8 
much ignored by writers on natural theology. The consequence 
is that their arguments are often very one-sided, and lie open 
to attack where they are not ably prepared to defend them. 
Now, the idea of design being utterly rejected by Lucretius, 
the ‘ f Argument of Design ” is obviously in direct opposition to 
his scheme of philosophy. The two ideas are based on totally dif- 
ferent assumptions. On the one hand, chance forms the ground- 
work; 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 him 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 influenced 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, who profess to do so ; but I have strong 
reasons for suspecting the above statement to be true, even with them. See 
what is said below about Lotze. 
+ See The Descent of Man , vol. ii. p. 396. 
+ 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 brought 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 endeavoured to account for it by an inherent 'prin- 
ciple of progressive development. 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 Species, both as to this, as well as the bee-cell, clearly 
shows to my mind the hopelessness of the task he has set himself. Again, 
