THEOLOGICAL. INFLUENCES. i8g 



of the greatest services rendered by the theory of se- 

 lection, that it has finally broken with the notion of de- 

 sign, which hitherto invested the organic world with 

 perfection externally bestowed, and even in the province 

 of intelligence and morality, where it is said with 

 Schiller, 



Sa grows the Man as grow his greater aims,* 



has secured admittance for the uniform method of natural 

 science. 



It is highly remarkable how the teleological view of 

 nature could be so long upheld, and is still in part up- 

 held, by theological influence although in the whole or- 

 ganic world we behold a merely relative perfection, and 

 the manifest and multifarious arrangements adverse to 

 design in every grade of organisms, bear a bad testi- 

 mony to the external directing Power. The perfection 

 exhibited by comparative anatomy, and the estimate of 

 physiological functions is, under all circumstances, the 

 result of adaptation and selection. In the struggle of 

 all against all, those individuals win who in any degree 

 excel their fellows in the division of labour, which, if 

 the direction of activity be altered, often obliges them 

 to disuse organs which were once of service, but in the 

 new conditions are useless, and, it may be generally said, 

 have become injurious. 



Artificial selection — and here we may speak of design 

 — produces perfection when, by mechanical and physio- 

 logical labour (the latter especially by means of suit- 

 able nutriment), it exercises the particular parts which 

 are to be perfected, and propagates the advantages ob- 

 tained. What we term natural selection is the epitome 

 * Es wachst der Mensch mit seinen grossem Zwecken. 



