The Theory of Sexual Selection. 4 1 1 



rhinoceros, elephant, crocodile, and so forth, where 

 natural selection has had no concern in developing 

 speed, that the accompanying accident of gracefulness 

 can be allowed to disappear. But if beauty in or- 

 ganic nature had been in itself what may be termed 

 an artistic object on the part of a divine Creator, it 

 is absurd to suggest that his design in this matter 

 should only have been allowed to appear where we 

 are able to detect other and very good reasons for its 

 appearance. 



Thus, whether we look to the facts of adaptation 

 or to those of beauty, everywhere throughout organic 

 nature we meet with abundant evidence of natural 

 causation, while nowhere do we meet with any in- 

 dependent evidence of supernatural design. But, 

 having led up to this conclusion, and having thus 

 stated it as honestly as I can, I should like to finish 

 by further stating what, in my opinion, is its logical 

 bearing upon the more fundamental tenets of religious 

 thought. 



As I have already observed at the commencement 

 of this brief exposition, prior to the Darwinian theory 

 of organic evolution, the theologian was prone to point 

 to the realm of organic nature as furnishing a peculiarly 

 rich and virtually endless store of facts, all combining 

 in their testimony to the wisdom and the beneficence 

 of the Deity. Innumerable adaptations of structures 

 to functions appeared to yield convincing evidence 

 in favour of design ; the beauty so profusely shed 

 by living forms appeared to yield evidence, no less 

 convincing, of that design as beneficent. But both 

 these sources of evidence have now, as it were, been 



