LIFE AND ITS PHENOMENA 57 



Argument of Design be not restored, that of Adaptation 

 under Directivity takes its place ; and Paley's argument, 

 readapted to Evolution, becomes as sound as before ; 

 and, indeed, far strengthened as being strictly in accord- 

 ance with facts. What then is the source of this Direc- 

 tivity which runs through the whole of the organic 

 world ? 



Rationalists demand evidence of God, such as a 

 chemist might give for a new product, or " experimental 

 verification " ; but it is absurd to ask for it. They forget 

 that scientific truths are, as often as not, entirely based 

 on inductive evidence ; and such too is the only " proof" 

 of the existence of God from Nature. 



Scientists, as Tyndall, H. Spencer, Huxley, etc., all 

 recognised a " Power " behind Nature ; and the real 

 question is — Is that Power conscious or not? 



If man were not conscious himself, of course he could 

 not conceive of any other being as possessed with con- 

 sciousness. Moreover, it is impossible to think of 

 minerals being conscious, or of consciousness residing in 

 physical forces, as gravitation, or even in the vegetable 

 kingdom. 



In our present state of knowledge, as we only know 

 of Life proceeding from Life, so too we can only con- 

 ceive of consciousness proceeding from some Conscious 

 Being who could impart it. 



The answer to the above question, therefore, is that 

 as far as our existing knowledge will take us, the pro- 

 babilities of there being a " Conscious Power " whom we 

 call " God " are a hundred-fold greater than that every- 

 thing is due, as Haeckel says, to some " blind, unconscious 

 forces ". 



We can only build on our own experience by a process 

 of analogy. We know that order can only come out of 



