, in as far as such a Will is self-consistent, the operation
of all natural causes must be uniform,--with the result that, as seen by
us, this operation must needs appear to be what we call mechanical. The
more unvarying the Will, the more unvarying must be this expression
thereof; so that, if the former be absolutely self-consistent, the
latter cannot fail to be as reasonably interpreted by the theory of
mindless necessity, as by that of ubiquitous intention. Such being, as
it appears to me, the pure logic of the matter, the proof of organic
evolution amounts to nothing more than the proof of a natural process.
What mode of being is ultimately concerned in this process--or in what
it is that this process ultimately consists--is a question upon which
science is as voiceless as speculation is vociferous.

[51] The best treatise on this subject is Prof. Le Conte's
_Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought_ (Appleton & Co.
1888).

But, it may still be urged, surely the principle of natural selection
(with its terrible basis in the struggle for existence) and the
principle of sexual selection (with its consequence in denying beauty
to be an end in itself) demonstrate that, _if_ there be design in
nature, such design at all events cannot be beneficent. To this,
however, I should again reply that, just as touching the major question
of design itself, so as touching this minor question of the quality of
such design as beneficent, I do not see how the matter has been much
affected by a discovery of the principles before us. For we did not need
a Darwin to tell us that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
together in pain. The most that in this connexion Darwin can fairly be
said to have done is to have estimated in a more careful and precise
manner than any of his predecessors, the range and the severity of this
travail. And if it be true that the result of what may be called his
scientific analysis of nature in respect of suffering is to have shown
the law of suffering even more severe, more ubiquitous, and more
necessary than it had ever been shown before, we must remember at the
same time how he has proved, more rigidly than was ever proved before,
that suffering is a condition to improvement--struggle for life being
the _raison d'etre_ of higher life, and this not only in the physical
sphere, but also in the mental and moral.

Lastly, if it be said that the _choice_ of such a method, whereby
impr