TELEOLOGT, OLD AND NEW. 375 



orders of such creatures being directed to the service 

 of other orders, in various degrees of subordination 

 and augmentation, respectively. This study reveals 

 to us, as a fact, the enchainment of all the various 

 orders of creatures in a hierarchy of activities, in 

 harmony with what we might expect to find in a 

 world, the outcome of a First Cause possessed of in- 

 telligence and will, since it exhibits, at the same 

 time, both ' continuity ' and ' purpose.' It shows 

 us, indeed, that a successively increasing fulfillment 

 of ' purpose ' runs through the irrational creation 

 up to man. And thus the study of final causes re- 

 veals to us how great is our dignity, and, conse- 

 quently, our responsibility." l 



Design and Purpose in Nature. 



The quotations just made from some of the most 

 eminent and most philosophical of modern natural- 

 ists, and they are in perfect accord with the senti- 

 ments of the great majority of contemporary evolu- 

 tionists, prove that true votaries of science, far from 

 denying design and purpose in nature, affirm, on the 

 contrary, their existence, and profess themselves un- 

 able to account for the facts and phenomena of the 

 visible universe without postulating a First Cause, 

 the Creator and Ordainer of all the beauty and har- 

 mony we so much admire, both in organic and in inor- 

 ganic nature. From these quotations, too, we see how 

 erroneously the teachings of true science are inter- 

 preted by a blatant and anti-religious minority, and 



1 " On Truth," pp. 483-484 ; cf., also, his " Lessons from Na- 

 ture," pp. 358 et seq., and " Genesis of Species," pp. 273 et seq. 



