Somewhat may be justly, or at least plausibly, said in reply to all this
from the ordinary standpoint, but probably not to much effect. There were
always insuperable difficulties, which, when they seemed to be few, might
be regarded as exceptional; but, as they increase in number and variety,
they seem to fall into a system. No doubt we may still insist that, "in the
present state of our knowledge, the adaptations in Nature afford a large
balance of probability in favor of creation by intelligence," as Mill
concluded; and probability must needs be the guide of reason through these
dark places. Still, the balancing of irreconcilable facts is not a
satisfying occupation, nor a wholly hopeful one, while fresh weights are
from time to time dropping into the lighter side of the balance. Strong as
our convictions are, they may be overborne by evidence. We cannot rival the
fabled woman of Ephesus, who, beginning by carrying her calf from the day of
its birth, was still able to do so when it became an ox. The burden which
our fathers carried comfortably, with some adventitious help, has become
too heavy for our shoulders.

Seriously, there must be something wrong in the position, some baleful
error mixed with the truth, to which this contradiction of our inmost
convictions may be attributed. The error, as we suppose, lies in the
combination of the principle of design with the hypothesis of the
immutability and isolated creation of species. The latter hypothesis, in
its nature un-provable, has, on scientific grounds, become so far
improbable that few, even of the anti-Darwinian naturalists, now hold to it;
and, whatever may once have been its religious claims, it is at present a
hinderance rather than a help to any just and consistent teleology.

By the adoption of the Darwinian hypothesis, or something like it, which we
incline to favor, many of the difficulties are obviated, and others