OBJECTIONS TO EVOLUTION 155 



animals have been evolved but that the evolutionist is 

 under no logical obligation to furnish plausible routes 

 of evolution, I think that we may rightly object. 



One of the most difficult organs to account for is 

 the electric organ of the skates. In these fishes it 

 has been shown to be a true electric battery, but the 

 discharges from this battery, even in the adults, are 

 so feeble that they are of no practical use so far as 

 has been ascertained. It is well known that the elec- 

 tric eel and the torpedo use their batteries for stun- 

 ning other animals. 



It is evident that, according to the theory of natural 

 selection, these batteries could not have been pre- 

 served through their long functionless and useless 

 stages, for that theory assumes that they were pre- 

 served because they were useful. 



Darwin says: "The electric organs of fishes offer 

 another case of special difficulty; for it is impossible 

 to conceive by what steps these wondrous organs 

 have been produced."* 



Romanes, having tried to account for the existence 

 of the electric organs in the rays, says: " In view of 

 all these considerations taken together, I freely con- 

 fess that the difficulty presented by this case appears 

 to me of a magnitude and importance altogether un- 

 equaled by that of any other single case — or any 

 series of cases — which has hitherto been encountered 

 by the theory of natural selection. So that if there 

 were many other cases of the like kind to be met with 

 in nature, I should myself at once allow that the 

 theory of natural selection would have to be dis- 

 carded." t 



Some of the electric organs of fishes are in the 

 heads and others in the tails, so that they could not 

 have had a common origin, and they must, therefore, 

 * Origin of Species, p. 184. t Darwin and Alter Darwin, p. 373. 



