Some arrangements in Nature appear to be contrivances, but
may leave us in doubt. Many others, of which the eye and the hand are
notable examples, compel belief with a force not appreciably short of
demonstration. Clearly to settle that these must have been designed
goes far towards proving that other organs and other seemingly less
explicit adaptations in Nature must also have been designed, and
clinches our belief, from manifold considerations, that all Nature is
a preconcerted arrangement, a manifested design. A strange
contradiction would it be to insist that the shape and markings of
certain rude pieces of flint, lately found in drift deposits, prove
design, but that nicer and thousand-fold more complex adaptations to
use in animals and vegetables do not _a fortiori_ argue design.
We could not affirm that the arguments for design in Nature are
conclusive to all minds. But we may insist, upon grounds already
intimated, that whatever they were good for before Darwin's book
appeared, they are good for now. To our minds the argument from design
always appeared conclusive of the being and continued operation of an
intelligent First Cause, the Ordainer of Nature; and we do not see
that the grounds of such belief would be disturbed or shifted by the
adoption of Darwin's hypothesis. We are not blind to the philosophical
difficulties which the thorough-going implication of design in Nature
has to encounter, nor is it our vocation to obviate them.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88