202 ON THE RECEPTION OF 



does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of which 

 all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences,, 

 and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the 

 teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this 

 primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve 

 the phenomena of the universe." * 



The acute champion of Teleology, Paley, saw no difficulty 

 in admitting that the "production of things" may be the 

 result of trains of mechanical dispositions fixed beforehand 

 by intelligent appointment and kept in action by a power at 

 the centre, f that is to say, he proleptically accepted the modern 

 doctrine of Evolution ; and his successors might do well to 

 follow their leader, or at any rate to attend to his weighty 

 reasonings, before rushing into an antagonism which has no 

 reasonable foundation. 



Having got rid of the belief in chance and the disbelief in 

 design, as in no sense appurtenances of Evolution, the third 

 libel upon that doctrine, that it is anti-theistic, might perhaps 

 be left to shift for itself. But the persistence with which 

 many people refuse to draw the plainest consequences from 

 the propositions they profess to accept, renders it advisable 

 to remark that the doctrine of Evolution is neither Anti- 

 theistic nor Theistic. It simply has no more to do with Theism 

 than the first book of Euclid has. It is quite certain that a 

 normal fresh-laid egg contains neither cock nor hen ; and it 

 is also as certain as any proposition in physics or morals, that 

 if such an egg is kept under proper conditions for three 

 weeks, a cock or hen chicken will be found in it. It is also 

 quite certain that if the shell were transparent we should be 

 able to watch the formation of the young fowl, day by day, 

 by a process of evolution, from a microscopic cellular germ 

 to its full size and complication of structure. Therefore 



* The " Genealogy of Animals " f ' Natural Theology,' chap. 



('The Academy,' 1S69), reprinted xxiii. 

 in ' Critiques and Addresses.' 



