428 CONCLUbING REMARKS. Chap. XXVIII. 



same general laws, wliicli have been the groundwork through 

 natural selection of the formation of the most perfectly 

 adapted animals in the world, man included, were inten- 

 tionally and specially guided. However much we may wi«h 

 it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief " that 

 *' variation has been led along certain beneficial lines," like a 

 stream " along definite and useful lines of irrigation." If we 

 assume that each particular variation was from the beginning 

 of all time preordained, then that plasticity of organisation, 

 which leads to many injurious deviations of structure, as well 

 as the redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads 

 to a struggle for existence, and, as a consequence, to the 

 natural selection or survival of the fittest, must appear to us 

 superfluous laws of nature. On the other hand, an omni- 

 potent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and fore- 

 sees everything. Thus we are brought face to face with 

 a difficulty as insoluble as is that of free will and predesti- 

 nation. 



