18591863] HERSCHEL 191 



respect to the Origin, something to the effect that the Letter 130 

 higher law of Providential Arrangement should always be 

 stated. But astronomers do not state that God directs the 

 course of each comet and planet. The view that each 

 variation has been providentially arranged seems to me to 

 make Natural Selection entirely superfluous, and indeed takes 

 the whole case of the appearance of new species out of the 

 range of science. But what makes me most object to Asa 

 Gray's view is the study of the extreme variability of domestic 

 animals. He who does not suppose that each variation in 

 the pigeon was providentially caused, by accumulating which 

 variations, man made a Fantail, cannot, I think, logically 

 argue that the tail of the woodpecker was formed by 

 variations providentially ordained. It seems to me that 

 variations in the domestic and wild conditions are due to 

 unknown causes, and are without purpose, and in so far 

 accidental ; and that they become purposeful only when they 

 are selected by man for his pleasure, or by what we call 



January, 1861 : "This was written previous to the publication of Mr. 

 Darwin's work on the Origin of Species, a work which, whatever its 

 merit or ingenuity, we cannot, however, consider as having disproved the 

 view taken in the text. We can no more accept the principle of arbitrary 

 and casual variation and natural selection as a sufficient account, per se, 

 of the past and present organic world, than we can receive the Laputan 

 method of composing books (pushed a outrance] as a sufficient one of 

 Shakespeare and the Principia. Equally in either case an intelligence, 

 guided by a purpose, must be continually in action to bias the directions 

 of the steps of change to regulate their amount, to limit their diver- 

 gence, and to continue them in a definite course. We do not believe 

 that Mr. Darwin means to deny the necessity of such intelligent direction. 

 But it does not, so far as we can see, enter into the formula of this law, 

 and without it we are unable to conceive how far the law can have led 

 to the results. On the other hand, we do not mean to deny that such 

 intelligence may act according to a law (that is to say, on a preconceived 

 and definite plan). Such law, stated in words, would be no other than 

 the actual observed law of organic succession ; a one more general, 

 taking that form when applied to our own planet, and including all the 

 links of the chain which have disappeared. But the one law is a necessary 

 supplement to tJie other, and ought, in all logical propriety, to form a 

 part of its enunciation. Granting this, and with some demur as to the 

 genesis of man, we are far from disposed to repudiate the view taken of 

 this mysterious subject in Mr. Darwin's book." The sentence in italics 

 is no doubt the one referred to in the letter to Lyell. See Letter 243. 



