facts correspond with this view and with no other."[33]

It will be observed that all these objections have reference to the
denial of teleology on the part of Mr. Darwin. If his theory admitted
that the organisms in nature were due to a divine purpose, the
objections would be void of all meaning.

There is a fifth objection. According to Darwin's theory organs are
formed by the slow accumulation of unintended variations, which happen
to be favorable to the subject of them in the struggle for life. But in
many cases these organs, instead of being favorable, are injurious or
cumbersome until fully developed. Take the wing of a bird, for example.
In its rudimental state, it is useful neither for swimming, walking, nor
flying. Now, as Darwin says it took millions of years to bring the eye
to perfection, how long did it take to render a rudimental wing useful?
It is no sufficient answer to say that these rudimental organs might
have been suited to the condition in which the animal existed, during
the formative process. This is perfectly arbitrary. It has no basis of
fact. There are but three kinds of locomotion that we know of: in the
water, on the ground, and through the air; for all these purposes a
half-formed wing would be an impediment.

The Duke devotes almost a whole chapter of his interesting book to the
consideration of "contrivance in the machinery for flight." The
conditions to secure regulated movement through the atmosphere are so
numerous, so complicated, and so conflicting, that the problem never has
been solved by human ingenuity. In the structure of the bird it is
solved to perfection. As we are not writing a teleological argument, but
only producing evidence that Darwinism excludes teleology, we cannot
follow the details which prove that the wing of the gannet or swift is
almost as wonderful and beautiful a specimen of contrivance as the eye
of the eagle.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] _Reign of Law_. London, 1867, p. 40.

[32] _Reign of Law_. London, 1867, p. 37.

[33] _Reign of Law_, pp. 247, 248.

_Agassiz._

Every one knows that the illustrious Agassiz, over whose recent grave
the world stands weeping, was from the beginning a pronounced and
earnest opponent of Mr. Darwin's theory. He wrote as a naturalist, and
therefore his objections are principally directed against the theory of
evolution, which he regarded as not only destitute of any scientific
basis, but as subversive of the best established fact