8 



much ignored by writers on natural theology. The consequence 

 is that their arguments are often very one-sided, and lie open 

 to attack ^vhere they are not ably prepared to defend them. 



Now, the idea of design being ntterly rejected by Lucretius, 

 the Argument of Design is obviously in direct opposition to 

 liis scheme of philosophy. The two ideas are based on totally dif- 

 ferent assumptions. On the one hand, chance forms the ground- 

 Avork; on the other hand, it is assumed that, as man works, so 

 God has worked ; that, since man can design, invent, and con- 

 struct, so, when he sees some curiously constructed object he 

 never saw before, he at once judges from his own experience, 

 and pronounces upon the design of that object. Hence it is 

 that because he does invent, contrive, and construct things both 

 like and even totally unlike anything in nature, as a watch or a 

 steam-engine, the idea is forced upon h'nn that an eye ivas made 

 for seeing and an ear for hearing. And, moreover, by no 

 mental effort can he throw off the impression that there is 

 really some Higher Power who out of His own intelligence 

 made it.^ 



With Lucretius an eye was made by chance cohesion of atoms 

 moving in space without order and without law ! 



With the Darwinian the eye was evolved by a long series of 

 gradual improvement, still intiuenced by chance, but guided by 

 law ; yet to this result he inconsistently denies the application 

 of the term design ; though he cannot but recognize the 

 creation as the work of God^s laws.f 



I shall have occasion to revert to this, and will say no more 

 than that there are grounds for showing that the Darwinian 

 believes in design in spite of himself J 



The argument of design is, therefore, directly opposed to the 



* I cannot speak for Pantheists, vrho profess to do so ; but I have strong 

 reasons for suspecting the above statement to be true, even with them. Sec 

 Avhat is said below about Lotze. 



t See The Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 396. 



X In order to avoid misapprehension, it will be as well to observe that an 

 evolutionist like myself is not necessarily a Darwinian. Evolution is a great 

 fact of nature ; and Mr. Darwin is to be thanked for having brouiiht it out 

 from obscurity and elevated it upon an enduring pedestal ; but he has endea- 

 voured to account for it by the process of natural selection, just as the author 

 of the Vestiges of Creation endeav(>ured to account for it by an inherent yrin- 

 ciple of pror/ressire decdopment. Both these authors have put prominently 

 before us what are undoubtedly real facts in nature ; for natural selection is 

 an indubitable truth, and the principle of progression is an obvious fact ; but 

 neither the one nor the other can account for a vast amount of phenomena. 

 This natural selection, so largely due to chance, cannot, in spite of Mr. 

 Darwin, account for the structure of the eye. The painfully elaborate rea- 

 soning in the Origin of Specii-^, hoth as to this, as well as the "bec-cell, clearly 

 shows to my mind the hopelessness of the task he has set himself. Again, 



