f a more and more simple a character the further we recede in
time--to have been miraculously imposed, the analogy is overwhelming that
they all progressively arose _by way of natural law_. And if so, the
universe which has been thus produced is the only universe in this
particular point of space and time which could have been thus produced.
That it is an _orderly_ universe we have seen _ad nauseam_ to be no
argument in favour of its having been a _designed_ universe, so long as the
cause of its order--general laws--can be seen to admit of a natural
explanation.

Thus there is clearly nothing to be gained on the side of teleology by
going back to the dim and dismal birth of the nebula; for no "thoroughgoing
evolutionist" would for one moment entertain the supposition that natural
law in the simplest phases of its development partook any more of a
miraculous character than it does in its more recent and vastly more
complex phases. The absence of knowledge must not be used as equivalent to
its presence; and if analogy can be held to justify any inference
whatsoever, surely we may conclude with confidence that if existing general
laws admit of being conceivably attributed to a natural genesis, the
primordial laws of a condensing nebula must have been the same.

There is another passage in Professor Flint's work to which it seems
desirable to refer. It begins thus: "There is the law of heredity: like
produces like. But why is there such a law? Why does like produce like?...
Physical science cannot answer these questions; but that is no reason why
they should not both be asked and answered. I can conceive of no other
intelligent answer being given to them than that there is a God of wisdom,
who designed that the world should be for all ages the abode of life," &c.

Now here we have in another form that same vicious tendency to take refuge
in the more obscure cases of physical causation as proofs of supernatural
design--the obscurity in this case arising from the _complexity_ of the
causes and work, as in the former case it arose from their _remoteness_ in
time. But in both cases the same answer is patent, viz., that although
"physical science cannot answer these questions" by pointing out the
precise sequence of causes and effects, physical science is nevertheless
quite as certain that this precise sequence arises in its last resort from
the persistence of force, as she would be were she able to trace the whole
process. And