48 NATURAL THEOLOGT. 



that it might as well be its present form as any other. Let 

 us now apply this answer to the eye, as we did before to the 

 watch. Something or other must have occupied that place 

 in the animal's head — must have filled up, as we say, that 

 socket : we will say, also, that it must have been of that sort 

 of substance which we call animal substance, as flesh, bone, 

 membrane, or cartilage, etc. But that it should have been 

 an eye, knowing as we do what an eye comprehends, name- 

 ly, that it should have consisted, first, of a series of transpar- 

 ent lenses — very difierent, by the by, even in their substance, 

 from the opaque materials of which the rest of the body is, 

 In general at least, composed, and with which the whole of 

 its surface, this single portion of it excepted, is covered : 

 secondly, of a black cloth or canvas — the only membrane 

 in the body which is black — spread out behind these lenses, 

 60 as to receive the image formed by pencils of light trans 

 mitted through them ; and placed at the precise geometricaJ 

 distance at which, and at which alone, a distinct image 

 could be formed, namely, at the concourse of the refracted 

 rays : thirdly, of a large nerve communicating between this 

 membrane and the brain ; without which, the action of light 

 upon the membrane, however modified by the organ, would 

 be lost to the purposes of sensation : that this fortunate con- 

 formation of parts should have been the lot, not of one 

 individual out of many thousand individuals, hke the great 

 prize in a lottery, or like some singularity in nature, but the 

 happy chance of a whole species ; nor of one species out of 

 many thousand species with which we are acquainted, but 

 of by far the greatest number of all that exist, and that 

 under varieties not casual or capricious, but bearing marks 

 of being suited to their respective exigences : that all this 

 should have taken place, merely because something must 

 have occupied these points on every animal's forehead ; or, 

 that all this should be thought to be accounted for by the 

 short answer, that " whatever was there must have had 

 gome form or other," is too absurd to be made more so by 



