"The assertion appears to be quite unfounded that, as science advances from point to point, final causes recede before it, and disappear one after the other. The principle of design changes its mode of application, indeed, but it loses none of its force. We no longer consider particular facts as produced by special interpositions; but we consider design as exhibited in the establishment and adjustment of the laws by which particular facts are produced. We do not look upon each particular cloud as brought near to us that it may drop fatness on our fields; but the general adaptation of the laws of heat and air and moisture to the promotion of vegetation does not become doubtful. We do not consider the sun as less intended to warm and vivify the tribes of plants and animals because we find that, instead of revolving round the earth as an attendant, the earth, along with other planets, revolves round him. We are rather, by the discovery of the general laws of nature, led into a scene of wider design, of deeper contrivance, of more comprehensive adjustments. Final causes, if they appear driven farther from us by such extension of our views, embrace us only with a vaster and more majestic circuit. Instead of a few threads connecting some detached objects, they become a stupendous network, which is wound round and round the universal frame of things."--Whewell, 'History of Scientific Ideas,' vol. ii. pp. 253, 254. NOTE XXII., page 182. CREATION AND EVOLUTION. Creation is the _only_ theory of the _origin_ of the universe. Evolution assumes either the creation or the self-existence of the universe. The evolutionist must choose between creation and non-creation. They are opposites. There is no intermediate term. The attempt to introduce one--the Unknowable--can lead to no result; for unless the Unknowable is capable of creating, it can account for the origin of nothing. All attempts to explain even the formation of the universe, either by the evolution of the Unknowable or by evolution out of the Unknowable, must be of a thoroughly delusive character. The evolution of what is known can alone have significance either to the ordinary or scientific mind. Nothing can be conceived of as subject to evolution which is not of a finite and composite nature. Nothing can be evolved out of a finite and composite existence which was not previously involved in it. And what gives to anything its limits and constitution must be more perfect than itself. [Greek: To prôton ou sperma estin, alla to teleion.]