in my hand; I now release my hold from it and it instantly falls to the ground; that does not surely prove either that I was designed to hold up that glass, or that the glass was designed to fall on withdrawing my grasp from it. At most it only proves that I am capable of holding it, and that when I release it, it is impelled by the law of gravitation to fall towards the earth.

But there is another view of this question I wish to present to you. From this argument it is not quite clear that there is only one supreme god of the universe. Admittedly this is an argument based upon experience. What does experience teach us in respect to a person? Simply this. That a person must have an organisation, and a person with an organisation must be a limited being. Has god an organisation? If he has not, he cannot be intelligent, cannot perceive, recollect, judge; and if he has, then an organisation implies contrivance, and contrivance implies a contriver, and this again instead of leading up to one god, leads to an innumerable tribe of deities each mightier and more complicated than the other.

If the Theist retorts that a person need not have an organisation, the Atheist at once replies that neither need the designer of Nature be a person.

But these are not the only objections to be used against the design argument. The à priori theologians have some very potent arguments to advance. Mr. William Gillespie has discovered twenty-four defects of à posteriori arguments, and I think he has conclusively shown that all the attributes claimed for deity are impeached by this method.

In my humble opinion the design argument has grown out of the arrogance and conceit of man, who imagines that the earth and all the things existing upon it were treated especially for his benefit.

Suppose that I admit that there is design in Nature, the Theist has then to account for some awkward and many horrible designs. How will he get over the fact that Nature is one vast battle-field on which all life is engaged in warfare? What goodness will he see in the design that gives the strong and cunning the advantage over the weak and simple? What beneficence will he detect in the fact that all animals "prey" upon one another? and that man is not exempt from the struggle? Famine destroys thousands; earthquakes desolate a land; and what tongue can tell the anguish and pain endured by the very poor in all great countries of the earth? Think of the "ills to which flesh is heir." Think of the diseases from which so many thousands suffer. Think how many endure agony from cancer or tumor, how many have within their bodies parasites which locate themselves in the liver, the muscles, and the intestines, causing great agony and sometimes death. Think how many are born blind and how many become sightless on account of disease. Think of the deaf and the dumb, and of the poor idiots who pass a dreary and useless existence in asylums. Then think of the accidents to which all men are liable. Think of the many who are killed or injured on railways every year. Think of men and boys who injure or destroy their limbs in machinery during the performance of their daily work. Think of the thousands who find a premature and watery grave. In one of our London workhouses I saw recently a young man who had met with a dreadful accident; who had had his hand frightfully lacerated by a circular saw, which will prevent him from ever working again. Think of his suffering. Think of the misery his wife and children will have to bear on account of it. It almost makes one shed bitter tears to think of it; and yet we are to be told, we who are striving to alleviate suffering and mitigate the evils which afflict our fellow creatures, we are to be told that an infinitely wise and good god designs these things.

Oh the blasphemy of it! Surely an infinite fiend could not do worse; and if I thought that Nature were intelligent, that Nature knew of the suffering she inflicted on all kinds of living beings and had the power to prevent it, but would