414 DESIGN IN NATURE 



given off at regular intervals, indicating a transverse division. Further, the ganglia in the spinal cord and 

 brain are connected together by longitudinal and transverse commissural nerve fibres. The longitudinal and 

 transverse arrangements seen in the nervous system of such a simple animal as the centipede are, it will be 

 seen, repeated with comparatively little variation in the highest members of the animal series. As it is not 

 possible to regard the nervous system of the centipede as the direct or even the indirect progenitor of that of man, 

 we are forced to fall back upon a general plan and types for an explanation. 



Similar remarks may be made of the lungs. In the lower animals, say the triton, the lungs are composed of simple 

 sacs displaying a large number of capillary blood-vessels. In the lungs of the frog the sacs are folded in and duph- 

 cated and crumpled up to form partitions and locuU. In the human lungs this process is carried to an extreme ; the 

 lungs, on section, presenting a honeycombed, porous appearance. In the human embryo the lungs first appear as 

 simple tubular sacs ; as development proceeds they are divided into lobes, lobules, and air vesicles ; one of the 

 latter resembling in its details the entire lung of the frog. The human lungs are a crowning example of longi- 

 tudinal, transverse, and obhque cleavage and of infolding, duphcating, and crumpling. It may be noted in passing 

 that the same is true of the cortex of the human brain, and kidneys. 



The bronchial tubes, as well as the substance of the lungs, divide and subdivide to quite an extraordinary 

 extent, and present a characteristic tree-Uke appearance. The object is to provide a comparatively large space 

 in a constricted area ; the idea being to obtain a very extensive frame-work for the support of endless capillary 

 blood-vessels ; these containing the blood, which is aerated and purified during respiration. The appearance 

 presented by the lung of the frog, the human air vesicle, and the human lung is seen at Plate Ixxvii., Figs. 1, 2, 

 and 3, page 275. 



Other organs besides the brain, heart, and lungs are laboriously built up after undergoing numerous important 

 modifications in utero. This is true of the liver, kidneys, and glands generally. These exercise a powerful influence 

 on the digestion and in keeping the quality of the blood at a high standard. The blood glands proper, and the 

 lungs, contribute to this result. The food enriches the blood and the blood feeds all the tissues, hard and soft, in 

 all parts of the body. Everything hangs together in a living compound organism, as everything hangs together in 

 the universe itself. There is mutual interdependence. 



The stomach, liver, kidneys, and glands are simple in the foetus as compared with what they are in the adult, 

 and in the lower animals as compared with man. There are, moreover, numerous points of resemblance between 

 them. These, however, indicate a general plan and types rather than the direct or indirect evolution of the one 

 from the other. Neither plant nor animal can add to or take from their fundamental structures, either during 

 development or in the adult condition. 



The fact that all the organs of the body are prepared in advance of the function to be performed by them, and 

 before the offspring is born, furnishes, it appears to me, an unanswerable argument in favour of design, and of 

 means to ends, which neither natural selection nor evolution can even partly explain. 



Other weighty arguments in the same direction are to be deduced from the development of the sense organs 

 in man. In the foetal condition the sense organs are all in abeyance ; in other words, they are not called upon to 

 perform any function. Nevertheless, they are duly formed in anticipation of the work they will have to discharge 

 after birth, hi utero no food reaches the mouth and palate, no odours penetrate the nostrils, no sounds distract 

 the ear, and no hght falls upon the eye. As yet no relation is established between what may be called the subjective 

 (the conscious ego) and objective (the outer world) ; there is no irritabiUty, extraneous stimulation, or environment 

 in the ordinary sense. This fact affords an all-powerful argument against the theory that the sense organs are 

 the creation of externalities. In reality, the sense organs are expressly constructed to deal with and interpret 

 extraneous matter, that is, matter outside the individual ; and it is a mere perversion of language and of fact 

 to say that outside substances and environment form any part of the body, and, least of all, of the sense organs. The 

 senses in the child develop pari fassu with the intelhgence, but the actual structures forming the sense organs are 

 virtually completed before birth. The sense organs are trained and educated after birth as the muscles are, but 

 the organs, as organs, are in actual existence before birth. After birth they form the medium between the individual 

 and the universe, and everything the universe contains. The extreme value of this medium can scarcely be 

 adequately estimated, as it brings the individual directly or indirectly into contact with, at once, the smallest and 

 lightest, and the greatest and heaviest, masses of matter near and remote. It enables him to taste the most minute 

 crystal of sugar, to smell the tiniest particle of musk, and to survey the sun in his mid-day strength, and the 

 mysterious stars in their far-oii jewelled splendour. The sense organs perhaps more than any other organs in the 

 body reveal the hand of the great Designer. They form the veritable connecting-hnks between matter and mind, 

 and are, from this circumstance and properly, designated the gateways of knowledge. 



