25(3 PROFESsoi; r. l. dabney^ d.d.^, ll.d, 



as material Nature is not intelligent or free_, such adapted 

 structures as man did not produce must be the work of a 

 supernatural Person. This reasoning has satisfied every sound 

 mind, Pagan and Christian, from Job to Newton. Yet it is 

 now boldly assailed b}'' evolutionists. 



3. Some attempt to borrow an objection which Descartes 

 very inconsistently for him, suggested: That "^he deems he 

 cannot, without temerity, attempt to investigate God^s ends " 

 [Meditations, iv. 20). "We ought not to arrogate to our- 

 selves so much as to suppose that we can be sharers of God^s 

 counsels" (Frin. Phil. i. 28). The argument is, that if there 

 is an intelligent First Cause, He must be of infinite intelli- 

 gence ; whence it is presumptuous in a finite mind to say that, 

 in given eflects. He was prompted by such or such designs. 

 We are out of our depth. But the reply is : That this 

 objection misstates the point of our doctrine. We do not 

 presume to say, in advance of the practical disclosure of 

 God^s purposes in a given work, what they are, or ought to 

 be; or that we know all of them exactly ; but only : That He 

 is prompted in His constructions by some rational purpose. 

 And this is not presumptuous, but profoundly reverential ; 

 for it is but concluding that God is too wise to have motiveless 

 volitions ! Again, when we see certain structures obviously 

 adapted to certain functions, and regularly performing them, 

 it is not an arrogant, but a supi-emely reverential inference, 

 that those functions were among God^s purposed ends in 

 producing those structures. For this is but concluding that 

 the thing we see Him do is a thing He meant to do ! 



4. Next, we hear many quoting Lord Bacon against the study 

 of final causes. They would fain represent him as teaching 

 that the assertion of final causes is incompatible with, and 

 exclusive of, the establishment of efficient, physical causes. 

 But, as these latter are the real, proximate producers of all 

 phe7iomena, it is by the study of them men gain all their 

 mastery over Nature, and make all true advances in science. 

 Whence, they argue, all study or assertion of final causes 

 is inimical to true science. Thus, they quote Bacon, as, 

 for instance, in the Nov. Organum (lib. i. Apothegm 48) : "Yet, 

 the human intellect, not knowing where to pause, still seeks 

 for causes more known. Then, tending after the remoter, it 

 recoils from the nearer; to wit, to final causes, which are 

 plainly rather from the nature of man, than of the Universe ; 

 and from this source they have corrupted philosophy in 

 wondrous ways." 



5. Now, Lord Bacon's own words prove that he does not 

 condemn, but highly esteems the inquiry after final causes in 



