PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OP THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 203 



purpose is — if Evolution can tell us anything about it — Evolution 

 tells us in scientific language that it is the " adaptation of creatures 

 to their environments." Then, as to environment, what is it ? I 

 regard myself, for example, and speak of the rest of the world 

 as my environment. If you fix your attention on any one creature 

 whose evolution you are tracing, everything else constitutes the 

 environment of that creature, and consequently, it follows that 

 not only the separate creatures themselves are suffering change, 

 but the environment is changing also. Therefore there is a 

 process not only of adaptation of the creature to a fixed environ- 

 ment, but the adaptation of the creature and of the environment 

 at the same time one to another, proceeding as it were on parallel 

 lines, an advance here, an advance in another place, all advancing 

 together to a more perfect harmony, adaptation and agreement. 

 The end, then, of Evolution, according to the theory of Evolution 

 itself, should at last be perfect harmony between all things and 

 the environments in which they find themselves ; and it seems to 

 me, according to theology, that the end of all things is the same ; 

 for the end of which theology tells us is "the Communion of 

 Saints": rational and spiritual beings living in perfect harmony 

 with each other and with their environment. Therefore as far as 

 we can trace an analogy of one to the other, science and theology 

 tell us of the same design in nature, working out to a pre- 

 destined or foreseen end, which m cessarily implies what we may 

 call an Infinite Designer — a Designer who knew the end from the 

 beginning. 



Mr. J. Kennedy, M.R.A.S. — I think the whole argument must 

 ultimately be based on experience. We infer the existence of God 

 as we infer the existence of our fellow-creatures — by experience. 

 The Agnostic denies that he has this experience. Now we can 

 refer him to one source of experience in which the argument from 

 design is most manifest. I refer to the working of God's Provi- 

 dence. There are laws of Providence as well as laws of Nature, 

 although they are more difficult to discover. The laws of Nature 

 and of Providence are the expression of the nature and the will of 

 God : in both does He reveal Himself, but while the laws of Nature 

 deal with the general conditions of being — and are therefore more 

 easy to discover — the laws of Providence deal with those special 

 circumstances and conditions necessary to produce particular ends ; 

 aud thus reveal the traces of design in their moist striking fornis. 



Q 



