ADAPTATIONS 



and to investigate the operations of nat- 

 ural laws is the great and honorable prov- 

 ince of Science, because she deals with 

 facts or with reasoning based only on 

 facts. But in such an infinitely complex 

 problem, more so than any in physics, 

 chemistry, astronomy, or in any other sci- 

 ence, it is no discredit to the learners that 

 they still have so much more to learn. 

 One might as well reprimand a young 

 class not through with their primers, be- 

 cause they could not read and forthwith 

 interpret one of Browning's poetical co- 

 nundrums in his Rienzi. 



But a mental necessity impels one to 

 ask, what is back of all these blind natural 

 laws, to make their operations overshadow 

 everything else for pure adaptive fitness? 

 Laws never explain what makes them laws 

 any more than the movements of the hands 

 of a clock explain what makes those hands 

 move so regularly. We know a great 

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