Evolution, Old New | Page 8

the formation of the machine, he
wants no such intromission or privity. The effect upon the material, the
change produced in it, the utility of the change for future applications,
abundantly testify, be the concealed part of the machine, or of its
construction, what it will, the hand and agency of a contriver."[14]
This is admirably put, but it will apply to the mechanism of animal and
vegetable bodies only, if it is used to show that they too must have had
a contriver who has a hand, or something tantamount to one; who does
act; who, being a contriver, has what all other contrivers must have, if
they are to be called contrivers--a body which can suffer more or less
pain or chagrin if the contrivance is unsuccessful. If this is what Paley
means, his argument is indeed irrefragable; but if he does not intend
this, his words are frivolous, as so clear and acute a reasoner must have
perfectly well known.
Whether Paley's argument will prove a source of lasting strength to
himself or no, is a point which my readers will decide presently; but I
am very clear about its usefulness to my own position. I know few
writers whom I would willingly quote more largely, or from whom I
find it harder to leave off quoting when I have once begun. A few more
passages, however, must suffice.

"I challenge any man to produce in the joints and pivots of the most
complicated or the most flexible machine that ever was contrived, a
construction more artificial" (here we have it again), "or more
evidently artificial than the human neck. Two things were to be done.
The head was to have the power of bending forward and backward as in
the act of nodding, stooping, looking upwards or downwards; and at the
same time of turning itself round upon the body to a certain extent, the
quadrant, we will say, or rather perhaps a hundred and twenty degrees
of a circle. For these two purposes two distinct contrivances are
employed. First the head rests immediately upon the uppermost part of
the vertebra, and is united to it by a hinge-joint; upon this joint the head
plays freely backward and forward as far either way as is necessary or
as the ligaments allow, which was the first thing required.
"But then the rotatory motion is thus unprovided for; therefore,
secondly, to make the head capable of this a further mechanism is
introduced, not between the head and the uppermost bone of the neck,
where the hinge is, but between that bone and the next underneath it. It
is a mechanism resembling a tenon and mortise. This second or
uppermost bone but one has what the anatomists call a process, viz. a
projection somewhat similar in size and shape to a tooth, which tooth,
entering a corresponding hollow socket in the bone above it, forms a
pivot or axle, upon which that upper bone, together with the head
which it supports, turns freely in a circle, and as far in the circle as the
attached muscles permit the head to turn. Thus are both motions perfect
without interfering with each other. When we nod the head we use the
hinge-joint, which lies between the head and the first bone of the neck.
When we turn the head round, we use the tenon and mortise, which
runs between the first bone of the neck and the second. We see the
same contrivance and the same principle employed in the frame or
mounting of a telescope. It is occasionally requisite that the object end
of the instrument be moved up and down as well as horizontally or
equatorially. For the vertical motion there is a hinge upon which the
telescope plays, for the horizontal or equatorial motion, an axis upon
which the telescope and the hinge turn round together. And this is
exactly the mechanism which is applied to the action of the head, nor
will anyone here doubt of the existence of counsel and design, except it

be by that debility of mind which can trust to its own reasonings in
nothing."[15]
. . . . . .
"The patella, or knee-pan, is a curious little bone; in its form and office
unlike any other bone in the body. It is circular, the size of a
crown-piece, pretty thick, a little convex on both sides, and covered
with a smooth cartilage. It lies upon the front of the knee, and the
powerful tendons by which the leg is brought forward pass through it
(or rather make it a part of their continuation) from their origin in the
thigh to their insertion in the tibia. It protects both the tendon and the
joint from any injury which either might suffer by the rubbing