Still, even a strictly relative probability is, in
some undefinable degree, of more value than no probability at all, as we
have seen these same formal considerations to show (see Sec. 40); and,
moreover, even were this not so, the human mind will never rest until it
attains to the furthest probability which to its powers is accessible.
Therefore, if we do not forget the merely relative nature of the
considerations which are about to be adduced, by adducing them we may at
the same time satisfy our own minds and abstain from violating the
conditions of sound logic.
The shape, then, to which the subject has now been reduced is simply
this:--Seeing that the theory of Evolution in its largest sense has shown
the theory of Theism to be superfluous in a scientific sense, does it not
follow that the theory of Theism is thus shown to be superfluous in any
sense? For it would seem from the discussion, so far as it has hitherto
gone, that the only rational basis on which the theory of Theism can rest
is a basis of teleology; and if, as has been clearly shown, the theory of
evolution, by deducing the genesis of natural law from the primary data of
science, irrevocably destroys this basis, does it not follow that the
theory of evolution has likewise destroyed the theory which rested on that
basis? Now I conclude, as stated at the close of Chapter IV., that the
question here put must certainly be answered in the affirmative, so far as
its scientific aspect is concerned.
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