Picture - Cosmic Polymath

236 DESIGN IN NATURE
and famine which occasionally alarm and shock humanity, are part of a great role whose objective physiologically
is the ultimate well-being of plants and animals, man included. The temptations, trials, and sacrifices incidental
to hfe, even in its highest forms, have a meaning and a value, and it is for us to discover or endeavour to discover
the final purpose, and bow to the inevitable.
If we regard the organic part of creation only, it will be seen that death is a necessary part of life, and that
suffering in one form or other, in many cases, precedes the highest enjoyment.
§ 43. Plants and Animals subject to Disease.
Plants and animals are subject to epidemics, which at certain periods carry them off in untold numbers. They
are also a prey to bacteria, microbes, and parasites of all kinds. These epidemics, very appalling while they last,
generally correct some suspected or known evil. Even disease has a function in removing weaklings and im-
proving the general stock. Certain correctives have to be appUed to both plants and animals to keep them in a
normal condition. Weeds have to be extirpated among plants, and the fecundity of animals kept within bounds
by wholesale slaughter for food and other purposes. Overcrowding in plants and animals invariably results in
famine or disease. There is a balance in organic nature which, if disturbed, necessarily results in mischief. It is
a mistake to preserve too closely, and to destroy birds and beasts
and other diseases are largely due to overcrowding.
of prey in too great numbers : the grouse, salmon,
Slight variations as regards locaHty, soil, and climate are necessary to the well-being of plants and animals.
Plants and animals confined within small, circumscribed areas degenerate. Change and cross-breeding become
sooner or later a necessity ; hence the rotating of crops in husbandry, and the introduction of new blood in the
production of prize stock.
What holds true of plants and animals also holds true of man. He too is subject to epidemics, and from very
similar causes. He suffers from famine ; he makes war, and is in turn assailed, decimation occurring on either side ;
he overcrowds, and pays a heavy penalty in the shape of fevers, consumption, cholera, and other deadly ailments.
The marriage of blood relatives, if long persisted in, results in mental and bodily weakness, and, in many cases, early
death. The city population is never so robust as that of the country, and the blood of the inhabitants of the
country must commingle with that of the inhabitants of the city in order to maintain a fair average of health.
The normal conditions of plants and animals are due to a large number of circumstances over which we have
very little control. Many of these are exceedingly baleful in character if individuals only are considered. The
baleful character, as a rule, disappears when the good of the race is taken into account. All the so-called evils have
their uses in the organic kingdom. They keep plants and animals within bounds, preserve the balance of nature,
and maintain a higher standard than would otherwise be possible. Similarly, volcanic eruptions, floods, denudations,
glaciers, the elevation and depression of land, extremes of temperature and climate, great winds, &c., make and
keep the earth, as a whole, habitable for plants and animals. If the volcano and other great natural forces produce
local havoc, their action is nevertheless beneficent when the finality of things comes to be considered.
THE UNIVERSE AS A WORKING SYSTEM
In considering the universe as a working system I am forced to fall back upon a Creator or First Cause an
intellectual Designer of means to ends—an Upholder and Controller of everything which is, and without Whom no
change can occur either in the tiniest atoms or in the most ponderous bodies known to science.
To the Creator or First Cause is to be attributed the production of all matter, inorganic and organic, and all
force, physical, vital, and mental. Everything that is exists by and through the Creator : it is what it is because
the Creator made it : the
thing does not make itself : nothing happens by accident, and nothing is left to chance.
There is no room for spontaneous generation, or for modifications of living things which are not intended and pro-
vided for. It is not possible by any supposed laws or formulae to exclude the Creator from His own universe and
the extraordinary way in which everything hangs together and is inter-dependent and correlated tends to show' that
all is referrible to one master mind, which is continuously at work. The recurrence of day and night and the seasons,
so necessary to the well-being of plants and animals ; the arrangements for their activity and repose, and for their
proper nourishment and habitation ; all testify to unity of plan and harmony as between the Creator and the thing
created. Nothing is out of joint. According to this view inorganic and organic matter, and physical, vital, and
mental force, have a common origin. They are parts of a great whole, where the parts perform harmonious functions.
The parts are in no sense inimical or hostile to each other when the whole plan is considered. While the Creator
may, in a sense, and for dialectic purposes, be regarded as distinct from the thing created. He nevertheless pene-