RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. 247 



from age to age. And, though the progress may be exceedingly slow, 

 the nature of the progress can not be mistaken. 



If the " Natural Theology " were now to be written, the stress of 

 the argument would be put on a different place. Instead of insisting 

 wholly or mainly on the wonderful adaptation of means to ends in the 

 structure of living animals and plants, we should look rather to the 

 original properties impressed on matter from the beginning, and on 

 the beneficent consequences that have flowed from those properties. 

 We should dwell on the peculiar properties that must be inherent in 

 the molecules of the original elements to cause such results to follow 

 from their action and reaction on one another. "We should dwell on 

 the part played in the universe by the properties of oxygen, the great 

 purifier, and one of the great heat-givers ; of carbon, the chief light- 

 giver and heat-giver ; of water, the great solvent and the store-house 

 of heat ; of the atmosphere and the vapors in it, the protector of the 

 earth which it surrounds. We should trace the beneficent effects of 

 pain and pleasure in their subservience to the purification of life. The 

 marks of a purpose impressed from the first on all creation would be 

 even more visible than ever before. 



And we could not overlook the beauty of nature and of all created 

 things as part of that purpose, coming in many cases out of that very 

 survival of the fittest of which Darwin has spoken, and yet a distinct 

 object in itself. For this beauty there is no need in the economy of 

 Nature whatever. The beauty of the starry heavens, which so im- 

 pressed the mind of Kant that he put it by the side of the moral law 

 as proving the existence of a Creator, is not wanted either for the 

 evolution of the world or for the preservation of living creatures. 

 Our enjoyment of it is a superadded gift certainly not necessary for 

 the existence or the continuance of our species. The beauty of flow- 

 ers, according to the teaching of the doctrine of evolution, has gener- 

 ally grown out of the need which makes it good for plants to attract 

 insects. The insects carry the pollen from flower to flower, and thus, 

 as it were, mix the breed ; and this produces the stronger plants which 

 outlive the competition of the rest. The plants, therefore, which are 

 most conspicuous gain an advantage by attracting insects most. That 

 successive generations of flowers should thus show brighter and bright- 

 er colors is intelligible. But the- beauty of flowers is far more than 

 mere conspicuousness of colors, even though that be the main ingre- 

 dient. Why should the wonderful grace, and delicacy, and harmony 

 of tint be added ? Is all this mere chance ? Is all this superfluity 

 pervading the whole world and perpetually supplying to the highest 

 of living creatures, and that, too, in a real proportion to his superiority, 

 the most refined and elevating of pleasures, an accident without any 

 purpose at all ? If evolution has produced the world such as we see 

 and all its endless beauty, it has bestowed on our own dwelling-place 

 in lavish abundance and in marvelous perfection that on which men 



