CHAPTER II - PROVIDENCE; OR THE PRINCIPLE OF SPECIAL ADAPTATION

Summary

SECT. I.—COMPLICATION OF NATURE RESULTING IN FORTUITIES.

We have seen that General Laws are the grand Principle of Order throughout the world. But coincident with it, there is another principle, the Principle of Particular Adaptation. These two principles run through every part of nature. Thus, in the organic kingdoms, there is an all-pervading system of types : there is a type for every particular species of plant and animal; a type for every leaf and every limb. Professor Owen has found upwards of seventy similar bones appearing in the whole vertebrate series of animals from fishes up to man. But Cuvier and Sir Charles Bell had previously shown that these bones are shortened or lengthened, strengthened or lightened, bent or straightened, to suit the particular state and functions of every living creature. Having, in the last chapter, traced the principle of order in its reference to man, we are now, in this chapter, to trace the principle of particular adaptation—also in its reference to man, when it may be called the Providence OF GrOD. It is in our view by far the most remarkable characteristic of man's present condition.

“It is quite evident, ” says Dr. Brown, “that even omnipotence, which cannot do what is contradictory, cannot combine both advantages—the advantage of regular order in the sequences of nature, and the advantages of an uniform adaptation of the particular circumstances of the moment to the particular circumstances of the individual.