52 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



the geological record, the imperfection 

 is rather in Mr. Darwin's reasoning 

 powers. 



In support of his principle of Nature 

 working by Natural Selection, Darwin 

 acknowledges that "if it could be demon- 

 strated that any complete organ existed 

 which could not possibly have been 

 formed by numerous successive slight 

 modifications, my theory would absolutely 

 break down" * 



The believer in the teleological argu- 

 ment, that the Supreme Creator worked 

 by design, when He pronounced all things 

 " very good, " naturally thinks of such an 

 object as " the eye," in contradiction of 

 this speculative theory; but Darwin has 

 anticipated him by candidly owning the 

 weakness of his own argument. " 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 



* Origin of Species ; p. 189. 



