The Theist apparently thinks, however, that he has science on his side. Thus, in the Baird Lectures of 1876, Dr. Flint stated that "the progress of science has not more convincingly and completely dispersed the once prevalent notion that the universe was created about 6,000 years ago than it has convincingly and completely established that everything of which our senses inform us has had a commencement in time." [195] This opinion is still proclaimed by the Church to be the opinion of science. But modern science does not point to a beginning of the scheme of things. The consensus of opinion is entirely the other way. So far as we know, the ultimate cause recedes for ever and ever beyond the time when there was no distinction of earth and sea and atmosphere, all being mingled together in nebulous matter. Where would the Theist fix the "commencement"? The gaps on which theology at one time relied are rapidly disappearing. The apparent chasm between the organic and inorganic, between the lifeless and that which lives, according to the latest conceptions of science, no longer exists. Man may even succeed in manufacturing life, so that yet another teleological argument may collapse. § 3. The First Cause an Intelligence. DESIGN AND DIRECTIVITY. The argument from design is one which appeals perhaps more than any other to the average man. As he looks around and reflects, he feels that there must be design, and, therefore, a Designer. He feels also that God must be constantly present directing the carrying out of His design. He is in accord with the Theist who maintains that purpose and plan are manifest throughout the cosmos, and that, although it might be conceded that every step of the process has been achieved by the forces of Evolution, it is impossible to exclude the presiding activity of a mind which has planned the whole and predetermined the movements of every portion. We are to believe, then, that the Designer Himself put the forces in motion for the first time, that He knew exactly what would be the product of those forces down to the minutest detail and for all time, and yet, in face of the undeviating law-regulated cosmos which He has created, He in some way continues to guide these forces. From the very first step, the making of the electron and thence the atom, to the last, the making of man's brain, the Theist sees the finger of God. The mystery of life is thus taken to be explained or diminished by asserting that it is produced and controlled by some other mystery. The only alternative to this belief, so he maintains, is a universe of random chance and capricious disorder. But "Haeckel and his colleagues hold that the direction which the evolutionary agencies take is not 'fortuitous'; that they never could take but the one direction which they have actually taken." [196] While "the Theist says the ultimate object must have been foreseen and the forces must have been guided, or