348 DESIGN IN NATURE 



adaptation of means to ends which pleads so eloquently for the existence of an intelligent First Cause and of a 

 Designer and Upholder. Given a Creator or First Cause all else is comparatively easy. It is, of course, impossible 

 for the finite mind either fully to comprehend the infinite mind, or the universe which the infinite mind has pro- 

 duced ; nevertheless, a careful analysis and study of our own minds, and a contemplation of the works of our own 

 hands,' supply us with important collateral information. As physical, mental, and moral man is a part of the 

 universe, it is permissible to think that he is not wholly alien to the great scheme of creation, and that his thoughts 

 and works are scintillations and reflections, however faint, of those of the great Framer of the Universe. There 

 is, however, the following important difference. 



The Creator can produce or annihilate matter and force, whether physical, vital, or mental. To man it is 

 not permitted to create matter or force, still less to annihilate them. All he can do is to change the form of 

 matter and the direction of force. For him matter and force are practically indestructible. For him there is 

 in the universe a store of matter and of energy which cannot be either increased or diminished. That the natural 

 processes which go on in the universe as a working concern are not wholly different from those which mark^ the 

 activities of man is shown in various ways. In both there is cause and effect : in both there is obvious design : 

 in both there is the adaptation of means to ends : in both there is thought. The element of chance is largely, if 

 not wholly, ehminated : a reign of law is substituted for one of chaos. This is nowhere better seen than in the 

 adaptation of day and night, and the seasons, to the requirements of plants and animals. Day and night and 

 the seasons recur with a regularity which excludes the idea of chance. Similarly, plants and animals repeat them- 

 selves, each according to its kind or type, so regularly and persistently that a law of reproduction must be admitted 

 in which chance or accident plays next to no part. In these cases a First Cause, a Designer, and Upholder is a 

 sine qud non. Day and night, the seasons, and the existence of plants and animals on the earth afford examples 

 of forethought and intelHgent adaptation of means to ends where co-ordination and co-adaptation and inter-depend- 

 ence play a conspicuous part. Plants and animals require the alternations of day and night for their periods of 

 activity and repose ; they also require the revolving seasons to provide the variations in chmate so needful to 

 a healthy tone in both. Plants and animals are largely dependent on cosmic changes, and the organic kingdom 

 is to a considerable extent a product of the inorganic kingdom. In both the organic and inorganic kingdoms a 

 reign of law prevails, which, to the thoughtful observer, appeals powerfully in favour of an inteUigent Creator, 

 Designer, and Upholder. In both kingdoms cause and effect can be constantly traced : everything is planned : 

 nothing falls out by accident : the mechanism of the heavens and the mechanism of plants and animals are as 

 obviously the product of an inteUigent Creator or First Cause as are a watch, a steam-engine, an electric battery, 

 or a telephone. 



There is no getting away from intelhgence in either case. The co-ordination of parts and movements can 

 only be the outcome of inteUigent forethought and design. Wherever there are examples of means to ends in 

 the works of the Creator and the creature, intelligence and design must be predicated. 



As already stated, everything is possible with the Creator. He can make and unmake matter and force at 

 discretion : He can produce or abolish plant and animal life in its infinite varieties : and He can confer or with- 

 hold the extraordinary attributes of mind which culminate in man, but which can be traced as a continuous chain low 

 down in the animal kingdom. While the mental attributes of man are necessarily limited, they are, nevertheless, 

 sufficiently numerous and discriminating to enable him clearly to perceive endless examples of design in the 

 universe as a whole, and in the inorganic and organic kingdoms considered separately. 



A question has been frequently put of late years as to whether all matter may not be referred to one primi- 

 tive substance simple in composition, and whether force is not a product of matter also characterised by simplicity 

 and oneness.^ 



Whatever matter and force may have been at the outset in the hands of the Creator, there can be little doubt 

 that in our times they are not one and indivisible, that is, identical. Matter and force, as we laiow them, are 

 differentiated, and to this differentiation all the peculiarities in the structure and movements of inorganic sub- 

 stances, and in the structure and movements of plants and animals, are due. It is differentiation which 

 separates one physical body from another, and which sets up distinctions between plants and animals. From 



' Pi'ot'essoi' Ernst Haeckel in his " Riddle of the Universe " expresses hiniseli' in this connection as follows : '" All the particular advances of 

 jihysios and chemistry yield in theoretical importance to the discovery of tlie great law which brings them to one common focus, the ' Law of 

 Substance.' As this fundamental cosmic law establishes the eternal persistence of matter and force, their unvarying constancy throughout the 

 entire universe, it has become the pole-star that guides our Monistic Philosophy through the mighty labyrinth to a solution of the world-problem. 

 . . . The world is nothing else than an eternal evolntion of substance. . . . The conviction that these two great cosmic theoi-ems, the chemical 

 law of the persistence of matter and the physical law of the persistence of force, are fundamentally one, is of the utmost importance in our 

 monistic system. The two theories are just as intimately united as their objects — matter and force or energy. Indeed, this fundamental unity 

 of the two laws is self-evident to many monistic scientists and philosophers, since they merely relate to two different aspects of one and the same 

 object, the cun'iiius.'^ 



