principle of natural selection may have been instrumental in the evolution of organic forms, is not here, as Mill erroneously imagined, the question; the question is simply as to whether we are to accept the theory of special creation or the theory of organic evolution. And forasmuch as no competent judge at the present time can hesitate for one moment in answering this question, the argument from a proximate teleology must be regarded as no longer having any rational existence. How then does it fare with the last of the arguments--the argument from an ultimate teleology? Doubtless at first sight this argument seems a very powerful one, inasmuch as it is a generic argument, which embraces not only biological phenomena, but all the phenomena of the universe. But nevertheless we are constrained to acknowledge that its apparent power dwindles to nothing in view of the indisputable fact that, if force and matter have been eternal, all and every natural law must have resulted by way of necessary consequence. It will be remembered that I dwelt at considerable length and with much earnestness upon this truth, not only because of its enormous importance in its bearing upon our subject, but also because no one has hitherto considered it in that relation. The next step, however, was to mitigate the severity of the conclusion that was liable to be formed upon the utter and hopeless collapse of all the possible arguments in favour of Theism. Having fully demonstrated that there is no shadow of a positive argument in support of the theistic theory, there arose the danger that some persons might erroneously conclude that for this reason the theistic theory must be untrue. It therefore became necessary to point out, that although, as far as we can see, nature does not require an Intelligent Cause to account for any of her phenomena, yet it is possible that, if we could see farther, we should see that nature could not be what she is unless she had owed her existence to an Intelligent Cause. Or, in other words, the probability there is that an Intelligent Cause is unnecessary to explain any of the phenomena of nature, is only equal to the probability there is that the doctrine of the persistence of force is everywhere and eternally true.