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 arise which are contrary to what is best, and that he has to
change what would otherwise be the course of nature, in order to produce
that beauty, and variety, and harmony, which even we, with our limited
intellects, can conceive to be the result of self-adjustment in a
universe governed by unvarying law. If we could not conceive the world
of nature to be self-adjusting and capable of endless develo