VII 
CREATION BY LAW 
143 
the whole organism, hut in every part of each organism. 
Every organ, every character, every feeling, is individual; 
that is to say, varies from the same organ, character, or feeling 
in every other individual. 
5, The Law of unceasing Change of Physical Conditions upon 
the Surface of the Earth . — Geology shows us that this change 
has always gone on in times past, and we also know that it 
is now everywhere going on. 
6. The Equilibrium or Hrnmony of Nature . — When a species 
is well adapted to the conditions which environ it, it flourishes; 
when imperfectly adapted it decays; when ill -adapted it 
becomes extinct. If all the conditions which determine an 
organism’s wellbeing are taken into consideration, this state- 
ment can hardly be disputed. 
This series of facts or laws are mere statements of what 
is the condition of nature. They are facts or inferences which 
are generally known, generally admitted — but, in discussing 
the subject of the “Origin of Species,” as generally for- 
gotten. 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, many curious phenomena 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 
organised and unorganised 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 simple 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 interfer- 
ence and direct action of the mind and will of the Creator. 
It is simply a question of how the Creator has worked. The 
Duke (and I quote him as having well expressed the views 
of the more intelligent of Mr. Darwin’s opponents) maintains 
that He has personally applied general laws to produce effects 
