DESIGN IN THE ORGANIC WORLD. 419 



might have derived their regular shape from a number of acci- 

 dental blows, and that the people who now use such instruments 

 might have adopted and turned to account such as thus came to 

 their hands ready made, I hold it impossible for any one who 

 brings an unprejudiced mind to the examination of a sufficiently 

 large collection of them, brought from localities widely remote 

 from each other, to come to any oth'er conclusion than that they 

 have been shaped by human handiwork. 



I might carry this argument from the " palaeolithic " to the 

 "neolithic" forms; in the latter of which smooth surfaces and 

 sharp continuous edges have been given by friction on other 

 stones. It is true that every pebble of a shingle beach exhibits 

 the result of similar attrition against other pebbles, in the shaping 

 and smoothing of its surface ; but any one who should maintain 

 that a characteristic flint implement of the neolithic kind could 

 have got its shape and polish from any such casual milling, would 

 be accounted destitute of common sense. 



Now, although we can assign a use for each kind of implement, 

 it does not at all follow that such was the use for which it was 

 designed by its maker ; but the argument that it had a maker, and 

 that he designed it for sovie purpose, is not in the least weakened 

 by this uncertainty. And I shall hereafter show that we are justi- 

 fied by exactly the same kind of evidence, in distinguishing the 

 variations in organized structures, which persistently take place 

 in definite directions, and culminate in the evolution of a more 

 elevated type, from those " aimless " variations which correspond 

 to the accidental fractures of flints. 



From one of the earliest products of human ingenuity I now 

 pass to one of the latest — the Walter printing-press, which I first 

 saw in operation in the Great Exhibition of 1862, and which em- 

 bodies one of the most marvellous combinations of different actions, 

 all related to one and the same end, that I have ever seen in any 

 single machine. In fact, it more impressed me with its resem- 

 blance to an organized structure, than any other piece of mechanism 

 that I am acquainted with. If you were to join on to the Walter 

 printing-press the paper-making machine, which is worked sepa- 

 rately for convenience merely, you might put in paper-pulp in one 

 end, and this would come out at the other end as printed Times 



