PDF - Wallace Online
PDF - Wallace Online PDF - Wallace Online
144 NATURAL SELECTION vnwhich those laws are not in themselves capable of producing ;that the universe alone, with all its laws intact, would bea sort of chaos, without variety, without harmony, withoutdesign, without beauty; that there is not (and therefore wemay presume that there could not be) any self -developingpower in the universe. I believe, on the contrary, that theuniverse is so constituted as to be self-regulating ;that aslong as it contains Life, the forms under which that life ismanifested have an inherent power of adjustment to eachother and to surrounding nature and that this ; adjustmentnecessarily leads to the greatest amount of variety and beautyand enjoyment, because it does depend on general laws, andnot on a continual supervision and rearrangement of details.As a matter of feeling and religion, I hold this to be a farhigher conception of the Creator and of the Universe thanthat which may be called the "continual interference"hypothesis but it is not a; question to be decided by ourfeelings or convictions it is a question of facts and of reason.Could the change which geology shows us has continuallytaken place in the forms of life, have been produced by generallaws, or does it imperatively require the incessant supervisionof a creative mind ? This is the question for us to consider,and our opponents have the difficult task of proving a negative,if we show that there are both facts and analogies inour favour. 1Mr. Darwin's Metaphors liable to MisconceptionMr. Darwin has laid himself open to much misconception,and has given to his opponents a powerful weapon againsthimself, by his continual use of metaphor in describing thewonderful co-adaptations of" organic beings.It is curious," says the Duke of Argyll, " to observe thelanguage which this most advanced disciple of pure naturalisminstinctively uses, when he has to describe the complicatedstructure of this curious order of plants (the Orchids).'Caution in ascribing intentions to nature ' does not seem to1In addition to the laws referred to above, there are of course the fundamentallaws and properties of organised matter and the mysterious powers ofLife, which we shall probably never be able to explain, but which must betaken as the basis of all attempts to account for the details of form andstructure in organised beings.
CREATION BY LAW 145occur to him as possible. Intention is the one thing whichhe does see, and which, when he does not see, he seeks fordiligently until he finds He it. exhausts every form of wordsand of illustration, by which intention or mental purpose can'be described. Contrivance' 'curious contrivance,' 'beautifulcontrivance,' these are expressions which occur over andover again. Here is one sentence describing the parts of aparticular species : 'The labellum is developed into a longnectary, in order to attract Lepidoptera, and we shall presentlygive reason for suspecting that the nectar is purposely solodged that it can be sucked only slowly in order to give timefor the curious chemical quality of the viscid matter"settinghard and dry.' Many other examples of similarare expressionsquoted by the Duke, who maintains that no explanationof these " contrivances " has been or can be given, except onthe supposition of a personal contriver, specially arrangingthe details of each case, although causing them to be producedby the ordinary processes of growth and reproduction.Now there is a difficulty in this view of the origin of thestructure of Orchids which the Duke does not allude to. Themajority of flowering plants are fertilised, either without theagency of insects or, when insects are required, without anyvery important modification of the structure of the flower.It is evident, therefore, that flowers might have been formedas varied, fantastic, and beautiful as the orchids, and yet havebeen fertilised without more complexity of structure than isfound in violets, or clover, or primroses, or a thousand otherflowers. The strange springs and traps and pitfalls found inthe flowers of orchids cannot be necessary per se, since exactlythe same end is gained in ten thousand other flowers whichdo not possess them. Is it not then an extraordinary idea, toimagine the Creator of the universe contriving the variouscomplicated parts of these flowers, as a mechanic might contrivean ingenious toy or a difficult puzzle ? Is it not a moreworthy conception that they are some of the results of thosegeneral laws which were so co-ordinated at the first introductionof lifeupon the earth as to result necessarily in theutmost possible development of varied forms ?But let us take one of the simpler cases adduced and seeif our general laws are unable to account for it.L
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CREATION BY LAW 145occur to him as possible. Intention is the one thing whichhe does see, and which, when he does not see, he seeks fordiligently until he finds He it. exhausts every form of wordsand of illustration, by which intention or mental purpose can'be described. Contrivance' 'curious contrivance,' 'beautifulcontrivance,' these are expressions which occur over andover again. Here is one sentence describing the parts of aparticular species : 'The labellum is developed into a longnectary, in order to attract Lepidoptera, and we shall presentlygive reason for suspecting that the nectar is purposely solodged that it can be sucked only slowly in order to give timefor the curious chemical quality of the viscid matter"settinghard and dry.' Many other examples of similarare expressionsquoted by the Duke, who maintains that no explanationof these " contrivances " has been or can be given, except onthe supposition of a personal contriver, specially arrangingthe details of each case, although causing them to be producedby the ordinary processes of growth and reproduction.Now there is a difficulty in this view of the origin of thestructure of Orchids which the Duke does not allude to. Themajority of flowering plants are fertilised, either without theagency of insects or, when insects are required, without anyvery important modification of the structure of the flower.It is evident, therefore, that flowers might have been formedas varied, fantastic, and beautiful as the orchids, and yet havebeen fertilised without more complexity of structure than isfound in violets, or clover, or primroses, or a thousand otherflowers. The strange springs and traps and pitfalls found inthe flowers of orchids cannot be necessary per se, since exactlythe same end is gained in ten thousand other flowers whichdo not possess them. Is it not then an extraordinary idea, toimagine the Creator of the universe contriving the variouscomplicated parts of these flowers, as a mechanic might contrivean ingenious toy or a difficult puzzle ? Is it not a moreworthy conception that they are some of the results of thosegeneral laws which were so co-ordinated at the first introductionof lifeupon the earth as to result necessarily in theutmost possible development of varied forms ?But let us take one of the simpler cases adduced and seeif our general laws are unable to account for it.L
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