xiii.] LAW OF NATURAL SELECTION. 331 



For suppose, gentlemen, that all the species of 

 Orchids, and not only they, but their congeners the 

 Gingers, the Arrowroots, the Bananas are all the 

 descendants of one original form, which was most 

 probably nearly allied to the Snowdrop and the Iris. 

 What then ? Would that be one whit more wonderful, 

 more unworthy of the wisdom and power of God, than 

 if they were, as most believe, created each and all at 

 once, with their minute and often imaginary shades of 

 difference ? What would the natural theologian have 

 to say, were the first theory true, save that God's 

 works are even more wonderful than he always 

 believed them to be ? As for the theory being 

 impossible : we must leave the discussion of that to 

 physical students. It is not for us clergymen to limit 

 the power of God. "Is anything too hard for the 

 Lord ? " asked the prophet of old : and we have a 

 right to ask it as long as time shall last. If it be said 

 that natural selection is too simple a cause to produce 

 such fantastic variety : that, again, is a question to be 

 settled exclusively by physical students. All we have 

 to say on the matter is, that we always knew that God 

 works by very simple, or seemingly simple, means ; 

 that the whole universe, 'as far as we could discern it, 

 was one concatenation of the most simple means ; that 

 it was wonderful, yea, miraculous in our eyes, that a 

 child should resemble its parents, that the rain- 

 drops should make the grass grow, that the grass 

 should become flesh, and the flesh sustenance for 

 the thinking brain of man. Ought God to seem less 

 or more august in our eyes, when we are told that His 

 means are even more simple than we supposed ? We 

 held Him to be Almighty and Allwise. Are we to 



