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EEV. G. F. WHIUBOKNE^ M A., F.G.S., ON 



required. It could no more have been without an origin than 

 it could originally have produced itself. It could not, we have 

 seen, have produced itself ; therefore its origin must be souglit 

 elsewhere. 



6. It must therefore be said, that nature, founded on matter, 

 must have been produced by some anterior thing or things. It 

 musl. have had an originator or originators. 



7. That originator or originators could not be the immaterial 

 part of nature itself, for that is dependent on the material part, 

 and has, as far as we can see, no power or vitality, which is not 

 founded on the material part. 



8. What, then, can be the originator or originators of nature ? 

 There appear to be only two possible conceptions thereof. 

 Either it must have been chance ; or it must have been a being 

 or beings more or less intelligent. 



9. Could it have been chance ? Could the universe have been 

 produced by accidents ? We go back once more to our store- 

 house of natural data, and look over them to see if this is a 

 possible solution ! But one thing we observe in them, which 

 has indeed been observed by all students of nature from most 

 ancient days, and that is the universal prevalence in it of order. 

 In its avrjpiOfjLov <ye\aafia everywhere, there is everywhere 

 orderliness. In its infinite variety there is on every side plan, 

 adaptation, natural law, continuity and correspondence. In 

 nature there are complications endless, but nowhere confusion. 

 But as is the cause so must be the effect. Chance could only 

 have produced confusion. If chance had produced the universe, 

 the existing universe would have been one mighty mass of 

 disorder; and that is exactly the opposite to everything which 

 we observe. And therefore we can positively and logically assert 

 that the universe could not, and did not, originate by chance. 



10. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that it must 

 have come by the work of an intelligent originator or originators, 

 one or more. Which was it ? Again we go to the storehouse 

 of nature ; and at once modern science rushes to our aid. If 

 there is one pre-eminent fact which the advance of science has 

 brought into view it is the unity of nature. Continuity is found 

 in it everywhere. The correlation of natural forces is declared. 

 The uniformitarian theory has left among its ruins abounding 

 exemplars of the age-long congruity of natural laws. Most of 

 all the great doctrine of evolution, whatever else it has done, 

 has at least established the possibihtt/ of tracing all existing 

 variety back to unity. The more strongly it is asserted, the 

 more emphatic is its proclamation of the uniformity of nature. 



