The two facts, evolution and design, are
equally patent to plain people. There is no escaping from either.
According to Messrs. Darwin and Wallace, we may have evolution, but
are on no account to have it as mainly due to intelligent effort,
guided by ever higher and higher range of sensations, perceptions,
and ideas. We are to set it down to the shuffling of cards, or the
throwing of dice without the play, and this will never stand.
According to the older men, cards did indeed count for much, but
play counted for more. They denied the teleology of the time--that
is to say, the teleology that saw all adaptation to surroundings as
part of a plan devised long ages since by a quasi-anthropomorphic
being who schemed everything out much as a man would do, but on an
infinitely vaster scale. This conception they found repugnant alike
to intelligence and conscience, but, though they do not seem to have
perceived it, they left the door open for a design more true and
more demonstrable than that which they excluded.
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