399 
to see more and more the adaptation of these structures to the uses of man 
and possibly to other great purposes as well. In that way we may cr 0 very 
much further in our admission of adaptation than our knowledge of present 
adaptation would warrant, and therefore this paper seems to me to be very 
valuable, in extending and enabling us to examine more particularly these 
less obvious arrangements and adaptations. Mr. Howard has done good 
service in pointing out these things, and in showing us that here we have 
arrangements which in a less scientific age would have been regarded as 
serving no particular purpose, except to form the soil on which man 
trod, but which, the more we examine them, prove that they were in- 
tended to serve purposes, and are adapted to needs which become more 
clearly discoverable as time goes on. When we see the great extent and 
multiplicity of these arrangements and adaptations, the conviction is more 
clearly forced upon our minds, that there must have been some infinitely 
intelligent Being who has made all these things. It seems to me that the 
papei befoie us was precisely intended to seize the less obvious instances 
and from them to bring forward arguments which are not the less strong 
because they are not at first sight discoverable to the inquirer. (Cheers.) 
Mr. David Howard. I must thank those who have taken part in this 
discussion for the kind way in which they have spoken of this paper. Of 
its shortcomings I am more conscious than any one else can be, for it is more 
difficult than would commonly be supposed, to bring before an audience, not 
previously trained to the work, the peculiar force of these chemical pro- 
blems. . I suppose that to any one who never tried to make a solid piece of 
magnesia, a piece of magnesite will ever be a perplexity. You cannot 
explain it fully to any one untrained. You can only explain “this is noi 
the ordinary magnesia which is tolerably familiar to us all — or was when we 
were children.” This is one example out of many. I was tempted to draw 
the paper out into detail, but I feared that I should fail to make the details 
either interesting or comprehensible. As to the use of the words “ law ” 
and ‘ order,” and so on, it is difficult to avoid the use of popular terms, 
inaccurate as they are. As Dr. Fisher has pointed out, the word “ nature ” 
is sometimes used to mean God, sometimes to mean ko < rpog, sometimes one 
thing, and sometimes another : we can only use these inaccurate terms in 
the best way we can. The word “force” is an example. No doubt the 
more accurate word is “ energy,” but the use of the Greek word does not 
get us far-out of the difficulty, for ivkpytia in Liddell and Scott is defined 
as . force. I sought to bring out that the same constructive power 
which made the stars of different compositions, has been acting through- 
out that it has been no mere change, but a constructive agency in nature, 
which has produced what we see of adaptation to the use of man. I do 
not think the Christian can avoid taking this for granted as being the 
object of the adaptation and formation of the world. When we say that 
the world was created for the benefit of man, there is an evidence of that in 
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