no Not Explained by Darwin. 



only metaphorically that anything of the kind 

 can be attributed to it. Natural selection, it 

 must be reiterated, is only a phrase for the sur 

 vival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. 

 But the survival of an eye at any stage of de 

 velopment is a very different thing from the for 

 mation of an eye. Natural selection, as Darwin 

 elsewhere says, &quot; can do nothing until favorable 

 individual differences or variations occur.&quot; As it 

 was only figuratively that we found it designated 

 an &quot; accumulative &quot; agency, much bolder is the 

 figure that invests it with &quot; productive &quot; powers. 

 Literally, it means nothing but the survival of the 

 fittest ; and reason and imagination alike concur 

 that the &quot; fittest&quot; must have preceded the survival. 

 Eyes, therefore, are not formed by the survival 

 of some of them, but merely culled and sifted. 

 Natural selection does not issue the creative 

 word, Let there be sight ! Its is the humbler 

 function of sitting in judgment on all forms that 

 do emerge, dooming some to death and promot 

 ing their executioners to higher life. To find 

 out, now, if there is any trace of design in the 

 matter, you must turn your gaze from the bench 

 of judgment and scrutinize the beings that await 

 its sentence. And doing so, must you not assert 

 that the same ends which are realized in the 



