TWO PATHS, ONE GOAL. 



Ill 



This we can all allow. ]jut the agnostic evolutionist would 

 claim that this immense hulk of evidence is as much on his 

 side as on that of the teleolomst, though the ibrnier does 

 nothing more than record the facts, whereas the latter sees the 

 facts equally, and in them a wealth of meaning. He asks, " Is 

 it enough to adduce ' natural laws ' to account for the production 

 of environments, and on the other hand of organisms, and simply 

 to leave the stupendous correlation of facts lying over against 

 one another as if they had notliing to do with one another, 

 except that somehow they seem to fit one another rather 

 remarkably ? " Science is well within her province when she 

 takes these past facts as data and unfolds with her marvellous 

 precision the story, until a vivid picture is presented to the 

 science-informed mind of what must have occurred during many 

 millions of years. Each fact great and small, and each group 

 of facts becomes fitted into the natural order of things, and yet 

 the last word has not been said, for it remains for Philosophy 

 informed by Science to co-ordinate the great congeries of facts 

 and introduce some guiding principle into the whole — that 

 principle can be nothing more nor less than the conception of 

 purpose. The interrogator of nature must push his inquiries 

 beyond the How, AVhen, and Where, to the Why of all this 

 " great progression of Nature." 



5. The fifth line of evidence is largely referred to by Temple 

 under the supremacy of the moral law, chiefly to show its 

 position towards Eeligion, not as a branch of evidence for 

 purpose.* It is under the aspect of evidence for purpose in the 

 world that I would briefly refer to it. 



The evidence in favour of purpose in our whole scheme of 

 things would still come far short of completion if it could not 

 be shown that the marvellous series of adaptations provided 

 throughout nature were produced ibr the benefit and improve- 

 ment 0^ i^crsons rather than things. This distinction, applied by 

 Professor Campbell Fraser to man as opposed to non-conscious 

 organisms and inorganic phenomena, is of great importance in 

 this connection. Indeed, it touches the very basis of Theism. 

 However beautiful in their order and adaptations to needs, may 

 be the most nearly perfect plants and animals, they at any rate 

 know naught of the voice within, the infinite nature of duty, 

 and the beaut}' of holiness. Xo endeavouis, however successful, 

 to trace the moral law to a lower origin alters the iact that an 

 ethical sense exists novj in all men, and it distinguishes the 



* Ante, p. 101. 



