"As an unlimited number of atoms can be placed in unlimited space in an unlimited number of modes of distribution, there must, even granting matter to have had all its laws from eternity, have been at some moment in time, out of the unlimited choices and distributions possible, that one choice and distribution which yielded the fair and orderly universe that now exists. Only out of rational choice can order have come." But clearly the alternative is now no longer one between chance and choice. If natural laws arise by way of necessary consequence from the persistence of a single self-existing substance, it becomes a matter of scientific (though not of logical) demonstration that "the fair and orderly universe that now exists" is the one and only universe that, in the nature of things, _can_ exist. But to continue this interesting passage from Dr. Flint's work--interesting not only because it sets forth the previous standing of this subject with so much clearness, but also because the work is of such very recent publication. "The most common mode, perhaps, of evading the problem which order presents to reason is the indication of the process by which the order has been realised. From Democritus to the latest Darwinian there have been men who supposed they had completely explained away the evidences of design in nature when they had described the physical antecedents of the arrangements appealed to as evidences. Aristotle showed the absurdity of this supposition more than 2200 years ago."