xx THE PURPOSE OF DIVERSITY 395 



carry out their part of the work with accuracy and certainty. 

 In the power of " thought-transference " or mental impression, 

 now generally admitted to be a vera causa, possessed by 

 many, perhaps by all of us, we can understand how the 

 higher intelligences are able to so act upon the lower and 

 that the work of the latter soon becomes automatic. The 

 work of the organisers is then directed to keeping up the 

 supply of life-material to enable the cell-souls to perform 

 their duties while the cells are rapidly increasing. 



At successive stages of development of the life-world, 

 more and perhaps higher intelligences might be required 

 to direct the main lines of variation in definite directions in 

 accordance with the general design to be worked out, and to 

 guard against a break in the particular line which alone 

 could lead ultimately to the production of the human form. 

 Some such conception as this — of delegated powers to beings 

 of a very high, and to others of a very low grade of life 

 and intellect — seems to me less grossly improbable than that 

 the infinite Deity not only designed the whole of the cosmos, 

 but that himself alone is the consciously acting power in 

 every cell of every living thing that is or ever has been upon 

 the earth. 



What I should imagine the highest intelligence engaged 

 in the work (and this not the Infinite) to have done would 

 be so to constitute the substance of our universe that it 

 would afford the materials and the best conditions for the 

 development of life ; and also, under the simple laws of 

 variation, increase, and survival, would automatically lead 

 to the maximum of variety, beauty, and use for man, when 

 the time came for his appearance ; and that all this should 

 take place with the minimum of guidance beyond that 

 necessary for the actual working of the life- machinery of 

 all the organisms that were produced under these laws. 

 Some such conception seems to me to be in harmony with 

 the universal teaching of nature — everywhere an almost 

 infinite variety, not as a detailed design (as when it was 

 supposed that God made every valley and mountain, every 

 insect and every serpent), but as a foreseen result of the 

 constitution of the universe. The vast whole is therefore 

 a manifestation of his power — perhaps of his very self — 



