here what seems to me a valid inference, so far as it goes, to the
effect that, if the general order of Nature is due to Mind, the
character of that Mind is such as it is conceived to be by the most
highly developed form of religion. A conclusion which is no doubt the
opposite of that which we reached by contemplating the phenomena of
biology; and a contradiction which can only be overcome by supposing,
either that Nature conceals God, while man reveals Him, or that Nature
reveals God while man misrepresents Him.

There is still one other fact of a very wide and general kind presented
by Nature, which, if the order of Nature is taken to be the expression
of intelligent purpose, ought in my opinion to be regarded as of great
weight in furnishing evidence upon the ethical quality of that purpose.
It is a fact which, so far as I know, has not been considered by any
other writer; but from its being one of the most general of all the
facts relating to the sentient creation, and from its admitting of no
one single exception, I feel that I am not able too strongly to
emphasize its argumentative importance. This fact is, as I have stated
it on a former occasion, 'that amid all the millions of mechanisms and
instincts in the animal kingdom, there is no one instance of a mechanism
or instinct occurring in one species for the exclusive benefit of
another species, although there are a few cases in which a mechanism or
instinct that is of benefit to its possessor has come also to be
utilized by other species. Now, on the beneficent design theory it is
impossible to explain why, when all the mechanisms in the same species
are invariably correlated for the benefit of that species, there should
never be any such correlation between mechanisms in different species,
or why the same remark should apply to instincts. For how magnificent a
display of Divine beneficence would organic nature have afforded, if
all, or even some, species had been so inter-related as to minister to