LECTURE XIII 



LOUIS AGASSIZ AND GEORGE BERKELEY 



Whether the Origin of Species has or has not any bearing on 

 the argument from design, it clearly has very obvious and positive 

 bearing on certain arguments that have been thought to prove de- 

 sign ; although belief that nature gives evidence of intention may be 

 held by those who doubt whether it affords any proof of contriv- 

 ance — of any use of instruments — that is not itself a part of the 

 order of nature. While every phase of the teleological argument 

 which our faculties permit has, no doubt, been considered by shrewd 

 thinkers long ago, the work of Wallace and Darwin has brought 

 clearly and distinctly before all the question whether it is contrivance 



— the use of means or instruments, and the overcoming of difficulties 



— or nature itself, which the teleologists believe to prove design. So 

 far as the limitations of human speech are adequate to put it into 

 words, the peculiar teleological problem of the nineteenth century 

 seems to be whether we must prove contrivance, or interference with 

 nature, in order to show intention ; for it is now clear to us, as it 

 never has been before, that, even if it be not impossible, it is very 

 difficult to show the occurrence of any planning or contriving that 

 is not itself a part of the orderly course of nature, admitting of a 

 mechanical explanation ; nor does it seem judicious or clear sighted 

 to base natural theology upon anything else than nature. 



These two elements, the argument from contrivance, and the 

 argument from intention, are sometimes distinguished by the writers 

 on natural theology, although none of them, so far as I can discover, 

 keeps the distinction clearly and constantly in mind. In fact, most 

 of them seem to me to so entangle these two points of view as to 

 show that they fail to attach any importance to the distinction 

 between them; although two great thinkers, George Berkeley and 



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