XL] SPECIFIC GENESIS. 273 



simple action directed to one end which generally marks 

 human activity. 



Organic nature then speaks clearly to many minds of 

 the action of an intelligence resulting, on the whole and 

 in the main, in order, harmony, and beauty, yet of an 

 intelligence the ways of which are not as our ways. 



This view of evolution harmonizes well with Theistic 

 conceptions ; not, of course, that this harmony is brought 

 forward as an argument in its favour generally, but it will 

 have weight with those who are convinced that Theism 

 reposes upon solid grounds of reason as the rational view 

 of the universe. To such it may be observed that, thus 

 conceived, the Divine action has that slight amount of 

 resemblance to, and that wide amount of divergence from 

 what human action would be, which might be expected a 

 priori — might be expected, that is, from a Being whose 

 nature and aims are utterly beyond our power to imagine, 

 however faintly, but whose truth and goodness are the 

 fountain and source of our own perceptions of such 

 (qualities. 



The view of evoUition maintained in this work, though 

 arrived at in complete independence,^ yet seems to agree 

 in many respects with the views advocated by Professor 

 Owen in the last volume of his ''Anatomy of Vertebrates," 

 under the term " derivation." He says : ^ " Derivation holds 

 that every species changes in time, by virtue of inherent 

 tendencies thereto. ' Natural Selection ' holds that no such 



^ Since tlic publication of the first edition of this Iwok, its author has 

 become aware that simihir views were enunciated more than ten years 

 af^o by Professor Theophilus Parsons, of Harvard University, Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts They were published in the July Number oi i\\Q American 

 Journal of Science and Arts for 18 GO. 



2 Vol. Hi. p. 808. 



T 



