Essays on Life 



that is to say, the teleology that saw all 

 adaptation to surroundings as part of a plan 

 devised long ages since by a quasi-anthropo- 

 morphic being who schemed everything out 

 much as a man would do, but on an infinitely 

 vaster scale. This conception they found re- 

 pugnant alike to intelligence and conscience, 

 but, though they do not seem to have per- 

 ceived it, they left the door open for a design 

 more true and more demonstrable than that 

 which they excluded. By making their varia- 

 tions mainly due to effort and intelligence, 

 they made organic development run on all- 

 fours with human progress, and with inven- 

 tions which we have watched growing up from 

 small beginnings. They made the develop- 

 ment of man from the amoeba part and parcel 

 of the story that may be read, though on an 

 infinitely smaller scale, in the development of 

 our most powerful marine engines from the 

 common kettle, or of our finest microscopes 

 from the dew-drop. 



The development of the steam-engine and 

 the microscope is due to intelligence and 



design, which did indeed utilise chance sug- 



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