366 LESSONS FKOM NATUKE. [CHAP. XII. 



tions above mentioned, namely, that to our conception of 

 First objec- &quot; wisdom &quot; and &quot; purpose &quot; as attributes of the First 

 gaut/of d Na- Cause. As has been said, these objections are often 

 drawn from nature s seemingly blind prodigality, 

 when &quot; of a thousand seeds she often brings but one to bear.&quot; 

 Mr. Lewes, with this idea in his mind, asks* whether we 

 should consider that man wise, who spilt a gallon of wine in 

 order to fill a wine-glass ? 



To this sort of objection it may be replied that even man has 

 often several distinct intentions and motives for a single act ; 

 and any one who believes in God can have no difficulty in 

 supposing that the purpose of any natural process, as it is 

 apparent to the human observer, may be but an exceedingly 

 subordinate one out of an infinite number of motives in the 

 Divine mind. Baden Powell has well asked : f &quot; How can 

 we undertake to affirm, amid all the possibilities of things of 

 which we confessedly know so little, that a thousand ends 

 and purposes may not be answered, because we can trace 

 none, or even imagine none, which seem to short-sighted 

 faculties to be answered in these particular arrangements ?&quot; 



But even we are often able to detect utilities which become 

 apparent long after events, which at first were apparently 

 purposeless, have taken place. As an illustration of long 

 latent utility, the immense coal deposits may be cited. On 

 this subject Professor Huxley remarks : &quot; Let us suppose that 

 one of the stupid salamander-like Labyrinthodonts, which 

 pottered with much belly and little leg, like Falstaff in his 

 old age, among the coal-forests, could have had thinking 

 power enough in his small brain to reflect upon the showers 

 of spores which kept on falling through years and centuries, 

 while perhaps not one in ten million fulfilled its apparent 

 purpose, and reproduced the organism which gave it birth.&quot; 

 And the writer goes on to imagine the creature &quot; moralising 

 upon the thoughtless and wanton extravagance which nature 

 displayed in her operations !&quot; Yet this &quot; thoughtless extra- 



* Fortnightly Review, July 1867, p. 100. 

 t Unity of Worlds, Essay ii. p. 260. 



