VIII. CREATION BY LAW.

another takes its place, because no organism can continue to exist that is not adjusted to its environment; and unceasing variation with unlimited powers of multiplication, in most cases, furnish the means of self-adjustment. The world is so constituted, that by the action of general laws there is produced the greatest possible variety of surface and of climate; and by the action of laws equally general, the greatest possible variety of organisms have been produced, adapted to the varied conditions of every part of the earth. Tho objector would probably himself admit, that the varied surface of the earth—the plains and valleys, the hills and mountains, the deserts and volcanoes, the winds and currents, the seas and lakes and rivers, and the various climates of the earth—are all the results of general laws acting and re-acting during countless ages; and that the Creator does not appear to guide and control the action of these laws—here determining the height of a mountain, there altering the channel of a river—here making the rains more abundant, there changing the direction of a current. He would probably admit that the forces of inorganic nature are self-adjusting, and that the result necessarily fluctuates about a given mean condition (which is itself slowly changing), while within certain limits the greatest possible amount of variety is produced. If then a “contriving mind” is not necessary at every step of the process of change eternally going on in the inorganic world, why are we required to believe in the continual action of such a mind in the region of organic nature? True, the laws at work are more complex, the adjustments more delicate, the appearance of special adaptation more remarkable; but why should we measure the creative mind by our own? Why should we suppose the machine too complicated, to have been designed by the Creator so complete that it would necessarily work out harmonious results? The theory of “continual interference” is a limitation of the Creator’s power. It assumes that he could not work by pure law in the organic, as he has done in the inorganic world; it assumes that he could not foresee the consequences of the laws of matter and mind combined—that results would continually