342 LESSONS FKOM NATURE. [CHAP. XI. 



from broken fragments of rock, and makes use even of strong 

 expressions of the kind referred to. He says ; 



&quot; In regard to the use to which the fragments may be put, their 



shape may STRICTLY be said to be accidental If the various 



laws which have determined the shape of each fragment were not pre 

 determined for the builder s sake, can it with any greater probability 

 be maintained that He specially ordained, for the sake of the breeder, 

 each of the innumerable variations in our domestic animals and 

 plants ? . . . . But, if we give up the principle in one case if we do 

 not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally 

 guided, in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image 

 of symmetry and vigour, might be formed no shadow of reason can 

 be assigned for the belief that the variations, alike in nature, and the 

 result of the same general laws, which have been the groundwork 

 through Natural Selection of the formation of the most perfectly 

 adapted animals in the world, MAN INCLUDED, were intentionally and 

 specially guided. However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow 

 Professor Asa Gray in his belief that &quot; variation has been led along 

 certain beneficial lines,&quot; like a stream &quot; along definite and useful lines of 

 irrigation.&quot; 



&quot; Not only then may the organic world, on the Darwinian 

 theory, be conceived as formed in some sense accidentally, 

 but we have Mr. Darwin s own words for viewing that for 

 mation as STRICTLY ACCIDENTAL. I say his words, because 

 I am far from desiring to bind Mr. Darwin in anti-teleological 

 fetters. I have carefully given him credit for every theistic 

 expression I noticed, as it was at once my duty and my 

 pleasure to do. 



&quot; Here I take the opportunity of acknowledging, as I have 

 also done in my second edition, that an American naturalist 

 Professor Theophilus Parsons, of Harvard University put 

 forth, more than ten years ago, views * very similar to those 

 I enunciated in my Genesis of Species, though they were of 

 course unknown to me when I published my first edition. 

 Mr. Wright, however, is mistaken when he states that I am 

 indebted to Mr. Gal ton for my conception of specific 

 genesis, although I made use, with due acknowledgment, of 



* &quot; See the July number of the American Journal of Science and Art for 

 1860. 



