ON CREATION OR EVOLUTION. 203 



these arteries, and pari passu blood is drawn from the vasa 

 vasorum for the fresh supply of their coats.* 



A second illustration of minute teleology is exhibited 

 in the demonstration by Lord Lister and others, that in- 

 spired organisms do not as a rule enter the air cells, being 

 detained or destroyed in the respiratory passages. And 

 Dr. St. Clair Thomsonf has found that though 1,500 micro- 

 organisms are inhaled every hour in a London atmosphere, 

 " The interior of the great majority of normal nasal cavities 

 is perfectly aseptic," this vast assemblage of germs being 

 filtered by the vibrisste in the anterior nares, and washed 

 away by the watery mucus and cilia of the epithelium of the 

 passages. A third illustration is in the extensive arrange- 

 ments for defence against invading micro-organisms, con- 

 stituted by that phagocytosis which has been found to be 

 occurring in the white corpuscles of the blood, and the 

 lymphoid tissue which abounds in many regions of the body, 

 and the immunity against repeated attacks, and probable 

 extermination by zymotic disease, which so largely obtains. 



It goes without saying that all these few contrivances, 

 which are eloquent of design, are claimed to have been pro- 

 duced by selection, and in fact as many more as may be 

 known now, or remain to be discovered. Romanes allows 

 one serious and formidable case of difficulty, and only one — 

 the electric organ in the tail of the skate — from which we 

 gather some measure of the supposed extent of selection. 



The adaptations of organisms to their various environ- 

 ments being so wonderful as they are, have perhaps been 

 studied in a one-sided manner too often ; and here the evo- 

 lutionist, with his denial of supernatural causation and his 

 reliance upon " struggle for existence," " survival of the 

 fittest," " natural selection," '' sexual selection," " heredity," 

 and finally " accident," which constitute his varied and 

 efficient armament, has too often triumphed over his teleo- 

 logical opponent. He can show that very many of these 

 adaptations can be conceived to occur after his method, and his 

 theory is therefore possible, and that others do occur. More 

 than this is not needed, for has he not hundreds of millions 

 of years for his time, and all terrestrial life for his space ! 

 The advocate for creation and design by an Omnipotent 

 Being ex hypothesi does not claim to specify in. human 

 language all the purposive details of all the life-forms in 



* Lancet, October 12, 1895, Brunton, p. 901, 902. 

 t Lanctt, .January 11, 1896, p. 8G. 



