274 Proceedings of the Fioyal Society 
strongly anchored in the soil. Limbs which are most used are the 
most developed. All these results arise by way of natural conse- 
quence. How shall we describe them ? Shall we say that they are 
the result of Law? We may safely do so, remembering only that 
by Law, in this sense, we mean nothing but the co-operation of dif- 
ferent natural forces, which, under certain conditions, work together 
for the fulfilment of an obvious intention. Of the nature of those 
forces we know nothing ; nor is it easy to conceive how they 
have been so co-ordinated as to produce effects fitting with such 
exactness into the conditions requisite for the preservation of 
organic life. If there were any evidence that by the same means 
new forms of life could be developed from the old, I cannot see 
why there should be any reluctance to admit the fact. It would 
be different from anything that we see ; but I do not know that 
it would be at all more wonderful, or that it would bring us 
much nearer than we now stand to the great mystery of creation. 
I look upon the adaptation and arrangement of natural forces, 
which can compass these modifications of animal structure, in exact 
proportion to the need of them, as an adaptation and arrangement 
which is in the nature of creation. It can only be due to the 
working of a power which is in the nature of creative power. We 
are so accustomed to these and other similar phenomena, and to 
hide our own ignorance of their cause, by describing them as the 
result of “ Law,” that we forget what a multitude of natural forces 
must be concerned in their production, and what complicated ad- 
justments of these amongst each other for the accomplishment of 
purpose. It is purely, therefore, in my view, a question of evi- 
dence, whether this particular law of adaptation has or has not 
been the means of introducing new forms of life. There is no 
evidence that it has. So far as we know, this power of self- adap- 
tation, wonderful as it is, has a comparatively limited application; 
when that limit is outrun by changes in outward conditions, which 
are too great or too rapid, whole species die and disappear. Never- 
theless, the introduction of new species to take the place of those 
which have passed away, is a work which has been not only so often, - 
but so continuously repeated, that it suggests the idea of having 
been brought about through the instrumentality of some natural 
process. But we may say with confidence, that it must have been 
