EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 3G1 



tion, or displaced except by Bhowing the illegitimacy 

 of tlie inference. As to the latter, is the comnioii 

 apprehension and sense of mankind in this regard well 

 grounded ? Can we rightly reason from oiu* own in- 

 telligence and powers to a higher or a supreme intel- 

 ligence ordering and shaping the system of Nature ? 



A very able and ingenious writer upon " The Evi- 

 dences of Design in Nature," in the Westminster He- 

 view for July, 1875, maintains the negative. His 

 article may be taken as the argument in support of 

 the position assumed by " P. C. W.," in the Contem- 

 jporary Review above cited. It opens with the ad- 

 mission that the orthodox view is the most simple and 

 apparently convincing, has had for centuries the un- 

 hesitating assent of an immense majority of thinkers, 

 and that the latest master-writer upon the subject dis- 

 posed to reject it, namely, Mill, comes to the conclu- 

 sion that, "in the present state of our knowledge, 

 the adaptations in Nature afford a large balance of 

 probability in favor of creation by intelligence." It 

 proceeds to attack not so much the evidence in favor 

 of design as the foundation upon which tlie whole 

 doctiine rests, and closes with the prediction that 

 sooner or later the superstructure must fall. And, 

 truly, if his reasonings are legitimate, and his con- 

 clusions just, " Science has laid the axe to the tree." 



" Given a set of marks which we look upon in human pro-, 

 ductions as unfailing indications of design," he asks, "is not the 

 inference equally legitimate when we recognize these marks in 

 Nature? To gaze on such a universe as this, to feel our hearts 

 exult within us in the fullness of existence, and to olTor in ex- 

 planation of such beneficent provision no other word but 



