192 % THE REV. J. H. BERNARD, D.D., ON THE 



Deus ex machina. I merely say that a force similar to that 

 which I am compelled to regard as the basis of my own person- 

 ality, similar also to that which I believe to be the spring of 

 action of other human beings, regulates, controls, and orders 

 the energies of Nature. That is the design argument in its 

 simplest form ; and so viewed, it is not open to the charge of 

 invoking the aid of a new and unknown force merely to 

 account for the phenomena ; but it asserts the operation in 

 nature of a force like to that which we know to exist in our- 

 selves. 



2. To this analogical way of stating the argument from 

 design, a formidable objection has been lodged by Kant, 

 which has been held to be unanswerable by many of his 

 followers. In Kant's last great work, the Kritik of the Faculty 

 of Judgment, the latter part of which is altogether concerned 

 with the problems of teleology, he maintains that although 

 it is perfectly legitimate to conclude from the actions of the 

 lower animals which seem to involve plan, that they are not, 

 as Descartes alleged, mere machines ; yet it is not legitimate 

 to conclude from the apparent presence of design in the 

 operations of nature that a conscious mind directs these 

 operations. For Kant argues that in comparing the actions of 

 men and the lower animals, or in comparing the actions of 

 one man with those of another, we are not pressing our 

 analogy beyond the limits of experience. Men and beasts 

 alike are finite living beings, subject to the limitations of 

 finite existence ; and hence the law which governs the one 

 series of operations may be regarded by analogy as suffici- 

 ently explaining the other series. But the power at the 

 basis of nature is utterly beyond definition or comprehension ; 

 and thus we are going beyond our legitimate province if we 

 venture to ascribe to it a mode of operation with which we 

 are only conversant in the case of beings subject to the 

 conditions of space and time. To quote his own words (§90 

 he. cit.) : " We can in no way cor elude according to analogy, 

 because in the case of finite beings intelligence nmst be 

 ascribed to the cause of an effect which is judged artificial, 

 that in respect of nature the same law of action which we 

 perceive in men belongs also to a Being quite distinct from, 

 and transcending nature." The same view is thus pre- 

 sented by Hume with his accustomed clearness and force, 

 " In human nature there is a certain experienced coherence of 

 designs and inclinations; so that when from any fact we 

 have discovered one intention of any man, it may often be 



