1 6 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



change for future applications, abundantly testify, be 

 the concealed part of the machine, or of its construction, 

 what it will, the hand and agency of a contriver" * 



This is admirably put, but it will apply to the me- 

 chanism of animal and vegetable bodies only, if it is 

 used to show that they too must have had a contriver 

 who has a hand, or something tantamount to one ; who 

 does act; who, being a contriver, has what all other 

 contrivers must have, if they are to be called con- 

 trivers a body which can suffer more or less pain or 

 chagrin if the contrivance is unsuccessful. If this is 

 what Paley means, his argument is indeed irrefra- 

 gable; but if he does not intend this, his words are 

 frivolous, as so clear and acute a reasoner must have 

 perfectly well known. 



Whether Paley 's argument will prove a source of 

 lasting strength to himself or no, is a point which my 

 readers will decide presently ; but I am very clear 

 about its usefulness to my own position. I know few 

 writers whom I would willingly quote more largely, or 

 from whom I find it harder to leave off quoting when I 

 have once begun. A few more passages, however, must 

 suffice. 



" I challenge any man to produce in the joints and 

 pivots of the most complicated or the most flexible 

 machine that ever was contrived, a construction more 

 artificial " (here we have it again), " or more evidently 

 artificial than the human neck. Two things were to be 

 done. The head was to have the power of bending for- 

 ward and backward as in the act of nodding, stooping, 

 * Ch. vii. 



