SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT 7 



that it has, like the telescope, lenses and means 

 for focussing, and other like things. If the devices 

 we meet with in the telescope are designed, as 

 unquestionably they are designed, to aid our 

 vision, can we doubt that the devices we find in 

 the eye are also designed for the very purposes of 

 vision itself ? And in a similar manner he deals 

 with a number of other contrivances in man and 

 in the lower animals, which exhibit, according 

 to his theory, undoubted evidences of design.* 

 Such was the thesis with whose development 

 Paley's work is concerned, and it embodies the 

 Argument from Design as it was stated at the be- 

 ginning of the nineteenth century, and, indeed, 

 as it continued to be stated up to the Darwinian 

 days. Into this comparatively peaceful pool rushed 

 the whirlwind of Darwin with the subsidiary and 

 adjuvant blast of Huxley a nipping and an eager 

 air from a keener and adjacent quarter. Let us 

 try to take stock of the events of that period. 

 Darwin's great book is commonly and most mis- 

 leadingly known to the majority of mankind as 

 The Origin of Species, whereas its true title was 

 Ihe Origin of Species by Means of Natural 

 Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races 

 in the Struggle for Life. The distinction which 

 I have drawn between the popular and the actual 

 titles is not a mere piece of pedantry : behind it 

 lies a historical fact of the utmost importance. 



Darwin was by no manner of means the first 

 person to propose the theory now commonly but 

 incorrectly known as " Darwinism," but which is 



* The outline is that of the first chapters of the work in question. 



