DESIGN IN NATURE 293 



Events are chained together as cause and effect. 

 When we see unlike effects we infer unlike causes, or 

 if we know the causes to be unlike, we may predict 

 that the effects will be unlike. Uniformity in the 

 laws of nature means that like [causes produce like 

 effects — and this in turn means that matter and force 

 are indestructible — that they are neither increased 

 nor decreased. If nature had methods by which she 

 could either increase or decrease her quantity of en- 

 ergy, then we could have no means of knowing what 

 results would be produced, even approximately, for 

 causes of events might constantly vary. 



The fact that the events of nature succeed each 

 other according to uniform principles is of the great- 

 est importance to the welfare of man, and I regard 

 this as evidence of the intelligence and wisdom of the 

 unseen Power that controls all things. 



I have considered man in relation to design, because 

 I believe that in him as an isolated being, and also in 

 his infinite relations of body and mind to the external 

 world, it is most comprehensively manifested. 



While this is true, it is none the less evident that 

 every living organism shows by its structure, which 

 adapts it to its peculiar mode of existence, the evidence 

 of adaptation of means to ends, so that by consider- 

 ing these, the force of the argument is vastly multi- 

 plied. The earth is crowded with organic beings, 

 mixed in endless ways, yet all are capable of obtain- 

 ing food and they are nicely adapted to their environ- 

 ments. 



That we do not understand why some of them were 

 created is no evidence of the absence of design. It 

 is only within recent times that man has learned 

 much concerning nature, and the more he learns the 

 more evident the fact of design becomes. 



This is true especially in the relation of things to 



