by the human mind, and yet which is perceived, when discovered, to be admirably rational, be supposed to have originated elsewhere than in a Mind?

I can only mention a few out of the multitude of books which treat of design in the organic world. Among general works on natural theology it may be sufficient to refer to those of Paley, Buchanan, and Tulloch; and among special works, to Professor Balfour's 'Phyto-Theology; or, Botanical Sketches, intended to illustrate the Works of God in the Structure, Functions, and General Distribution of Plants;' M'Cosh's 'Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation;' Agassiz's 'Structure of Animal Life; being Six Lectures on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in His Works;' Kirby's 'Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation of Animals ;' R. Owen's 'Instances of the Power of God, manifested in His Animal Creation;' Roget's 'Animal and Vegetable Physiology, considered in reference to Natural Theology;' and Sir Charles Bell's 'The Hand, its Mechanism and Vital Endowments, as evincing Design.' The three last-mentioned works are Bridgewater Treatises.

It is a duty to call particular attention to the work of M. Janet, 'Les Causes Finales.' Although M. Janet concedes, perhaps, too much to the opponents of finality, his treatise contains the ablest and most adequate discussion of the various problems suggested by the indications which organic nature gives of design that has yet appeared. It is eminently worthy of a careful study. There is an excellent English translation of it by W. Affleck, B.D.

Among the masters of biological science, Cuvier, V. Baer, Agassiz, and R. Owen may be named, as among

those who have set the highest value on the principle of finality. The essay on Classification of Agassiz, and the various essays which Von Baer has published at different times, on what he calls "Zielstrebigkeit," are specially important.

NOTE XVIII., page 148.

EVIDENCES OF DESIGN IN ORGANISMS.

"The savants are generally too much disposed to confound the doctrine of final cause with the hypotheses of an invisible force acting without physical means, as a deus ex machina. These two hypotheses, far from reducing themselves the one to the other, are in explicit contradiction; for he who says design says at the same time means, and, consequently, causes adapted to produce a certain effect. To discover this cause is by no means to destroy the idea of design; it is, on the contrary, to bring to light the condition, sine quâ non, of the production of the end. To make clear this distinction we cite a beautiful example, borrowed from M. Claude Bernard. How does it happen, says this eminent physiologist, that the gastric juice, which dissolves all aliments, does not dissolve the stomach itself, which is of precisely the same nature as the aliments with which it is nourished? For a long time the vital force was supposed to intervene— that is to say, an invisible cause, which, in some way, suspended the properties of the natural agents, to prevent their producing their necessary effects. The vital force would, by a sort of moral veto, forbid the gastric

juice to touch the stomach. We see that this would be a real miracle. Everything is explained when we know that the stomach is lined with a coating or varnish which is not attacked by the gastric juice, and which protects the walls which it covers. Who does not see that in refuting the omnipotence of the vital force, very far from having weakened the principle of finality, we have given to it a wonderful support? What could the most perfect art have done to protect the walls of the stomach, but invent a precaution similar to that which exists in reality? And how surprising it is that an organ destined to secrete and use an agent most destructive to itself, is found armed with a protective tunic, which must have always coexisted with it, since otherwise it would have been destroyed before having had time to procure for itself this defence-which excludes the hypothesis of long gropings and happy occurrences."-Janet, "Final Causes and Contemporaneous Physiology," Presb. Quart. Rev., April

1876.

Professor Tyndall gives a very graphic description of the combination of remarkable arrangements by which the human ear is fitted to be an organ of hearing. I quote from it the following words, and connect with them some striking observations of Max Müller. "Finally, there is in the labyrinth a wonderful organ, discovered by the Marchese Corti, which is to all appearance a musical instrument, with its chords so stretched as to accept vibrations of different periods, and transmit them to the nerve-filaments which traverse the organ. Within the ears of men, and without their knowledge or contrivance, this lute of 3000 strings has existed for ages, accepting the music of the outer world, and rendering it fit for reception by the brain. Each musical tremor which falls

upon this organ selects from its tensioned fibres the one appropriate to its own pitch, and throws that fibre into unisonant vibration. And thus, no matter how complicated the motion of the external air may be, those microscopic strings can analyse it and reveal the constituents of which it is composed."-On Sound, p. 325. "What we hear when listening to a chorus or a symphony is a commotion of elastic air, of which the wildest sea would give a very inadequate image. The lowest tone which the ear perceives is due to about 30 vibrations in one second, the highest to about 4000. Consider, then, what happens in a presto, when thousands of voices and instruments are simultaneously producing waves of air, each wave crossing the other, not only like the surface waves of the water, but like spherical bodies, and, as it would seem, without any perceptible disturbance; consider that each tone is accompanied by secondary notes, that each instrument has its peculiar timbre, due to secondary vibrations; and, lastly, let us remember that all this cross-fire of waves, all this whirlpool of sound, is moderated by laws which determine what we call harmony, and by certain traditions or habits which determine what we call melody-both these elements being absent in the songs of birds-that all this must be reflected like a microscopic photograph on the two small organs of hearing, and there excite not only perception, but perception followed by a new feeling even more mysterious, which we call either pleasure or pain;—and it will be clear that we are surrounded on all sides by miracles transcending all we are accustomed to call miraculous." --Science of Language, second series, p. 115.

The structure of the eye has often been described as an evidence of design. There is an extremely interest

ing comparison of it with the photographic camera in Le Conte's Religion and Science,' pp. 20-33.

The whole reading public knows the masterly chapter on "The Machinery of Flight," in the Duke of Argyll's 'Reign of Law.'

NOTE XIX., page 149.

PSYCHOLOGY AND DESIGN.

The following writers treat at considerable length of the evidences of design to be traced in the constitution of the mind: Sir Matthew Hale in his 'Primitive Origination of Mankind;' Barrow in the seventh of his 'Sermons on the Creed;' Bentley in the second sermon of his 'Boyle Lecture;' Crombie in the second volume of his 'Natural Theology;' Lord Brougham in his ‘Discourse on Natural Theology,' sect. iii. pp. 52-80; Turton's Natural Theology Considered,' pp. 65-160; Chalmers's 'Natural Theology,' Book III.; Buchanan's 'Faith in God,' pp. 213-231; Tulloch's 'Theism,' pp. 182-247; and Ulrici's 'Gott und Mensch.'

6

The phenomena of animal instinct are of themselves an inexhaustible source of instruction as to the Divine wisdom and goodness. "The spinning machinery which is provided in the body of a spider is not more accurately adjusted to the viscid secretion which is provided for it, than the instinct of the spider is adjusted both to the construction of its web and also to the selection of likely places for the capture of its prey. Those birds and insects whose young are hatched by the heat of fer