x ^4-] Question of Evolution. [665 
has not been developed out of simpler forms. Before it can 
attain the complex structure which distinguishes it, there 
must be an evolution of forms similar to those which dis- 
tinguish the structure of organisms lower in the series. On 
the hypothesis of a plan which prearranged the organic 
world nothing could be more unworthy of a supreme 
intelligence than this inability to construct an organism at 
once, without making several previous tentative efforts, 
undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and 
repeating for centuries the same tentatives in the same 
succession. 1 here is a traditional phrase much in vogue 
among anthropomorphists which arose naturally enough 
from a tendency to take human methods as an explanation 
of the Divine — a phrase which becomes a sort of argument 
“ I he Great Architect.” But if we are to admit the 
human point of view, a glance at the facts of embryology 
must produce very uncomfortable reflections. For what 
should we say of an architect who was unable, or obsti- 
nately unwilling, to eredt a palace except by first using his 
materials in the shape of a hut, then pulling them down and 
rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding storey to storey 
and room to room, not with any reference to the ultimate 
purposes of the palace, but wholly with reference to the 
way in which houses were constructed in ancient times. 
Yet this is the sort of succession on which organisms 
are constructed. “ The embryo is nothing like the miniature 
of the adult; For a long while the body, in its entirety and 
in its details, presents the strangest of spectacles. Day by 
day and hour by hour the aspect of the scene changes, and 
this instability is exhibited by the most essential parts no 
less than by the accessory parts. One would say that 
Nature feels her way, and only reaches the goal after many 
times missing the path.” 
Yet, in the face of this utterly overwhelming argument, 
Mr. Butler still believes that the “ evidence for design is not 
affefted. He gives a counter-illustration — quite incapable 
of being supposed — of a law deed which the draftsman had 
commenced as a marriage settlement and then converted 
into a will, and which yet was found to work with ease and 
simplicity in practice (!) And he thinks that an observer 
“ would not, in the face of the result, deny the design.” 
Yes ; he would conclude that the draughtsman was either 
mad or drunk, certainly not guided by any rational purpose. 
In the words which we have italicised the question is in 
some sort begged. For if we turn from embryology to 
morphology we find that the result, i.e. the human system 
VOL. VI. (THIRD SERIES). 2 Y 
