I 



NATURAL SELECTION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY 249 



education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about 

 Paley's premises ; and, taking these on trust, I was charmed and 

 convinced by the long line of argumentation." 



As most of the writers on natural theology were clergymen 

 who united thorough literary education with professional training 

 in the art of interesting untrained audiences, they made use of 

 simple, familiar illustrations ; and Paley, whose influence was great- 

 est, bases his argument upon such things as the fitness of the eye 

 for vision ; the adaptation of the joints of our limbs to the move- 

 ments which the limbs are fitted for making ; the fitness of feathers 

 for covering animals which fly; the advantage of symmetry in 

 paired organs, like limbs and eyes; the compact arrangement of 

 parts exhibited by the irregular viscera which are packed within 

 the body without disturbing its external symmetry ; and similar 

 facts which may be easily verified by all : but early in our century 

 there was published in England a series of books which, approach- 

 ing natural science in the same way, appeal to more mature minds. 

 The Rev. Francis Henry, eighth Earl of Bridgewater, who died 

 Feb. II, 1829, left by will to the Royal Society ;£8ooo, to be paid 

 to the author or authors selected to write and pubUsh a treatise 

 " On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in 

 Creation." The president of the society selected eight persons, 

 each to undertake a branch of the subject and each to receive 

 ;£iooo, together with any benefit which might accrue from the sale 

 of his work. 



The aim of these treatises is sufficiently indicated by the general 

 title which was given to them in the will; but this is set forth, 

 more at length, in the one on " Geology and Mineralogy considered 

 with Reference to Natural Theology," by the Rev. William Buckland 

 (1836). 



''Its purpose," he tells us, "is to extend into the organic remains 

 of a former world the same kind of investigation which Paley had 

 pursued with so much success, in his examination of the evidences 

 of design in the mechanical structure of the corporeal frame of 

 man, and of the inferior animals which are placed with him on 

 the present surface of the earth. 



"Every comparative anatomist is familiar," he says, "with the 



utiful examples of mechanical contrivances and compensations 



t 



