PALEY AND ADAPTATION 95 



fierce struggle, thus turned to account for the first 

 time, we are sometimes led to associate the recog- 

 nition of adaptation itself too exclusively with 

 Natural Selection. Adaptation had been studied 

 with the warmest enthusiasm nearly forty years 

 before this great theory was given to the scientific 

 world, and it is difficult now to realize the impetus 

 which the works of Paley gave to the study of 

 Natural History. That they did inspire the 

 naturalists of the early part of the last century 

 is clearly shown in the following passages. 



In the year 1824 the Ashmolean Museum at 

 Oxford was entrusted to the care of J. S. Duncan 

 of New College. He was succeeded in this office 

 by his brother, P. B. Duncan, of the same College, 

 author of a history of the Museum, which shows 

 very clearly the influence of Paley upon the study 

 of nature, and the dominant position given to his 

 teachings : ' Happily at this time [1824] a taste 

 for the study of natural history had been excited 

 in the University by Dr. Paley's very interesting 

 work on Natural Theology, and the very popular 

 lectures of Dr. Kidd on Comparative Anatomy, 

 and Dr. Buckland on Geology.' In the arrange- 

 ment of the contents of the Museum the illustra- 

 tion of Paley's work was given the foremost place 

 by J. S. Duncan : — 



' The first division proposes to familiarize the eye to those 

 relations of all natural objects which form the basis of argu- 

 ment in Dr. Paley's Natural Theology ; to induce a mental 

 habit of associating the view of natural phenomena with the 

 ' conviction that they are the media of Divine manifestation ; 



