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Show 150 JJ.ARWINIANA. grandparents, in a slight degr~e, or. in whatever degree, would the case be altered 1n th1s regard ~ The whole arO'ument in natural theology proceeds upon the ground ~bat the inference for a ~nal cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the veins is just as valid now, in individuals prod~ced through natural generation, as it would have been rn the case of the first man, supernaturally created. Why not, then, just as good even on the supposit~on of .the descent o.f men from chimpanzees and gonllas, smce those ammals possess these same contrivances~ Or, to take a more supposable case : If the argum~nt from structure to design is convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say aN ewfoundland dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from similar parents, would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came (as is suspected) from some wolf~ If not, how is the argument for design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the supposition that his wolfish progenitor came from a posttertiary wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than the dog in question is to some other of the numerous existing races of dogs, and that this post-tertiary came from an equally or more different tertiary wolf~ And if the arO'ument from structure to design is not invalidated by 0 our present knowledge that our individual dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, JJ.ARWIN .A.NJJ HIS REVIEWERS. 151 from such a cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any dogs ~ Again, suppose we have two well-known and apparently most decidedly different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever presented: suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, Band 0, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted to, at all weakened by the discovery of the intermediate forms~ Rather does not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that all four were equally designed? Suppose, now, the number of intermediate forms to be much increased, and therefore the gradations to be closer yet-as close as those between the various sorts of dogs, or races of men, or of horned cattle: would the evidence of design, as shown in the structure of any of the members of the series, be any weaker than it was in the case of A and D ? Whoever contends that it would be, should likewise maintain that the origination of individuals by generation is incompatible with design, or an impossibility in Nature. We might all have confidently thought the latter, antecedently to experience of tb.e fact of reproduction. Let pur experience teach us wisdom. These illustrations make it clear that the evidence of design from structure and adaptation is furnished complete by the individual animal or plant itself, and that our knowledge or our ignorance of the history of |
