D.T.--As I have ever found you, in controversy, meeting the array of your
opponent fairly and directly, without any attempt to strike the body of his
argument through an unguarded joint in the phraseology, I was somewhat
surprised at the course taken in your answer to my statement on Darwin's
theory. You there seem to suppose that I instanced the action of the
billiard balls and players as a parallel, throughout, to the formation of
the organic world. Had it occurred to me that such an application might be
supposed to follow legitimately from my introduction of this action, I
should certainly have stated that I did not intend, and should by no means
accede to, that construction. My purpose in bringing the billiard-table
upon the scene was to illustrate, by example, design and necessity, as
different and independent sources from which results, it might indeed be
identical results, may be derived All the conclusions, therefore, that you
have arrived at through this misconception or misapplication of my
illustration, I cannot take as an answer to the matter stated or intended
to be stated by me. Again, following this misconception, you suppose the
skeptic (instanced by me as revealing through the evidence of design,
exhibited in the structure of the eye, for its designer, God) as bringing to
the examination a belief in the existence of design in the construction of
the animals as they existed up to the moment when the eye was, according to
my supposition, added to the heart, stomach, brain, etc. By skeptic I, of
course, intended one who doubted the existence of design in every organic
structure, or at least required proof of such design. Now, as the watch may
be instanced as a more complete exhibition of design than a flint knife or
an hour-glass, I selected, after the example of Paley, the eye, as
exhibiting by its complex but harmonious arrangements a higher evidence of
design and a designer than is to be found in a nerve sensitive to light, or
any mere rudimentary part or organ. I could not mean by skeptic one who
believed in design so far as a claw, or a nerve sensitive to light, was
concerned, but doubted all above. For one who believes in design at all
will not fail to recognize it in a hand or an eye. But I need not extend
these remarks, as you acknowledge in the sequel to your argument that you
may not have suited it to the case as I have stated it.
You now request me to "state the grounds upon which I conclude that the
supposed proof of design from the eye and the hand, as it stood before
Darwin's theory was promulgated, is invalidated by the admission of that
theory." It seems to me that a sufficient answer to this question has
already been made in the last part of my former paper; but, as you request
it, I will go over the leading points as there given, with more minuteness
of detail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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