IDEA OF DESIGN STRENGTHENED. 345 



and vegetable mechanical apparatus has been and can alone 

 be constructed. 



Thus, as it seems to me, the argument of design be- 

 comes strengthened, instead of being rendered weaker, by a 

 dispassionate appreciation of the new facts of science. If 

 we observe and interpret fairly, taking care not to modify 

 and alter our facts so as to make them fit in with arbitrary 

 views and already accepted theories concerning the uni- 

 versal application of physical causation, I do not think 

 we shall feel inclined to abandon the old views concerning 

 design for that other pretentious, ill-sustained hypothesis : 

 and though we may confess ourselves very weak, we may 

 feel that to account for the fulfilment of the object, the 

 purpose, the end in view, we shall not be disinclined at least 

 provisionally to accept the hypothesis of the existence of 

 a never-changing, all-seeing, power-directing, matter-guiding 

 Omnipotence. 



Nevertheless, I hold that the full acceptance of this 

 view is not inconsistent with the admission, on the part 

 of a truly scientific man, that, if the maintenance, con- 

 tinuity, and nature of life on our planet should at some 

 future time be fully explained without supposing the exist- 

 ence of any such supernatural omnipotent influence, he would 

 be bound to receive the new explanation, and might aban- 

 don the old conviction without being open to the charge of 

 having been false to science, and without deserving to be 

 stigmatized as weak by those stronger brethren who had 

 seen the truth at a greater distance than his powers of vision 

 rendered possible, and who being endowed with a prophetic 

 spirit, enjoyed advantages, vouchsafed to few indeed of the 

 ordinary servants of science. 



