losophy, where a statute
took its place--was that of a watch. And the conclusion was drawn that
as the parts of a watch bear obvious marks of having been made with a
view to a particular end, so the animal structure and the universe as a
whole bear similar marks of having been designed. It is true that of
late years the Paleyan form of the argument has been disavowed by most
scholarly advocates of theism, but as they immediately proceed to make
use of arguments that are substantially identical with it, the
repudiation does not seem of great consequence. It reminds one of a
government that is compelled by the force of public opinion to openly
repudiate one of its officials, and having removed him from the office
in which the misdemeanour was committed, immediately appoints him to one
of an increased dignity and with a larger salary.

Thus, we have Professor Fiske saying that "Paley's simile of a watch is
no longer applicable to such a world as this" ("Idea of God"; p. 131),
and Prof. Sorley telling us that "the age of Paley and of the
Bridgewater Treatises is past" (Moral Values and the Idea of God; p.
327), and Mr. Balfour repudiating Paley as having been ruled out of
court by Darwinism ("Humanism and Theism," chapter II.). But as Fiske
puts the flower in the place of the watch, Sorley, the moral nature of
man, and Balfour, the conditions of animal life, it is not quite clear
why if the Paleyan argument is invalid, the new form is any more
intellectually respectable. The essence of the Paleyan argument was the
assertion of a mind behind phenomena, the workings of which could be
seen in the forms of animal life. And whether we find that proof in the
growth of a flower, or in the moral sense of man, or in the creation of
natural conditions that impel the development of life along a certain
road, the distinction is not vital. We are still finding proofs of God
in the structure of the world (where otherwise, indeed, are we to find
it?) and we are still depending on the supposed likeness between the
works of human intelligence and natural products.

And that analogy is wholly false. The argument from design aims at
proving that _all_ things are made by a creative intelligence. It is not
merely animals that are designed; they are selected as no more than
striking individual examples of a general truth. Everything, if theism
be true, must be ultimately due to manufacture. But the whole
significance of the Paleyan argument fro