No man can
perceive this adaptation of means to the accomplishment of a
preconceived end, without experiencing an irresistible conviction that
it is the work of mind. No man does doubt it, and no man can doubt it.
Darwin does not deny it. Haeckel does not deny it. No Darwinian denies
it. What they do is to deny that there is any design in nature. It is
merely apparent, as when the wind of the Bay of Biscay, as Huxley says,
"selects the right kind of sand and spreads it in heaps upon the
plains." But in thus denying design in nature, these writers array
against themselves the intuitive perceptions and irresistible
convictions of all mankind,--a barrier which no man has ever been able
to surmount. Sir William Thomson, in the address already referred to,
says: "I feel profoundly convinced that the argument of design has been
greatly too much lost sight of in recent zooelogical speculations.
Reaction against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to be found,
not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on 'Paley's Natural
Theology,' has, I believe, had a temporary effect of turning attention
from the solid irrefragable argument so well put forward in that
excellent old book. But overpowering proof of intelligence and
benevolent design lie all around us, and if ever perplexities, whether
metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come
back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the
influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend
upon one ever-acting Creator and Ruler.
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