THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 53 



spherical and chromatic aberration, could 

 have been formed by Natural Selection, 

 seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest 

 possible degreed * 



I suppose most persons possessed with 

 the average amount of common sense will 

 agree with him. Nevertheless, there are 

 infidels bold enough to declare that this 

 complicated and wonderful organ, the eye, 

 which gives evidence of an Almighty 

 designer more than any thing else in 

 creation, so far from this, proves to be a 

 very poor specimen of workmanship in 

 their estimation. The late Professor W. K. 

 Clifford, in an address to the British 

 Association of 1872, on Aims and Instru- 

 ments of Scientific Thought, while pointedly 

 denying that " every thing has a cause or 

 a purpose," quotes the authority of Helm- 

 holtz, a German physiologist, on the 

 formation "of the eye," as he said, "If 

 an optician sent me that as an instrument, 

 I should send it back to him with grave 



* See Appendix E. 



