Sec. 43. In the first place, let it be understood that I employ the terms "scientific" and "metaphysical" in the convenient sense in which they are employed by Mr. Lewes, viz., as respectively designating a theory that is verifiable and a theory that is not. Consequently, by the term "scientific teleology" I mean to denote a form of teleology which admits either of being proved or disproved, while by the term "metaphysical teleology" I mean to denote a form of teleology which does not admit either of being proved or of being disproved. Now, with these significations clearly understood, it will be seen that the forms of teleology which we have hitherto considered belong entirely to the scientific class. That the Paleyerian form of the argument did so is manifest, first because this argument itself treats the problem of Theism as a problem that is susceptible of scientific demonstration, and next because we have seen that the advance of science has proved this argument susceptible of scientific refutation. In other words, from the supposed axiom, "There cannot be apparent design without a designer," adaptations in nature become logically available as purely scientific evidence of an intelligent cause; and that Paley himself regarded them exclusively in this light is manifest, both from his own "statement of the argument," and from the character of the evidence by which he seeks to establish the argument when stated--witness the typical passage before quoted (Sec. 26). On the other hand, we have clearly seen that this Paleyerian system of natural theology has been effectually demolished by the scientific theory of natural selection--the fundamental axiom of the former having been shown by the latter to be scientifically untrue. Hence the term "scientific teleology" is without question applicable to the Paleyerian system. Nor is the case essentially different with the more refined form of the teleological argument which we have had to consider--the argument, namely, from General Laws. For here, likewise, we have clearly seen that the inference from the ubiquitous operation of General Laws to the existence of an omniscient Law-maker is quite as illegitimate as is the inference from apparent Design to the existence of a Supreme Designer. In other words, science, by establishing the doctrine of the persistence of force and the indestructibility of matter, has effectually disproved the hypothesis that the presence of Law in nature is of itself sufficient to prove the existence of an intelligent Law-giver.