PDF - Wallace Online

152 NATURAL SELECTION vii'>*complicated to have been designed by the Creator so completethat it would necessarily work out harmonious results ?The theory of " continual interference " is a limitation of theCreator's power.It assumes that He could not work by purelaw in the organic,as He has done in the inorganic world ; itassumes that He could not foresee the consequences of the lawsof matter and mind combined that results would continuallyarise which are contrary to what is best and that He has tochange what would otherwise be the course of nature in orderto produce that beauty, and variety, and harmony which evenwe, with our limited intellects, can conceive to be the resultof self-adjustment in a universe governed by unvarying law.If we could not conceive the world of nature to be self-adjustingand capable of endless development, it would even thenbe an unworthy idea of a Creator to impute the incapacity ofour minds to Him; but when many human minds can conceive,and can even trace out in detail, some of the adaptations innature as the necessary results of unvarying law, it seemsstrange that, in the interests of religion, any one should seekto prove that the System of Nature, instead of being above,is far below our highest conceptions of it. I, for one, cannotbelieve that the world would come to chaos if left to lawalone. I cannot believe that there is in it no inherent powerof developing beauty or variety, and that the direct action ofthe Deity is required to produce each spot or streak on everyinsect, each detail of structure in every one of the millions oforganisms that live or have lived upon the earth. For it isimpossible to draw a line. If any modifications of structurecould be the result of law, why not all ? If some self -adaptationscould arise, why not others 1 If any varieties of colour,why not all the varieties we see No ? attempt is made toexplain this, except by reference to the fact that " purpose "and " contrivance " are everywhere visible, and by the illogicaldeduction that they could only have arisen from thedirect action of some mind, because the direct action of ourminds produces similar " contrivances " ;but it is forgottenthat adaptation, however produced, must have the appearanceof design. The channel of a river looks as if made far theriver, although it is made by it ;the fine layers and beds in adeposit of sand often look as if they had been sorted, and