The Theory of Sexual Selection. 411 
rhinoceros, elephant, crocodile, and so forth, where 
natural selection has had no concern in developing 
speed, that the accompanying accident of gracefulness 
can be allowed to disappear. But if beauty in or- 
ganic nature had been in itself what may be termed 
an artistic object on the part of a divine Creator, it 
is absurd to suggest that his design in this matter 
should only have been allowed to appear where we 
are able to detect other and very good reasons for its 
appearance. 
Thus, whether we look to the facts of adaptation 
or to those of beauty, everywhere throughout organic 
nature we meet with abundant evidence of natural 
causation, while nowhere do we meet with any in- 
dependent evidence of supernatural design. But, 
having led up to this conclusion, and having thus 
stated it as honestly as I can, I should like to finish 
by further stating what, in my opinion, is its logical 
bearing upon the more fundamental tenets of religious 
thought. 
As I have already observed at the commencement 
of this bricf exposition. prior to the Darwinian theory 
of organic evolution, the theologian was prone to point 
to the realm of organic nature as furnishing a peculiarly 
rich and virtually endless store of facts, all combining 
in their testimony to the wisdom and the beneficence 
of the Deity. Innumerable adaptations of structures 
to functions appeared to yield convincing evidence 
in favour of design; the beauty so profusely shed 
by living forms appeared to yield evidence, no less 
convincing, of that design as beneficent. But both 
these sources of evidence have now, as it were, been 
