ADAPTATION 175 



supposed to be built of unprepared stones, in order to explain 

 the process by which he thought species — represented by the 

 edifice — arose by Natural Selection of accidental variations — i.e., 

 the fragments of rock picked up at the base of a cliff. 



" If an architect were to rear a noble and commodious 

 edifice, without the use of cut stone, by selecting from the 

 fragments at the base of a precipice wedge-formed stones for 

 his arches, elongated stones for his lintels and flat stones for 

 his roof, we should admire his skill and regard him as the 

 paramount power. 



"Now, the fragments of stones, though indispensable to 

 the architect, bear to the edifice built by him the same rela- 

 tion [literally, there is none at all] which the fluctuating varia- 

 tions of each organic being bear to the varied and admirable 

 structures ultimately acquired by its modified descendants." ^ 



Darwin admits that, with regard to the use to which the 

 fragments of stone may be put, " their shapes may be strictly 

 said to be accidental " ; just as he acknowledges the favourable 

 variations to be accidental, and not occurring in any necessary 

 connection with the requirements of the organism. 



The essential feature which Darwin overlooked is, that if 

 is qjiite impossible to construct a " noble and commodious 

 edifice" out of unhewn and unprepared stones and with no 

 prepared mortar. No one except prehistoric man or his immedi- 

 ate successors has ever so built a house at all. 



Consequently the argument defeats itself, and, in fact, may 

 be utilised by the Theist who believes in Evolution by natural 

 law ; that as all noble and commodious edifices must be built 

 with stones and bricks prepared by man, so the structure of 

 organisms shows definite natural laws in the evolution of the 

 tissues out of which the organs are built up. 



We see here, as throughout the whole of the organic world, 

 a marked Directivity of a special kind not observable in the 

 inorganic or mineral kingdom. 



Moreover, the further inference is that the architect himself 

 ^ Animals and Plants imder Domestication, ii., p. 430, 



