304 
Helmholtz 
on the De- 
fects of the 
Eye. 
eye himself, which a man who says all that ought to do. But 
I do find this in Helmholtz’s Scientific Lectures (p. 227), part 
of which probably was Clifford’s authority. After a detailed 
explanation of the ocular contrivances, he said: — “The eye 
has every possible defect that can be found in an optical 
instrument, and even some that are peculiar to itself; but 
they are all so counteracted that the inexactness of the images 
very little exceeds the limits which are set to the delicacy of 
sensation by the dimensions of the retinal cones [i.e., no more 
would be any use] . The adaptation of the eye to its functions 
is therefore most complete, and is seen in the very limits set 
to its defects. The result, which may have been reached by 
innumerable generations under the Darwinian law of inherit- 
ance, coincides with what the wisest wisdom may have devised 
beforehand.” I leave that to speak for itself. 
I read a paper lately by Professor Attfield, trying to account 
for the rise of sap in trees far above the known limits of 
either atmospheric pressure of 32 ft. for water, or of capillary 
attraction. His explanation may be right or wrong. If 
wrong, we still know nothing of the matter ; but, if right, it 
means that he has only now discovered the contrivance which 
has been doing its work perfectly as long as trees have lived 
upon the earth, and which the spontaneous Evolutionists 
expect us to believe made itself, without design anywhere. 
"Whether it did so gradually or at once, it equally required 
inventing and preparing for and developing, like the steam- 
eugine or the telephone. Philosophers have been trying to 
invent it, or rather to explain the invention with the puzzle itself 
open before them, and have not been able to do it with all their 
intelligence; and yet we are to believe that it invented itself 
with none ; and that electric eels invented and made them- 
selves ages before any electrical machine was invented by 
“ the highest intelligence ” of the anti-creationists ; which 
also made itself out of dead atoms by persistent force. 
In like manner there is every now and then a discussion 
carried on for months in the scientific papers about how birds 
ily ; from which it is evident that nobody quite knows. Yet, 
either the birds have always known how to make themselves 
wings and feathers to fly away with, or some one else knew 
and invented feathers for them, one of the most wonderful 
natural contrivances. Has any Evolutionist ever pretended 
to guess how they came ? They deny that feathers were ever 
designed for flying, or eyes for seeing : they both went on 
growing, with obstinate prophetic instinct that the time 
would come when they would give the a 'priori inconceivable 
