Chapter VI 
Statement of the Question at Issue (continued) 
O much for the older view ; and now for the more 
modern opinion. According to Messrs. Darwin and 
Wallace, and ostensibly, I am afraid I should add, a great 
majority of our most prominent biologists, the view taken 
by Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck is not a sound one. 
Some organisms, indeed, are so admirably adapted to their 
surroundings, and some organs discharge their functions 
with so much appearance of provision, that we are apt to 
think they must owe their development to sense of need 
and consequent contrivance, but this opinion is fantastic ; 
the appearance of design is delusive ; what we are tempted 
to see as an accumulated outcome of desire and cunning, 
we should regard as mainly an accumulated outcome of 
good luck. 
Let us take the eye as a somewhat crucial example. It 
is a seeing-machine, or thing to see with. So is a telescope ; 
the telescope in its highest development is a secular 
accumulation of cunning, sometimes small, sometimes great ; 
sometimes applied to this detail of the instrument, and 
sometimes to that. It is an admirable example of design ; 
nevertheless, as I said in ‘‘ Evolution Old and New,” 
he who made the first rude telescope had probably no idea 
of any more perfect form of the instrument than the one 
he had himself invented. Indeed, if he had, he would have 
carried his idea out in practice. He would have been unable 
to conceive such an instrument as Lord Rosse’s ; the design, 
therefore, at present evidenced by the telescope was not 
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