A very able and ingenious writer upon "The Evidences of Design in Nature," in the Westminster Review for July, 1875, maintains the negative. His article may be taken as the argument in support of the position assumed by "P.C.W.," in the Contemporary Review above cited. It opens with the admission that the orthodox view is the most simple and apparently convincing, has had for centuries the unhesitating assent of an immense majority of thinkers, and that the latest master-writer upon the subject disposed to reject it, namely, Mill, comes to the conclusion that, "in the present state of our knowledge, the adaptations in Nature afford a large balance of probability in favor of creation by intelligence." It proceeds to attack not so much the evidence in favor of design as the foundation upon which the whole doctrine rests, and closes with the prediction that sooner or later the superstructure must fall. And, truly, if his reasonings are legitimate, and his conclusions just, "Science has laid the axe to the tree." "Given a set of marks which we look upon in human productions as unfailing indications of design," he asks, "is not the inference equally legitimate when we recognize these marks in Nature? To gaze on such a universe as this, to feel our hearts exult within us in the fullness of existence, and to offer in explanation of such beneficent provision no other word but Chance, seems as unthankful and iniquitous as it seems absurd. Chance produces nothing in the human sphere; nothing, at least, that can be relied upon for good. Design alone engenders harmony, consistency; and Chance not only never is the parent, but is constantly the enemy of these. How, then, can we suppose Chance to be the author of a system in which everything is as regular as clockwork? . . . The hypothesis of Chance is inadmissible." There is, then, in Nature, an order; and, in "P.C.W.'s" sense of the word, a manifest purpose. Some sort of conception as to the cause of it is inevitable, that of design first and foremost. "Why"--the Westminster Reviewer repeats the question--"why, if the marks of utility and adaptation are conclusive in the works of man, should they not be considered equally conclusive in the works of Nature?" His answer appears to us more ingenious than sound. Because, referring to Paley's watch,--