For then blind forces have produced not only manifest adaptations of
means to specific ends,--which is absurd enough,--but better adjusted
and more perfect instruments or machines than intellect (that is,
human intellect) can contrive and human skill execute,--which no sane
person will believe.
On the other hand, if Darwin even admits--we will not say adopts--the
theistic view, he may save himself much needless trouble in the
endeavor to account for the absence of every sort of intermediate
form. Those in the line between one species and another supposed to be
derived from it he may be bound to provide; but as to "an infinite
number of other varieties not intermediate, gross, rude, and
purposeless, the unmeaning creations of an unconscious cause," born
only to perish, which a relentless reviewer has imposed upon his
theory,--rightly enough upon the atheistic alternative,--the theistic
view rids him at once of this "scum of creation." For, as species do
not now vary at all times and places and in all directions, nor
produce crude, vague, imperfect, and useless forms, there is no reason
for supposing that they ever did. Good-for-nothing monstrosities,
failures of purpose rather than purposeless, indeed sometimes occur;
but these are just as anomalous and unlikely upon Darwin's theory as
upon any other. For his particular theory is based, and even
over-strictly insists, upon the most universal of physiological laws,
namely, that successive generations shall differ only slightly, if at
all, from their parents; and this effectively excludes crude and
impotent forms.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83