And if in the inorganic world we find food for such considerations, with
immensely greater instance are they forced upon us by a study of the
organic. Here we enter a new realm of mystery, for the laws we encounter
actively energizing at every point, are altogether different from those
with which hitherto we have had to deal. The matter which enters into
the constitution of living things,--animals or plants--is precisely the
same as that of which the inorganic world is constituted. No single atom
or molecule is found in the one which has not been drawn from the
other;--nor when incorporated in a living structure do atoms or
molecules suffer any alteration, or change their nature in any respect,
for, says Clerk-Maxwell,[126] throughout all changes and catastrophes
these remain "unbroken and unworn." Nevertheless, they fall at once
under the spell of a force which introduces into their operations an
order altogether new, for it somehow strikes across all the laws of dead
matter, setting up a new code of its own, which endures just so long as
life lasts, and is never met with apart from life. And these organic
laws issue in marvellous results. Professor Haeckel himself, after
endeavouring to show that from the inorganic world no arguments can be
drawn to favour the supposition of design in Nature, thus
continues:[127]
But the idea of design has a very great significance and
application in the _organic_ world. We do undeniably perceive a
purpose in the structure and in the life of an organism. The plant
and animal seem to be controlled by a definite design in the
combination of their several parts, just as clearly as we see in
the machines which man invents and constructs; as long as life
continues, the functions of the several organs are directed to
definite ends, just as is the operation of the various parts of a
machine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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