[62] "Essay on Development," page 35.
[63] I will here quote the words of a great man, who has for many years been one of the chief scientific ornaments of this country, and whose departure from this life, at the ripe age of seventy-nine years, I see, with much sorrow, recorded in the Times of this day.
Speaking of the manner in which the universe has come into its present condition, and is preserved in that condition, and of the possibility of collision amongst the constituent bodies, Sir John Herschel says: "Ages, which to us may well appear indefinite, may easily be conceived to pass without a single instance of collision, in the nature of a catastrophe. Such may have gradually become rarer as the system has emerged from what must be considered as its chaotic state, till at length, in the fulness of time, and under the pre-arranging guidance of that Design which pervades universal nature, each individual may have taken up such a course as to annul the possibility of further destructive interference."—Outlines of Astronomy, p. 600.
I quote these words for the sake of the phrase which they contain, and the importance of which it is impossible to exaggerate, "The pre-arranging guidance of that Design which pervades universal nature."
[64] "Le Genie du Christianisme," Bk. iv., chap. v.
[65] "Descent of Man," p. 208.
[66] Report of Evidence, 1870:—
Q. 376. I thought you said Bishop Butler had been excluded?—It is not excluded, but being an optional subject it is one that has been discouraged.
Q. 377. Why?—He is gone out of fashion; I do not know why.
Q. 378. Who makes the fashion?—I suppose the particular set of examiners at one time.