190 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



less microscopic ovum, has all these vast numbers to 

 deal with in working out the exact result, and this 

 not in one case merely, but in multitudes of cases 

 involving the most varied combinations. We can 

 scarcely suppose the atoms themselves to have the 

 power of thus unerringly marshalling themselves to 

 work out the structures of organisms infinitely varied, 

 yet all alike after their kinds. If not, then * Nature 

 must be a goddess gifted with superhuman powers of 

 calculation and marvellous deftness in arranging in 

 visible atoms. 



4. The beauty of form, proportion, and colouring 

 that abounds in nature affords evidence of mind. 

 Herculean efforts have been made by modern 

 agnostic evolutionists to eliminate altogether the 

 idea of beauty from nature by theories of sexual 

 selection and the like, and to persuade us that beauty 

 is merely utility in disguise, and even then only an 

 accidental coincidence between our perceptions and 

 certain external things. But in no part of their 

 argument have they more signally failed in account 

 ing for the observed facts, and in no part have they 

 more seriously outraged the common-sense and 

 natural taste of men. In point of fact, we have here 

 one of those great correlations belonging to the unity 

 of nature that indissoluble connection which has 

 been established between the senses and the aesthetic 

 sentiments of man and certain things in the external 

 world. But there is more in beauty than this merely 



