278 Darwin, and after Darwin, 
adaptation, leaving for subsequent consideration the 
facts of beauty. 
Innumerable cases of the adaptation of organisms 
to their surroundings being the facts which now stand 
before us to be explained either by natural selection 
or by supernatural intention, we may first consider a 
statement which is frequently met with—namely, that 
even if all such cases of adaptation were proved to 
be fully explicable by the theory of descent, this 
would constitute no disproof of the theory of design: 
all the cases of adaptation, it is argued, might still. 
be due to design, even though they admit of being 
hypothetically accounted for by the theory of descent. 
I have heard an eminent Professor tell his class that 
the many instances of mechanical adaptation discovered 
and described by Darwin as occurring in orchids, 
seemed to him to furnish better proof of supernatural 
contrivance than of natural causes; and another emi- 
nent Professor has informed me that, although he had 
read the Origin of Species with ‘care, he could see in 
it no evidence of natural selection which might not 
equally well have been adduced in favour of intelligent 
design. But here we meet with a radical misconception 
of the whole logical attitude of science. For, be it 
observed, this exception zz limine to the evidence 
which we are about to consider does not question that 
natural selection may be able to do all that Darwin 
ascribes to it. The objection ig urged against his 
interpretation of the facts merely on the ground that 
these facts might egvally well be ascribed to intelligent 
design, And so undoubtedly thcy might, if we were 
all simple enough to adopt a supernatural explana- 
tion whenever a natural one is found sufficient to 
