314 THE FUTUKE OF KELIGION AND MORALS. 



even Mill admitted, as having the balance of probabilities 

 in its favour ; and from which Kant himself, the great 

 conqueror in these regions of speculation, after a close 

 siege, at length, contrary to his usual practice, drew off 

 his investing forces, having finally accepted it, as at least 

 subjectively true. And what was the argument that so 

 universally recommended itself, and that was treated 

 with such respect ? Briefly : that the seeming marks of 

 design, and especially the exquisite adaptations in the 

 organic world, prove the existence .of a designing mind. 

 The wing of the bird, the fin of the fish, the eye and 

 hand of the man, these and countless other construc- 

 tions exhibit such admirable and astonishing adaptations, 

 are so perfectly fitted to their proper ends of flight, of 

 sight, of infinitely various mechanical effort, that they 

 must have been planned and conceived by an infinitely 

 intelligent mind, and constructed by supreme executive 

 skill. The animals did not make themselves with all 

 these wonderful organs, and blind Nature could not 

 make them, therefore there must have been a shaping 

 and intelligent Deity. But how, suggests Darwin, if 

 all these skilful products were only slowly brought to 

 their present perfection, if they were all improved, like 

 human inventions, from an elementary stage partly 

 because their individual possessors made use of them, 

 partly because those, who through chance inherited the 

 best, succeeded best in the battle of life, and handed on 

 to their offspring the acquired advantages? How if 

 the perfect eye were an instrument thus slowly achieved, 

 and one which was improved gradually, as a telescope 

 is improved, though without inventor or improver other 

 than the possessor who by use improves it, assisted by 

 natural selection, which picks out for survival those who 

 possess the best instruments ? How, in fact, if all these 



