A very large class of plants are fertilized by means of insects. These
flowers are beautiful, not for the sake of beauty,--for that Mr. Darwin
says would annihilate his theory,--but those which happen to be
beautiful attract insects, and thus become fertilized and perpetuated,
while the plainer ones are neglected and perish. So with regard to
birds. The females are generally plain, because those of bright colors
are so exposed during the period of incubation that they are destroyed
by their enemies. In like manner male birds are usually adorned with
brilliant plumage. This is accounted for on the ground that they are
more attractive, and thus they propagate their race, while the plainer
ones have few or no descendants. Thus all design is studiously and
laboriously excluded from every department of nature.
The preceding pages contain only a small part of the evidence furnished
by Mr. Darwin's own writings, that his doctrine involves the denial of
all final causes. The whole drift of his books is to prove that all the
organs of plants and animals, all their instincts and mental endowments,
may be accounted for by the blind operation of natural causes, without
any intention, purpose, or cooeperation of God. This is what Professor
Huxley and others call "the creative idea," to which the widespread
influence of his writings is to be referred.
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