266 PEOPESSOE E. L. DABNEY^ B.D., LL.D. 



may experience a conatus for seeing. But the case to be 

 accounted for would be the beo^inninsr of such conatus in some 

 individual of a species, none of which had the organ for the 

 function, and in which, consequently, none had even the idea 

 of the function or its pleasures as the objective of such desire. 

 If they resort to the assertion that this conatus towards a 

 function may be instinctive and unintelligent, the fatal answers 

 are : — Tliat their own sciences of zoology and physiology 

 assure us that instincts are not found in cases where the 

 organs for their exercise do not exist : And that an instinctive 

 conatus, being blind and fortuitous, would never produce 

 results of such regularity and completeness, and those, exactly 

 alike in each of the multitudes of a species. 



22. But the most utter collapse of the attempt to explain 

 the finalities of Nature by the laws of a supposed evolu- 

 tion, occurs when we approach those classes of organs, 

 which complete their development while the influences of 

 environment and function are entirely excluded; and these are 

 exceedingly numerous. The fowl in the shell has already 

 developed wings to fly with, in a marble case which excluded 

 every atom of air, the medium for flying. So, this animal has 

 perfected a pair of lungs for breathing, where there has never 

 been any air to inhale. It has matured a pair of perfect eyes 

 to see Avith, in a prison where there has never entered a ray 

 of light. It has an apparatus of nutrition in complete work- 

 ing order, including the interadjustments of beak, tongue, 

 swallow, craw, gizzard, digestive stomach, and intestine, 

 although hitherto its only nutrition has been from the egg 

 which enclosed it ; and this has been introduced into its cir- 

 culation in a different manner. This instance of the fowl has 

 been stated in detail, that it may suggest to the hearer a mul- 

 titude of like ones. The argument is, that physical causes can 

 only act when in juxtaposition, both as to time and place, with 

 the bodies which receive their efficiency. But here, environ- 

 ment and function were wholly absent until the results, — 

 wings, eyes, eai'S, lungs, alimentary canal, were completed. 

 Therefore, they had no causal connection whatever as physical 

 cavises. Their influence could only have been as final causes. 



23. Perhaps the deepest mysteries and wonders of Nature are 

 those presented in the functions of reproduction. And to 

 these Nature attaches her greatest importance, as she shows 

 by many signs, seeing the very existence of the genera and 

 species depend on this. The organs of reproduction present 

 instances most fatal to our opponents, in all those cases where 

 the male organs are in one individual, and the female in a 



