However much we may wish it, we can hardly follow Professor Asa Gray in his belief that 'variation has been led along certain beneficial lines,' like a stream 'along definite and useful lines of irrigation.'" "If we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning of{256} all time pre-ordained, the plasticity of the organization, which leads to many injurious deviations of structure, as well as that redundant power of reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and, as a consequence, to the Natural Selection and survival of the fittest, must appear to us superfluous laws of nature.

On the other hand, an omnipotent and omniscient Creator ordains everything and foresees everything.

Thus we are brought face to face with a difficulty as insoluble as is that of freewill and predestination." Before proceeding to reply to this remarkable passage, it may be well to remind some readers that belief in the existence of God, in His primary creation of the universe, and in His derivative creation of all kinds of being, inorganic and organic, do not repose upon physical phenomena, but, as has been said, on primary intuitions.

To deny or ridicule any of these beliefs on physical grounds is to commit the fallacy of _ignoratio elenchi_.

It is to commit an absurdity analogous to that of saying a blind child could not recognize his father because he could not _see_ him, forgetting that he could _hear_ and _feel_ him.