DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 75 



weakened when a variation, or series or variations, has 

 occurred in the course, as great as any variations we 

 know of among domestic cattle, how then is it weak- 

 ened by the supposition, or by the likelihood, that the 

 variations have been twice or thrice as great as we for- 

 merly supposed, or because the variations have been 

 " picked out," and a few of them preserved as breeders 

 of still other variations, by natural selection ? 



Finally let it be noted that your element of necessity 

 has to do, so far as we know, only w r ith the picking out 

 and preserving of certain changing forms, i. e., with the 

 natural selection. This selection, you may say, must 

 happen under the circumstances. This is a necessary 

 result of the collision of the balls ; and these results can 

 be predicted. If the balls strike so and so, they will 

 be deflected so and so. But the variation itself is of 

 the nature of an origination. It answers w T ell to the 

 original impulse of the balls, or to a series of such 

 impulses. "We cannot predict what particular new 

 variation will occur from any observation of the past. 

 Just as the first impulse was given to the balls at a 

 point out of sight, so the inpulse which resulted in the 

 variety or new form was given at a point beyond ob- 

 servation, and is equally mysterious or unaccountable, 

 except on the supposition of an ordaining will. The 

 parent had not the peculiarity of the variety, the pro- 

 geny has. Between the two is the dim or obscure region 

 of the formation of a new individual, in some unknown 

 part of which, and in some wholly unknown way, the 

 difference is intercalated. To introduce necessity here 

 is gratuitous and unscientific ; but here you must have 

 it to make your argument valid. 



