A natural corollary of this
demonstration would seem to be, that a material connection between a
series of created things--such as the development of one of them from
another, or of all from a common stock--is highly compatible with
their intellectual connection, namely, with their being designed and
directed by one mind. Yet, upon some ground, which is not explained,
and which we are unable to conjecture, Mr. Agassiz concludes to the
contrary in the organic kingdoms, and insists, that, because the
members of such a series have an intellectual connection, "they cannot
be the result of a material differentiation of the objects
themselves,"[6] that is, they cannot have had a genealogical
connection. But is there not as much intellectual connection between
successive generations of any species as there is between the several
species of a genus or the several genera of an order? As the
intellectual connection here is realized through the material
connection, why may it not be so in the case of species and genera? On
all sides, therefore, the implication seems to be quite the other way.
Returning to the accidental element, it is evident that the strongest
point against the compatibility of Darwin's hypothesis with design in
Nature is made when natural selection is referred to as picking out
those variations which are improvements from a vast number which are
not improvements, but perhaps the contrary, and therefore useless or
purposeless, and born to perish.
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