CREATION BY LAW. 2C5 



The point on which the Duke of Argyll lays most 

 stress, is, that proofs of Mind everywhere meet us in 

 Nature, and are more especially manifest wherever we 

 find "contrivance" or "beauty." He maintains that 

 this indicates the constant supervision and direct in- 

 terference of the Creator, and cannot possibly be 

 explained by the unassisted action of any combination 

 of laws. Now, Mr. Darwin's work has for its main 

 object, to show, that all the phenomena of living 

 things, all their wonderful organs and complicated 

 structures, their infinite variety of form, size, and 

 colour, their intricate and involved relations to each 

 other, may have been produced by the action of a 

 few general laws of the simplest kind, laws which are 

 in most cases mere statements of admitted facts. The 

 chief of these laws or facts are the following : 



1. The Law of Multiplication in Geometrical Pro- 

 gression. All organized beings have enormous powers 

 of multiplication. Even man, who increases slower 

 than all other animals, could under the most favour- 

 able circumstances double his numbers every fifteen 

 years, or a hundred-fold in a century. Many animals 

 and plants could increase their numbers from ten to 

 a thousand-fold every year. 



2. The Law of Limited Populations. The number 

 of living individuals of each species in any country, 

 or in the whole globe, is practically stationary ; whence 

 it follows that the whole of this enormous increase 

 must die off almost as fast as produced, except only 

 those individuals for whom room is made by the death 



