SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER II.
This Chapter enters upon an examination of the kind of reasoning involved in the Argument from Design, and an inquiry into its special force. These investigations are accompanied by illustrative examples of Analogy in different shapes. The most powerful objections against this argument, and the various modes of stating it, are then described and criticised.
A re-statement of the whole line of thought is followed by the outline of a proposed method for the constructive science of Natural Theology.
The Chapter closes with a corollary on Efficient and Final Causes.
Analysis—Argument from Design—Its Popular Form, and the Popular Objections raised against it—Art and Nature dissimilar—Organic and Inorganic Worlds, their Unlikeness and their Likenesses—Difference between Similitude and Analogy, whether the latter be Illustrative or Illative, and easiest ways of stating both Analogies.
Scientific Difficulties—Charge of proving too much—Anthropomorphism and Dualism—Physical and Moral Antithesis—Was Paley to blame for introducing these Questions?—Answer to the charge of proving too much—On how many points need Analogy rest?—Examples.
Charge of proving too little—Design assumes Designer as a Foregone Conclusion—Process observed is test of Designer in Art, but fails in Nature—Criticism on these Objections.
Baden Powell compared with Paley—Wide Views and Inductions—Argument analysed into Gradations of Proof, Order, and Intelligence—Means, Ends, and Foresight—Physical and Moral Causation—Argument analysed into various Lines of Proof—Their Separate and Consilient Force.
Value of Powell's views on Causation—Objections against some peculiarities of his language—Natural Theology and Natural Religion distinguished—Professor Newman—Use of Words on subject of Design.
Statement of the Constructive Method now to be employed—Corollary on Efficient and Final Causes.