In other words, the wisdom of a wise thing is seen to be wise, though the theory has no light to throw on the way in which that wisdom found entrance. This is vigorously rejecting a front entrance and surreptitiously creeping in at the one in the rear.

Here, then, is the strongest proof of rational purposes in the world. We deny them; we set our faces against them; we introduce a new view to displace them. Yet, on careful analysis, we find that view is strong just so far as it has furtively introduced them, and is without light so far as it has rejected them. Final causes involve theism, and final causes are not and cannot be escaped in any comprehensive inquiry into the structure of the world. Even when we are tracing exclusively efficient causes, the entire light of the process shines upon it from the manifest order and combination of which they are constituents.

§ 10. Still another inquiry with which modern thought is busy involves, in yet a higher form, the theistic idea; it is that of the philosophy of history. If there is a true philosophy of history, it is present as a supreme spiritual product in some way provided for in every part of evolution until now. On the other hand, if there is no philosophy of history, or only such a philosophy as shows it to be the mere product of physical causes, the fact makes strongly against any Spiritual Presence in the world. Such a Presence must shape all things for itself, and ripen all things into a spiritual ministration. The intellectual world is full of this idea of social development, and the study of history has thereby gained a