harmony resulting as a physically necessary consequence from the
combined action of natural laws, which in turn result as a physically
necessary consequence of the persistence of force and the primary
qualities of matter. But although it is thus indisputably true that
metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered
scientifically, it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if
considered psychologically. In other words, if it is more conceivable
that Mind should be the ultimate cause of cosmic harmony than that the
persistence of force should be so, then it is not irrational to accept
the more conceivable hypothesis in preference to the less conceivable
one, provided that the choice is made with the diffidence which is
required by the considerations adduced in Chapter V [especially the
_Canon of probability_ laid down in the second paragraph of this
section, § 5].

'I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology,
although in a physical sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense
legitimate. But as against the fundamental position on which alone this
argument can rest--viz. the 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 _realizable_ 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 organization 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