12 



may experience a conatus for seeing. But the case to be 

 accounted for would be the beginning of such conatus in some 

 individual of a species, none of which had the organ for the 

 function, and in which, consequently, none had even the idea 

 of the function or its pleasures as the objective of such desire. 

 If they resort to the assertion that this conatus towards a 

 function may be instinctive and unintelligent, the fatal answers 

 are : That their own sciences of zoology and physiology 

 assure us that instincts are not found in cases where the 

 organs for their exercise do not exist : A.nd that an instinctive 

 conatus, being blind and fortuitous, would never produce 

 results of such regularity and completeness, and those, exactly 

 alike in each of the multitudes of a species. 



22. But the most utter collapse of the attempt to explain 

 the finalities of Nature by the laws of a supposed evolu- 

 tion, occurs when we approach those classes of organs, 

 which complete their development while the influences of 

 environment and function are entirely excluded; and these are 

 exceedingly numerous. The fowl in the shell has already 

 developed wings to fly with, in a marble case which excluded 

 every atom of air, the medium for flying. So, this animal has 

 perfected a pair of lungs for breathing, where there has never 

 been any air to inhale. It has matured a pair of perfect eyes 

 to see with, in a prison where there has never entered a ray 

 of light. It has an apparatus of nutrition in complete working 

 order, including the interadjustments of beak, tongue, swallow, 

 craw, gizzard, digestive stomach, andintestine; althoughhitherto 

 its only nutrition has been from the egg which enclosed it ; 

 and this has been introduced into its circulation in a different 

 manner. This instance of the fowl has been stated in detail, 

 that it may suggest to the hearer a multitude of like ones. 

 The argument is, that physical causes can only act when in 

 juxtaposition, both as to time and place, with the bodies which 

 receive their efficiency. But here, environment and function 

 were wholly absent until the results, wings, eyes, ears, 

 lungs, alimentary canal, were completed. Therefore, they 

 had no causal connection whatever as physical causes. Their 

 influence could only have been as final causes. 



23. Perhaps the deepest mysteries and wonders of Nature are 

 those presented in the functions of reproduction. And to 

 these Nature attaches her greatest importance, as she shows 

 by many signs, seeing the very existence of the genera and 

 species depend on this. The organs of reproduction present 

 instances most fatal to our opponents, in all those cases where 

 the male organs are in one individual, and the female in a 



