242 DESIGN IN NATURE 



of hearing ; light that of seeing. In like manner the ground is said to form the organs for walking and running ; 

 the waters those for swimming ; the air those for flying. 



That environment influences plants and animals, up to a point, is readily conceded, but that it makes plants 

 and animals what they are is an opinion which cannot be seriously entertained. 



At the outset, plants and animals are endowed with hfe. They exert directive powers which make them 

 superior to their surroundings. They appropriate and assimilate certain inorganic and organic matters and reject 

 others : they exert vital force, and during their development and life histories they subordinate and guide or over- 

 ride the physical forces, or act in conjunction with them according to circumstances : they act as masters and not 

 as slaves : they adapt themselves to, but are not modified by, their surroundings. There are in plants and animals 

 fundamental and permanent constitutions which are never altered beyond recognition by environment. Plants 

 and animals are originally adapted for their particular habitats : they are created to occupy certain positions in 

 time and space : they are, in no sense, the creatures of circumstances. Plants and animals are to the earth what 

 furniture is to a dwelhng. They are parts of a preconcerted whole, and the outcome of design. Plants and animals 

 adapt themselves to altered circumstances in virtue of inherent original powers which environment did not confer, 

 and cannot take away. It is mere perversity to say that plants and animals, or parts thereof, are even indirectly 

 the product of environment. A home had to be provided for plants and animals : that home is represented by the 

 word " environment " : but it must be obvious to every one who reflects that the home is not to be confounded with 

 its occupants, still less is the home to be credited with the formation of the occupants or with the changes occurring 

 in them. The universe is divided into two great kingdoms, the inorganic and organic, and the two are comple- 

 mentary and interdependent, and this is all that can be said. Certainly the inorganic kingdom and environment 

 cannot be credited with the direct and unaided production or material modification of the organic kingdom. The 

 two kingdoms are at once independent and interdependent, and their permanency and mutual relations are all 

 provided for in the scheme of the universe as we know it. 



If environment or the home for plants and animals was provided before the plants and animals made their 

 appearance, it is only another example of design and prevision. The scheme of creation necessitates environment, 

 but environment plays a distinctly humble and subsidiary rdle. It administers to the life and well-being of plants 

 and animals, but more than this cannot be claimed for it. It certainly does not indefinitely modify the structure 

 and appearance of plants and animals. 



While plants and animals, as explained, exercise a discriminating and directive power as regards the matter 

 by which they are surrounded, they have no power to select and perpetuate perfections and suppress imperfections 

 in themselves, as is claimed by those who advocate the doctrine of " natural selection." 



The plant and animal cannot prevent, neither can they increase or diminish, the growth of any particular part 

 either during development or during the adult state. The parts forming plants and animals are pre -determined, 

 in the sense that each plant and animal produces only its kind according to types. Neither plants nor animals 

 can, of their own initiative, depart to any extent from their types ; any accidental aberration being, sooner or later, 

 corrected. Plants and animals have no power to develop on lines selected by themselves. They are conditioned 

 and have their prescribed limits ; in other words, their activities are confined, both as regards direction and amount. 

 This is proved by the reversion or breeding back of cultivated plants and animals. Plants and animals, if left 

 to themselves, revert to their originals. A distinction is to be drawn between plants in a state of nature and plants 

 and animals artificially selected and dehberately crossed— to perpetuate what are considered good points and eUminate 

 what are regarded as weak points. The cultivator works, in a sense, against nature, and produces, in not a few 

 oases, abnormalities and monstrosities. The artificial breeder obtains his results by fostering development in one 

 direction and repressing it in another. He, in reality, creates an abnormal and artificial state of things. He ;ilso 

 creates what may be considered a false environment by housing, forcing, manuring, feeding, &c. The abnormalities 

 referred to are corrected in a state of nature, where there is a marked tendency to equalisation ; the strong pairing 

 with the weak, the tall with the short, the fair with the dark, the slender with the obese, and so on, illustrating the 

 adage " extremes are ever neighbours." 



Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as " natural selection." Selection impUes a selecting power outside 

 the thmg selected. In nature no such power exists, if, and when, the Creator is excluded. In the case of artificial 

 selection a selectmg power, outside the plant and animal, is always present. The phrase " natural selection " has 

 been mtroduced as the equivalent of " artificial selection," which it cannot be shown to be, and Mr. Darwin has 

 It appears to me, unwittingly established a false analogy which is at once pernicious and misleadinc. To say a 

 plant or animal " naturally selects " and perpetuates perfections in itself, while it suppresses imperfections is to 

 attribute to the plant and animal the prerogative of the Creator of the plant and animal. The advances made by 

 plants and animals are pre-determined, and form part of the ascending scheme of nature according to types The 



