30 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 



forces alone. Liebig's reply was that he could no 

 more believe that than he could believe that a 

 botanical work, describing these objects, could be 

 produced by mere chemical forces. It is indeed a 

 little difficult to see how anyone can deliberately 

 embrace the blind chance alternative. In the dis- 

 cussion at Berlin between Father Wasmann and 

 a number of materialistic opponents which ex- 

 cited so much interest a few years ago, this point 

 was very clearly put by Professor Plate, an avowed 

 upholder of monistic and materialistic views. He 

 said : " The monist asserts nothing about the 

 nature of God, but limits himself to the laws of 

 nature. These laws are, indeed, the only things 

 that we can establish with certainty ; with regard 

 to what underlies them there are many different 

 opinions, and we monists are not all agreed on the 

 subject. Personally," he continues, and this is the 

 most important part of his address, " personally, 

 I always maintain that, if there are laws of nature, 

 it is only logical to admit that there is a Lawgiver. 

 But," he concludes, " of this Lawgiver we can 

 give no account, and any attempt to give one 

 would lead us into unfounded speculations." Such 

 is his view. What at any rate emerges from it is the 

 Argument from Design in a new form. Instead of 

 the argument to the Artificer from the artifice, 

 we have the argument to the Lawgiver from the 

 law under which the artifice has constructed it- 

 self. Ci^^s&fJ6~^*&*<*^^ 



It certainly is not, at least in my opinion, a 

 weaker argument, rather one stronger and possessed 

 of a greater grandeur than the old argument. 



' 



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