8 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



the beaver cannot plaster its habitation in such fashion 

 as alone satisfies it, is incorporate into the beaver's own 

 body by way of a tail, the like of which is to be found 

 in no other animal. 



To take a name which carries with it a far greater 

 authority, that of Mr. Charles Darwin. He writes : 



" It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye 

 with a telescope. We know that this instrument has 

 been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the 

 highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that 

 the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous 

 process. But may not this inference be presumptuous ? 

 Have we any right to declare that the Creator works 

 by intellectual powers like those of man ? " * 



Here purposiveness is not indeed denied point-blank, 

 but the intention of the author is unmistakable, it is 

 to refer the wonderful result to the gradual accumulation 

 of small accidental improvements which were not due 

 as a rule, if at all, to anything " analogous " to design. 



" Variation," he says, " will cause the slight altera- 

 tions ; " that is to say, the slight successive variations 

 whose accumulation results in such a marvellous struc- 

 ture as the eye, are caused by variation ; or in other 



words, they are indefinite, due to nothing that we can 

 lay our hands upon, and therefore certainly not due 

 to design. " Generation," continues Mr. Darwin, " will 

 multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection 

 will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let 

 this process go on for millions of years, and during 

 each year on millions of individuals of many kinds ; and 



* ' Origin of Species,' p. 146, cd. 1876. 



