macy of the power for good, and a great hope of final happiness for our race. It speaks for our Maker's goodness not only far more strongly, but also more unequivocally, than the mere physical progress which had gone before. For not only are the fruits of happiness which it bears much greater in amount and higher in character, but the way of its advance is more in harmony with beneficence-peaceful and happy, not winning good through pain and death, like that physical progress which brought in higher forms at the cost of exterminating lower.

Now here is a great fact, a great fact for good, to set against that widely spread appearance of evil in creation which has so embarrassed theologians. The code of Nature's laws has so co-operated as to work a long and wonderful progress towards good. Does not this fact indicate controlling mind and beneficent purpose ? I may be reminded that, to a great extent, this progress has been a mere result of the conditions of existence. Those conditions eliminate the inferior forms of life. But is there anything here to oppose the idea of design? Are not those conditions of existence a fruit of the co-operation of natural laws? I may also be reminded that if we could survey the Universe we might see spectacles of different meaning. We might find the co-operation of Nature's laws not issuing in this progress elsewhere. elsewhere. In fact, we might find that this

progress, as matters now stand with the Universe, was only one of those occasional results from which, as I have said, it seems unsafe to infer the character of Him who made the whole.

We have, of course, here before us the muchdebated question of the plurality of worlds. If, indeed, our own little world could be shown to be the only scene of life and of the progress of organisation and mind in the whole Universe, then, indeed, the attributing of that exceptional fact to chance, or, to speak more properly, the denial, that in this single fact we had evidence of a design in the maker of the whole, might seem credible, though by no means certain. But surely we cannot assume so much. I allow that what we know of a vast number of the heavenly bodies, as the suns, comets, meteors, nebulæ (and among this number are not only a great majority but the largest also), leads us to believe that they are not inhabited. But surely it But surely it may be otherwise with some of the innumerable planets and satellites which may exist in the Universe. The Darwinian hypothesis does, it is true, impair the argument for habitable globes from final causes. It exhibits life as developed upon our globe upon a plan not so immediately capable of adaptation to any conditions as we must suppose that the direct working of the Almighty is. But, on the other hand, it does I think give us more solid grounds for expecting such habi

tation than can be found in conjectures as to the purposes of God-conjectures, I ought to add, which could not be admitted in our present argument. For the process to which it attributes the development of life is plainly one not merely capable in the long run of a wonderful adaptation to outward variations, but one which does in fact so adapt itself.

The mere relative paucity of inhabited worlds, what has been said of the appearance of waste in creation, may explain. And that there is more than this comparative paucity is only conjecture, and a conjecture not favoured by the modern view of the development of life. Such a conjecture, should not be pressed. We might fairly meet it by another conjecture in itself as likely, since we cannot by the nature of the case know the fact. It would be equally legitimate to suppose that in many parts at least where chaos reigns now a world of order and beauty and happiness will one day have been developed.1 At the most we have only that imputation of apparent waste which, as I have said, cannot strictly be urged against the wisdom and goodness of God. He is patient, it has been said, because he is eternal. He is prodigal, it might be said, because he is infinitely rich. And indeed we should be careful how we call him prodigal. What seems to us waste

1 See an article, 'Life Past and Future in other Worlds,' 'Cornhill Magazine,' June 1875.

may spring out of parts of the plan which have purposes the most important. It is mostly the observance of law which seems to make progress so slow and halting and devious. But that reign of law may serve the highest and most precious purposes. We have reason to believe that it has been the instrument of developing man's intellect, and his moral nature too.

But

I have spoken of the bearing of the recognition of law in Nature upon the argument from Design as applied to particular cases. I would now say something as to its influence, when that argument is applied to the general aspect of creation. There is a difference. I have remarked that the force of a particular instance of Design, as proof of the Divine intelligence, is diminished when the alleged contrivance is looked at as the result of the combination of a number of general laws. this diminution does not arise from the individual appearance of contrivance becoming less striking. In and by itself it suggests the idea of contrivance as strongly as ever, or even more so. But now it reminds us of a number of other things. We are reminded that it is not a special appointment by itself with a discernible purpose, but a part of a set of general appointments, whose general working has not this appearance of purpose. Consequently, our particular case assumes more the appearance of

a chance or coincidence, and so the idea of purpose recedes and disappears. To give an illustration.1 So long as we look only at the revolution of our earth upon its axis by itself, we may see an appointment admirably adapted to animal life, but as soon as we consider this rotation as one example of a phenomenon to be seen throughout the universe, so soon as we contemplate every cosmical body from the giant Sirius down even to the tiny meteor as rotating in like manner, then the idea of special adaptation becomes lost. Such I conceive is the effect of recognising the character of generality in the Divine appointments upon our argument in its old form. But if we can grasp any general design to be traced in the whole aspect of Nature, or at least over so considerable a part as to seem not unworthy to be the purpose of the whole, this making void no longer takes place. If it be true, for example, that within the whole range of our observation, so far as that observation can be thought competent for the purpose, we do seem to trace a great scheme of evolution, bringing about more and more of organisation, intelligence, moral order, and happiness, then we have an evidence for an intelligent and beneficent Deity, which the reign of law does nothing to invalidate. Neither does the

1 This idea is taken from an article in the 'Cornhill Magazine' for March 1872.