he astonishing structure of the
orchid, are no longer explained as the results of contrivance. That
simple but wasteful process of survival of the fittest, through which
such marvellous things have come into being, has little about it that is
analogous to the ingenuity of human art. The infinite and eternal Power
which is thus revealed in the physical life of the universe seems in
nowise akin to the human soul. The idea of beneficent purpose seems for
the moment to be excluded from nature, and a blind process, known as
Natural Selection, is the deity that slumbers not nor sleeps. Reckless
of good and evil, it brings forth at once the mother's tender love for
her infant and the horrible teeth of the ravening shark, and to its
creative indifference the one is as good as the other.

In spite of these appalling arguments the man of science, urged by the
single-hearted purpose to ascertain the truth, be the consequences what
they may, goes quietly on and finds that the terrible theory must be
adopted; the fact of man's consanguinity with dumb beasts must be
admitted. In reaching this conclusion, the man of science reasons upon
the physical facts within his reach, applying to them the same
principles of common-sense whereby our everyday lives are successfully
guided; and he is very apt to smile at the methods of those people who,
taking hold of the question at the wrong end, begin by arguing about all
manner of fancied consequences. For his knowledge of the history of
human thinking assures him that such methods have through all past time
proved barren of aught save strife, while his own bold yet humble method
is the only one through which truth has ever been elicited. To pursue
unflinchingly the methods of science requires dauntless courage and a
faith that nothing can shake. Such courage and such loyalty to nature
brings its own reward. For when once the formidable theory is really
understood, when once its implications are properly unfolded, it is seen
to have no such logical consequences as were at first ascribed to it. As
with the Copernican astronomy, so with the Darwinian biology, we rise to
a higher view of the workings of God and of the nature of Man than was
ever attainable before. So far from degrading Humanity, or putting it on
a level with the animal world in general, the Darwinian theory shows us
distinctly for the first time how the creation and the perfecting of Man
is the goal toward which Nature's work has al