EVOLDTION AND DESIGN. ]][ 



do if you moved the hands according to your particular wish on 

 any particular day. These are results which regular law must 

 produce. 



Professor J. F. Blake, M.A., F.G.S. — I may say that I agree 

 with what Mr. H. M. Bompas has said, but I should probably go a 

 little further. I do not think it is a question of science, whether 

 the whole course of evolution itself is or is not a matter of design 

 and due to a Creator, but it is rather with the methods that 

 antagonism comes out between different schools of thought. Take 

 the well known instance that everj'^body refers to, viz., the length 

 of the proboscis of the bee or the butterfly, and the tubular shape 

 of certain flowers. The question is whether they came to be 

 adapted to each other without intention, or whether there 

 has been a design to adapt the one to the other. That is 

 where the difiiculty comes in, when you come to particular cases. 

 I quite agree that evolution shows design, though I have a 

 little doubt whether the distinction between the two views is quite 

 clearly drawn out in this paper. There is another point to which 

 I would call attention on the second page of the paper : — 

 " circumstance or environment, which moulds the growth, defines 

 the course of variation, and influences the nature of the ofispriog." 

 It is a very common thing for people to believe that it is environ- 

 ment only that works the evolution, and so far this paper accounts 

 quite correctly for circumstance being a matter of design; but 

 besides all this there is, I think, a definite tendency in evolution 

 independently of circumstances. Take the eye or a feather, these 

 are two of the most remarkable things we have to account for — 

 what is the reason we may ask, why there should ever have been a 

 feather? It seems to me so extraordinary a thing — so marvellous 

 in its structure — so admirably adapted to its pui'pose, that I 

 cannot conceive such a structure was ever produced by chance 

 variations controlled by environment, unless there was a certain 

 definite intention, so to speak, to produce a feather in the end. 

 We may call the production of a feather, if we will, one of the 

 properties of animal life, just as the freezing of water at a 

 certain temperature and it then being lighter than unfrozen 

 Avater is one of the properties of water. Why certain things 

 either animate or inanimate should have certain properties is 

 a matter of speculation or faith, which we cannot discuss 

 scientifically. 



