the organs goes for very little. It is
only a question of the amount of intelligence and voluntary
self-adaptation which we must admit, and this must be settled rather by
an appeal to what we find in organism, and observe concerning it, than by
what we may have imagined _a priori_.

Given a small speck of jelly with some power of slightly varying its
actions in accordance with slightly varying circumstances and
desires--given such a jelly-speck with a power of assimilating other
matter, and thus of reproducing itself, given also that it should be
possessed of a memory and a reproductive system, and we can show how the
whole animal world can have descended it may be from an _amoeba_ without
interference from without, and how every organ in every creature is
designed at first roughly and tentatively but finally fashioned with the
most consummate perfection, by the creature which has had need of that
organ, which best knew what it wanted, and was never satisfied till it
had got that which was the best suited to its varying circumstances in
their entirety. We can even show how, if it becomes worth the
Ethiopian's while to try and change his skin, or the leopard's to change
his spots, they can assuredly change them within a not unreasonable time
and adapt their covering to their own will and convenience, and to that
of none other; thus what is commonly conceived of as direct creation by
God is moved back to a time and space inconceivable in their remoteness,
while the aim and design so obvious in nature are shown to be still at
work around us, growing ever busier and busier, and advancing from day to
day both in knowledge and power.

It was reserved for Mr. Charles Darwin and for those who have too rashly
followed him to deny purpose as having had any share in the development
of animal and vegetable organs; to see no evidence of design in those
wonderful provisions which have been the marvel and delight of observers
in all ages. The one who has drawn our attention more than perhaps any
other living writer to those very marvels of co-adaptation, is the
foremost to maintain that they are the result not of desire and design,
either within the creature or without it, but of blind chance, working no
whither, and due but to the accumulation of innumerable lucky accidents.

"There are men," writes Professor Tyndal in the _Nineteenth Century_ for
last November, {144} "and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy
in regard