On the
hypothesis of a plan which prearranged the organic world, nothing could
be more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability to
construct an organism at once, without making several previous tentative
efforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and
_repeating for centuries the same tentatives in the same succession_. Do
not let us blink this consideration. There is a traditional phrase much
in vogue among the anthropomorphists, which arose naturally enough from a
tendency to take human methods as an explanation of the Divine--a phrase
which becomes a sort of argument--'The Great Architect.' But if we are
to admit the human point of view, a glance at the facts of embryology
must produce very uncomfortable reflections. For what should we say to
an architect who was unable, or being able was obstinately unwilling, to
erect a palace except by first using his materials in the shape of a hut,
then pulling them down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding
story to story and room to room, _not_ with any reference to the ultimate
purposes of the palace, but wholly with reference to the way in which
houses were constructed in ancient times? What should we say to the
architect who could not form a museum out of bricks and mortar, but was
forced to begin as if going to construct a mansion, and after proceeding
some way in this direction, altered his plan into a palace, and that
again into a museum? Yet this is the sort of succession on which
organisms are constructed.
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