ce which is being quite uselessly expended
by all the wind-currents which are at this moment blowing over the face of
Europe. Imagine the energy that must have been dissipated during the
secular cooling of this single planet. Feebly try to think of what the sun
is radiating into space. If it is retorted that we are incompetent to judge
of the purposes of the Almighty, I reply that this is but to abandon the
argument from economy whenever it is found untenable: we presume to be
competent judges of almighty purposes so long as they appear to imitate our
own; but so soon as there is any divergence observable, we change front. By
thus selecting all the instances of economy in nature, and disregarding all
the vastly greater instances of reckless waste, we are merely laying
ourselves open to the charge of an unfair eclecticism. And this formal
refutation of the argument from economy admits of being further justified
in a strikingly substantial manner; for if all the examples of economy in
nature that were ever observed, or admit being observed, were collected
into one view, I undertake to affirm that, without exception, they would be
found to marshal themselves in one great company--the subjects whose law is
_survival of the fittest_. One question only will I here ask. Is it
possible at the present day for any degree of prejudice, after due
consideration, to withstand the fact that the solitary exceptions to the
universal prodigality so painfully conspicuous in nature are to be found
where there is also to be found a full and adequate physical explanation of
their occurrence?

But, again, prodigality is only one of several particulars wherein the
modes and the means of the supposed divine intelligence differ from those
of its human counterpart. Comparative anatomists can point to organic
structures which are far from being theoretically perfect: even the mind of
man in these cases, notwithstanding its confessed deficiencies in respect
both of cognitive and cogitative powers, is competent to suggest
improvements to an intelligence supposed to be omniscient and all-wise! And
what shall we say of the numerous cases in which the supposed purposes of
this intelligence could have been attained by other and less roundabout
means? In short, not needlessly to prolong discussion, it is admitted, even
by natural theologians themselves, that the difficulties of reconciling,
even approximately, the supposed processes of divine thought with