he position that the fundamental postulate of
Atheism is more _inconceivable_ than is the fundamental postulate of
Theism--we have seen two important objections to lie.

For, in the first place, the sense in which the word "inconceivable" is
here used is that of the impossibility of framing _realisable_ relations in
the thought; not that of the impossibility of framing _abstract_ relations
in thought. In the same sense, though in a lower degree, it is true that
the complexity of the human organisation and its functions is
inconceivable; but in this sense the word "inconceivable" has much less
weight in an argument than it has in its true sense. And, without waiting
again to dispute (as we did in the case of the speculative standing of
Materialism) how far even the genuine test of inconceivability ought to be
allowed to make against an inference which there is a body of scientific
evidence to substantiate, we went on to the second objection against this
fundamental position of metaphysical teleology. This objection, it will be
remembered, was, that it is as impossible to conceive of cosmic harmony as
an effect of Mind, as it is to conceive of it as an effect of mindless
evolution. The argument from inconceivability, therefore, admits of being
turned with quite as terrible an effect on Theism, as it can possibly be
made to exert on Atheism.

Hence this more refined form of teleology which we are considering, and
which we saw to be the last of the possible arguments in favour of Theism,
is met on its own ground by a very crushing opposition: by its metaphysical
character it has escaped the opposition of physical science, only to
encounter a new opposition in the region of pure psychology to which it
fled. As a conclusion to our whole inquiry, therefore, it devolved on us to
determine the relative magnitudes of these opposing forces. And in doing
this we first observed that, if the supporters of metaphysical teleology
objected _a priori_ to the method whereby the genesis of natural law was
deduced from the datum of the persistence of force, in that this method
involved an unrestricted use of illegitimate symbolic conceptions; then it
is no less open to an atheist to object _a priori_ to the method whereby a
directing Mind was inferred from the datum of cosmic harmony, in that this
method involved the population of an unknowable cause,--and this of a
character which the whole history of human thought has proved the human
min