354 NOT ONE TISSUE FORMED BY 



supporters, who happens to be acquainted with minute 

 structure, believes that the formation of an eye or an ear is 

 adequately explained by what is termed natural selection, or 

 by what is called evolution. And yet it would have sufficed 

 to convince anyone of the truth of those doctrines, if 

 Mr. Darwin or his followers had adduced but one single 

 series of facts rendering it probable that a single constituent 

 tissue of either of the complex organs was to be accounted 

 for by natural selection. Let anyone attempt to explain, 

 according to the principles, or according to so-called laws 

 of evolution or natural selection, or any modification that 

 can be proposed of these the formation, not of the eye 

 as a whole, but of the cornea simply, of the iris, of the lens, 

 nay, of but a single anatomical element of any one of these 

 textures, or of the cochlea, or of a few rods of the cochlea. 

 The attempt, of course, would have been made, if it had 

 not been felt by the supporters of these views that it 

 would, assuredly, end in failure. If this, however, had been 

 successfully achieved, we should no longer speak of the 

 " hypothesis" of evolution. But if such were now attempted, 

 I have no doubt we should be presented with a clever 

 and intricate arrangement of complex words, and favoured 

 with sentences of most elaborate and philosophic construc- 

 tion, the meaninglessness of which would be evident the 

 moment they were analysed by the light of common 

 sense. The multitude of facts that would come out in 

 such attempted inquiry, and which the supposed inquirer 

 would have to deal with, would soon overwhelm him, and 

 he would probably attempt to escape from the difficulty by 

 proclaiming, in the strongest way, that the method proposed 

 to him was faulty and unpractical a mere farce the 



