11 



conviction of design is forced upon us in contemplating such 

 organs as I have mentioned, we must bear in mind that there 

 exist a great number of structures, not only of such a character 

 as to leave us in doubt as to their use, but which are so atro- 

 phied and rudimentary that it would be grossly illogical to say 

 they had any use at all. Now, natural theologians for the most 

 part have ignored these latter altogether; while those few who 

 do refer to them imagine they have escaped the difficulty of 

 explaining their presence by saying that they are only witnesses 

 to the conformity of plan — a specimen of pedantic trifling,^' 

 Mr. Lewes says,* " worthy of no intellect above the Pongo's.^' 

 Thus, Dr. Whewell (who did not live to read this statement) 

 says in his Plurality of Worlds, p. 345 : — " In the plan of crea- 

 tion we have a profusion of examples where similar visible 

 structures do not answer a similar purpose, — where, so far as we 

 can see, the structure answers no purpose in many cases, but 

 exists, as we m^y say, for the sake of similarity, the similarity 

 being a general law, the result, it would seem, of a creative energy, 

 which is wider in its operation than the particular purpose.^^ 



The consideration of rudimentary organs has arisen of late 

 years into a prominence quite unexpected, in consequence of the 

 great value they afford to the deductions of biological science. 

 In fact, the now thoroughly -established doctrine (at least 

 amongst scientific men) of evolution owes its existence in great 

 part to their presence ; nor, indeed, could it dispense with them. 



I do not think it needful on the present occasion to give 

 illustrations of rudimentary organs beyond what I may occa- 

 sionally have to mention, as their existence is indisputable. 

 But their importance in regard to my subject does not so much 

 lie in their support to the doctrine of evolution as in their 



denies us the right of using the word design as indicative of mind apart from 

 immanent causes. 



That God is unknowable in His essence and action — " that His judgments 

 are unsearchable and His ways past finding out"jt(Rom. xi. 33), I readily 

 admit ; but I maintain, dealing with purely objective structures, not only is 

 it perfectly logical to attribute design to the eye (without attempting to dis- 

 cover how it came into existence), and utterly illogical to deny it. I do not 

 pretend now, for argument's sake, to pronounce who, or of what character, 

 the Being was who made it, but simply to say, there is palpable design, and 

 of such a character as transcends the power of man. 



The immediate causes of its structure may be immanent momenta in 

 matter. And here I would join hands with the Positivist, provided he see they 

 cannot be self-existent ; but, constituted as our minds are, with their inevi- 

 table tendencies to pronounce like results as due to like causes, I cannot 

 understand how any man can think he speaks logically who denies mind as, 

 in some sort, connected with the origin of such oi-ganic structures. 



* See " Mr. Darwin's Hypotheses," by Mr. G. H. Lewes, in April, June, and 

 July Nos. of Fortnightly Review, 18C8. 



