It is remarkable, too, that those who have urged this objection have never felt that before employing it they were bound to satisfy themselves and to prove to others that order is a mere surface or superficial thing--outside of matter, superimposed on it. If order be something inherently and intrinsically in matter--be of its very essence--belong to what is ultimate in it; if matter and its form be inseparable,--then the author of its order must have been also the author of itself; and all that this objection shows us is, that those who have employed it have had mistaken notions about the nature of matter. Now, as I have already had to indicate, modern science seems rapidly perfecting the proof of this. The order in the heavens, and in the most complicated animal organisms, appears to be not more wonderful than the order in the ultimate atoms of which they are composed. The balance of evidence is in favour of the view that order extends as far and penetrates as deep as matter itself does. The human intellect is daily learning that it is foolish to fancy that there is anywhere in matter a sphere in which the Divine Wisdom does not manifest itself in and through order. There is still another remark to be made on the objection under consideration. The immediate inference from the order of the universe is to an intelligent former of the universe, not to a creator. But this does not preclude the raising of the question, Is it reasonable to believe the former of the world merely its former? Must not its former be also its creator? On the contrary, the inference that the order of the world must be the result of intelligent agency ought to suggest this question to every serious and reflective mind, and it should even contribute something to its answer. The order of the universe must have originated with intelligence. What is implied in this admission? Clearly that the order of the universe cannot have originated with matter,--that matter is unintelligent, and cannot account either for intelligence or the effects of intelligence. But if so, the intelligence which formed the universe must be an eternal intelligence. The supposition that matter is eternal must in this case be supplemented by the admission that mind is eternal. In other words, the affirmation that the former of the world is merely its former--the denial that its former is also its creator--means dualism, the belief in two distinct eternal existences,--an eternal mind and eternal matter. Whoever is not prepared to accept this hypothesis must abandon the affirmation and denial from which it necessarily follows. And who can, after due deliberation, accept it? The law of parsimony of causes absolutely forbids our assuming, for the explanation of anything, more causes than are necessary to account for it. It forbids, therefore, our belief in an eternal matter and an eternal mind, unless we can show reason for holding that one of them alone is not a sufficient cause of the universe.