Every race produced by the
florist or breeder, the dog or the pigeon fancier, the rat-catcher, the
sporting man, or the slave-hunter, must have been provided for by
varieties occurring when wanted; and as these variations were never
withheld, it would prove that the sanction of an all-wise and all
powerful Being has been given to that which the highest human minds
consider to be trivial, mean, or debasing." (p. 290)[18]

The Nebular Hypothesis, as propounded by La Place, proposed to account
for the origin of the universe, by a process of evolution under the
control of mere physical forces. That hypothesis has, so far as
evolution is concerned, been adopted by men who sincerely believe in God
and in the Bible. But they hold not only that God created matter and
endowed it with its properties, but that He designed the universe, and
so controlled the operation of physical laws that they accomplished his
purpose. So there are Christian men who believe in the evolution of one
kind of plants and animals out of earlier and simpler forms; but they
believe that everything was designed by God, and that it is due to his
purpose and power that all the forms of vegetable and animal life are
what they are. But this is not the question. What Darwin and the
advocates of his theory deny, is all design. The organs, even the most
complicated and wonderful, were not intended. They are said to be due to
the undirected and unintended operation of physical laws. This is Mr.
Wallace's argument. He endeavors to show that it is unworthy of God that
He should be supposed to have contrived the mechanism of the orchids, as
a mechanist contrives a curious puzzle.

We recently heard Prof. Joseph Henry, in a brief address, say
substantially: "If I take brass, glass, and other materials, and fuse
them, the product is a slag. This is what physical laws do. If I take
those same materials, and form them into a telescope, that is what mind
does." This is the whole question in a nutshell. That design implies an
intelligent designer, is a self evident truth. Every man believes it;
and no man can practically disbelieve it. Even those naturalists who
theoretically deny it, if they find in a cave so simple a thing as a
flint arrow-head, are as sure that it was made by a man as they are of
their own existence. And yet they want us to believe that an eagle's eye
is the product of blind natural causes. No combination of physical
forces ever made a ship or a locom