528 THE CAT. [chap. xv. 



all our experience. Anyone, also, who should pretend that wo cannot 

 affirm a " purpose " to exist in different natural processes (i.e., who 

 denies that we can assert a " final cause " for any phenomenon) 

 because we are unable to state the final cause of the whole series of 

 physical phenomena, would be like a soldier who, because he was 

 ignorant of the plan of campaign of his commander-in-chief, should 

 pretend that therefore he could not infer that commander's purpose 

 in sending medical stores to the military hospital. 



The co-operation of a variety of actions under complex conditions 

 in the production of something which works well and which is the 

 admirable practical result of their harmonious co-operation, supposes, 

 as our experience shows, a cause in which that future phenomenon 

 is ideally represented; and the more complex the conditions, and 

 the more numerous the actions may be, the more certainly may the 

 conclusion be drawn that such prevision existed. 



The Theistic idea once accepted, how does the action imminent in 

 nature accord with our idea of God, thus conceived ? 



Surely it is just that sort of action which was to be expected. It 

 is an action which harmonises with man's reason, which is orderly, 

 constant, and universal, yet which ever eludes our grasp, and is 

 effected by ways and in modes very different from those by which 

 we should have attempted to accomplish such ends. 



As to " creative action," reason tells us nothing more than that 

 its existence must be logically inferred. It could tell us nothing 

 more, since of it we cannot possibly have had any experience what- 

 ever. Those men are strangely inconsistent who would deny it 

 because they cannot imagine it, since they must confess that it must 

 be unimaginable by them (even if they were in some way made 

 certain of its existence) on account of their never having had any 

 experience of it. 



^ 18. But to revert to the question of the Origin of Species. Let 

 it be granted that Divine activity evolves new concrete forms by 

 final and efficient causes (making use of living organisms as means), 

 are these all the causes which operate, or is there yet another cause ? 



Species, genera, families, orders, and classes, as such are ideas ; 

 they have an ideal existence in the human mind — have they no 

 other ideal existence ? Every Theist must admit that the mind of 

 God contains all that exists in the human mind, and infinitely more. 

 It is therefore a simple truism to say that human general concep- 

 tions, gathered from nature, must be ideas in the Divine mind also 

 — such human conceptions being but faint and obscure adumbra- 

 tions of corresponding ideas which must exist in their perfection and 

 fulness in the mind of God. But there is yet a further considera- 

 tion. Our ideas arc ideas derived from material things, while the 

 Divine ideas are ideas whence material things have been themselves 

 derived. This must be so, since God is eternal, and these ideas, as 

 Ilis, must be eternal also ; whereas all the most ancient concrete 

 existences in which such ideas arc embodied, are relatively but 

 creatures of yesterday. 



