44 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



nothing more, should be able to form a conception of 

 an eye and set itself to work to grow one, any more than 

 it is believable that he who first observed the magnify- 

 ing power of a dew drop, or even he who first con- 

 structed a rude lens, should have had any idea in his 

 mind of Lord Rosse's telescope with all its parts and 

 appliances. Nothing could be well conceived more 

 foreign to experience and common sense. Animals and 

 plants have travelled to their present forms as man 

 has travelled to any one of his own most compli- 

 cated inventions. Slowly, step by step, through many 

 blunders and mischances which have worked together 

 for good to those that have persevered in elasticity. 

 They have travelled as man has travelled, with but 

 little perception of a want till there was also some per- 

 ception of a power, and with but little perception of a 

 power till there was a dim sense of want ; want stimula- 

 ting power, and power stimulating want ; and both so 

 based upon each other that no one can say which is the 

 true foundation, but rather that they must be both 

 baseless and, as it were, meteoric in mid air. They 

 have seen very little ahead of a present power or need, 

 and have been then most moral, when most inclined to 

 pierce a little into futurity, but also when most obsti- 

 nately declining to pierce too far, and busy mainly 

 with the present. They have been so far blindfolded 

 that they could see but for a few steps in front of them, 

 yet so far free to see that those steps were taken with 

 aim and definitely, and not in the dark. 



" Plus il a su," says Buffon, speaking of man, " plus il 

 a pu, mais aussi moins il a fait, moins il a su." This 



