278 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



adaptation, leaving for subsequent consideration the 

 facts of beauty. 



Innumerable cases of the adaptation of organisms 

 to their surroundings being the facts which now stand 

 before us to be explained either by natural selection 

 or by supernatural intention, we may first consider a 

 statement which is frequently met with namely, that 

 even if all such cases of adaptation were proved to 

 be fully explicable by the theory of descent, this 

 would constitute no disproof of the theory of design: 

 all the cases of adaptation, it is argued, might still 

 be due to design, even though they admit of being 

 hypothetically accounted for by the theory of descent. 

 I have heard an eminent Professor tell his class that 

 the many instances of mechanical adaptation discovered 

 and described by Darwin as occurring in orchids, 

 seemed to him to furnish better proof of supernatural 

 contrivance than of natural causes ; and another emi- 

 nent Professor has informed me that, although he had 

 read the Origin of Species with care, he could see in 

 it no evidence of natural selection which might not 

 equally well have been adduced in favour of intelligent 

 design. But here we meet with a radical misconception 

 of the whole logical attitude of science. For, be it 

 observed, this exception in limine to the evidence 

 which we are about to consider does not question that 

 natural selection may be able to do all that Darwin 

 ascribes to it. The objection is urged against his 

 interpretation of the facts merely on the ground that 

 these facts might equally well be ascribed to intelligent 

 design. And so undoubtedly they might, if we were 

 all simple enough to adopt a supernatural explana- 

 tion whenever a natural one is found sufficient to 



