II THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 59 



Providence, in these modern times, that science 

 should make it the humble messenger of man, and 

 we know that every flash that shimmers about 

 the horizon on a summer's evening is determined 

 by ascertainable conditions, and that its direction 

 and brightness might, if our knowledge of these 

 were great enough, have been calculated. 



The solvency of great mercantile companies 

 rests on the validity of the laws which have been 

 ascertained to govern the seeming irregularity of 

 that human life which the moralist bewails as the 

 most uncertain of things ; plague, pestilence, and 

 famine are admitted, by all but fools, to be the 

 natural result of causes for the most part fully 

 within human control, and not the unavoidable 

 tortures inflicted by wrathful Omnipotence upon 

 His helpless handiwork. 



Harmonious order governing eternally continu- 

 ous progress -the web and woof of matter and 

 force interweaving by slow degrees, without a 

 broken thread, that veil which lies between us 

 and the Infinite that universe which alone we 

 know or can know ; such is the picture which 

 science draws of the world, and in proportion as 

 any part of that picture is in unison with the rest, 

 so may we feel sure that it is rightly painted. 

 Shall Biology alone remain out of harmony with 

 her sister sciences ? 



Such arguments against the hypothesis of the 

 direct creation of species as these are plainly 



