PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 199 



come to on hearing this Paper. I myself have gathered some 

 ideas and views from it which I had not previously entertained, 

 and I am very glad now to have heard them so clearly put. 



Mr. W. H. Robinson. — I have listened with the greatest interest 

 to the Paper, and I have only one fault to find with it — that it is 

 so conclusive, that I really discover nothing to differ from. The 

 design argument of Paley, in spite of modern discussions, I think, 

 stands exactly where it did. I read Paley in my boyhood, and 

 have watched the course of discussion ever since, but have met 

 with nothing whatever that really contradicts Paley, although it is 

 fashionable just now to look upon his argument as quite behind 

 the present state of intellectual advancement. I have, however, 

 seen much that widens the field of his observations. What does 

 he say ? He says, " If passing across a heath I kick my foot 

 against a stone, I might say, if I were asked, that the stone had 

 lain there for ever ; but if I had kicked my foot against a watch, 

 and had looked at that watch, I should have seen the minute 

 adaptation of all its parts to a designed purpose." He then 

 reasons, from a like mechanical or material adaptation of the 

 works of nature, to prove the existence of an intelligent per- 

 sonality, who designed them for an evident purpose. He reasoned 

 in this matei-ial or physical way, because he wrote in a me- 

 chanical age, at a time when the great machines of Watt and 

 others were just coming into use, and his arguments were adapted 

 to his period. But now we live in an age w T heu more abstract 

 modes of discussion prevail, and we can go further. A writer of 

 to-day would not say, if I kicked my foot against a stone, that it 

 had lain there for ever ; for the science of Geology has taught us 

 that the stone itself, whatever it may be, is an organic substance, 

 and that there are certain analyses to which it may be subject. 

 In these remarks, I am only indicating a general line of reasoning 

 which may be followed, not only with respect to the mechani- 

 cal and physical objects which Paley regarded, but through the 

 whole development of human thought, and every chapter of 

 history of the human race. We see, as our great modern poet 

 says, "One purpose runs through all the Suns " — and that it is a 

 purpose, or a power, working for righteousness. We see it in 

 operation everywhere — we see it in our meeting to-night. We 

 see it all around us, persistently sapping the foundations of evil 

 and triumphing over it — not only in the field of biology and 



