16 



Then I come to axiom No. 2, which is to be found in section 8. The author 

 says, " Function is not the determining cause, but only the physical result 

 of the existence of the organ. Birds did not get wings in order to fly ; 

 but they simply fly because they have wings." In the same way, we 

 are told in paragraph 12, "Adjustments, or coordinations,} are regularly 

 made in order to certain ends ; " and again, on the same page, "As the ship 

 is evidently designed and purposed for sailing, so is the ear for hearing and 

 the eye for seeing." Axiom No . 3 is given in section 9, where the author 

 says, "We know that the sure attribute of the results of blind chance 

 or fortuity, is uncertainty, irregularity, confusion ; " and then we have 

 axiom No. 4, a little further down, " It becomes rationally impossible 

 to believe that these frequent and regular concurrences of the effects 

 came from the blind, fortuitous coincidence of the physical causes, 

 acting each separately from the other." Again, in the concluding part 

 of section 17, we are told, "The difference between the normal acting 

 of a finite mind and of an infinite one can only be a difference of degree, 

 not of essence ; " and then we have an analogy between the child's 

 sums and those of Sir Isaac Newton. The fifth axiom is to be found 

 at the end of paragraph 20, where the author confutes the theory of 

 gradual evolution, or the doctrine of organisms obtaining perfection. 

 Here the author gives us a splendid specimen of analytical reasoning, by 

 citing the case of the sun and the stars, as to which he says, " Have suns 

 and stars, for instance, attained to their present exquisite adjustments of 

 relation and perfection of being by the blind experiments of countless 

 reproductions ? Then, the fossil suns, unfitted to survive, ought to lie 

 about us as thick as fossil polypi and mollusks." There is one more 

 axiom. It appears at the end of section 21 : " 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." May I be allowed, very humbly, 

 to take exception to one item in section 22 ? I would venture to suggest 

 that the argument there employed is weak, because it can be so easily con- 

 troverted or answered by the evolutionists. The author says, " The most 

 utter collapse of the attempts to explain the finalities of nature by the laws 

 of a supposed evolution 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." He 

 then refers to the fowl in the egg, as obtaining all its different organs neces- 

 sary for the consumption of food, and the other needs of its being. Now, 

 the evolutionist would say the fowl has merely inherited organs which are 

 transmitted in the egg, and that, consequently, improvement or degeneration 

 takes place after the animal has emerged from the egg-shell ; every creature 

 becoming more complex as the embryonic stage becomes more complicated. 

 I do not know any creature that emerges from an egg without possessing 

 some organs which it could not use while in the egg. 



Rev. J. WHITE, M.A. May I take the liberty of offering a few remarks ? 



