PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 205 



the sun also gives light, it is a fair argument and a logical con- 

 clusion to arrive at that there must be something similar in the 

 two things. 



I should be glad to hear Professor Bernard's reply to the 

 common hackneyed objection to the anthropomorphic argument. 

 The very fact that man has an idea of God at all proves that 

 there mast be some community of nature between God and him. 

 Further, that man was made in the image of God is pretty good 

 proof that we may, within limits, argue from that respecting Him 

 of whom man is the created image. Man was created in the image 

 of God, and, from the image, we can reason up to Him of whom 

 he is the image. The argument of the materialist, with regard to 

 Design seems to follow on his vague and foggy notion as to what 

 Cause is. " Cause is invariable antecedent ; " says Mill, but if we 

 understand that there is power to produce a change then at once 

 we get something more than mere antecedence. For instance, the 

 presence of food in the mouth must precede the swallowing of it. 

 To argue that that is the cause of swallowing the food is evidently 

 absurd. The argument from design I think really rests on this 

 basis. In any case in which we are able to trace the adaptation of 

 means to ends to a cause, in every case in which we actually do 

 trace it, we find that cause is intelligent — that it proceeds from 

 one's self or other intelligent being. We also find that if we 

 throw, say, a number of papers, up at random in the air, and do 

 that several times, they do not come down in the same order. We 

 find, if we are to produce a certain order of things, there must be 

 design. In cases where we cannot directly trace the cause of this 

 adaptation, it is reasonable to infer, in the absence of any other 

 possible cause with which we are acquainted, that the cause is 

 similar. The principle that " Like causes produce like effects " is 

 a principle that lies at the very root of all inductive experience. 

 If we reject this principle, we reject the principle of induction. 

 1 infer from my own mind that other people have minds like my 

 own, for they perform actions which imply design, and I infer 

 that those people have design and purpose, and therefore intelli- 

 gent minds ; and that assumption, or induction, rathe''. I would say, 

 is found always to work satisfactorily when I apply it to my fellow- 

 creatures. It is not only the only possible reasonable way of 

 accounting for the facts, but, in every case in which it can be veri- 

 fied, it is found to be true, and it is the principle of induction that 



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