It is not built upon a notion that there is no room for the action of a First Cause amid the continuous agency of so many second causes, nor does it lie in any belief that the reference of natural phenomena to a principle of evolution is in itself at variance with the presence of design in the universe. The difficulty lies here: The establishment of the doctrine of evolution, while it is never held to render the existence of design impossible, is often supposed to render the existence of design unnecessary. If the being of a God were visibly demonstrated, the mode of evolution would, as we have said, be the mode in which we should look for His working. But it is held that the visible demonstration of God's being is itself rendered impossible by the doctrine of evolution, inasmuch. as the doctrine of evolution accounts by natural law for those phenomena which formerly were supposed to be due to supernatural agency. It does not say that the fact of natural phenomena being referable to natural law is sufficient in itself to prove that they had no original place in the thought of a designing Mind, but it is supposed to ask what need there is to call in the aid of such a designing Mind when everything He has designed can be equally well accounted for without His design. The point of conflict, therefore, between the modern doctrine of evolution and the ancient belief in a designing Providence, is believed to be the fact that evolution

would render the existence of design unnecessary. The scientist of the nineteenth century would hold as strongly as Archdeacon Paley that design implies a designer, but he would ask that in the first instance the existence of design should be scientifically demonstrated. It used to be taken for

granted that birds had received wings to enable them to fly; the tendency in our days is to affirm that birds are able to fly from the fact that in the course of evolution they have received wings. It was formerly habitual to say that the eye was made for the purpose of seeing; the tendency in our time is to say that because an eye happened to be made, sight followed as an inevitable necessity, and that as the necessity was inevitable, all idea of designing choice is thereby excluded.

The first and leading question then is, Is there or is there not design in the universe? Has Paley's argument become obsolete by the destruction of its minor premiss? Once establish the minor premiss, and no scientist will dispute any other step of the argument; prove that there is design in nature, and the conviction will become universal that there has been at work a designing Mind. But the doctrine of evolution seems at first sight to have negatived Paley's minor premiss by accounting for Paley's facts on a totally different principle. Is there any possibility of getting back to the theistic position of the last century, of

seeing in the structure of nature the evidence of a presiding thought and intelligence? Clearly, if the question is to be solved, it must be solved by a shorter road than the solution of the problem whether birds fly because they have wings, or have wings in order to fly. Is there a shorter road? We think there is. We believe we shall be able to pass by this question on the other side, and to find the solution of the problem by a more excellent way.

Let us concede then, for the sake of argument, what we do not concede in point of fact-that the doctrine of evolution renders unnecessary the operation of final causes in physical nature. There still remains, however, a region of nature which is not physical, or which, if the evolutionist insist in regarding it as physical, must be held to be an exception to the rule: we allude to those phenomena which are comprehended under the general name of life. The evolutionist admits the phenomena of life to belong to the sphere of nature, and some go so far as to refer them to the sphere of physical nature. Now there can be no question that if life belongs to the sphere of nature, we have the evidence in nature of the existence of design. No evolutionist will pretend that design has not been one of the factors in the process of evolution. One of the most powerful factors in evolution has been that principle of natural selec

tion which has resulted in the survival of the fittest. But in a large number of instances that principle has been worked out voluntarily and designedly. The bird has been attracted towards a mate of beautiful plumage; and in so far its selection has been not merely natural, but voluntary. The weaker animal has been attracted towards a mate whose strength can protect it; and in so far its selection has been the product not simply of spontaneous nature, but of deliberate design. Eliminate design from the process of evolution, and you would eliminate the world of life as now existing. We cannot even tell to what extent the actions of what we call instinct have been really voluntary actions, but we may be quite sure that in every case they have been totally distinct from the acts of mechanism. The higher we ascend in the scale of being, the more distinct from the acts of mechanism do the manifestations of life become, until at last, in the spirit of man, we reach a personal demonstration of the presence of design in nature. For here we are brought face to face no longer with an inference, but with a fact-a phenomenon of our own consciousness. We find within ourselves the operation of a designing principle so distinctly selective and voluntary that we give to it the name of will. We meet in that personal experience which is to us the final stage in the development of nature, with a power whose distinctive feature

is the conception of a purpose, and a faculty whose distinctive end is the ability to select its own end.

It

Before we go a step further, however, we are reminded that we must verify our position. seems strange that such a position should need. verification; one would have thought that the testimony of consciousness would have been deemed final. It so happens, however, that in the view of many, the fact of the freedom of will being the testimony of a merely subjective consciousness, is the very thing which renders its existence suspicious. We are told that man is not really free-that he is really a piece of mechanism whose every act is dependent on the disposition of his structure. We are told that at any moment of his life he could not do otherwise than he actually does-that, in point of fact, his present moment is determined by his past, and that his latest action is the inevitable result of all his preceding acts. Yet this objection evades the real question at issue. What we want to account for is not the existence of freedom in man-which may be an open question-but the existence in man. of an idea of freedom, which is a fact attested by consciousness; we want to know, not why man is free, but why he believes himself to be free-a fact which needs all the more explanation if he be not free. Whence did the delusion proceed; whence did an idea emanate so contrary to the actual state