They are said to be due to
the undirected and unintended operation of physical laws. This is Mr.
Wallace's argument. He endeavors to show that it is unworthy of God that
He should be supposed to have contrived the mechanism of the orchids, as
a mechanist contrives a curious puzzle.
We recently heard Prof. Joseph Henry, in a brief address, say
substantially: "If I take brass, glass, and other materials, and fuse
them, the product is a slag. This is what physical laws do. If I take
those same materials, and form them into a telescope, that is what mind
does." This is the whole question in a nutshell. That design implies an
intelligent designer, is a self evident truth. Every man believes it;
and no man can practically disbelieve it. Even those naturalists who
theoretically deny it, if they find in a cave so simple a thing as a
flint arrow-head, are as sure that it was made by a man as they are of
their own existence. And yet they want us to believe that an eagle's eye
is the product of blind natural causes. No combination of physical
forces ever made a ship or a locomotive. It may, indeed, be said that
they are dead matter, whereas plants and animals live. But what is life
but one form of the organizing efficiency of God?
Mr. Wallace does not go as far as Mr. Darwin. He recoils from regarding
man either as to body or soul as the product of mere natural causes.
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