r conception of
order is itself the product of the experienced sequence which
constitutes the order in question. Our ideas of order are not
independent of the world, they are its product--an expression of the
relation between organism and environment. Given a different organism,
with different sense organs, and the world would appear different. On
the other hand the whole structure of man is the result of the existing
conditions. Assume the order to be changed, and the human
organism--presuming it still to exist, will undergo corresponding
modifications. It would not find less order or less beauty, the order
and the beauty would simply be found in another direction. And,
presumably, the theist would still point to the existence of _that_
order as clear proof of a designing intelligence.

Something needs to be said here on a more recent form of the argument
from the "order" of nature than the one we have been discussing. There
is no vital distinction between the old and the new form, but a
variation in terms seems to produce on some minds a conviction of
newness--itself a proof that the nature of the old form had never been
fully realised.

This new form is that based upon what is called "Directivity."
Recognising that it is no longer possible to successfully dispute the
scientific proposition that the state of the universe at any one moment
must be taken as the result of all the conditions then prevailing, and,
therefore, it is to the operation of the ultimate properties of matter,
force, ether,--or whatever name we choose to give to the substance of
the universe--it is argued that we nevertheless require some directing
force which will set, and keep the universe on its present track.

But there is really nothing in this beyond the now familiar appeal to
human impotence. "We do not know," "We cannot see," are quite excellent
reasons for saying nothing at all, but the very worst ground on which to
make positive statements, or on which to base positive beliefs. The
only condition that would justify our making human ignorance a ground
on which to make statements of the kind named would be that we had
demonstrably exhausted the possibilities of natural forces, and no
further developments were possible in this direction. Far from this
being the case there is not a single man of science who would dissent
from the statement that we are only upon the threshold of a knowledge of
their possibilities.

And this assumption of