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Show 84 1J A.R WINIA.N A.. in the telescope, with design, through painful guessing, reasoning experimenting, and forming. Supp;se our skeptic to b~lieve in all this power of natural selection ; will he now seal up his verdict for design, with the same confidence that he would be~ fore he heard of Darwin~ I£ not, then " the supposed proof from design is invalidated by Darwin's theory." A. G.-Waiving incidental points and looking only to the gist of the question, I remark that the argu~ ment for design as against chance, in the formation of the eye, ·is most convincingly stated in your argument. Upon this and upon numerous similar arguments the whole question we are discussing turns. So, if the skeptic was about to seal his verdict in favor of design> and a designer, when Darwin's book appeared, why should his verdict now be changed or withheld~ All the facts about the eye, which convinced him that the organ was designed, remain just as they were. His conviction was not produced through testimony or eyewitness, but design was irresistibly inferred from the evidence of contrivance in the eye itself. Now, if the eye as it is, or has become, so convin- . cingly argued design, why not each particular step or part of this result~ If the production of a perfect crystalline lens in the eye-you know not how-as much indicated design as did the production of a Dolloud achromatic len&-you understand bow-then why does . not " the swelling out " of a particular portion of the membrane behind the iris-caused you know not how.--wbich, by "correcting the errors of dispersion and making the image somewhat more colorless," DESIGN VERSUS NECESSITY. 85 enabled the "young animals to see more distinctly than their parents or brethren," equally indicate design -if not as much as a perfect crystalline, or a Dollond compound lens, yet as much as a common spectacleglass~ _ Darwin only assures yon that what you may have th01wht was done directly and at once was done indirec1Iy and successively. But you freely admit that indirection and. succession do not invalidate design, and also that Paley and all the natural theologians drew the arguments which convinced your skeptic wholly from eyes indirectly or naturally produced. Recall a woman of a past generation and show her a web of cloth; ~sk her how it was made, and she will say that the wool or cotton was carded, spun, and woven by band. Whetl you tell her it was not made by manual labor, that probably no band bas touched the materials throughout the process, it is possible that she might at first regard your statement as tantamount to the assertion that the cloth was made without design. If she did, she would not credit your statement. If you patiently explained to her the theory of carding -'machines, spinni~g- jennies, and power-looms, would her reception of your explanation weaken her conviction that the cloth was the result of design ~ It is certain that she would believe in desi()'n as firmly as before, and that this belief would be 5 attended by a higher conception and reverent admiration of a wisdom, skill, and power greatly beyond anything she bad previously conceived possible. Wherefore, we may insist that, for all that yet |