Note (return) — Chapter VI

The existence of useless members, of rudimentary and abortive limbs, does seem, at first sight, to be unfavorable to the idea of supremacy of purpose and all-pervading design. It should be remarked, however, that this is an argument based upon our ignorance, and not upon our knowledge. It does not by any means follow that because we have discovered no reasons for their existence, therefore there are no reasons. Science, in enlarging its conquests of nature, is perpetually discovering the usefulness of arrangements of which our fathers were ignorant, and the reasons of things which to their minds, were concealed; and it ill becomes the men who so far "mistrust their own feeble powers" as to be afraid of ascribing any intention to God or nature, to dogmatically affirm there is no purpose in the existence of any thing. And then we may ask, what right have these men to set up the idea of "utility" as the only standard to which the Creator must conform? How came they to know that God is a mere "utilitarian;" or, if they do not believe in God, that nature is a miserable "Benthamite?" Why may not the idea of beauty, of symmetry, of order, be a standard for the universe, as much as the idea of utility, or mere subordination to some practical end? May not conformity to one grand and comprehensive plan, sweeping over all nature, be perfectly compatible with the adaptation of individual existences to the fulfillment of special ends? In civil architecture we have conformity to a general plan; we have embellishment and ornament, and we have adaptation to a special purpose, all combined; why may not these all be combined in the architecture of the universe? The presence of any one of these is sufficient to prove design, for mere ornament or beauty is itself a purpose, an object, and an end. The concurrence of all these is an overwhelming evidence of design. Wherever found, they are universally recognized as the product of intelligence; they address themselves at once to the intelligence of man, and they place him in immediate relation to and in deepest sympathy with the Intelligence which gave them birth. He that formed the eye of man to see, and the heart of man to admire beauty, shall He not delight in it? He that gave the hand of man its cunning to create beauty, shall He not himself work for it? And if man can and does combine both "ornament" and "use" in one and the same implement or machine, why should not the Creator of the world do the same? "When the savage carves the handle of his war-club, the immediate purpose of his carving is to give his own hand a firmer hold. But any shapeless scratches would be enough for this. When he carves it in an elaborate pattern, he does so for the love of ornament, and to satisfy the sense of beauty." And so "the harmonies, on which all beauty depends, are so connected in nature that use and ornament may often both arise out of the same conditions." 269