mind as the ordering and sovereign part of the Natural world, which visibly shows the effect of its invisible direction, and bids us follow up this higher nature in its analogies to God, of Whose operation the order and arrangement of the Universe are external manifestations. But, when he speaks of Natural Theology, that higher nature seems to disappear; intellect, volition, and the power of moral causation, slip out of sight, and are blotted from his catalogue of natural facts. Human nature must thus be treated as no part of universal Nature, in order that a needlessly narrow and purely theoretical fence may be drawn round the science of Natural Theology! Natural Theology and Natural Religion are, in truth, terms originally adopted as mere antitheses to Revelation. Thefirstsignifies what mankind might have known, or may know, of the Divine Being, prior to, or apart from, any direct message sent by Himself. Thesecondis intended to comprehend those relations between that Divine Being and ourselves, which mustensue immediately upon the acceptance of Theism.[36]Theideasexpressed by these two terms are as old as Revelation itself,—a strong reason why their meaning should not be lightly altered.[37]But this antithetic usage was never intended to prejudge the question whether the results of Natural Theology and Religion do not coincide to a very great extent with the teaching of revelation. Much less was there any idea of answering this question in the negative, as a hasty reader of certain isolated passages in Professor Powell's book might easily be led to answer it.[38]

Our strictures may be aptly concluded by a quotation taken from another recent writer. Professor Newman understands the evidence of Design in the same breadth of meaning which we have attached to it. Under it he comprehends the evidence of Mind naturally known to us, as may be seen by the following extracts:—

"A lung," says Mr. Newman,[39]"bears a certain relation to the air, a gill to the water, the eye to light, the mind to truth, human hearts to one another: is it gratuitous and puerile to say that these relations imply design? There is no undue specification here, no antagonist argument, no intrusion of human artifice: we take the things fresh from nature. In saying that lungswere intendedto breathe, and eyes to see, we imply an argument from Fitness to Design, which carries conviction to the overwhelming majority of cultivated as well as uncultivated minds.... If such a fact stood alone in the universe, and no other existencesspoke of Design, it would probably remain a mere enigma to us; but when the whole human world is pervaded by similar instances, not to see a Universal Mind in nature appears almost a brutal insensibility.... Of the physical structure of mind, no one pretends to know anything; but this does not weakenour conviction that the mind was meant to discern truth. Why should any philosopher resist this judgment? One thing might justify him; namely, if there were strongà priorireasons for disbelieving that Mind exists anywhere except in man. But the case is just the reverse. That puny beings who are but of yesterday, and presently disappear, should alone possess that which of all things is highest and most wonderful, isà prioriexceedingly unplausible. As Socrates and Cicero have pointedly asked: 'Whence have we picked it up?' Its source is not in ourselves: there must surely be a source beyond us. Thus the tables are turned: we mustprimâ facieexpect to find Mind in the Universe, acting on some stupendous scale, and of course imperfectly understood by us. Consequently, such Fitnesses as meet our view on all sides bring a reasonable conviction that Design lies beneath them. To confess this, is to confess the doctrine of anintelligent Creator, although we pretend not to understand anything concerning the mode, stages, or time of Creation.Adding now the conclusions drawn from the Order of the universe, we have testimony, adapted to the cultivated judgment, that there is a Boundless, Eternal, Unchangeable, Designing Mind, not without whom this system of things coheres: and this Mind we callGod."

To take stumbling-blocks out of the reader's way has been the main object of this Chapter. It has discussed the meaning and force of several words. The discussion may have seemed somewhat intricate,—but if honest, and, so far as it goes, thorough, no one will deny its utility. For facts are known to us as words, and words are facts to our intellect, since they express our apprehension of objects. They are, in brief, the interpreters of a world-wide human consciousness. And in the strength of consciousness our knowledge stands, if it does stand;—unfaithful to consciousness, it must fall, and ought to die the death of a traitor.[40]

The word most discussed has been that one upon which turns the best known argument by Natural Theology—"Design." We trust also, that it may hereafter gain additional clearness under sidelights from other trains of thought.[41]And what next follows will be essentially a discussion of thoughts and things—in which words are to be treated less as their representatives, and more as our servants and implements. For this Chapter will have been written to very little purpose if the reader has failed to perceive that Natural Theology[42]includes at the very least two distinct elements—two separate sets of premises drawn from different sources. One of these factors rests upon our human knowledge of the natural world we live in—the other requires a deeper kind of knowledge, and one far less cultivated upon inductive principles—the knowledge, that is to say, of our own nature—our essential humanity and self-ness.

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