SPECIAL ENDS IN CEEATION. 537 



not conceive of the Divine operations, as if they were analogous to 

 those of finite creatures like ourselves. "What absurdity is there in 

 believing that God created the world, as a Cosmos, already " teres 

 atque rotundus," with all its arrangements and adaptations complete 

 and perfect in the very instant of its flashing into being ? " Is the 

 one G-od" (it is said) "to be identified with the principle of order, or 

 with the principle of variety ?" The assumption on which this ques- 

 tion proceeds, viz : that adaptation implies variety, (that is, a variety 

 or multiplicity of primordial principles,) we again deny ; and if asked 

 whether the one Grod is to be identified with the principle of order 

 or with that of adaptation, we answer — pantheistically, with neither ; 

 but, as the author of nature, with both : both being at bottom the 

 same. 



"We have sought to interpret the typical forms and special ends in 

 creation, from the Theistic position, supposed to be already attained ; 

 but they may also be considered from another point of view — the 

 Apologetic ; that is to say, we may inquire what is the value of the 

 evidence which they furnish for the Divine existence. 



The Cosmological argument for the Being of Grod is based, in both 

 its branches : the teleological and the typological, on the doctrine of 

 probabilities. "Why must we in any case suppose intelligence, to ac- 

 count for special adaptation or for order ? Because, where the traces 

 of adaptation or of order are of a marked kind, all probability is 

 against their being accidental. To take an illustration which, since 

 the days of Cicero, has become common-place : we find a number of 

 words arranged in such a manner as to form the Paradise Lost. 

 Could this have happened by chance ? Strictly speaking, it might. 

 If the words composing the poem were shaken together in a bag, and 

 then drawn out, one after another, by a man blind-folded ; and if this 

 process were repeated indefinitely ; there is a positive chance — which, 

 in fact, by increasing the number of trials, can be made as great as 

 we please — that, after a certain number of times, the words would be 

 drawn out in the precise order which they have in the poem. Even 

 on a single trial, there is a chance, which any person acquainted with 

 the elements of mathematics is able to calculate, in favour of such a 

 result. But the fraction expressing the amount of the chance is so 

 small, that, for all practical purposes, it may be taken as zero. We 

 never hesitate to assert, therefore, that the words composing the 

 Paradise Lost, could not have been fortuitously thrown into their 

 present order ; while at the same time, it will be seen that our cer- 

 tainty of this is nothing else at bottom than an immense probability. 

 Now such precisely — as far as its essential nature is concerned — is 



o* 



