OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 425 



natural generation, as it would have been in the case of the first dog if 

 suddenly presented for inspection ; that, if the argument for design is 

 not weakened because our dogs are known to come from similar parent 

 dogs, nor because Newfoundland dogs were dei'ived from mastiffs or 

 some other variety many years ago, neither would it be weakened if 

 both varieties, and many others, came from some species of wolf, as 

 is the prevalent opinion, nor if this wolf were derived from some post- 

 tertiary or tertiary wolf, and this from some earlier one, the remote 

 ancestor of all existing wolves and dogs ; that it is all the same as to 

 the argument for design, this resting on the adaptation of structure to 

 use, irrespective of the particular manner in which the adaptation may 

 be conceived to have been brought about. He also insisted, that no 

 theist is entitled to hold that the so-called accidental element in natural 

 selection negatives design, though it may render it more difficult to prove 

 design in opposition to the atheist ; and he adduced a series of anal- 

 ogies and parallels from the relations of one animal to another and to 

 plants, — from the relations of both to the inorganic world, — from the 

 gradual preparation of the earth's surface, in the theist's view, for man's 

 existence and well-being, — from the evolution of our solar system, and 

 the development of the actual state of our planet, which no one now 

 doubts was a progressive development, while most theists consider the 

 results not only as compatible with design, but as, in the largest sense, 

 designed results, — as all showing that the argument he was opposing, if 

 it proved anything, proved far too much. To the objection, that, while 

 a variation which was an improvement survived through natural selec- 

 tion, a vast number being no improvements, but perhaps the contrary, 

 perished, — that the latter " were therefore useless, if not injurious, 

 therefore without a purpose, without a final cause," — and therefore 

 that the theory negatived design altogether, — Professor Gray replied, 

 that the same might be said of the vast number of rain-drops which were 

 raised from the surface of the ocean only to fall back into it, while a 

 smaller number, wafted inland, supported vegetable and animal life ; and 

 also of the vast proportion of pollen and sperm, which were designed to 

 impregnate ovules and ova, and of seeds, eggs, &c., which, though 

 potential plants and animals, perish undeveloped, and are therefore pur- 

 poseless in the same sense, and only in the same sense, as are the un- 

 improved, unused, or unperpetuated variations referred to. 



As to the relation of theories of origination to efficient and intelligent 



VOL. IV. 54 



