Contributions to the theory of natural selection. A series of essays ... By Alfred Russel Wallace ...

368 TIiE LIMITS OF NAIURAL SELECTION
automatic organisms. If this were so, our apparent
WILL would be a delusion, and Professor Huxley's belief-" that our volition counts for something as a condition of the course of events," would be fallacious,
since our volition would then be but one link in the
chain of events, counting for neither more nor less
than any other link whatever.
If, therefore, we have traced one force, however minute, to an origin in our own WILL, while we have no
knowledge of any other primary cause of force, it does
not seem an improbable conclusion that all force may
be will-force; and thus, that the whole universe, is not
merely dependent on, but actually is, the WILL Of higher
intelligences or of one Supreme Intelligence. It has
been often said that'the true poet is a seer; and in the
noble verse of an American poetess, we find expressed,
what may prove to be the highest fact of science, the
noblest truth of philosophy:
God of the Granite and the Rose!
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.
Conclusion.
These speculations are usually held to be far beyond
the bounds of science; but they appear to me to be
more legitimate deductions from the facts of science,