of Darwin’s Treatise on the Origin of Species. 287 
tion,—the eye having been completed in all but the formation of 
the lens,—the place which the lens occupies when completed, 
was filled with parts of the humors and plane membrane, homo- 
geneous in texture and surface, presenting, therefore, neither the 
variety of the materials, nor forms which are contained in the 
optician’s shop for chance to make its combinations with. How 
then could it be cast of a combination not before used, and fash- 
ioned to a shape different from that before known, and placed 
in exact combination with all the parts before enumerated, with 
many others not even mentioned? He sees no parallelism of 
condition then, by which chance could act in forming a crystal- 
line lens, which answers to the condition of an optician’s shop, 
where it might be possible in many ages for chance to combine 
existing forms into an achromatic object-glass. 
_ Considering, therefore, the eye thus completed and placed in 
in its bony case and provided with its muscles, its lids, its tear- 
ducts, and all its other elaborate and curious appendages, and, 
a thousand times more wonderful still, without being encum- 
ered with a single superfluous or useless part, can he say that 
this could be the work of chance? The im robability of this 
18 80 great, and consequently the evidence of design is so strong, 
that he is about to seal his verdict in favor of design when he 
opens Mr. Darwin’s book. : 
_, There he finds that an eye is no more than a vital aggrega- 
p.169,) 3 
Let us lay before our skeptic the way in which we may sup- 
