EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 387 



dicatious from the first. The variations of which we 

 speak, as originating in no obvious causal relation to 

 the external conditions, do not include dwarfed or 

 starved, and gigantesque or luxuriant forms, and 

 those drawn up or expanded on the one hand, or con- 

 tracted and hardened on the other, by the direct dif- 

 ference in the supply of food and moisture, light and 

 heat. Here the action of the environment is both 

 obvious and direct. But such cases do not count for 

 much in evolution. 



Moreover, while we see how the mere struggle and 

 interplay among occurring forms may improve them 

 and lead them on, we cannot well imagine how the 

 adaptations which arrest our attention are thereby 

 secured. Our difficulty, let it be understood, is not 

 about the natural origination of organs. To the tri- 

 umphant outcry, " How can an organ, such as an eye, 

 be formed under Nature ? " we would respond with a 

 parallel question, How can a complex and elaborate 

 organ, such as a nettle-sting, be formed under Na- 

 ture ? But it is so formed. In the same species 

 some individuals have these exquisitely-constructed 

 organs and some have not. And so of other glands, 

 the structure and adaptation of which, when looked 

 into, appear to be as wonderful as anything in Na- 

 ture. The impossibility lies in conceiving how the 

 obvious purpose was effectuated under natural se- 

 lection alone. This, under our view, any amount of 

 gradation in a series of forms goes a small way in 

 explaining. The transit of a young flounder's eye 

 across the head is a capital instance of a wonderful 

 thing done under Nature, and done unaccountably. 



