Criticisms of Theory of Natural Selection. 367 
have been begun, or afterwards developed, by means 
of natural selection. For if it be not even yet of any 
conceivable use to its possessor, clearly thus far sur- 
vival of the fittest can have had nothing to do with its 
formation. On the other hand, seeing that electric 
organs when of larger size, as in the Gymnotus and 
Torpedo, are of obvious use to their possessors, the 
facts of the case, so far as the skate is concerned, 
assuredly do appear to sanction the doctrine of “ pro- 
phetic germs.” The organ in the skate seems to be on 
its way towards becoming such an organ as we meet 
with in these other animals ; and, therefore, unless we 
can show that it is now, and in all previous stages of 
its evolution has throughout been, of use to the skate, 
the facts do present a serious difficulty to the theory 
of natural selection, while they readily lend themselves 
to the interpretation of a disposing or fore-ordaining 
mind, which knows how to construct an electric bat- 
tery by thus transforming muscular tissue into electric 
tissue, and is now actually in process of constructing 
such an apparatus for the prospective benefit of future 
creatures. 
Should it be suggested that possibly the electric 
organ of the skate may be in process of degeneration, 
and therefore that it is now the practically function- 
less remnant of an organ which in the ancestors of 
the skate was of larger size and functional use—against 
so obvious a suggestion there lie the whole results of 
Professor Ewart’s investigations, which go to indicate 
that the organ is here not in a stage of degeneration, 
but of evolution. For instance, in Rata radiata, it does 
not begin to be formed out of the muscular tissue until 
some time after the animal has left the egg-capsule, 
