Of course I do not deny that some
classes of phenomena afford us more and better proofs of intellectual
agency than do others, in the sense of the laws in operation being more
numerous, subtle, and complex; but it will be seen that this is a different
interpretation of the evidence from that against which I am contending.
Thus, if there are tokens of divine intention (as distinguished from
design) to be met with in the eye,--if it is inconceivable that so "nice
and intricate a structure" should exist without intelligence as its
_ultimate_ cause; then the discovery of natural selection, or of any other
law, as the _manner_ in which this intelligence wrought in no wise
attenuates the proof as to the fact of an intelligent cause. On the
contrary, it tends rather to confirm it; for, besides the evidence before
existing, there is added that which arises from the conformity of the
method to that which is observable in the rest of the universe.
Thus, notwithstanding what Hamilton, Chalmers, and others have said, I
cannot but feel that the ubiquitous action of general laws is, of all facts
supplied by experience, the most cogent in its bearing upon teleology. If
perpetual and uninterrupted uniformity of method does not indicate the
existence of a presiding intelligence, it becomes a question whether any
other kind of method--short of the intelligently miraculous--could possibly
do so; seeing that the further the divine _modus operandi_ (supposing such
to exist) were removed from absolute uniformity, the greater would be the
room for our interpreting it as mere fortuity.
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