CH. II.] ANTEBOPOMOBPHIG THEISM. S85 



by the most advanced sciences augurs ill for its ultimate 

 chances of survival in any field of inquiry. Previous to the 

 researches of Kant and Laplace, such phenomena as the 

 distribution of satellites and the inclinations of planetary 

 axes were explained teleologically. These phenomena 

 having been at last interpreted by a reference to universal 

 laws of matter and motion, the teleological hypothesis took 

 refuge in biology, where it held for a while a doubtful tenure, 

 as a means of explaining the origination of specific forms of 

 life. The discoveries of Mr. Darwin having gone far toward 

 driving it from this stronghold, replacing the conception of 

 miraculous interposition by the conception of natural selec- 

 tion, it is nevertheless still appealed to by such writers as 

 Mr. Wallace and Mr. Mivart, as furnishing an explanation 

 for sundry phenomena of organic evolution which natural 

 selection, taken alone, seems at present incompetent to ac- 

 count for. In short, the teleological hypothesis derives its 

 apparent confirmation never from the phenomena which were 

 explained yesterday, but always from the phenomena which 

 are awaiting an explanation to-morrow. "I give up pheno- 

 menon A," says the theologian, " for that you have explained 

 in terms of matter and motion ; but phenomenon B you can 

 never so explain, and upon that I therefore rest my teleolo- 

 gical hypothesis." To-morrow phenomenon B is interpreted 

 in terms of matter and motion, and appeal is made to pheno- 

 menon C ; and so on, to the end of the alphabet. Now the 

 cosmic conception of Deity, as we shall hereafter see, being 

 planted in the region of the Unknowable, which is coex- 

 tensive with that of the Knowable, has no such precarious 

 tenure, and all that the progress of discovery can do is to 

 enlarge and strengthen it. But the anthropomorphic con- 

 ception, lodged in that ever diminishing area of the Knowable 

 which is to-day unknown, is driven from outpost to outpost, 

 and robbed of some part of its jurisdiction by every advance 

 of science. Surely that must be an unworthy conception of 

 VOL. U. 



