THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



The doctrine of Design Teleology, as it was for- 

 merly understood, has met in late years with the disap- 

 proval of most scientific men. It was eagerly adopted 

 by Metaphysicians, who, starting with the a-priori 

 view of both Pagan and Sacred Writers that this 

 globe was the centre of the Universe, around which 

 all else moved, and the scene of man's immaculate 

 creation, it was natural to suppose that man, though 

 fallen, was still the great object for whose welfare all 

 else was contrived. This was and is the Teleology of 

 Theologians which Science does not accept. The 

 progress of scientific knowledge above all, the gene- 

 rally accepted doctrine of Evolution has displaced 

 man from his early eminence, and relegated him to 

 his place in nature merely the greatest, the most ad- 

 vanced member of a chain of beings, more or less like 

 himself; each of which shows in its lineage the same 

 evidence of' intelligent volition and of wise purpose 

 in its construction, that he himself can show. 



THE TELEOLOGY OF SCIENCE is very different 

 from that of the Metaphysician or the Theologian of 

 old. Without any a-priori assumptions, it meets 

 everywhere with the overwhelming evidence of an 

 intelligence that has made and maintains all existence 

 the VOLITION that animates and moves THE UNI- 

 VERSE and all that is therein ; not apart from nor 

 outside of Nature, but in Nature, sustaining the life 



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