32 SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 



must be the results of blind chance. It is the same 

 problem which confronted Paley, stated in a some- 

 what different manner. He was obliged to consider 

 whether the watch came to be as it was by blind 

 chance, or because it had been made to tell the 

 time by an intelligent artificer. We are asked to 

 decide whether the laws under which life works 

 out its ends, are the result of blind chance or come 

 from a Lawgiver. In their essence the two in- 

 quiries are identical, and those who would have 

 elected for blind chance under the Paleyian dil- 

 emma will do so now, whilst those who think that 

 law and order and progress are inexplicable, not 

 to say impossible, without a Lawgiver and an 

 Orderer, will hold the conclusion at which Paley 

 arrived, that the world shows forth its Creator in 

 unmistakable language. Many other issues, all of 

 them interesting, arise in connection with this 

 matter, but with none of them can I find space to 

 deal. What I have been anxious to show is, that 

 the argument which held the field before the 

 storm, when the lake was comparatively calm, 

 now that the tempest has raged over it, still re- 

 mains, restated as we may suppose the waters of 

 the lake to have rearranged themselves during the 

 commotion to which they were subjected, but 

 essentially the same, and the same because founded 

 upon what we cannot but regard as being the 

 Eternal Verities. 



