8 2 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



One of the reasons, no doubt, why certain modern philosophers 

 and men of science have made such onslaughts on teleology is to be 

 found in the too common attribution to teleologists of a crude 

 anthropomorphic conception of the Deity. " The idea of a superin- 

 tending and designing Mind " conveys, it is asserted, " an unworthy 

 idea of a Supreme Being. It lowers the Creator to the level of an 

 artificer." 



" But, whether the idea be unworthy or not, it is fair to remem- 

 ber," as a writer in a recent number of the London Quarterly Re- 

 view pertinently remarks, " that, if Supreme Mind works in Nature, 

 it can only be through such mental characteristics as are recog- 

 nizable by men that such a mind could disclose itself. The objec- 

 tion demands a loftiness of method which would serve to conceal 

 its intelligence from the intelligent creatures of its hand. But, 

 further, the divine working is not wholly like the human; it is 

 loftier; it is not the process of a mere artificer. Man produces 

 manufactures; the Divine Mind produces growth and development. 

 It thus works in a fashion more majestic than man's. This concep- 

 tion of the difference between divine and human working does not 

 dissipate the impression that mind works in Nature. There is a 

 distinction in man's workmanship between the mental conception 

 and mechanical execution. This is a real and constant distinction. 

 In Nature this distinction disappears, but the important question 

 here is, Is the conceiving mind lost in the mechanical artificer? 

 This is precisely what does not happen. In the slow, orderly, and 

 well-directed processes of Nature it is the lower — the artificer — 

 action which vanishes; the evidence of the ruling mind remains un- 

 impaired. The objection, therefore, rests on an incomplete analysis. 

 It confounds the high functions of a conceiving mind with the far 

 lower functions of a mere executive mechanic." * 



Another reason for the prevalent confusion of thought regard- 

 ing the relation of teleology to evolution arises from erroneous 

 notions entertained by so many respecting the true signification of 

 creation and evolution. They fail to distinguish between absolute 

 creation ex nihilo and derivative creation. Absolute creation em- 

 braces only spiritual intelligences and the material elements of 

 which the universe is composed. Derivative creation, on the con- 

 trary, means only the formation of something from pre-existing 

 material, and includes all organic and inorganic compounds, all 

 forms of vegetable and animal life, for all these have been produced 

 from those elementary bodies which constitute alike the earth and 

 all the orbs of the firmament. Only absolute creation, therefore, 

 is creation properly so called. Derivative creation, however, is 



* July, 1896, p. 218. 



