NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 281 



and chance). "Forms" (ii. 210 and 311) "do not 

 necessarily advance; " " there can now be simple organisms 

 still' existing," nay, " the one primordial prototype of all 

 living and extinct creatures may be now alive " in 

 fact (i. 311) "natural selection is not perfect in its 

 action, but tends only to render each species as success- 

 ful as possible in the struggle for life." What we have 

 so often seen, namely, a simple casual variation as such 

 may somehow chance to hit quite naturally into the 

 conditions of its environment in some new way which 

 shall give it an advantage in the supposed struggle 

 for existence. And it is in this way that an eye is 

 created ! 



Not Lyell alone, but the perfectly open Asa Gray is 

 shocked here. He says (ii. 272): " What seems to me 

 the weakest point in the book is the attempt to account 

 for the formation of organs, the making of eyes, etc., by 

 natural selection ; some of this reads quite Lamarckian.'' 

 Mr. Darwin himself is obliged to confess (p. 273) that 

 he is in the same respect not very differently minded : 

 " About the weak points I agree : the eye to this day 

 gives me a cold shudder ; but when I think of the fine 

 known gradations, my reason tells me I ought to conquer 

 the cold shudder." (But does reason do so to others?) 



It is sufficiently curious that we should find quoted 

 in Lactantius opinions to the same effect on the part of 

 opponents : " There is nothing providential to be per- 

 ceived in the construction of the living animal ; the eyes 

 are neither created for the purpose of seeing, nor the 

 ears for hearing, the tongue for speaking, or the feet for 

 going; all these members come much earlier than 

 seeing, hearing, speaking, or walking take place." 

 " Man meint hier," is Zockler's referent remark, " einen 

 perfecten jungfer Darwins oder Hdckels zu horen" As 

 we saw already, the " enlightened " Diderot is no such 



