IMPLICATIONS AT LARGE 115 



that many of nature's arrangements do not appear 

 to be useful or adapted to intelligible ends. Nature 

 is more than a mere collection of mechanical con- 

 trivances; and a more adequate conception of its 

 general meaning and unity is required before men can 

 appreciate the force of the rejoinder to this objection, 

 that every part of nature should be interpreted in 

 relation to the developing whole; and that, if our 

 knowledge were sufficient, we could perceive how even 

 the most mysterious arrangements have meaning, and 

 either now subserve or have subserved the master- 

 purpose of the whole. 



The evolutionary hypothesis has done much to 

 enlarge and unify our conception of nature, and as a 

 consequence has enabled Christian writers to formu- 

 late a more convincing teleological argument. But Dar- 

 win's theory of natural selection at first seemed to 

 nuUify the evidences of design by giving another 

 explanation of the phenomena of adaptation. Darwin 

 indeed emphasized the part which utiRty plays in 

 natural evolution; but, whereas Paley had appealed to 

 the utility of organs to prove design, Darwin accounted 

 for their utihty by the law that useless organs must 

 disable their possessors and cause them to perish in 

 the struggle for existence. As only the fittest can win 

 out in the struggle for life, the existing organic forms 

 must be those the organs of which are highly adapted 

 for the preservation of life. Post-Darwinian investi- 

 gation has tended to limit the part of natural selection 

 in the evolution of species, and thus to reduce its seem- 



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