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have a right to assume that the condition B grew naturally out 
of a different preceding condition C, and so on indefinitely. 
This comes to removing Grod to an infinite distance, and that 
again comes practically to much the same thing as denying 
His existence altogether. At least it comes to this, unless we 
regard those laws, such as the law of gravitation and so forth, 
as by themselves alone evidence of a presiding mind, of whose 
will they are the expression ; but this is a point of view hardly, 
I think, attainable by the uneducated, and, even as regards the 
educated, calculated to strike different persons differently, 
according to their various mental complexions. 
To him who believes in a Grod, it is conceivable that the end 
He designs to accomplish might be brought about by an 
immediate fiat of His will, in a manner wholly beyond our 
conception, or that contrivances might be employed adapting 
means to an end, and ordered in accordance with laws open to 
our investigation. It needs but little acquaintance with the 
phenomena of nature to perceive that beneficent ends are 
constantly brought about through the operation of simple 
laws open to our investigation. To take a single example, 
regard the structure of the eye. The wonderful sense of 
sight in its integrity involves mysteries which we cannot 
fathom ; but this much is clear, that it depends in some way 
on the formation of distinct images on the retina. Now, how 
is this effected ? Why, there is an elaborate organ provided 
which refracts the rays of light so as to form images according 
to the very same principles as operate in the formation of 
images in the focus of a telescope constructed by the practical 
optician. Seeing, then, that useful ends are brought about 
by means, we should expect a priori that as the wisdom of 
the designing Mind must be immeasurably above our own, so 
contrivance should, as a rule, extend far beyond what we can 
trace. We should expect, therefore, on purely theistic grounds , 
that the doctrine of evolution, assumed for trial, would be a 
useful and ordinarily trustworthy guide in our scientific 
researches ; that it might often enable us to go back one 
step, and explain how such or such a result was brought 
about by natural laws from such or such an anterior condition, 
and so might lead us to extend our knowledge of the opera- 
tion of natural causes. But this is a very different thing from 
assuming it as an axiom, the application of which may be 
extended step by step indefinitely backwards. 
The only theory, so far as I am aware, in which an attempt is 
made to refer the phenomenon to known natural causes is that 
famous one with which the name of the eminent naturalist who 
has but recently departed from among us is inseparably 
