Selection."[114] What does the author understand by law? He answers:
"the series of facts as it is known to us."[115] Here we have the true
definition of law: it is the simple expression of the series of the
facts; the cause remains to be sought for. I open the book in another
part. The author is speaking of the eye; and his doctrine is that the
eye of the eagle was formed by the slow transformations of an extremely
simple visual apparatus. There will have been then, in the development
of animal existence, first of all a rudimentary eye, then an eye
moderately well formed, and then the eye of the eagle, because the
favorable modifications of the organ of sight will have been preserved
and increased in the course of ages. Such is the series of facts, such
is the law; suppose we grant it. What is the cause? The optician makes
our spectacles; who made the eye of the eagle, by directing the slow
transformations which at length produced it? Let us listen to the
author: "There exists an intelligent power, and that intelligent power
is natural selection, constantly on the watch for every alteration
accidentally produced in the transparent layers, in order carefully to
choose such of those alterations as may tend to produce a more distinct
image.... Natural selection will choose with infallible skill each new
improvement effected."[116] Natural selection is a law; a law is the
series of facts; it seems that we must seek for the power which directs
this series of facts; but, lo, the series of facts itself is transformed
into a power--into an intelligent power--into a power which chooses with
infallible skill! The confusion of ideas is complete. The mind is on a
wrong scent; it concludes that the law explains everything, and has
itself no need of explanation. The idea of the cause disappears, and, as
Auguste Comte expresses it, "science conducts God with honor to its
frontiers, thanking Him for His provisional services."[117] This is not
perhaps the idea of Mr. Darwin, but it is at any rate the idea of some
of his disciples, as we shall see by-and-by.