To illustrate this from the theist’s point of view:  Transfer the question for a moment from the origination of species to the origination of individuals, which occurs, as we say, naturally.  Because natural, that is, “stated, fixed, or settled,” is it any the less designed on that account?  We acknowledge that God is our maker—­not merely the originator of the race, but our maker as individuals—­and none the less so because it pleased him to make us in the way of ordinary generation.  If any of us were born unlike our parents and grandparents, in a slight degree, or in whatever degree, would the case be altered in this regard?

The whole argument in natural theology proceeds upon the ground that the inference for a final cause of the structure of the hand and of the valves in the veins is just as valid now, in individuals produced through natural generation, as it would have been in the case of the first man, supernaturally created.  Why not, then, just as good even on the supposition of the descent of men from chimpanzees and gorillas, since those animals possess these same contrivances?  Or, to take a more supposable case:  If the argument from structure to design is convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a Newfoundland dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog came from similar parents, would it be at all weakened if, in tracing his genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came (as is suspected) from some wolf?  If not, how is the argument for design in the structure of our particular dog affected by the supposition that his wolfish progenitor came from a post-tertiary wolf, perhaps less unlike an existing one than the dog in question is to some other of the numerous existing races of dogs, and that this post-tertiary came from an equally or more different tertiary wolf?  And if the argument from structure to design is not invalidated by our present knowledge that our individual dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is it invalidated by the supposition of an analogous natural descent, through a long line of connected forms, from such a cell, or from some simple animal, existing ages before there were any dogs?

Again, suppose we have two well-known and apparently most decidedly different animals or plants, A and D, both presenting, in their structure and in their adaptations to the conditions of existence, as valid and clear evidence of design as any animal or plant ever presented:  suppose we have now discovered two intermediate species, B and C, which make up a series with equable differences from A to D. Is the proof of design or final cause in A and D, whatever it amounted to, at all weakened by the discovery of the intermediate forms?  Rather does not the proof extend to the intermediate species, and go to show that all four were equally designed?  Suppose, now, the number of intermediate forms to be much increased,