14 Professor Burden Sanderson [Jan. 24, 



calculating machine could effect in the time.* In another discourse 

 — that given at Leipzig when lie entered on liis professorship in 1865, 

 he remarks that when in our researches into the finer mechanism of 

 an organ we at last come to understand it, we are humbled by the 

 recognition " tliat the human inventor is but a blunderer compared 

 with the unknown Master of the animal creation." "j" 



Some readers will perhaps remember how one of the most 

 brilliant of jDliilosophical writers, in a discourse to the British 

 Association delivered a quarter of a century ago, averred on the 

 authority of a great Physiologist that the eye, regarded as an optical 

 instrument, was so inferior a production that if it were the work of 

 a mechanician it would be unsaleable. Without criticising or 

 endeavouring to exjjlain this paradox, I may refer to it as having 

 given the countenance of a distinguished name to a misconception 

 which I know exists in the minds of many jiersons, to the eft'ect that 

 the scientific Physiologist is more or less blind to the evidence of 

 design in creation. On the contrary, the view taken by Ludwig, as 

 expressed in the words I have quoted, is that of all Physiologists. 

 The disuse of the tcleological expressions which were formerly 

 current does not imply that the indications of contrivance are less 

 appreciated, for, on the contrary, we regard them as more character- 

 istic of organism as it presents itself to our observation than any 

 other of its enrlowments. But, if I may be permitted to repeat what 

 has been already said, we use the evidences of adaptation dilFerently. 

 We found no explanation on this or any other biological principle, 

 but refer all the phenomena by which these manifest themselves, to 

 the simpler and more certain Pliysical Laws of the Universe. 



Why must we take this position? First, because it is a general 

 rule in investigations of all kinds, to explain the more complex by the 

 more simple. The material Universe is manifestly divided into two 

 parts, the living and the non-living. We may, if we like, take the 

 living as our Norma, and say to the Physicists, you must come to us 

 for Laws, you must account for the i)lay of energies in universal 

 nature by referring them to Evolution, Descent, Adaptation. Or wo 

 may take these words as true expressions of the mutual relations 

 between the phenomena and processes peculiar to living beings, 

 using for the explanation of the processes themselves the same 

 methods which we should employ if we were engaged in the investi- 

 gation of analogous processes going on independently of life. Between 

 these two courses there seems to me to be no third alternative, unless we 



* I summarise here from a very interesting lecture entitled "Leid und 

 Frcude in der Naturforschung " published iu the ' Gartenlaube ' (Nos. 22 and 

 23) in 1870. 



t 'i'he sentence, of which the words in inverted commas form a part, is as 

 follows : " "NVenn uns endlich die Palme gereiclit wird, wenn wir ein Organ in 

 scinora Zuzammenhang begreifen, so wild unser stolzes Gattungsbcwnsstsein 

 durch die Erkenntniss niedergodriickt, dass der mcnsolilielier Erfinder cin 

 Stumper gegcn den uubekaimtou Mcister der thicrischcu Schopfung sei." 



