270 Anima Mundi. 



the Creative Mind, or is it not? Can we ac- 

 count for either except by saying that it was 

 thought out before it was wrought out ; that it 

 was a concept in mind ere it could possibly 

 appear as a configuration in matter ; that before 

 it became a fact in nature it must needs have 

 been a thought in God?"* 



14. Can we say that although the prospect- 

 glass is the product of mind, yet no mind pre- 

 sided over the structure of the eye ? According 

 to Mr. Darwin, we can and ought. And yet 

 Mr. Darwin begins by admitting it to be 

 apparently "in the highest degree absurd to 

 suppose that the eye, with all its INIMITABLE 

 contrivances for adjusting the focus to different 

 distances, for admitting different amounts of 

 light, and for the correction of spherical and 

 chromatic aberration, could have been formed 

 by natural selection." He then proceeds to 

 indicate some " probable " stages in the process 

 by which, as he believes, the eye was formed 

 a process of natural selection, and of that 

 alone. His first postulate is, a nerve specially 

 endowed with sensibility to light. The optic 

 nerve thus not formed, but fancied merely, 

 surrounded by pigment cells, and covered by 

 translucent skin, will, in millions of ages, select 

 1 "The Three Barriers," pp. 61 et seq. 



