Page:Divine Selection or The Survival of the Useful.djvu/16

 come. In which case the essential nature of the creative power and the supreme intelligence is luck, for the first cause must terminate in the last effect. The first cause and all derivative or subsequent causes must be the same in essence.

If luck and chance had failed in one instance in the long line of development, creation would have ended in chaos. If chance started creation it is by chance that oaks bear acorns and not beech-nuts, and that beech-nuts grow into beech-trees rather than into oaks. It is by fortune that of the myriads of plants and animals each bears its kind, and not one mistake ever occurs. It is by luck that the universe is kept in its order, and law itself is merely such good fortune that it never varies. These are legitimate, inevitable conclusions from the premises of Evolution, to which every close and consistent thinker must be forced.