DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 65 



his three great powers, or rather, the three great laws 

 by which the organic power of life acts in the forma- 

 tion of an eye. {See p. 169.) Following the method 

 he has pointed out, we will take a number of animals 

 of the same species, in which the eye is not developed. 

 They may have all the other senses, with the organs 

 of nutrition, circulation, respiration, and locomotion. 

 They all have a brain and nerves, and some of these 

 nerves may be sensitive to light ; but have no com- 

 bination of retina, membranes, humors, etc., by which 

 the distinct image of an object may be formed and 

 conveyed by the optic nerve to the cognizance of the 

 internal perception, or the mind. The animal in this 

 case would be merely sensible of the difference be- 

 tween light and darkness. He would have no power 

 of discriminating form, size, shape, or color, the dif- 

 ference of objects, and to gain from these a knowledge 

 of their being useful or hurtful, friends or enemies. 

 Up to this point there is no appearance of necessity 

 upon the scene. The billiard-balls have not yet 

 struck together, and we will suppose that none of 

 the arguments that may be used to prove, from this 

 organism, thus existing, that it could not have come 

 into form and being without a creator acting to this 

 end with intelligence and design, are opposed by any- 

 thing that can be found in Darwin's theory ; for, so 

 far, Darwin's laws are supposed not to have come 

 into operation. Give the animals, thus organized, 

 food and room, and they may go on, from genera- 

 tion to generation, upon the same organic level. 

 Those individuals that, from natural variation, are 

 born with light-nerves a little more sensitive to light 



