There have been at various times several philosophies or attempted explanations of the world, which have either denied or prescinded from theism and finality. These two conceptions may be considered as one; for by finality we mean the intelligent direction of means towards a preconceived end; and therefore to admit a pervading finality, is to imply a theistic origin and government of the universe. Perhaps, the best and most finished attempt to explain the world independently of finality is the philosophy of Evolution, so widely popularized in our own day; and since it is in the region of organic existence, that finalism looks for its chief basis, it is especially by Darwinistic Evolution that its force is supposed to be destroyed. Any form of "monism" gets rid of finality more easily than does any form of dualism; and again, any form of materialism, more easily than idealism; and therefore as monistic and materialistic (at least in some sense of the term), popular Evolutionism is the best plea for non-finalist philosophy. We propose therefore briefly to examine this philosophy, so far as it claims to be such, and to see whether it in any way touches the validity of the argument from adaptability. Evolution may be considered both as an empirical fact and as an aetiological theory or philosophy. Considered as a fact, it is the statement of observed processes, and belongs to positive science like the observed courses of the planets, or any other observed regularities and uniformities. Science professes to have found everywhere as far as its experience has extended--in astronomy, geology, physiology, biology, psychology, ethics, sociology--a uniform process of change from the simple to the complex, from the indefinite and unstable to the stable and definite; and with this statement, so far as it can be verified, the positivist should rest content, seeking no theory, and drawing no generalization. But, the mind cannot hold together such collected facts without some binding theory, nor even observe a single fact without some preconception to give meaning to its suggested outlines: for what we really get from our senses bears but a slight ratio to what we fill in with our mind. Hence, answering to this supposed, but far from proven, universality of Evolution as a fact,[4] we have a certain philosophy of Evolution which takes us out of the sphere of facts into that of hypotheses and generalizations, and tries to give meaning and unity to the positive information that physical science has collected and classified; to finish, as it were, the suggested curves; to fill up the lacunae of observation; to extend to the whole world what is known of the part; and perhaps to erect into a cause what is only an orderly statement of facts. Undoubtedly it is this last fallacy that makes it more easy for evolutionists to dispense with or ignore finality. Law in its first sense is an expression of effectual human will. Call Evolution