9HMKJM - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

TEE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 59
We do not suppose that less power, or other power,
!s required to sustain the universe and carry on its
operations, than to bring it into being. So, while
conceiving no improbability of " interventions of Creative
mind in Nature," if by such is meant the bring-
ing to pass of new and fitting events at fitting times,
we leave it for profounder minds to establish, if they
can, a rational distinction in kind between his work-
ing in Nature carrying on operations, and in initiating
those operations.
We wished, under the light of such views, to examine
more critically the doctrine of this book, espe-
cially of some questionable parts; for instance, its
explanation of the natural development of organs,
and its implication of a " necessary acquirement of
mental power" in the ascending scale of gradation.
But there is room only for the general declaration
that we cannot think the Cosmos a series which began
with chaos and ends with mind, or of which mind is
a result : that, if, by the successive origination of species
and organs through natural agencies, the author
means a series of events which succeed each other
irrespective of a continued directing intelligence —
events which mind does not order and shape to des-
tined ends— then he has not established that doctrine,
nor advanced toward its establishment, but has accumulated
improbabilities beyond all belief. Take the
formation and the origination of the successive degrees
of complexity of eyes as a specimen. The treatment
of this subject (pp. 188, 189), upon one interpretation,
is open to all the objections referred to ; but, if, on
the other hand, we may rightly compare the eye " to