17 
Laws out of some. other species. which preceded,.it, and that the 
same process, having regard to the age of Matter, hasbeen going 
on from all eternity, and is at work still. Ido not know whether 
I am justisfied in talking of the ‘‘ theory”’ of Evolution, since Pro- 
fessor Huxley in his article ‘‘ On the Coming of Age of the Origin 
of Species,” says ‘‘ Evolution is no louger.a speculation, but a 
statement of historical fact’?! How that can be an historical fact 
which has never yet been known spontaneously and naturally to 
occur, and which no man, living or dead, has ever pretended to. see 
or hear of, passes (I must confess) my apprehension,. Some evolu- 
tionists deny an original, creation, or any special creation at all (A)... 
Others. seem disposed to allow,.an original, creation, but reject a., 
present., Creator, or, Superintendent of.any kind. Nothing,,..they, 
say, shows any design in the mode of its: formation; animals and 
plants were not made as they are to suit the circumstances in which, 
they are placed, but.the circumstances themselves have made them 
what they are. We have, been created by our environment. No 
matter how intricate, even’ microscopically, any structure may be, 
all its intricacies have been evolved by the force of circumstances, , 
not, bya. controlling. mind. Theeye with its various coats and 
lenses, its delicate meshwork, of nerves and ‘vessels to. receive, 
external impressions, was not made for seeing, nor the ear for hear- 
ing; nor, say they, is it in accordance with scientific thought to 
judge that the complexity of either shows any trace of design. It 
has,all grown up piecemeal through the long eternity of ages.. The 
apparent improbability of this is to a certain extent,acknowledged. 
«To suppose”’ says, Darwin, ‘that the eye with all its inimitable: 
contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances. for 
admitting. different .amounts of light, and for the correction. of 
spherical. and. chromatic aberration, could. haye been . formed by 
natural selection, seems, I confess, absurd, in. the highest ,degree,’’ 
But he then. goes on to show how highly probable.itis that such was 
the cases You-would perhaps like to know. how. the formation of 
the eye has been accounted for by scientific men. I will.give it.you. 
in Professor Tyndall’s own words. 
“The action of light in the:first instance, appears tobe a- 
mere disturbance. of. the chemical processes in the animal 
organism, similar to that which occurs in'the leaves of plants. 
By degrees the action becomes localized in a few pigment cells 
more sensitive to light than the surrounding tissues. The eye 
is here incipient. At first it is merely capable of revealing 
differences of light and shade produced by bodies close at hand. 
Followed as the interception of light is in almost all cases by. 
h) “No one” says Herbert Spencer “ ever saw a special creation.” To which the 
tu quo que reply has been made, “No one ever saw an evolution,” 
