It has already been noted that theology, certainly Christian theology, maintains that God is all-good. In consequence the natural world which scientific inquiry reveals must be all-good in its operations and its fruits. The history of the universe must be a steady and unfaltering fulfillment of the divine, of the beneficent eternal purpose. The ways of the Almighty, so theology tells us, are just ways, and the universe in which we live, so theology tells us, is a revelation of that justice. The eighteenth century "natural theologians" spent much energy in demonstrating how perfectly adapted to his needs are man's natural environment and his organic structure. They pointed to the eye with its delicate membranes so subtly adapted to the function of sight. All Nature was a continuous and magnificent revelation of God's designs, which were good. Christian Wolff, for example, a rationalistic theologian of the late eighteenth century, writes: God has created the sun to keep the changeable conditions on the earth in such an order that living creatures, men and beasts, may inhabit its surface.... The sun makes daylight not only on our earth, but also on the other planets; and daylight is of the utmost utility to us; for by its means we can commodiously carry on those occupations which in the night-time would either be quite impossible, or at any rate impossible without our going to the expense of artificial light.[2] [Footnote 2: Christian Wolff: _Vernuenftige Gedanken von den Absichten der natuerlichen Dinge_, 1782, pp. 74 ff.; quoted by James in _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p.492.] MECHANISTIC SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. With the rise of mechanistic science there has come about a sharp collision between the conception of the goodness of the universe as theology declares it, and of its blindnesses and indifference as science seems to unfold it to us. Contrast the picture of a cosmos which was deliberately and considerately made by God to serve every exigency of man's welfare, with the picture earlier quoted from Bertrand Russell as the natural scientist gives it to us. It is no longer easy to say the Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork. As far as we can see natural processes go on without the slightest reference to the welfare of man, who is but an accidental product of their indifferent forces. The universe is a system of blind regularities. "Omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way." Nature is thoroughly impersonal, and indeed, were it to be judged by personal or human standards, it could with more accuracy be maintained that it is evil than that it is good. As Mill puts it in a famous passage: