Among the various criticisms that have appeared on Mr. Darwin’s celebrated “Origin of Species,” there is, perhaps, none that will appeal to so large a number of well educated and intelligent persons, as that contained in the Duke of Argyll’s “Reign of Law.” The noble author represents the feelings and expresses the ideas of that large class, who take a keen interest in the progress of Science in general, and especially that of Natural History, but have never themselves studied nature in detail, or acquired that personal knowledge of the structure of closely allied forms,—the wonderful gradations from species to species and from group to group, and the infinite variety of the phenomena of “variation” in organic beings,—which are absolutely necessary for a full appreciation of the facts and reasonings contained in Mr. Darwin’s great work.
Nearly half of the Duke’s book is devoted to an exposition of his idea of “Creation by Law,” and he expresses so clearly what are his difficulties and objections as regards the theory of “Natural Selection,” that I think it advisable that they should be fairly answered, and that his own views should be shown to lead to conclusions, as hard to accept as any which he imputes to Mr. Darwin.
The point on which the Duke of Argyll lays most stress, is, that proofs of Mind everywhere meet us in Nature, and are more especially manifest wherever we find “contrivance” or “beauty.” He maintains that this indicates the constant supervision and direct interference of the Creator, and cannot possibly be explained by the unassisted action of any combination of laws. Now, Mr. Darwin’s work has for its main object, to show, that all the phenomena of living things,—all their wonderful organs and complicated structures, their infinite variety of form, size, and colour, their intricate and involved relations to each other,—may have