arguments used against design ? If I may be allowed to speak of myself 
personally, I might mention that I was able to do something in this way 
the other day, while conversing with two working men. I had in my hand 
a skeleton head of one of the parrot tribe, and the workmen, who had not 
made a study of such things, could hardly believe that the structure 
possessed so little weight. They asked me how it was that it was so 
light and yet so strong ; and in order to satisfy them I took the skull 
to pieces. They then saw that the outer and the inner walls of the 
mandibles, which are very thin, are separated from each other, but 
that the two are united by an infinite number of cross-bars, each of 
which is wonderfully thin, thus securing great strength and durability 
combined with the lightest possible construction. I then said to them : 
“You must understand that once upon a time there was a very clever 
parrot who happened to have a weak bill which used to get injured when 
he tried to get at certain fruits. Well, this parrot said to itself: ‘I will 
have a stronger bill in future,’ and thereupon laid for itself the germs 
of a stronger one in the next generation.” The men told me I must be 
joking, and one of them said : “ Oh ! that can’t be ; surely it must have 
been constructed for the bird ? ” “ Precisely so,” I replied ; “ there is no 
doubt but that this wonderful piece of adaptation of means to ends was 
planned ” ; and then, wishing to apply the advantage thus gained, I asked 
the man how he, as a carpenter, would proceed under such circumstances. 
The man replied that if he wanted to strengthen two outer walls which were 
rather thin, he would unite them by cross-bars, and if he wished to prevent 
its being very heavy he should make the bars numerous but very thin. 
“ Well,” I answered, “that is just how God has done it, and by so doing 
He has brought about the two great requisites, extreme lightness and great 
stability.” The man saw this at once. I say, then, that teachers should not 
be backward in showing the working man the absurdity of any other mode 
of bringing about the wonderful results which God has produced by such 
extraordinary means. We ought to endeavour to prove that the marvellous 
structures found in God’s works could only have been planned by a great 
and wise Architect, who, seeing the end from the beginning, planned all 
these things as being best adapted for the purposes they were to serve. 
The Chairman. — Before Mr. James replies, I should like to offer a 
few observations, although I do not intend them as criticisms upon his 
admirable paper, in which there is really nothing that I can disagree with, as 
the paper is one that commends itself most entirely to my own views. I shall 
only express my confidence that the argument from design , for which Mr. Row 
and myself concocted the phrase “teleological adaptation,” is, for practical use, 
the most important we can employ. I do not mean to say I look upon it as the 
most important, because the argument of my ow'n consciousness is a stronger 
one ; but for all practical purposes it is decidedly the most important ; and I 
think, also, that the illustration given by Mr. Hassell is one of much value, 
as tending to show that if you put such a thing as the skull of a parrot before 
a working man and ask how it has been formed, he at once says it is the 
