PRIMITIVE MAN. 351 



fully formed, and in motion. It would be quite as 

 much a creation if slowly and laboriously made by 

 the hand of the artificer, or if more rapidly struck 

 off by machinery ; and if the latter, it would not follow 

 that the machine which produced the watch was at all 

 like the watch itself. It might have been something 

 very different. Finally, when Spencer tries to cut at 

 the root of the whole of this argument, by affirming 

 that man has no more right to reason from himself 

 with regard to his Maker than a watch would have 

 to reason from its own mechanical structure and affirm 

 the like of its maker, he signally fails. If the watch 

 had such power of reasoning, it would be more than 

 mechanical, and would be intelligent like its maker; 

 and in any case, if thus reasoning it came to the 

 conclusion that it was a result of " accidental material 

 operations," it would be altogether mistaken. Nor 

 would it be nearer the truth if it held that it was 

 a product of spontaneous evolution from an imperfect 

 and comparatively useless watch that had been made 

 millions of years before. 



We have taken this illustration of the watch merely 

 as given to us by Huxley, and without in the least 

 seeking to overlook the distinction between a dead 

 machine and a living organism; but the argument 

 for creation and design is quite as strong in the case of 

 the latter, so long as it cannot be proved by actual 

 facts to be a product of derivation from a distinct 

 species. This has not been proved either in the case of 

 man or any other species; and so long as it has not, 



