1867.] Creation by Law. 477 



nioths would Lave had the advantage. And checks of a similar 

 nature to these no doubt have acted in other parts of the world, and 

 have prevented such an extraordinary development of nectary as 

 has been produced by favourable conditions in Madagascar only and 

 in one single species of Orchid. I may here mention that some of 

 the large Sphinx moths of the tropics have probosces nearly as long 

 as the nectary of Angraecuin sesquipedale.* Now, instead of this 

 beautiful self-acting adjustment, the Duke of Argyll's theory is, 

 that the Creator of the Universe by a direct act of his Almighty 

 power so disposed the natural forces influencing the growth of this 

 one species of plant as to cause its nectary to increase to this 

 enormous length, and at the same time by an equally special act 

 determined the flow of nourishment in the organization of the moth 

 so as to cause its proboscis to increase in exactly the same propor- 

 tion, having previously so constructed the Angrsecum that it could 

 only be maintained in existence by the agency of this moth. But 

 what proof is given or suggested that this was the mode by which 

 the adjustment took place ? None whatever, except a feeling that 

 there is an adjustment of a delicate kind and an inability to see how 

 known causes could have produced such an adjustment. I believe 

 I have shown, however, that such an adjustment is not only 

 possible but inevitable, unless at some point or other we deny the 

 action of those simple laws which we have already admitted to be 

 expressions of existing facts. 



It is difficult to find anything like parallel cases in inorganic 

 nature, but that of a river may perhaps illustrate the subject in 

 some degree. Let us suppose a person totally ignorant of Modern 

 Geology to study carefully a great Eiver System. He finds in the 

 lower part a deep broad channel filled to the brim, flowing slowly 

 through a flat country and carrying out to the sea a quantity of 

 fine sediment. Higher up it branches into a number of smaller 

 channels flowing alternately through flat valleys and between high 

 banks ; sometimes he finds a deep rocky bed with perpendicular 

 walls carrying the water through a chain of hills ; where the stream 

 is narrow he finds it deep, where wide shallow. Further up still 

 he comes to a mountainous region with hundreds of streams and 

 rivulets each with its tributary rills and gullies collecting the 

 water from every square mile of surface, and every channel adapted 



* I have carefully measured the proboscis of a specimen of Macrosila cluentius 

 from South America in the collection of the British Museum, and find it to be nine 

 inches and a quarter long ! One from tropical Africa (Macrosila morganii) is 

 seven inches and a half. A species Laving a proboscis two or three inches longer 

 could reach the nectar in the largest flowers of Angr&cum sesquipedale, whose 

 nectaries vary in length from ten to fourteen inches. That such a moth exists in 

 Madagascar may be safely predicted ; and naturalists who visit that island should 

 search for it with as much confidence as astronomers searched for the planet 

 Neptune,— and they will be equally successful ! 



