ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM 



The doctrine of final causes we may first con- 

 template, for a moment, under its logical as- 

 pect, and notice that, even if it were true, it 

 could never have the value which is claimed 

 for it as a means of investigation. Even admit- 

 ting that all things have been created with fore- 

 thought, and that the harmonious cooperation 

 of phenomena is the fruit of contrivance, it is 

 none the less undeniable that this forethought 

 cannot be perceived, the threads of this con- 

 trivance cannot be unravelled by us, until the 

 laws to which phenomena conform have already 

 been discovered. Previous to Newton, for in- 

 stance, all attempts to detect design in the struc- 

 ture of the solar system must have shared the 

 fate of the quite different guesses of Descartes 

 and others as to its physical conditions. Evi- 

 dences of design, therefore, in order to be trust- 

 worthy, must be deduced from known laws, and 

 cannot safely be employed as stepping-stones 

 to the discovery of new truths. However plau- 

 sible they may seem as corollaries, they can 

 never be useful as lemmas or postulates. As 

 M. Scherer well observes, God is the cause of 

 all things, but the explanation of nothing.^ Ac- 



^ ** Dieu, comme on Ta tres-bien dit, est h cause de tout, 

 mais il n'est explication de rien." Scherer, Nouvelles Etudes 

 sur la Litter ature Contemporainey p. 408. See also Geof- 

 froy Saint- Hilaire, Anomalies de P Organisatioriy torn. iii. p. 

 608. The only objection which can be made to M. Scherer' s 

 189 



