1867.] Creation by Law. 473 



generally known, generally admitted, — but in discussing tlie subject 

 of the ' Origin of Species,' — as generally forgotten. It is from 

 these universally admitted facts that the origin of all the varied 

 forms of nature may be deduced by a logical chain of reasoning, 

 which, however, is at every step verified and shown to be in strict 

 accord with facts ; and, at the same time, a host of curious facts 

 which can by no other means be understood, are explained and 

 accounted for. It is probable that these primary facts or laws are 

 but results of the very nature of life, and of the essential properties 

 of organized and unorganized matter. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in 

 his " First Principles " and his " Biology " has, I think, made us 

 able to understand how this may be ; but at present we may accept 

 these laws without going further back, and the question then is — ■ 

 whether the variety, the harmony, the contrivance, and the beauty 

 we perceive in organic beings, can have been produced by the action 

 of these laws alone, or whether we are required to believe in the 

 incessant interference and direct action of the mind and will of the 

 Creator. It is simply a question of how the Creator has worked. 

 The Duke maintains, that he has personally applied general laws 

 to produce effects which those laws are not in themselves capable 

 of producing; that the universe alone, with all its laws intact, 

 would be a sort of chaos, without variety, without harmony, with- 

 out design, without beauty; that there is not (and therefore we 

 may presume that there could not be) any self-developing power 

 in the universe. I believe, on the contrary, that the universe is so 

 constituted as to be self-regulating ; that as long as it contains 

 Life, the forms under which that life is manifested have an inherent 

 power of adjustment to each other and to surrounding nature ; and 

 that this adjustment necessarily leads to the greatest possible amount 

 of variety and beauty and enjoyment, because it does depend on 

 general laws, and not on a continual supervision and re-arrangement 

 of details. As a matter of feeling and religion, I hold this to be a 

 far higher conception of the Creator and of the Universe than that 

 which I must call the " continual interference," hypothesis ; but it 

 is not a question to be decided by our feelings or convictions, it is 

 a question of facts and of reason. Could the change, which Geology 

 shows us has ever taken place in the forms of life, have been 

 produced by general laws, or does it imperatively require the 

 incessant supervision of a creative mind ? This is the question for 

 us to consider, and our opponents have the difficult task of proving 

 their negative, if we show that there are both facts and analogies 

 in our favour. 



Mr. Darwin has laid himself open to much misconception, and 

 has given to his opponents a powerful weapon by his continual use 

 of metaphor in describing the wonderful co-adaptations of organic 

 beings. 



2 i 2 



