We can with difficulty comprehend the character of a
cosmic mind whose purposes are fully revealed by the strange mixture
of goods and evils that we find in this actual world's particulars.
Or rather we cannot by any possibility comprehend it. The mere word
'design' by itself has, we see, no consequences and explains
nothing. It is the barrenest of principles. The old question of
WHETHER there is design is idle. The real question is WHAT is the
world, whether or not it have a designer--and that can be revealed
only by the study of all nature's particulars.
Remember that no matter what nature may have produced or may be
producing, the means must necessarily have been adequate, must have
been FITTED TO THAT PRODUCTION. The argument from fitness to design
would consequently always apply, whatever were the product's
character. The recent Mont-Pelee eruption, for example, required all
previous history to produce that exact combination of ruined houses,
human and animal corpses, sunken ships, volcanic ashes, etc., in
just that one hideous configuration of positions. France had to be a
nation and colonize Martinique. Our country had to exist and send
our ships there. IF God aimed at just that result, the means by
which the centuries bent their influences towards it, showed
exquisite intelligence.
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