368 DARWINIANA. 



been given to iis by a deity because we prize them, is evidently 

 to move round and round in a vicious circle. 



"The same rejoinder is easily applicable to the argument 

 from beauty, which indeed is only a particular aspect of the 

 argument from utility. It is certainly improbable that a ran- 

 dom daubing of colors on a canvas will produce a tolerable 

 painting, even should the experiment be continued for thou- 

 sands of years. Our conception of beauty being given, it is 

 utterly improbable that chance should select, out of the infinity 

 of combinations which form and color may aiford, the precise 

 combination which that conception will approve. But the 

 universe is not posterior to our sense of beauty, but antecedent 

 to it : our sense of beauty grows out of what we see ; and 

 hence the conformance of our world to our a^sthetical concep- 

 tions is evidence, not of the world's origin, but of our own." 



We are accustomed to hear design doubted on ac- 

 count of certain failures of provision, waste of re- 

 sources, or functionless condition of organs ; but it is 

 refreshingly new to have the very harmony itself of 

 man with his surroundings,, and the completeness of 

 provision for his wants and desires, brought up as a 

 refutation of the validity of the argument for design. 

 It is hard, indeed, if man must be out of harmony 

 with ISTature i:i order to judge anything respecting it, 

 or his relations with it ; if he must have experience 

 of chaos before he can predicate anything ©f order. 



But is it true that man has all that he conceives 

 of, or thinks would be useful, and has no " negative 

 evidence of design afforded by the absence of a facul- 

 ty" to set against the positive evidence afforded by 

 its presence ? He notes that he lacks the faculty of 

 flight, sometimes wants it, and in dreams imagines 

 that he has it, yet as thoroughly believes that he was 



