TELEOLOGY OF PALEY, ETC. 21 



this head of muscular arrangement, is eo decidedly a 

 mark of intention, that it always appeared to me to 

 supersede in some measure the necessity of seeking for 

 any other observation upon the subject ; and that 

 circumstance is the tendons which pass from the leg to 

 the foot being bound down by a ligament at the ankle, 

 the foot is placed at a considerable angle with the leg. 

 It is manifest, therefore, that flexible strings passing 

 along the interior of the angle, if left to themselves, 

 would, when stretched, start from it. The obvious " 

 (and it must not be forgotten that the preventive ivas 

 obvious) "preventive is to tie them down. And this 

 is done in fact. Across the instep, or rather just above 

 it, the anatomist finds a strong ligament, under which 

 the tendons pass to the foot. The effect of the liga- 

 ment as a bandage can be made evident to the senses, 

 for if it be cut the tendons start up. The simplicity, 

 yet the clearness of this contrivance, its exact resem- 

 blance to established resources of art, place it amongst 

 the most indubitable manifestations of design with 

 which we are acquainted." 



Then follows a passage which is interesting, as 

 being the earliest attempt I know of to bring forward 

 an argument against evolution, which was, even in 

 Paley's day, called " Darwinism," after Dr. Erasmus 

 Darwin its propounder.* The argument, 1 mean, 

 which is drawn from the difficulty of accounting for the 



* " What ! " says Coleridge, in a note on Stillingfleet, to which Mr. 

 Garnett, of the British Museum, has kindly called my attention, " Did 

 Sir Walter Raleigh believe that a male and female ounce (and if so 

 why not two tigers and lions, &c. ?) would have produced in course of 

 generations a cat, or a cat a lion? This is Darwinising with a ven- 

 geance." See * Athenaeum,' March 27, 1875, p. 423. 



