178 ORGANS OF EXTREME PERFECTION Chap. VI. 



frigate-bird, the dee])ly-scooped membrane between the toes 

 shows that structure has begun to change. 



He Avho believes in separate and innumerable acts of crea- 

 tion may say, that in these cases it has pleased the Creator to 

 cause a being of one type to take the place of one belonging to 

 another t^-pe ; but this seems to me only restating the fact in 

 ditrnified lano-uaffe. He Avho believes in the strug"-le for ex- 

 istcnce and in the principle of natural selection, will acknowl- 

 edge that every organic being is constantly endeavoring to 

 increase in numbers ; and that if any one varies ever so little, 

 either in habits or structure, and thus gains an advantage over 

 some other inhabitant of the country, it will seize on the j)lace 

 of that inhabitant, however different it may be from its own 

 place. Hence it will cause him no surprise that there should 

 be geese and frigate-birds with webbed feet, living on the dry 

 land, or most rai'ely alighting on the "water; that there should 

 be long-toed corncrakes, living in meadows instead of in 

 swamps ; that there should be woodpeckers Mhere not a tree 

 grows ; that there should be diving thnishes and diving Hymen- 

 optera, and petrels with the habits of auks. 



Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication. 



To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances 

 for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admittmg 

 different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical 

 and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural 

 selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. 

 "SVlien it was first said that the sun stood still and the world 

 turned round, the common-sense of mankind declared the doc- 

 trine false ; Imt the old saying of ] 'ox popxdi^ vox Dei, as every 

 j)hilosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science, lieason tells 

 me, that if numerous gradations from an imperfect and simple 

 eye to one jierfect and complex, each grade being useful to its 

 possessor, can be shown to exist, as is certainly the case; if 

 further, the eye ever slightly varies, and the variations be inher- 

 ited, as is likewise certainly the case ; and if such variations 

 should ever be useful to any animal under changing conditions of 

 life, then the dilliculty of believing that a jierfect and complex 

 eye could be formed l>y natural selection, though insuperable 

 by our imagination, cannot be considered real. How a nerve 

 comes to be S(Misitive to light, hardly concerns us more than 

 how life itself first originated ; but I may remark that, as some 



