54 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



is to be found only in case of some novel feature or 

 difficulty presenting itself; these facts do not bar that 

 the results achieved should be attributed to an inception 

 in reason, design, and purpose, no matter how rapidly and 

 as we call it instinctively, the creatures may now act. 



For if we look closely at such an invention as the steam 

 engine in its latest and most complicated developments, 

 about which there can be no dispute but that they 

 are achievements of reason, purpose, and design, we 

 shall find them present us with examples of all those 

 features the presence of which in the handiwork of 

 animals is too often held to bar reason and purpose 

 from having had any share therein. 



Assuredly such men as the Marquis of Worcester and 

 Captain Savery had very imperfect ideas as to the up- 

 shot of their own action. The simplest steam engine 

 now in use in England is probably a marvel of ingenuity 

 as compared with the highest development which ap- 

 peared possible to these two great men, while our 

 newest and most highly complicated engines would 

 seem to them more like living beings than machines. 

 Many, again, of the steps leading to the present deve- 

 lopment have been due to action which had but little 

 heed of the steam engine, being the inventions of 

 attendants whose desire was to save themselves the 

 trouble of turning this or that cock, and who were 

 indifferent to any other end than their own immediate 

 convenience. No step in fact along the whole route 

 was ever taken with much perception of what would be 

 the next step after the one being taken at any given 

 moment. 



