SPECIAL CREATION OR DERIVATION? 



lower sides of the hands and feet, which are 

 also bare in the adult forms of other mammals. 

 In like manner, the tadpole of the black sala- 

 mander, which is not born until it is fully 

 formed, and which never swims, nevertheless 

 has gills as elaborately feathered as those which, 

 in the tadpoles of other salamanders, are des- 

 tined for use. Treatises on embryology are 

 crowded with just such facts as these. Now 

 why is it that, in all cases, before a complex 

 organism " can attain the structure which dis- 

 tinguishes it, there must be an evolution of 

 forms which distinguish the structures of organ- 

 isms lower in the series ? " " None of these 

 phases have any adaptation to the future state 

 of the animal ; many of them have no adap- 

 tation even to its embryonic state." On the 

 hypothesis that each species of organisms was 

 independently built up by a Divine Architect, 

 how are we to explain these circuitous proceed- 

 ings ? " What," asks Mr. Lewes, " should we 

 say to an architect who was unable, or being 

 able was obstinately unwilling, to erect a palace 

 except by first using his materials in the shape 

 of a hut, then pulling it down and rebuilding 

 them as a cottage, then adding story to story 

 and room to room, not with any reference to 

 the ultimate purposes of the palace, but wholly 

 with reference to the way in which houses were 

 constructed in ancient times ? What should we 



VOL. II 40I 



