Am;4Xi9ih3arm' i     Change  from  Old  to  Nezv  Botany.  157 
a  watch  on  the  ground.  He  sees  the  complicated  machinery 
adapted  to  a  definite  purpose  and  therefore,  according  to  Paley, 
at  once  infers  that  it  must  have  had  an  intelligent  creator.  How 
much  more  strongly,  therefore,  should  a  contemplation  of  the 
organs  of  the  human  body,  well  adapted  to  perform  special  func- 
tions, lead  us  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  an  intelligent  creator. 
Paley  then  proceeds  to  give  a  rather  mild  account  of  human 
anatomy  illustrated  by  plates  intended  to  impress  the  readers ;  a 
ghastly  head  with  the  cheek  dissected  to  show  the  parotid  gland ;  and 
abdomen  with  the  lid  removed  to  show  the  bonbons  inside,  the 
stomach  and  spleen  ingeniously  arranged  so  as  to  show  also  the 
deeper  lying  organs,  etc.  Paley's  reasoning  does  not  now  seem 
altogether  convincing.  If  you  or  I  had  found  the  watch,  we  should 
have  seen  that  it  was  complicated  and  we  should  have  known  that 
its  purpose  was  to  show  the  time  of  day.  We  should  have  known 
also*  that  it  had  been  made  by  a  watchmaker.  If,  however,  a 
savage  who  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  a  watch  had  found  one 
in  the  field,  he  would  have  been  mystified  by  the  mechanism  and 
would  not  have  had  the  least  idea  what  its  purpose  was.  Instead  of 
recognizing  an  intelligent  creator  he  would  have  regarded  the  watch 
itself  as  a  god. 
Now,  at  the  time  of  which  I  am  speaking,  it  would  not  have 
been  proper  to  teach  anatomy  as  such  in  the  schools,  but  anatomy, 
so  far  as  it  served  to  show  the  goodness  and  intelligence  of  the 
creator,  was  quite  legitimate.  In  other  words  in  studying  natural 
history  one  must  never  forget  that  God  had  made  man  to  be  the 
centre  of  the  universe  and  all  other  things  had  been  arranged  for 
the  benefit  of  man,  and,  when  facts  to  the  contrary  appeared,  they 
must  be  properly  interpreted  or  denied.  Since  an  omniscient  and 
omnipotent  being  can  not  make  a  mistake,  all  the  species  of  plants 
created  in  the  beginning  must  forever  remain  as  they  were  created. 
With  this  simple  theory  of  living  things  people  were  perfectly  con- 
tented until  in  1859  the  "  Origin  of  Species"  fell  like  a  bomb  in 
the  camp  and  shattered  time-worn  theories.  That  the  variations 
and  adaptations  of  plants  and  animals  were  not  for  the  benefit  of 
man,  but  for  the  benefit  of  the  plants  and  animals  themselves,  was 
a  dreadful  heresy.  The  violence  of  the  controversy  caused  by 
Darwin's  great  work  was  something  of  which  the  present  genera- 
tion can  have  no  conception.  It  was  at  its  height  "when  I  was  a 
college  student.    Young   men  were   generally  inclined  to  accept 
