After Charles Darwin had returned home from the journey of the Beagle, he was reflecting on species and creation, recording his thoughts in his note book, like the following observation:
Astronomers might formerly have said that God foreordered each planet to move in its particular destiny. In the same manner God orders each animal created with certain
forms in certain countries, but how much more simple and sublime [a] power—let attraction act according to certain law, such are inevitable consequences—let animals be created, then by the fixed laws of generation, such will be their successors.
I am perplexed by the structure of the part in bold; I guess it might be: but what a very simple and sublime power is it, that let gravity inflict its inevitable consequences according to a certain law, and create animals, which will produce such successors, according to fixed laws of generation.
Astronomers might formerly have said that God foreordered each planet to move in its particular destiny. In the same manner God orders each animal created with certain
forms in certain countries, but how much more simple and sublime [a] power—let attraction act according to certain law, such are inevitable consequences—let animals be created, then by the fixed laws of generation, such will be their successors.
I am perplexed by the structure of the part in bold; I guess it might be: but what a very simple and sublime power is it, that let gravity inflict its inevitable consequences according to a certain law, and create animals, which will produce such successors, according to fixed laws of generation.