The evidence afforded by the order and adaptations in nature to the existence of a God : a lecture, delivered in connection with the Christian Evidence Society, June 21, 1872 / by Charles Brooke.

  • Brooke, Charles, 1804-1879.
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The evidence afforded by the order and adaptations in nature to the existence of a God : a lecture, delivered in connection with the Christian Evidence Society, June 21, 1872 / by Charles Brooke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    That the various orders of animal and vegetable existence in an ascending scale of organization might have been formed by a countless succession of almost imperceptible changes, if such had been the will of the Almighty, cannot for a moment be denied ; but that any such course of events could have happened inde- pendently of that will, appears to be inconceivable. Nor is there any satisfactoiy evidence that such has actually been the course of nature.; for admirably adapted as is the organization of the various orders and genera to the condition and circumstances of their individual existence, no examples have ever been met with intermediate between two genera, and imper- fectly adapted to fulfil the conditions of either; and even in the few instances in which individuals have been obtained by cross-breeding which exhibit the mixed characteristics of two species of the same genus, they have invariably been found to be infertile, and incapable of originating a progeny exhibiting their own intermediate character. The only known facts that give the slightest countenance to the theory of natural or unintentioned selection are the results of intentional selection in varying to a certain extent the peculiar characteristics of different varieties of the same species, notably for example in the varieties of the pigeon tribe; but how slender and insecure a foundation is this for the huge superstructure of groundless hypothesis that has been raised upon it! A valid argument against the supposed progressive