436 NATURE AND MAN. 



zealously adopted by some of the younger advocates of the 

 doctrine, that they have gone the length of representing the plants 

 and animals which exhibit them, as having made themselves for the 

 purposes which their organization is found to answer, — as if they 

 had the intelligent design which is denied to an universal Creator. 

 When challenged to justify that language, they represent it as merely 

 " figurative ; " their intention being only to show that, as Natural 

 Selection gives a sufficient account of the adaptiveness, there is no 

 need to seek for any other explanation of it. 



But to me it seems that Professor Huxley and his followers 

 in this line of argument have entirely overlooked the considera- 

 tion, that before Natural Selection among varietal forms could 

 come into operation, there must have been varieties to select 

 from, — that for the "fittest" to have survived, they must have 

 come to possess the structure that made them the fittest. It was 

 very early pointed out that Natural Selection only expresses a 

 general fact, and can in no sense be accounted a vera causa ; and 

 this, in his later years, Mr. Darwin showed himself quite willing 

 to admit. In what I believe to be his last public utterance on 

 the subject, he spoke of the causes of variation as at present the 

 greatest problem of biological science ; and the greater our success 

 in the investigation of it, the more surely — I feel convinced — 

 shall we recognize the evidences of an originating Design. While 

 the argument is carried back — exactly as by the determination of 

 the " laws " of the celestial motions — a stage nearer to the primal 

 source, its basis is extended, and its upward reach elevated. In 

 the admirable language of Dr. Martineau, " The law of ' natural 

 " selection,' instead of dispensing with anterior causation, and 

 " enabling the animal races to be their own Providence and do all 

 " their own work, distinctly testifies to the constitution of a world 

 " pre-arranged for progress, externally spread with large choice of 

 " conditions, and with internal provisions for seizing and realizing 

 " the best." 



The life of every organized structure, from the lowest to the 

 highest, consists in a series of physical interactions between itself 

 and its environment; these interactions being maintained by 

 certain physical forces, and requiring certain material supplies. 

 The simplest Algal protophytes, under the influence of light and a 



