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III OF DESIGN 



MANY eminent writers and thinkers have of late years made 

 great efforts to convince people that the argument of 

 Design is not supported by new facts of modern science. 

 The only conclusion said to be tenable now-a-days, is, that 

 all the phenomena of the world somehow result from the 

 purposeless action and reaction of world forces and mate- 

 rials. It is even intimated that modern science really can, 

 or is very nearly able to, account for all the facts of the 

 universe, and it is implied that such hypotheses as those of 

 final causes, design, and the providential government of the 

 world are no longer required, and will, at least by intel- 

 lectual people, henceforth be given up. 



Some progressists, however, a little less confident than 

 those above referred to, although almost ready to abandon 

 the idea of design, are not quite reconciled to the immediate 

 denial of a first, and at least once in past time, all-powerful 

 cause. They think that at any rate for the present, it is 

 desirable to admit that a first cause does seem to have >een 

 necessary in the beginning, but that there is no need what- 

 ever to suppose that its continued operation was in any way 

 needed, or that it is ever active, or in any way directly in- 

 fluences any of the phenomena of nature at this present 

 time. 



It shall be freely admitted that it is very difficult for one 

 who is familiar with the structure of living beings, and has 

 carefully studied the changes which occur in their progress 



