eye has capacity of vision, was the eye made to see? Does the fact of sight prove a designing mind working through, or evolving through a given material for certain specific ends and objects?

To this question the philosophy of evolution answers distinctly and emphatically that it does not. Mere adaptability to perform a function does not prove any intentional creation by evolution of that organ to perform that specific function-and it denies it on sound scientific and metaphysical grounds.

First, to assert such doctrine would controvert one of the basic principles of the philosophy of evolution. That philosophy points, at its outset, as a first and immutable principle, that the Absolute One is unknowable-of which nothing can be asserted save that it exists.

Consider now, that if, for example, we were to assert that the eye was made expressly to see, and evolutionary design was thereby shown, this evolutionary design must be traced back to its primordial inception in the Unknowable Absolute. We must follow a regress from the organs of perfected vision to the minute and microscopic human cell from which it originatedthence back through the lowest animal to the lowest vegetable organism-backward farther through inorganic nature to the cosmic structure-still backward to the undifferentiated cosmic mass-still farther to the Absolute Unknowable in which the plan and design must have had its birth, and which in the course of countless ages, it has wrought out through processes of evolution, in the world-stuff and mind stuff, into determinate structures, through the long line of structural variations. But it will be seen at a glance that to ascribe such intentiona' unfolding into organs for the purpose of effecting certain recognized objects to an Absolute is to assert that we know this Absolute to possess a quality of the highest constructive mind and intelligence--and that would be to ascribe to it a quality and character and in fact, a function; viz., that of intentional design, which ex vi termini, we are forbidden to assert of the Absolute. To say that it is Unknowable and yet to assert that it possesses this quality of intentional design, would be a flat

contradiction. All that we can know or assert about the Absolute is its EXISTENCE-beyond that, nothing. It would be no answer to this to say that we could claim that the eye was made for the express purpose of sight, although we were ignorant of the origin of the design-because as we have seen, this quality or characteristic of design must, on sound evolution principles, be traced back to the very edge of the material universe and back of that into the Unknown Ab. solute, if it is to have any logical or scientific basis whatever. It will never do to assert in one breath that behind all material phenomena there is an unknowable something, and in the next to allege that it possesses certain specific qualities, such as that of intelligent design.

The second objection to the doctrine of final causes, or of design in nature, is that it is unphilosophical, in that it implies 1st, a designer, 2nd, a design, 3rd, a material in which to work, and 4th, a finished product as the result. On this supposition we must ascribe all these distinctions to an Unknow. able Absolute, as well as what I have called original intentional design-and this implies a separation in our conceptions of this Absolute One into the three or four distinctions which I have specified. But this the Evolution hypothesis will disown. When at the very first, distinctions appear in the region of the Unknowable, we are no longer, in fact within the Unknowable-we are at once in the realm of the knowable; that is we are already in the line of scientific evolution. But we have seen that the idea of design MUST, if it exist anywhere, exist before any scientific process evolved the idea into determinate material form. Hence all that belongs to the idea of design must have existed there in the first instance by parity of reasoning, or it does not exist at all.

The third potent objection arises from the evolu tion doctrine of the relativity of knowledge. The faculties of human perception, and the judgments based upon those perceptions are sufficient and true only for the individual perceiving and judging—but to leap from our limited conceptions of design, such as, for example, I may entertain regarding the struc

ture of the eye, to conclusions that therefore the entire range of infinite adaptations is the result of infinite design, is illogical, and thoroughly illogical. To assert it would be to assert infinite knowledge in an extremely limited human intelligence. This argument is, of course, negative. It does not disaffirm or deny the possibility of an infinite design-but it does emphatically deny that we are in any wise competent to conceive it, or justified logically, in making it.

Still further, if we cannot admit that in a specific case, now or heretofore existing, any particular organ was made for the express purpose and end of accomplishing certain results, much less can we assert that there is some ultimate and final design to be wrought out through these temporary and particular designs. Tennyson has thrown this idea into a single line when he wrote of

"One far off divine event to which the whole creation moves But the idea of a far off event, that is, a summation and conclusion of the entire scope and process of evolution in one distinct, final and commanding purpose is foreign to the entire theory of evolution. Its processes are infinite both in the direction of the infinite past and of the infinite future. The assumption is wholly unfounded on strict evolution principles.

This denial of final causes, or of intention and design of any kind in the evolution process, is made strenuously by those most prominent in evolution thought. Says Mr. Spencer, "In whatever way it is formulated or by whatever language it is obscured, this ascription of organic evolution to some aptitude naturally possessed by organisms is unphilosophical. It is one of those explanations which explain nothing a shaping of ignorance into the semblance of knowledge. The cause assigned is not a true causenot a cause assimilable to known causes. It is a cause unrepresentable in thought, one of those illegitimate symbolic conceptions which cannot, by any mental process, be elaborated into a real conception. In brief, this assumption of a persistent formative power, inherent in organisms, and making them unfold into higher forms, is an assumption no more tenable than

the assumption of special creations, of which it is indeed but a modification."

To the same effect Professor Huxley, in commenting upon Darwin in one of his "Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews": "That," says he, "which struck the present writer most forcibly on his first perusal of the 'Origin of Species' was the conviction that Teleology (the doctrine of Final Causes) as commonly understood had received its death blow at Mr. Darwin's hands. For the teleological argument runs thus: 'an organ or organism, A, is precisely fitted to perform a function or purpose, B; therefore it was specially constructed to perform that function.' In Paley's illustration the adaptation of all the parts of the watch to the function, or purpose, of showing the time, is held to be evidence that the watch was specially contrived to that end. Suppose, however, that any one had been able to show that the watch had not been made directly by any person, but that it was the result of the modification of another watch which kept time but poorly-. and that this again had proceeded from a structure which could hardly be called a watch at all, and that, going back and back in time we come at last to a revolving barrel as the earliest traceable rudiment of the whole fabric-and imagine that it had been possible to show that all these changes had resulted first from a tendency of the structure to vary indefinitely, and secondly, from something in the surrounding world. which helped all variations in the direction of an accurate time keeper and checked all those in other directions, then it is obvious that the force of Paley's argument would be gone. For it would be demonstrated that an apparatus thoroughly well adapted to a particular purpose might be the result of a method of trial and error worked by unintelligent agents, as well as of the direct application of the means appropriate to that end by an intelligent agent. The 'Origin of Species' is entirely and absolutely opposed to Teleology."

And again, Professor Fiske: "Not only is the teleological theory useless from a scientific point of view, but its claim to philosophic validity is open to serious doubt. Looking at it historically, we observe that its

career has been that of a perishable hypothesis born of primeval habits of thought. As La Place says, Final Causes disappear as soon as we obtain the data requisite for resolving problems scientifically. rejection of teleology by the most advanced sciences augurs ill for its ultimate chances of survival in any field of inquiry. The teleological hypothesis derives. its apparent confirmation never from the phenomena which were explained yesterday, but always from the phenomena which are awaiting an explanation to-morrow. To represent the Unknowable as a person who thinks, contrives and regulates is simply to represent it as a product of evolution. The survival of the doctrine of Final Causes shows that a strong element of anthropomorphism is retained even in the latter concep tion. The doctrine of Final Causes ultimately reposes on the idea that an Infinite entertains intentions and purposes closely resembling in kind, though greatly excelling in degree of sagacity, the purposes and intentions of man. Everything that exists, it is said, has been created to subserve some design and as the means to the accomplishment of some end. A hypothesis which holds out such brilliant hopes may well be retained in our Cosmic Philosophy if it can be shown to be in harmony with the demonstrated scientific truths upon which that Philosophy rests. But if this cannot be done then the hypothesis must be discarded, even though it should carry with it all our hopes and wishes in indiscriminate ruin. It has been well said that we must follow Truth though it should lead us to Hades. In the present case we shall find reason to conclude that the hypothesis is likely to aggravate rather than to relieve, the mental distress of skepticism."

This paper is to be considered as limited to the statement that the doctrine of Final Causes, or Design in Nature, finds no justification in the evolution. philosophy. If they exist, the proof must be sought elsewhere.

DR. ROBERT G. ECCLES:

I have been much interested and pleased with Professor Cope's lecture. I agree in the main with him