Scientific Sophisms. 267 



the cells. l "A complete knowledge of all the 

 mysteries which have been gradually unfolded 

 from the days of Galvani to those of Faraday, 

 and of many others which ure still inscrutable to 

 us, is exhibited in this structure" 



Well may Mr. Darwin say, " It is impossible 

 to conceive by what steps these wondrous 

 organs have been produced." 3 "We see the 

 Purpose that a special apparatus should be 

 prepared, and we see that it is effected by 

 the production of the machine required : but 

 we have not the remotest notion of the means 

 employed. Yet we can see so much as this, 

 that here again, other laws, belonging altogether 

 to another department of Nature laws of 

 organic growth are made subservient to a very 

 definite and very peculiar Purpose." The laws 

 appealed to in the accomplishment of this pur- 

 pose are at once numerous and highly compli- 

 cated. They are so because the conditions to 

 be satisfied refer not merely to the generation 

 of Electric force in the animal to which it is 

 given, but to its effect on Ihe nervous system of 

 the animals against which it is to be employed, 

 and also to the conducting medium in which 



1 Prof. Owen's "Lectures on Comparative Anatomy," 

 vol. ii. (Fishes). 

 8 " Origin of Species." First Edition, p. 192. 



