In short, the real substance of the argument
from Design must eventually merge into that which Paley, in the
above-quoted passage, expressly passes over--viz., "the origin of the laws
themselves;" for so long as there is any reason to suppose that any
apparent "adaptation" to a certain set of "fixed laws" is itself due to the
influence of other "fixed laws," so long have we as little right to say
that the latter set of fixed laws exhibit any better indications of
intelligent adaptation to the former set, than the former do to that of the
latter--the eye to light, than light to the eye. Hence I conceive that Mill
is entirely wrong when he says of Paley's argument, "It surpasses analogy
exactly as induction surpasses it," because "the instances chosen are
particular instances of a circumstance which experience shows to have a
real connection with an intelligent origin--the fact of conspiring to an
end." Experience shows as this, but it shows us more besides; it shows us
that there is no _necessary_ or _uniform_ connection between an
"intelligent origin" and the fact of apparent "means conspiring to an
[apparent] end." If the reader will take the trouble to compare this
quotation just made from Mill, and the long train of reasoning that
follows, with an admirable illustration in Mr. Wallace's "Natural
Selection," he will be well rewarded by finding all the steps in Mr. Mill's
reasoning so closely paralleled by the caricature, that but for the
respective dates of publication, one might have thought the latter had an
express reference to the former.
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