i84 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



the sun, the atmosphere, and the earth, and may 

 provide for what these fail to explain by the assump 

 tion of potentialities equivalent to the things pro 

 duced. But the probability of such an hypothesis 

 becomes infinitely small when we consider the variety 

 and the diversity of things and forces which must 

 have conspired to produce the results observed, and 

 to maintain them so constantly, and yet with so much 

 difference in circumstances and details. It is a relief 

 to turn from such bewildering and gratuitous sup 

 positions to the theory which supposes a designing 

 creative mind. 



From the boundless variety of illustrations which 

 the animal kingdom presents I may select one the 

 contrivances by means of which marine animals are 

 enabled to balance themselves in the waters. In that 



vwonderful hymn of creation, Psalm civ., at whose 



compass and truth and grandeur the great Humboldt 

 expressed his astonishment, we find in one of the 

 verses mention of the great and wide sea wherein are 

 moving things innumerable, small and great animals. 



VThere go the ships : there is that leviathan Thou hast 

 made to play therein. I believe that in this passage 

 the ships are not those of man, but God s floating 



. things whose home is on the sea. In any case, these 

 floaters are marvellous examples of cunning contri- 

 ,yance. The pearly nautilus is an eminent example. 1 



1 The uses of the chambers of the nautilus shell have been doubted 

 by some recent observers, but the character of the structures would 

 seem to admit of no other interpretation. 



