INTRODUCTION 



the less the search for final causes seems to be 

 of use to us. The cosmic conception of deity, 

 " being planted in the region of the Unknow- 

 able, has no such precarious tenure, and all that 

 the progress of discovery can do is to enlarge 

 and strengthen it. But the anthropomorphic 

 conception, lodged in that ever diminishing 

 area of the Knowable which is to-day un- 

 known, is driven from outpost to outpost and 

 robbed of some part of its jurisdiction by every 

 advance of science." " To represent the Deity 

 as intelligent " is (by virtue of the Spencerian 

 definition of intelligence as an adjustment of 

 inner to outer relations) " to surround Deity 

 with an environment, and thus to destroy its 

 infinity and its self- existence." " When we 

 speak of intelligence,' we either mean nothing 

 at all, or we mean that which we know as intel- 

 ligence. But that which we know as intelligence 

 implies a circumscribed and limited form of 

 Being adapting its internal processes to other 

 processes going on beyond its limits." It is of 

 course impossible positively to disprove the 

 presence of conscious design in the natural uni- 

 verse. But all that we know of the facts is 

 against the teleological hypothesis. The pre- 

 sence of the appearance of design in nature is 

 sufficiently explained as due to the fact that our 

 intelligence, by virtue of its evolution, has be- 

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