PROFESSOR OWEN ON THE AYE-AYE. 89 



But all this must have a cause ; and our sole guide to a conception of its nature is 

 the analogical connexion of its effect with that of the exercise of faculties which 

 energize in our own intellect. Such energy, by way of foresight, invention, and 

 adaptation, has produced many machines for useful ends ; and so, through study of 

 analogous but more perfect results, we seem to discern the exercise of like faculties in a 

 transcendently higher degree. 



To conceive the direct formation and adjustment of such an organization as the 

 Aye-aye's to its purpose accords best with, and comes most home to, the mode of 

 our finite human adaptive operations. And here Paley and the pure teleologist would 

 pause. But 1 would next remark that we further discern the higher marvel of such a 

 correlated organic machine being capable of reproducing itself by the act of generation. 

 That act premised. Aye-aye after Aye-aye becomes what it is, through progressive 

 growth and development, from the condition of a minute pellucid monadiform cell. 

 The whole of its exquisitely adjusted structure is built up according to law. Still 

 more marvellous, and almost transcending our scope of thought or power of clear 

 conception, is the possibility of such organic mechanism, with its faculty of repro- 

 duction, being the necessary, but not the less fore-ordained, result of the nature and 

 adjustment of influences forming part of the general system of our planet, with its 

 varied forces, acting and reacting under certain conditions so as to issue in such a result. 



Some minds, indeed, lose their hold of the notion of design in passing beyond the 

 conception of a direct act of the Designer in the formation of an organic and self-repro- 

 ductive machine. Yet the idea of a forecasting, designing Power is not incompatible 



of final causes thereupon objected to the evidences of adaptation above cited, wliich I had previously communi- 

 cated to the Section, " that they could have no such meaning, inasmuch as the Aye-aye would uot feed on insects." 

 I replied that the fact communicated by Mr. Bartlett received, and could only receive, its true explanation through 

 teleology. The native habits and food of the Aye-aye exemphfied its operation and purpose in th.^ woods of 

 Madagascar as a check upon the undue prevalence of tree-destroying Xylophagous larvae. Had the Aye-aye 

 possessed an indiscriminate appetite for insects, it would satisfy such appetite on much easier terms than by 

 gnawing into hard wood for a particular kind of grub. But, as M. Lie'nard had testified, before Mr. Bartlett, 

 " il ne voulait pas de larves de tous les arbres indistinctement ; il les reconnaissait en les flairant." The 

 restriction of its likings to the wood-boring kinds ensured, and was necessary to ensure, the apphcation to 

 their extraction of the efficient instruments with which the Aye-aye had been endowed for the purpose. Thus 

 teleology renders the fact of the non-indiscriminate taste for insects intelligible : the negation of intention and 

 design blinds the mind to the recognition of the significance of the fact, and leads to the more stupid blindness 

 to any meaning in the coadjustment of special modifications which render the Aye-aye so effective an antagonist 

 to the wood-boring larvae of the forests it inhabits. 



The great Anteater, when in captivity at the Zoological Gardens, refused to feed upon the ants which were 

 offered in abundance to it. Their pungent formic acid seemed to disgust the animal. It was, in fact, adapted 

 to keep in check insects of another order — the destructive Termites. And, in their dearth, it was kept alive, 

 during its captivity, on milk, yolk of egg, and boiled liver chopped small. But it was not, therefore, concluded thpt 

 the long tongue, huge salivary glands with their bladders, correlatively modified toothless jaws, gizzard, powerful 

 claws, &c., were of no special use — were devoid of any explanation on the principle of design and adaptation. 



VOL. V. — PART II. N 



