Mineral Causes. 121 



a frosty night produces a beautiful arrangement of 

 icicles. The print of crows' or gulls' feet on the wet 

 sands produces a beautiful gothic enrichment. The 

 lapping of the waves on the sea-shore forms a glisten- 

 ing fringe of many curves ; and the receding tide 

 ploughs the sand into many picturesque furrows. 

 These, however, are only designs because man calls 

 them so. Nature doesnot intentionallyproduce designs 

 for her own delectation, or for man's admiration, as 

 some child-like theologians assert. The object of 

 nature, indeed, is not to produce a design, but a 

 " something " whether it be a design or not. The 

 design is a very secondary consideration to the 

 "something." It is the " something " alone which is 

 of importance. 



Seeing, however, that theologians have invested 

 design with quite unnecessary moment — chiefly as 

 a means of deluding the credulous — we shall en- 

 deavour to minimise the consequences of their wiles 

 by showing how even snow-flakes and the higher 

 crystalline designs are produced by the automatic 

 laws. 



A snow-flake is evolved from a snow-flake molecule, 

 which in turn is evolved from a chemical union of 

 dual atoms — oxygen and hydrogen — by the law of 

 sexual-material-selection. This molecule we deduce 

 from analogy to be six-pointed.* Further, as the 

 molecule is composed of atoms, it acquires, according 



* Ice, as Tyndall demonstrated, is a structure built up of hexagonal 

 figures, resembling six-petalled flowers. 



