SIR J. ARTHUR THOMSON 173 



mental image, backed by appetite. Thus we realise 

 how stammering we are bound to be in speaking of 

 the Divine purpose. And so with all our words. 



(b) One of the great facts of life is its adaptive- 

 ness. Every complicated living creature is a bundle 

 of fitnesses. Take away all the adaptations from a 

 whale, and what is there left? An enthusiastic recog- 

 nition of this characteristic adaptiveness of organisms 

 by the naturalists of Paley's day led to the famous 

 argument from design. The world of life declares 

 the skilful hand of a Divine Artificer. A watch proves 

 a watch-maker, and the eagle in the air is God's 

 handiwork. 



But when Darwin made the evolution-idea current 

 intellectual coin, and when he disclosed the verifiable 

 factors by which adaptations have been in the course 

 of time wrought out and perfected, then Paley's proof 

 of the direct action of a Divine Artificer became un- 

 convincing, and a somewhat uncouthly materialistic 

 picture had to disappear. In our judgment, this was 

 great gain, — especially when the Paleyan idea was re- 

 placed by a larger teleology, the idea of a Creative 

 Purpose which so endowed the primary irreducibles 

 that the first organisms included for all their descend- 

 ants the capacity of evolving fitnesses by means of such 

 verifiably operative factors as variability, heredity, and 

 selection. There is a deep truth expressed in the title 

 of the best of all recent introductions to the study of 

 Organic Evolution — Mrs. Frances Mason's co-opera- 

 tive book: "Creation by Evolution." 



(c) Very characteristic of the progress of science 

 are its unifications. All the known chemical elements 

 are built up of electrons and protons ; all the different 



