s of
intelligent adaptation to the former set, than the former do to that of the
latter--the eye to light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive that Mill
is entirely wrong when he says of Paley's argument, "It surpasses analogy
exactly as induction surpasses it," because "the instances chosen are
particular instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a
real connection with an intelligent origin--the fact of conspiring to an
end." Experience shows as this, but it shows us more besides; it shows us
that there is no _necessary_ or _uniform_ connection between an
"intelligent origin" and the fact of apparent "means conspiring to an
[apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to compare this
quotation just made from Mill, and the long train of reasoning that
follows, with an admirable illustration in Mr. Wallace's "Natural
Selection," he will be well rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr. Mill's
reasoning so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for the
respective dates of publication, one might have thought the latter had an
express reference to the former.[18] True, Mr. Mill closes his argument
with a brief allusion to the "principle of the survival of the fittest,"
observing that "creative forethought is not absolutely the only link by
which the origin of the wonderful mechanism of the eye may be connected
with the fact of sight." I am surprised, however, that a man of Mr. Mill's
penetration did not see that whatever view we may take as to "the adequacy
of this principle (_i.e._, Natural Selection) to account for such truly
admirable combinations as some of those in nature," the argument from
_Design_ is not materially affected. So far as this argument is concerned,
the issue is not Design _versus_ Natural Selection, but it is Design
_versus_ Natural Law. By all means, "leaving this remarkable speculation
(_i.e._, Mr. Darwin's) to whatever fate the progress of discovery may have
in store for it," and it by no means follows that "in the present state of
knowledge the adaptations in nature afford a large balance of probability
in favour of creation by intelligence." For whatever we may think of this
special theory as to the _mode_, there can be no longer any reasonable
doubt, "in the present state of our knowledge," as to the truth of the
general theory of _Evolution_; and the latter, if accepted, is as
destructive to the argument from _Design_ as would the former be if proved.
In a word,