370 THE LIMITS OF NATURAL SELECTION 



opens up infinite possibilities of existence, connected 

 with infinitely varied manifestations of force, totally 

 distinct from, yet as real as, what we term matter. 



The grand law of continuity which we see pervading 

 our universe, would lead us to infer infinite gradations 



/ o 



of existence, and to people all space with intelligence 

 and will-power ; and, if so, we have no difficulty in 

 believing that for so noble a purpose as the progressive 

 development of higher and higher intelligences, those 

 primal and general will-forces, which have sufficed 

 for the production of the lower animals, should have 

 been guided into new channels and made to converge 

 in definite directions. And if, as seems to me probable, 

 this has been done, I cannot admit that it in any 

 degree affects the truth or generality of Mr. Darwin's 

 great discovery. It merely shows, that the laws of 

 organic development have been occasionally used for 

 a special end, just as man uses them for his special 

 ends ; and, I do not see that the law of " natural 

 selection " can be said to be disproved, if it can be 

 shown that man does not owe his entire physical and 

 mental development to its unaided action, any more 

 than it is disproved by the existence of the poodle 

 or the pouter pigeon, the production of which may 

 have been equally beyond its undirected power. 



The objections which in this essay 1 have taken, to 

 the view, that the same law which appears to have 

 sufficed for the development of animals, has been alone 

 the cause of man's superior physical and mental nature, 

 will, I have no doubt, be over-ruled and explained 



