OBJECTIONS TO EVOLUTION 167 



ters " will explain the matter. I presume that he 

 would claim that what are now the most important 

 organs, were preserved simply by inheritance, through 

 their rudimentary and useless stages. 



If the doctrine of "inheritance" is true, it will 

 explain the preservation of all kinds of organs, both 

 useful and useless, and the characters inherited are 

 quite as likely to be of the latter as of the former 

 kind. The number of useless parts in the organic 

 world ought, according to this theory, to be vastly 

 greater than we find it to be. 



Spencer does not deny the efficiency of natural 

 selection, but offers the above as a supplement and as 

 a necessary part of the theory of evolution. 



The difficulty of accounting for the eyes of animals 

 has been repeatedly and rightly urged against the 

 theory of evolution. In considering this subject, Dar- 

 win says: "It is indeed indispensable, in order to 

 arrive at a just conclusion regarding the formation of 

 the eye, with all its marvelously perfect chapters, 

 that the reason should conquer the imagination; but 

 I have felt this difficulty far too keenly to be surprised 

 at any degree of hesitation in extending the principle 

 of natural selection to so startling a length." Again 

 he says: "The simplest organ which can be called 

 an eye consists of an optic nerve, surrounded by pig- 

 ment-cells covered by translucent skin, but without 

 any lens or refractory body. We may, however, 

 according to M. Jourdain, descend even a step lower 

 and find aggregates of pigment cells, apparently serv- 

 ing as an organ of vision, but without any nerve, and 

 resting merely on sarcodic tissue. Eyes of the above 

 simple nature are not capable of distinct vision, and 

 serve only to distinguish light from darkness." * 



Binet says: " Of all the organs of sense the eye is 



* Origin of Species, p. 180. 



