vii CREATION BY LAW 161 



navigable river, and reflect how easily rocks, or a steeper 

 channel in places, might render it useless to man ; and a 

 little inquiry would show him hundreds of rivers in every 

 part of the world, which are thus rendered useless for 

 navigation. 



Exactly the same thing occurs in organic nature. We see 

 some one wonderful case of adjustment, some unusual develop- 

 ment of an organ, but we pass over the hundreds of cases in 

 which that adjustment and development do not occur. No 

 doubt when one adjustment is absent another takes its place, 

 because no organism can continue to exist that is not adjusted 

 to its environment ; and unceasing variation, with unlimited 

 powers of multiplication, in most cases, furnishes the means 

 of self-adjustment. The world is so constituted that by the 

 action of general laws there is produced the greatest possible 

 variety of surface and of climate ; and by the action of laws 

 equally general, the greatest possible variety of organisms has 

 been produced, adapted to the varied conditions of every part of 

 the earth. The objector would probably himself admit that 

 the varied surface of the earth the plains and valleys, the 

 hills and mountains, the deserts and volcanoes, the winds and 

 currents, the seas and lakes and rivers, and the various 

 climates of the earth are all the results of general laws 

 acting and reacting during countless ages ; and that the 

 Creator does not appear to guide and control the action of 

 these laws here determining the height of a mountain, there 

 altering the channel of a river here making the rains more 

 abundant, there changing the direction of a current. He 

 would probably admit that the forces of inorganic nature are 

 self-adjusting, and that the result necessarily fluctuates about 

 a given mean condition (which is itself slowly changing), while 

 within certain limits the greatest possible amount of variety 

 is produced. If then a " contriving mind " is not necessary 

 at every step of the process of change eternally going on in 

 the inorganic world, why are we required to believe in the con- 

 tinual action of such a mind in the region of organic nature ? 

 True, the laws at work are more complex, the adjustments 

 more delicate, the appearance of special adaptation more 

 remarkable ; but why should we measure the creative mind 

 by our own? Why should we suppose the machine too 



