ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM 



final causes ; the whole strength of which is 

 produced by a mere verbal sleight of tongue — 

 by calling an effect a cause. Any combination 

 of laws would produce its own proper results : 

 hence under any constitution of the universe, 

 good or bad, possible or impossible, as it may 

 seem to us, it would always be true that ' what- 

 ever is, is right.* To give an instance : the 

 particular laws of our present universe bring 

 about night, they also cause the phenomenon 

 sleep in animated creatures ; these two naturally 

 suit each other, being different results of the 

 same laws — just as any two propositions in 

 Euclid agree together. But to say that either 

 is the final cause of the other is to transfer an 

 idea derived from one part of ourselves, our 

 motives to action, to an entirely different part 

 of ourselves, our primary laws of sensation. 

 The earth is suited to its inhabitants because it 

 has produced them, and only such as suit it liveT^ 

 This last statement, which I have italicized, is 

 the triumphant answer with which science meets 

 the challenge of natural theology. It is not 

 that the environment has been adapted to the 

 organism by an exercise of creative intelligence 

 and beneficence, but it is that the organism is 

 necessarily fitted to the environment because 

 the fittest survive. In no way can the contrast 

 between theology and science, between Anthro- 

 * Physical Ethics y p. 33. 

 211 



