100 WALTER AUBREY KIDD, M.R.C.S., F.Z.S._, ON 



which concerns man, as a being with finite powers. We have 

 evidence on all hands that teleological interpretations of exist- 

 ence are permeating the most modern systems of thought, even 

 among those who would declare that the argument from 33esign 

 for the existence of God is dead and buried. The wider 

 teleology of which Huxley spoke was proplietic of the present 

 views of yjurpose in the whole. 



In this study before us of purpose as articulating God, 

 nature, and the individual, it is not sought to adduce any 

 proof of the existence of God and Providence by more or less 

 evidence which shall demonstrate the theistic position in the 

 same degree as those of mathematics, or by pure logic. Many 

 from the days of Kant onward have found the Design Argument 

 insufficient to bear alone the weight of proof which would 

 compel the atheist once for all to abandon the old cry, " There 

 is no God." They have turned to other lines of evidence, and 

 still the succeeding generation of philosophers have found 

 some hiatus in their chain of reasoning. To refer with any 

 value to these would be to review the contributions of a century 

 of acute intellects ardently applied to the greatest of ever- 

 absorbing themes. But we may profitably see how Fwyose, 

 benevolent, wise, and finally interpretable, runs through the 

 whole scheme of nature presented to our minds. Thougli we 

 may not demand assent to this conception of purpose in the 

 whole, as we do to the axioms of mathematics, we may fearlessly 

 claim that its validity as an incomplete induction is as great 

 as any of the natural laws which it has been the glory of 

 modern science to establish, as great as that of the uniformity 

 of nature, of gravitation, the conservation of energy, the 

 indestructibility of matter, the atomic theory, the theory of 

 a universal ether, or the theory of evolution. Indeed, at the 

 very basis of the modern conception of natural law is found the 

 implied element of intelligible purpose. Whether we all know it 

 or not, and whether we like it or not, we are in " a realm of ends." 



The very terminology of our sciences, especially those con- 

 cerned with life, connote purpose or intention of some kind. 

 Even a thinker so far removed from Theism as Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer cannot work without the assumption of what he 

 prefers to call a First Cause, seeing that all the phenomena 

 which a scientific man ranges under tlie imposing name of 

 " natural causation " are themselves caused causes. Such a 

 universally -used term as " adaptation " is not thinkable apai't 

 from the pervading conception of purpose of some kind. The 

 unconscious adaptations made by plants, animals, and man 



