412 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



of design has been greatly too much lost sight of 

 in recent zoological speculations. Overpoweringly 

 strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie 

 around us, and if ever perplexities, whether metaphys- 

 ical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, 

 they come back upon us with irresistible force, show- 

 ing to us, through nature, the influence of a freewill, 

 and teaching us that all living things depend on one 

 everlasting Creator and Ruler." 



No, the argument from design has not been in- 

 validated ; it has been modified. It has not been 

 weakened ; it has been strengthened and expanded. 

 Teleology to-day is not, indeed, the same as it was in 

 Paley's time, nor as it was when the authors of the 

 Bridgewater Treatises lived and labored. It is now 

 a more comprehensive, a more beautiful, and a more 

 stimulating science. To Paley, a watch found on the 

 heath by a passing traveler, was evidence of design 

 and of a designer. To the evolutionist, the evidence 

 of design is not merely a watch, but a watch which is 

 capable of producing other and better watches. To 

 Paley, God was an Artificer who fashioned things di- 

 rectly from the materials at hand ; to the evolutionist, 

 as to St. Athanasius, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. 

 Augustine, God is a Creator who makes things make 

 themselves. To Paley, as to the older school of natural 

 theologians, God was the direct cause of all that exists ; 

 to the evolutionist he is the Cause of causes Causa 

 causarum, of the world and all it contains. Accord- 

 ing to the older view, God created everything directly 

 and in the condition in which it now exists ; accord- 

 ing to Evolution, creation, or development rather, 



