a necessary consequence
of the ascertained laws of nature; and that with a sufficient knowledge
of the conditions, competent physico-mathematical skill could account
for, and indeed predict, every one of these "chance" events.

A second very common objection to Mr. Darwin's views was (and is), that
they abolish Teleology, and eviscerate the argument from design. It is
nearly twenty years since I ventured to offer some remarks on this
subject, and as my arguments have as yet received no refutation, I hope
I may be excused for reproducing them. I observed, "that the doctrine
of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all the commoner and
coarser forms of Teleology. But perhaps the most remarkable service to
the Philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation
of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both,
which his views offer. The teleology which supposes that the eye, such
as we see it in man, or one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the
precise structure it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal
which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly received its death-blow.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that there is a wider
teleology which is not touched by the doctrine of Evolution, but is
actually based upon the fundamental proposition of Evolution. This
proposition is that the whole world, living and not living, is the
result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the
forces (I should now like to substitute the word powers for "forces.")
possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the
universe was composed. If this be true, it is no less certain that the
existing world lay potentially in the cosmic vapour, and that a
sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of
the molecules of that vapour, have predicted, say the state of the
fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what
will happen to the vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day...

...The teleological and the mechanical views of nature are not,
necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a
mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a
primordial molecular arrangement of which all the phenomena of the
universe are the consequences, and the more completely is he thereby at
the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that
this primordial molecular ar