EVOLUTION ANT) DESIGN. 105 



otiier parts necessary for the harmonious development of 

 the whole. This correlation is as inscrutable as life itself. 



The continuity of life is built up by reproduction, itself as 

 great a mystery as the first origin of life. The likeness of 

 the offspring to the parent or remoter ancestor, and its unlike- 

 ness — the plastic nature of each animal, shown eminently in 

 domestication — the limits of change — the special variability 

 of individuals or organs which have themselves varied, tend- 

 ing therefore to further change. These and all such other 

 characters of life Darwin sought to observe and record, not 

 to explain. They are as inscrutable as life itself. 



The main scope of Darwin's work was to examine and 

 explain the circumstances which moulded the growth and 

 variance of life to its present form, how natural and sexual 

 selection and the struggle for existence restrained to ils 

 present bounds the exuberant growth of life. But Circum- 

 stance is the " antagonism " of Life, balancing it, and keeping 

 it in due control. 



Darwin attributed the origin of species to the preservation 

 and accumulation of beneficial variations of structure, either 

 by means of the advantage such variations would naturally 

 confer in the struggle for existence, and which would tend 

 to perpetuate them by natural selection, or by means of the 

 preference excited in the other sex by such variations, 

 which would tend to propagate and preserve them by sexual 

 selection. 



Thus natural or sexual selection may mould the growth 

 of life into diversity, and so explain the origin of species ; 

 but these are only limiting and restraining forces, the nega- 

 tive side of evolution which includes and mainly springs 

 from life and growth. To confound natural and sexual 

 selection with evolution, or attribute to them creative power 

 would be a mistake ; as if a man should attribute the motion 

 of the train to the friction of the rails, because that friction 

 guided the train safe to the terminus, and saved it from 

 catastrophe. 



This distinction between Life in its origin and growth, 

 alike inscrutable, and Circumstance, the force shaping that 

 growth, and which is the special province of science, is a 

 distinction vital, yet often forgotten. Its clear perception 

 preserves from materialism, and from the notion that evo- 

 lution is a creative power, instead of a name for the develop- 

 ment of life. 



Natural selection cannot create a new organ or structure, 



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