If we could annul the interval of time between the great minds of the long past and bring them into direct and intelligent contact with the most marked victories of modern research and genius, what would be the effect? Let it be imagined that Aristotle or Plato could stand by while Tyndall demonstrated to them in Athens, that they could hold direct and instant intercourse with a friend in India; or proved to them, that we can demonstrate the actual constituents of the sun and stars, and their physical conditions, with the same certainty as we can determine the analysis of an earthly compound; or bid the sunbeam paint the portrait of a bird or beast in rapid motion; or let them gaze upon the marvellous world of the minute unfolded by the modern microscope; and I do not hesitate to say that if he were the Aristotle or Plato of his own age, standing before these triumphs of this age, he would be standing in the presence of absolute miracles. Yet how have these, to Plato, unforeseen and wonderful events arisen? Only by discovery of, and absolute obedience to, the _laws of nature_ as they are for ever and immutably acting. Man has created nothing, interrupted nothing, violated nothing: he has obeyed; and by obedience conquered. Then grant that mind, by infinite wisdom and will, gave origin to this ever-unfolding universe, by methods that are all and for ever known to Him, as they can never be known to us, is it according to reason to contend that nothing shall ever happen _even according to the strict methods of natural phenomena_ which past experience has never known? That will happen, on the assumption of a Creative Mind as the origin of all, which is _needful_, to complete the universe; and what happens need be no interruption, no turning aside, of the course of nature, but only sublime compliance with it. But more: one of the gravest conflicts of sheer material philosophy with Theism and Theology is, that by mechanical evolution design is swept clean from the universe; that teleology has received its death-blow. Science finds that phenomena are self-acting, and self-adjusting. The energy is competent; the method is perfect for bringing about the result investigated. Science can find no more; it asks no more; and materialism says, there is no more. There is no design in it; it is, because to be at all, it must be that. There is no design in the form of the river-bed which the mighty waters have engraved for themselves in their irresistible movement down the mountain slope and along the windings of the valley to the sea. It is the result of the force of gravity. Such is the argument.