PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OP THE ARGUMENT PROM DESIGN. 207 



to man — they surpass all human art, power and wisdom, and can- 

 not have come by chance and must, therefore, be attributed to a 

 supernaturally intelligent mind. 



I was greatly interested in the way in which Professor Bernard 

 pointed out the ambiguity with which the word " Infinite " is used, 

 and the difficulties and irregularities to which it leads, and it is, I 

 quite think, an explanation of a great deal of the obscurity that 

 attends these special arguments. 



The Author. — Besides the fact that I have to thank the assem- 

 bly for the very patient hearing they have given a somewhat 

 tedious and intricate Paper, I think I owe those present an ex- 

 planation and an apology ; and as apologies are not always 

 pleasant things, I had better take that first and get it off my mind. 

 The Paper was said, I think, by one speaker, and felt by all, to be 

 obscure. I know it was ; but the truth is that, as Bishop Butler 

 points out in the preface to his Sermons, obscurity may arise from 

 different causes — it may be due to confusion and obscurity cf 

 thought in the speaker, or to carelessness of expression (and I do not 

 pretend that both those causes are entirely absent in my own case). 

 But there is another cause of obscurity, and that is the inherent 

 difficulty of certain subjects. Now the problems of metaphysics 

 can never be popular, just because they are the deepest problems 

 on which the human mind can employ itself. Let me plead then 

 that it is especially hard in a subject of this sort to combine sim- 

 plicity of expression with scientific precision. 



When I was asked by the Victoria Institute to read a Paper, 

 I selected this topic for two reasons. First, my own studies have 

 chiefly lain in the direction of metaphysics as bearing on Theology, 

 and it is better to speak about something with which one is 

 tolerably familiar. And in the second place, this argument of 

 design has been attacked so much of late years from the 

 philosophical side, that it seems desirable to restate in modern 

 language the philosophical basis of the argument, for unless we 

 have a firm grasp of this, it is in vain that we heap up scientific 

 details. 



I am happy to find myself in cordial agreement, in the main, 

 with the criticism which Professor Orchard made on Kant's 

 objection to the validity of teleological reasoning as applied to 

 nature. Such an objection, if sound, would prohibit us from 

 inferring the agency of design as the explanation of the actions of 



