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position, as St. Paul used it in conjunction with the a priori. 
The argument from Design is even painfully pressed against us 
by some writers, who take advantage of its ambiguity. 
56. Quoting from Paley, Mr. Morley gives us this : — “ God 
prescribes limits to His power that He may let in the exercise, 
and thereby exhibit demonstrations of Ilis wisdom It is 
as though one being should have fixed certain rules, and, if we. 
may so speak, provided certain materials; and afterwards have 
committed to another being, out of those materials and in subor- 
dination to those rules, the task of drawing forth a creation ; a 
supposition which evidently leaves room and induces, indeed, a 
necessity for contrivance. Nay, there may be many such agents, 
and many ranks of these. We do not advance this as a doctrine, 
either of philosophy or of religion, but we say, the subject may 
be safely represented under this view, because the Deity, acting 
Himself by general laws, will have the same consequences, upon 
our reasoning, as if He had presented those laws to another. It 
has been said that the problem of Creation was, attraction and 
matter being given, to make a world out of them, &c.” 
We feel bound to say — “Non tali auxilio .” It may be old 
Gnosticism in modern phrase. We hope the “ Argument from 
Design ” does not mean this. A better ontology _ . , 
than Paley s would have saved it. Mr. Morley s jection to de- 
difficulty, if briefly put, is this — Would not the Slgn ‘ 
Highest Agent attain His end, without that kind of incubation, 
which a rough statement of “ contrivance, ” or design, would 
imply? He rightly thinks that a sort of contrivance which 
derogates from the Divine perfection and absoluteness, can never 
be admitted. The “ fitness of things ” is the best ultimate form 
of the d posteriori argument ; and to this the philosopher or 
man of science has no certain or comprehensive reply, so far as 
we can see. The argument has a pro tanto value then, and is 
not exposed to the danger latent in all analogies. {See further, 
the “ Whole Doctrine of Final Causes ,” Ac.) 
57. We feel that we have no further need to prolong our 
examination of Mr. Mill. His view of the “ Attri- 
butes of the Supreme” or, as we have said, Prae- conclusion - 
phenomenal Being, has already been replied to as inconsistent 
with philosophy. {Secs. 22, 23.) We may be spared the necessity 
of watching him while, balancing the “probabilities” of Immor- 
tality, — that possibility the very thought of which might hereafter, 
he supposes, be a burden to us! The fact, ct, priori, of our 
Nature having the hope in us, as truly as it has “ a reaching out 
after God,” remains, and will remain. 
This book is one that has a kind of sobering influence, as we 
draw to a close. We had made a higher estimate of the writer — 
