[45] Such being the objects in view, I have not thought it necessary to extend this criticism into anything resembling a review of Professor Flint's work as a whole; but, on the contrary, I have aimed rather at confining my observations to those parts of his treatise which embody the current arguments from teleology alone. I may here observe, however, in general terms, that I consider all his arguments to have been answered by anticipation in the foregoing examination of Theism. I may also here observe, that throughout the following essay I have used the word "design" in the sense in which it is used by Professor Flint himself. This sense is distinctly a different one from that which the word bears in the writings of the Paley, Bell, and Chalmers school. For while in the latter writings, as pointed out in [Chapter III.], the word bears its natural meaning of a certain process of thought, in Professor Flint's work it is used rather as expressive of a product of intelligence. In other words, "design," as used by Professor Flint, is synonymous with intention, irrespective of the particular psychological process by which the intention may have been put into effect.
[46] Op. cit., pp. 255-257.
[47] Let it be observed that there is a distinction between what I may call substantial and formal existence. Thus there is no doubt that flowers as flowers perish, or become non-existent; but the substances of which they were composed persist. And, in this connection, I may here point out that if the universe is infinite in space and time, the universe as a whole would present substantial existence as standing out of relation to space and time, whereas innumerable portions of the universe present only formal existences, because standing in relation both to space and time. Thus, for instance, the solar system, as a solar system, must have an end in time as it has a boundary in space; but as the substance of which it consists will not become extinguished by the extinction of the system, it may not now stand in any real relation to what we call space and time. I am inclined to think that it is upon the idea of non-existence in this formal sense that we construct a pseud-idea of non-existence in a substantial sense; but it is evident that if the universe as a whole is absolute, this pseud-idea must represent as impossibility. And from this it follows, that if existence is infinite in space and time, every quantum of it with which our experience comes into relation must represent, as its essential quality, that quality which we find to be presented by the substance of things—the quality, that is, of persistence.