59 
of gravity , but they could by no means obtain the regular 
atuatum ? f theSG ° rbs hy those laws at he argues 
that the design manifested in our solar system “ could not 
have its origin from anything else than from the wise con- 
duct and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being •” that 
this being is the supreme Lord God; that he must have 
dominion or he could not be the supreme Lord God; “The 
supreme God is an eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect’ being, 
but a being, how perfect soever, without dominion, is not Lord 
God/'’ 
The admission of design in the universe thus compelling the 
admission of a wise designer, we need not be surprised to find 
those who would eliminate the idea of a Creator, doing 
all they can to eliminate also the evidence of design. Newton 
asks, “ Was the eye contrived without skill in optics ?” Mr. 
Darwin asserts that his law of “ natural selection ” shows, how 
the eye was contrived without skill in optics. He makes 
this the crucial instance by which he tests the soundness of his 
ypothesis. He admits that if the eye required a contriver 
skilled m the laws of optics, his theory must fall to the 
ground ; and therefore he uses all his dialectic skill in urging 
a proposition which seems, he admits on the very face of 
absurd in the highest possible degree,” and that 
the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could 
be formed by natural selection ” is insuperable even by our 
imagination. J 
®hchner, who denies the existence of any design through- 
out the whole domain of nature, hails this answer of Darwin to 
Newton's query with delight. Now, let us listen patiently to 
him whom his followers hail as the Newton of the organic 
world, and see how his law of natural selection is to construct 
an eye without skill in optics ! 
.To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contriv- 
ances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admit- 
ting different amounts of light, and for the correction of 
spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed 
by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the 
lghest possible degree. When it was first said that the sun 
stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of 
mankind declared the doctrine false ; but the old saying of 
Vox jpopuli, vox Dei , as every philosopher knows, can never be 
trusted m science. Reason tells me, that if numerous grada- 
tions fiom a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect 
and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be 
shown to exist ; if, further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, 
and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case ; 
