252 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



are pointed out by Buckland, so that it is no longer possible to 

 regard them as independent and distinct contrivances. 



Darwin says : " The old argument from design in nature, as 

 given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails 

 now that natural selection is discovered. We can no longer argue 

 that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must 

 have been made by an intelligent being. There seems to be no 

 more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action 

 of natural selection than in the course which the wind blows." 



If the supposed analogy between human contrivances and the 

 works of nature be a mistake, Paley assuredly makes this mistake; 

 although this is not pointed out in any hostile spirit, but solely 

 for the purpose of showing those who are convinced, with Darwin, 

 of the failure of the " old argument from design as given by 

 Paley," that they may perhaps find a stronger argument ; and 

 that there may be more wisdom in Huxley's assertion that it is 

 only " the commoner and coarser forms of teleology " that fail 

 when tested by natural selection. 



It is obvious to all that with the discovery of the significance 

 of natural selection, the teleology which supposes that the eye, such 

 as we see it in man or one of the higher vertebrates, was made 

 with the precise structure which it exhibits, for the purpose of 

 enabling the animal which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly 

 received its death-blow ; although Huxley, while pointing this out, 

 reminds us that " nevertheless it is necessary to remember that 

 there is a wider teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine 

 of Evolution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposi- 

 tion of Evolution." 



Asa Gray, writing at the same or nearly the same time, soon 

 after the "Origin" was published, says he cannot perceive that Dar- 

 win brings in any new kind of difficulty, and he expresses his 

 conviction that they who think there is any incompatibility be- 

 tween belief in the mutability of species and belief in teleology 

 occupy a position which is not only untenable, but " highly unwise 

 and dangerous in the present state and present prospects of physi- 

 cal and physiological science." "We should," he says, "expect 

 the philosophical atheist to take this ground ; also, until better 

 informed, the unlearned and unphilosophical believer ; but we 



