DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. G9 



lection ? It seems to me, therefore, perfectly evident 

 that the substitution of natural selection, by necessity, 

 for design in the formation of the' organic world, is a 

 step decidedly atheistical. It is in vain to say that 

 Darwin takes the creation of organic life, in its sim- 

 plest forms, to have been the work of the Deity. In 

 giving up design in these highest and most complex 

 forms of organization, which have always been relied 

 upon as the crowning proof of the existence of an in- 

 telligent Creator, without whose intellectual power 

 they could not have been brought into being, he takes 

 a most decided step to banish a belief in the intelligent 

 action of God from the organic world. The lower or- 

 ganisms will go next. 



The atheist will sav, Wait a little. Some future 

 Darwin will show how the simple forms came neces- 

 sarily from inorganic matter. This is but another 

 step by which, according to Laplace, " the discoveries 

 of science throw final causes further back." 



A. G. — It is conceded that, if the two players in 

 the supposed case were ignorant of each other's pres- 

 ence, the designs of both were frustrated, and from 

 necessity. Thus far it is not needful to inquire w^heth- 

 er this necessary consequence is an unconditional or a 

 conditioned necessity, nor to require a more definite 

 statement of the meaning attached to the word neces- 

 sity as a supposed third alternative. 



But, if the players knew of each other's presence, 



we could not infer from the result that the design of 



both or of either was frustrated. One of them may 



have intended to frustrate the other's design, and to 

 4 



