Passing from more detailed discussion, it is needful to observe how wide and valuable are the results of these researches concerning the relation of the vegetable kingdom with lower orders of animals. Facts now recorded in multitudes of scientific journals, and more elaborate treatises, illustrate wonderful minuteness of contrivance and completeness of adaptation in the works of nature, giving to the range of knowledge possessed only a century ago an aspect of insignificance. What the microscope has done by enlarging the range of human vision, subdivision of labor among scientific inquirers, and proportionate concentration, have done, in the way of embracing the vast and complicated field, of observation lying open to all eyes. The results exalt to a greatly higher place in our appreciation the evidence of design in the world. The consequence is that while the line of thought followed by Paley, in what he designated _Natural Theology_, has become a thousand-fold more interesting, the familiar and now almost antiquated illustration of the _watch_, taken as a model of human design, by the comparative simplicity of its adjustments, seems strangely inadequate to represent even in the most temporary form, a minuteness of design quite overwhelming to the human mind in its attempts to bring it within a uniform scheme. Whether all this was provided for by manifold creative acts, or by development from a few primordial forms, does not affect the argument; the latter suggestion only greatly increases its force. To those who are swayed only by an intellectual interest, the facts of vegetable and insect life must be full of significance, suggestive of far-reaching reflection. But to no body of men can these results of scientific research be so attractive as to those who require for all nature a supernatural explanation. FOOTNOTES: [BR] _Lay Sermons_, chap, vii., p. 134. [BS] Darwin's _Fertilization of Orchids_, p. 2; Lubbock's _Scientific Lectures_, p. 8. [BT] Sir John Lubbock's _Scientific Lectures_, p. 3. Mr. Darwin refers to Fritz Müller's papers as reported in _Botanische Zeitung_, 1869-70. Appendix IX. [BU] _The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are fertilized by Insects_, 2d ed. p. 293. [BV] _Fertilization_, p. 5. [BW] _Fertilization_, p. 12. [BX] _Fertilization_, p. 102. [BY] _Ib._ p. 113. [BZ] _Fertilization_, p. 44. [CA] _Scientific Lectures_, p. 31. [CB] _Fertilization_, p. 2. [CC] _Ib._ p. 284. [CD] _Fertilization_, p. 285. [CE] _Fertilization_, p. 246. [CF] _Botany_, (Science Primers) by Dr. J. D. Hooker, C.B., P.R.S., p. 79. [CG] _Scientific Lectures_, p. 36. [CH] See Appendix X. [CI] See Appendix VIII. [CJ] _Origin of Species_, 6th ed. p. 230. [CK] _Origin of Species_, 6th ed. p. 233. [CL] _Scient. Lects._ p. 73. [CM] _Ib._ p. 78. [CN] _Ib._ p. 135. [CO] _Scientific Lectures_, p. 135. [CP] _Origin of Species_ 6th ed. p. 207.