Soul of the Sparrow and the Bee!
The mighty tide of Being flows
Through countless channels, Lord, from thee.
It leaps to life in grass and flowers,
Through every grade of being runs,
While from Creation's radiant towers
Its glory flames in Stars and Suns."
To the above-mentioned points Mr. Wallace adds a spiritualistic belief in many sublime intelligences intermediate between the Deity and the Universe. Compare Natural Selection, Ed. 2. Essay X. with Notes.
[az] That the perception of fitness, even when of the most exalted kind, does not to some thinkers carry with it a perception of Design, is plainly manifest from the ensuing paragraph:—
"The absurdity of the à posteriori argument for a God consists in the assumption that what we call order, harmony, and adaptation are evidence of design, when it is evident that, whether there be a God or not, order, harmony, and adaptation must have existed from eternity, and are not therefore necessary proof of a designing cause." (American Index, Jan. 11, 1873.)