intellectual grounds of this belief at the present day.

First let me recall the principal points in our conclusions so far. Our argument could never claim to prove the existence of a God of infinite attributes. But it did go far to convince men that the universe was the work of a Being of inconceivable power and intelligence. A doubt hung over the evidence of his goodness. Many obvious facts could be quoted against it. But it was thought that peculiar evidence of Design upon his part was to be found in animal mechanism, and that this evidence made generally for benevolent purpose. A great deal of this supposed evidence has been explained away, and further a conviction is growing up in the cultivated mind, that all phenomena are the fruit of general law and not of special appointment. It is in deference to this last assertion that I would frame my modification. No doctrine, it appears to me, is so clearly taught by modern science as this, that God works by general laws. His appointments are at least primâ facie general, not special, though it may be that every special case has been considered in making them. I do not mean here to prejudge the question, whether exceptions to such law have ever taken place, say in original creation or subsequent miracle. But I wish to detach the argument from Design altogether from these difficult questions.

Looking upon Nature in the light of modern science in quest of evidence for an originating mind, what we see is the co-operation of a number of general laws; and the question for our consideration is, does this co-operation indicate an intelligent and moral author? Such an origin does not imply a definite beginning in time, at which the Divine Being impressed the laws upon the Universe. the Universe. That is only an anthropomorphic idea of the Divine action, to which our fancy may incline. This action of God may as well or more properly be thought to be the nowacting power of Nature following the laws as its method. To continue our search for Design; we are not to argue from isolated facts. We cannot, like Paley,' infer the Divine benevolence from the gambols of shrimps. We must take account at least of all that we know, and endeavour to grasp the character of the Universe as a whole. On the one hand, we are not to expect discernible traces of Design everywhere, nor yet, on the other hand, are we to disregard such traces if they appear too often to be accounted chances, i.e. effects for which we cannot venture to assign a cause. When we make this bold attempt we are met by a great difficulty-the smallness of our insight into the working of Nature's laws, compared with what we may justly conjecture their scope to be. It is but a little corner of the universe

1 Paley's ' 'Natural Theology,' ch. xxvi.

which we can explore. We see unnumbered worlds in the sky, but we know nothing of the economy of Nature there, nothing at least which would justify any conclusion as to the moral or intellectual character of her author. Our grasp is a little but not much greater in respect of time than of space. For, indeed, according to the well-known saying of Sir Charles Lyell, men are apt, from certain prepossessions,' to be parsimonious in their estimates of time past. This is true even of men with ideas enlarged as to this point. They talk sometimes of tracing things back to the nebulæ as though they were thus obtaining a comprehensive view of the entire history of creation. But supposing that the solar system did originate from a nebula, have they a right to assume this development to be coeval with the Universe? We have good reason to think that stars are by no means of equal antiquity, and that our own sun is not one of the oldest. Further that nebula out of which it sprang need not be thought the primitive state of matter. It might have been the result of some previous condition of things, say a collision of two great cosmical bodies and the vaporising of their masses. catastrophes.

We have evidence for such

May not such episodes repeat them

Sir Charles Lyell's Address to the British Association.

* See Appearances of Temporary Stars,' in Sir J. Herschel's Astronomy, and in Helmholtz's lectures on the Conservation of Energy, Medical Times,' April 23, 1864.

selves in the long history of the Universe? The beginning of one order of things may be only the extinction of another. We can never feel sure that we have reached an absolute beginning. beginning. Able writers, speaking of the present working of the Universe, have distinguished between physical laws and collocations of matter; for example, the law of gravitation and the masses of the planets. In the latter they have seen something arbitrary which might be attributed to the immediate appointment of the Deity. But was not this a contracted view, an unstable distinction? May not these collocations be quite as much as present physical effects the result of physical laws working at an earlier period? In short, we cannot frame, from purely scientific sources, anything which could be reasonably taken for a general history or scheme of things. But still we may survey a part of creation, and our wisdom seems to be to form the best judgment which we can from that. The course of events on the surface of our planet is at all events known to us in its general outlines for an enormous period of time. Perhaps we may go further, and say that we can trace a vast plan for the formation of our own planet, and further of the particular system to which she belongs, carried out over an immense stretch of past time. This would be true either on the nebular or the meteor hypothesis of the origin But be this last point as it may,

of the solar system.

D

we are certain that for many millions of years a development of life has taken place upon our planet, and that this development has undeniable marks of progress. I do mean to say that there has been steady uniform improvement. Some types of life, reptile life for instance, may have flourished more in times past than they do now.1 But allowing for irregularities and fluctuations, on the whole higher and higher forms of life have appeared. There has been unquestionably an enormous advance between the times of the Eozoon Canadense and our own. And further we have to notice that a new kind of progress of far greater intrinsic importance than mere physical improvement has of late appeared. I mean intellectual and moral progress, as it is seen. in man. Here, too, I allow that progress is not uniform or universal. But, on the whole, and in the long run it is manifest." It is indisputable that the earlier races of men were both intellectually and morally below the present, and there is great reason to hope that progress has finally established itself and is advancing with accelerated rapidity. And this progress, I would say, is most important in our argument as to the character of God, for it is full of promise of far better things than this sad world has ever seen. It points most decidedly to a supre

1 Sir C. Lyell's 'Principles of Geology,' chap. ix.

2 Sir John Lubbock's 'Origin of Civilisation,' Appendix, Part II. Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' chap. ii. Sir C. Lyell's 'Antiquity of Man.'