XV. 



THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN IN THE ORGANIC 



WORLD, 



Reconsidered in its Relation to the Doctrines of 

 Evolution and Natural Selection.* 



\The Modern Review, October, 1884.] 



The request which has been courteously presented to me on your 

 behalf, that I should address you on a subject on which scientific 

 thought is at present much exercised, and which has a direct and 

 important bearing on theological inquiry, gives me an opportunity 

 of which I am very glad to avail myself, of setting forth the 

 results of the careful and, I hope, candid reconsideration of the 

 old Theistic " Argument from Design in the Organic World," which 

 has been continually before my mind from the time when the 

 publication of Mr. Darwin's " Origin of Species by Natural 

 Selection " brought its validity seriously into question. 



You are all familiar with the frequently repeated remark, that 

 whenever science and theology have come into conflict, theology 

 has had to " go to the wall." And there are probably several 

 among you whose faith in the old " argument from design " has 

 been more or less seriously shaken by the confident assertions of 

 men of high scientific distinction, that the last victory which 

 science has gained over theology has been its greatest, — consist- 

 ing in nothing less than the complete subversion of the whole 

 doctrine of final causes. For, as they affirm, the adaptation of 

 means to end which is recognizable in the structure of plants and 



* An address delivered to the London Ministers' Conference at Dr. 

 Williams's Library, June 6th, 1884. 



