CHANCE IN ' NATURAL SELECTION.' 21 



common in civilised life. But to return from this 

 digression. 



In the natural history of an organism we recog- 

 nise something more than the manifestation of 

 physical and vital forces physical forces as the 

 attribute of the machinery and vital forces as 

 the mainspring of its action. We recognise in the 

 aggregate plan a Divine Idea, and in the fulfilment 

 of the purpose an Almighty Hand. From the com- 

 mencement of its development the body of an animal 

 is in a continuous process of change, and yet it 

 remains unchanged in plan. The transformations 

 merely run in a circle, so that there is no progressive 

 evolution ; but the different races, so long as they 

 exist, continue to retain each its own characters. 



Our experience does not permit us to admit more ; 

 nor can we logically infer more from any existing data. 



In the production of the elaborate mechanism of 

 organised and living beings, manifesting to ordinary 

 comprehension design for the fulfilment of a purpose, 

 Evolutionists, as before stated, exclude the idea of a 

 Creator and attribute it all to chance, which is really 

 the meaning of Natural Selection. Or, if organised 

 and living beings were not exactly and directly 

 evolved by chance, they were produced in some 

 such way as this : At an incalculably remote period 

 a living body was spontaneously generated, under 

 the operation of mechanical or physico-chemical 

 laws, a body of extreme simplicity of composition 



