186 THE EEV. J. H. BERNARD, D.D., ON THE 



it is plain that truth is not best served by timidity or by an 

 understatement of what we think the facts before us imply, 

 in order that Ave may be reckoned generous and large- 

 minded controversialists. I make no apology, therefore, for 

 bringing before the members of the Victoria Institute one of 

 those lines of reasoning which have been commonly held by 

 apologists, until quite recently, to attain to all the 

 rigorousness of strict proof. The word " proof" in this 

 connection has, I know, gone out of fashion ; but yet we 

 may use it provisionally. Among the various proofs which 

 natural religion has offered for the existence of a supreme 

 and intelligent Governor of the Universe, the argument 

 from design has always been prominent and popular. 

 Alike by Theists and Atheists, by sceptics and believers, it 

 has been regarded from the time of Aristotle as one of 

 the strongest bulwarks of the fortress of religion. It 

 gives at once the most complete, and the most generally 

 intelligible, justification to reason of faith in God; and so 

 deserves the best attention of all seriously-minded persons. 

 I desire to consider as simply as possible in this paper, the 

 basis of the argument, and to discuss briefly one or two 

 objections to it which seem to be of importance at the 

 present time ; and if I ask you to accompany me for a brief 

 half-hour into the desert of metaphysics, which many persons 

 regard as a trackless and barren wilderness, rather than 

 invite you to journey along the straight road of so-called 

 common sense, it is because I am convinced that in this 

 journey, as in so many others, the longest way round is 

 really the shortest way home. 



Most of us are accustomed to speak as if we regarded the 

 popular distinction between mind, the thing which knows, 

 and matter, the thing Avhich is known, as scientifically 

 accurate, and as a complete statement of the case ; and the 

 argument from design then comes to this. We see in the laws 

 and phenomena of the universe traces of order and arrange- 

 ment beyond what we can ascribe to chance ; we see that 

 the world is /cocr/xo? not chaos, and hence we conclude that 

 there must be an intelligence behind, which is guiding and 

 controlling the forces of nature in their energies. To this 

 train of reasoning two distinct classes of objections have 

 been made, which we shall consider in order — 



1. The materialist first puts in his counter-plea ; and 

 though his pleadings may be differently drafted, yet the 

 fundamental principle upon which he relies has been the 



