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intellect can exist independently of any thinking subject, and 
aid in the construction of organisms, it follows that it must be 
inherent in every particle of matter of which they are composed. 
Also, that these unconscious intellectual atoms must have the 
faculty of acting in unison for the production of a common end ; 
and from the various means by which it may be accomplished, 
of selecting the most suitable. The bare statement of such a 
proposition is its most effectual refutation. 
90. Next, our author invokes a theory of an unconscious 
absolute, which, “ acting in all atoms, and organisms, as a 
universal soul, determines the contents of creation, and the 
evolution of the universe, by a f Clairvoyant Wisdom/ superior 
to all consciousness.” Such a theory may safely be consigned 
to the regions of dreary mysticism, though it is one which was 
hardly to be expected from one who imagines that he has 
escaped from the regions of the miraculous, by eliminating the 
conception of God from his philosophy. 
91. But to enable him to account for the production of beings 
endowed with these faculties our author supplements these two 
principles by a theory of inherited habits, transmitted through 
a long line of ancestors, which have been gradually accumulated 
through indefinite successions of eons. “ It is not,” says he, 
“the seeing individual which forms its own, or its offspring’s, 
eyes by acting in concert with light the individual finds 
itself put into possession of an instrument which its predecessors, 
during immemorial time, have gradually brought to an ever 
higher grade of perfection.” Again, “ It is not our present 
bee which plans its skilful constructions, neither is it instructed 
in them by a Deity ; but in the lapse of thousands of years, since 
the lowest instincts were gradually developed into the various 
forms of Hymenoptera, the increasing needs produced by the 
struggle for existence have gradually fashioned these acts, which 
are now transmitted without effort as heirlooms to the present 
generation.” 
92. In the case of the eye there are two problems which 
require a definite solution, and we must not have our mental 
vision distracted from the point at issue by any phantasmagoria 
of words. First, the admirable adjustments and adaptations of 
the instrument itself — How come they? Secondly, How has 
this instrument, formed in total darkness, become perfectly 
correlated to the properties of light ? There is one solution of 
these problems quite simple, and fully adequate to account for 
the facts— the existence of a God of boundless power and match- 
less skill, and fully acquainted with all resources and the end 
to be attained, who has framed the mechanism and adjusted 
it to external nature. 
