188 DARW1NIANISM. 



causes, much the same thing', too, being capable to be 

 said both for the sun and the sea, in such circumstances, 

 to talk of prediction as regards this wave, or that wave, or 

 any other wave that strikes upon the shore ah, well ! 

 are there not bounds to the licence of oratory ? 



Mr. Huxley would reduce, too, the idea of creation to 

 absurdity by challenging even such courage as was 

 the formidable Whewell's, " to say that a Rhinoceros 

 tichorinus, for instance, was produced without parents." 

 But why not put Mr. Darwin's, or even his own, courage 

 to precisely this proof ? How about these " four or five 

 primordial forms," or even that " single prototype " ? 

 Were they was it, then, without parents ? Or were 

 they and it, then, just there and at the moment 

 abstractly created ? Then this astounding avowal of 

 Mr. Huxley's-! 



" The teleology which supposes that the eye was made 

 for enabling the animal to see has undoubtedly 

 received its death-blow ! " 



" It is the last of absurdities to believe or say that 

 the eye has not been made to see nor the ear to 

 hear." 



As we shall see again, it is Diderot says this. I know 

 not that there has been any High Priest of Enlighten- 

 ment (Aufklarung) higher than he yet. 



When it is said further in this chapter that " the 

 existing world lay potentially in the cosmic vapour, and 

 that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of 

 the properties of the molecules of that vapour, have pre- 

 dicted, say the state of the fauna of Britain in 1869, 

 with as much certainty as one can say what will happen 

 to the vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day," one 

 can only remark, Well, yes, if a sufficient intelligence, 

 :ind if a sufficient knowledge (of all in infinitude), but 

 then, also, if the sky falls, it will be all up with the 



