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by the mechanical means at his disposal, he is constantly evolving all the 
sounds and notes it is capable of producing. He is far removed from 
the organ pipes ; and yet without his action on them they would not 
sound. In a similar way, although the action of the Creator may have been 
at first only such as to impress His omnipotence on that which He was pleased 
to create, so that it might, by a series of self-developing laws, as they are 
called, evolve first one form and then another, yet that is no proof that He 
is not working the whole set of laws throughout, by His omnipotent agency. 
What I want to point out is this ; that the laws of nature cannot act by 
themselves, or of their own independent motion. There must be an in- 
tellectual agency working with and behind those laws, otherwise they would 
be dead. This paper has called them “blind laws.” Well, I have here a 
short extract from a work by Professor Owen, who says, in a passage to which 
I am unable at the present moment to give a more particular reference : 
“ Natural evolution, by means of slow physical and organic operations, 
through long ages, is not the less clearly recognizable as the act of an adap- 
tive mind.” Again he says: “The succession of species by continuously 
operating law is not necessarily a blind operation.” Also : “ Organisms 
may be evolved in ordinary succession, stage after stage, towards a foreseen 
goal, and the broad features of the course may still show the unmistakable 
impress of Divine volition.” — I will now venture to refer to section 35 of 
the paper we are discussing. The author has made some remarks on 
chance, which I think are scarcely fair. He takes exception to the use 
of the word “ chance ” as implying something in relation to the operation 
of laws of which we are ignorant. Why, sir, that is the very meaning 
of the word chance ; and I do not think the argument a right one to 
urge against the term. If I take up some dice, and after rattling them 
in a box I throw them down, I say the result is a matter of chance ; but 
it is none the less by law that the numbers are thrown because I use 
that term. I know that it is in accordance with certain laws only, but I 
am not cognizant of the exact mode of their operation. And so when 
Darwin enters into the laws of causation, he is the first to confess his own 
ignorance, in the same way as one is led to say that the dice fall by chance. 
Even the Scripture chroniclers speak in the same way. They tell us that 
“ By chance there came down a certain priest that way ; ” meaning that it 
was by some means inscrutable to them, and which they did not understand. 
The very fact of their using the word would imply that it was by God’s 
agency, although they speak of it in a human sense, as having been by 
chance. In the same way although I should say if I were a Darwinian, that 
natural selection might be brought about by laws which I know nothing of, 
I should still, as a Christian, hold that those laws are the appointed ends of a 
superintending Creator. It is on this point that I think the paper is not 
quite fair to Mr. Darwin. Still less is it fair to Dr. Tyndall. I hold in my 
hand the October number of the Contemporary Review, which contains an 
article on “ Prayer” by Professor Tyndall. The paper we have heard to-night 
most distinctly asserts that Professor Tyndall denies, and puts out of the 
