116 WHAT IS DARWINISM? 



most laborious part of Darwin's attempt at rea- 

 soning, — for it is not true reasoning, — the 

 most laborious part of his logic and reasoning, 

 is intended to eliminate, as perfectly as any of 

 the atheistical authors have endeavored to do, 

 the idea of design. Now, setting revelation 

 aside, the manner in which the unknown 

 author of the ' Vestiges of Creation ' treated 

 this subject, satisfactorily showed that the doc- 

 trine of evolution was not in itself an atheistical 

 doctrine, nor did it deny the existence of de- 

 sign. So far as I could understand and make 

 out, having carefully read the book at the time 

 it came out and afterwards, and having care- 

 fully analyzed and compared it and Mr. Dar- 

 win's book with each other, so far as I could 

 understand it, the doctrine of the author of 

 the ' Vestiges of Creation ' was simply, that 

 God created all things, and that when He 

 created matter He impressed on it certain 

 laws ; that matter, being evolved according to 

 those laws, should produce beings and organs 

 mutually adapted to one another and to the 

 world ; and that every successive development 

 which should be produced was essentially fore- 

 seen, foreknown, and predetermined by the 

 Deity. His idea, for instance, of the evolution 



