314 RELIGION. 



without having been designed ; yet, where one would most 

 expect design, viz. in the structure of a sentient being, the 

 more I think on the subject, the less I can see proof of 

 design. Asa Gray and some others look at each variation, 

 or at least at each beneficial variation (which A. Gray would 

 compare with the rain drops * which do not fall on the sea, 

 but on to the land to fertilize it) as having been providentially 

 designed. Yet when I ask him whether he looks at each 

 variation in the rock-pigeon, by which man has made by 

 accumulation a pouter or fantail pigeon, as providentially 

 designed for man's amusement, he does not know what to 

 answer ; and if he, or any one, admits [that] these variations 

 are accidental, as far as purpose is concerned (of course not 

 accidental as to their cause or origin) ; then I can see no 

 reason why he should rank the accumulated variations by 

 which the beautifully adapted woodpecker has been formed, 

 as providentially designed. For it would be easy to imagine 

 the enlarged crop of the pouter, or tail of the fantail, as 

 of some use to birds, in a state of nature, having peculiar 

 habits of life. These are the considerations which perplex 

 me about design ; but whether you will care to hear them, I 



know not. 



***** 



[On the subject of design, he wrote (July 1860) to Dr. 

 Gray : 



" One word more on ' designed laws ' and ' undesigned 

 results.' I see a bird which I want for food, take my gun and 



* Dr. Gray's rain-drop metaphor what multitudes of rain-drops fall 



occurs in the Essay ' Darwin and back into the ocean are as much 



his Reviewers ' (' Darwiniana,' p. without a final cause as the incipient 



J 57) : "The whole animate life of a varieties which come to nothing ! 



country depends absolutely upon Does it therefore follow that the 



the vegetation, the vegetation upon rains which are bestowed upon the 



the rain. The moisture is furnished soil with such rule and average 



by the ocean, is raised by the sun's regularity were not designed to 



heat from the ocean's surface, and support vegetable and animal life ? " 

 is wafted inland by the winds. But 



