which are never developed and which the animal does not need; animals have bones which they never use ; birds and crocodiles have their skulls formed of separate bones as well as viviparous animals, although in their case there seems to be no utility in such arrangement. Even Professor Owen urges this objection. In his work on " Limbs," ^ he says, " I think it will be obvious that the principle of final adaptation fails to satisfy all the conditions of the problem. That every segment and almost every bone which is present in the human hand and arm should exist in the fin of the whale," where they are not needed, does not appear consistent with the principle. Again, in another place, he says,^ " The cranium of the bird, which is composed in the adult of a single bone, is ossified from the same number of points as in the human embryo, without the possibility of a similar purpose being subserved thereby, in the extrication of the chick from the fractured egg-shell .... These, and a hundred such facts force upon the contemplative an- atomist the inadequacy of the teleological hypotiiesis."
On this it may be remarked : (1.) That the objection bears only on the individual organism of plants or animals, whereas the evi- dences of design are scattered over the whole universe. (2.) This objection also is founded on our ignorance. The argument is that because we cannot see the reason for a certain arrangement, no such reason exists. (3.) It takes the lowest view of utility, namely, that which contemplates the immediate wants of the individual organism. Things which are not needed for its necessities may answer a much higher end. In a great building use is not the only end contemplated ; there are symmetry and unity, aesthetic ends of as much value as mere comfort or convenience. Scientific men have demonstrated that all animals are in their structure only modi- fications of four typical forms. These forms are preserved in all the genera and species included under these general classes. The pres- ence, tlierefore, of these characteristic features of the type, even where not needed for the individual, serve to indicate the unity of the plan on which the whole animal kingdom is constructed. We must i-emember that what we do not see, cannot disprove the real- ity of what we do see.
Instinct.
8. A third objection is sometimes derived from the operations of instinct. Instinct, according to Dr. Reid, is " a natural blind im- pulse to certain actions, without having any end in view, without deliberation, and very often without any conception of what we
1 Page 39. 2 Homologies, p. 73.
232 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. H. — Theism.
do." ^ Dr. "Whately also says : " An instinct is a blind tendency to a mode of action independent of any consideration on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads." Paley defines it to be " a propensity prior to experience and independent of in- struction." 2 The argument is tliat as " a blind impulse " contem plating no end, effects all the marvellous contrivances which we see in the works of irrational animals, similar contrivances in nature cannot prove intelligence in the author of nature. The answer to this argument is : —
1. That it is founded on a wrong definition of instinct. It is not a blind impulse. It is that measure of intelligence given to animals which enables them to sustain their lives, to continue their race, and to answer the necessities of their being. Within certain lim- its this form of intelligence, both in man and in irrational animals, acts blindly. The impulse which leads the young of all animals to seek their nourishment in the appropriate Avay and in the proper place, is no doubt blind. The same is also probably true of the impulse which leads many animals to make provision in summer for the necessities of winter. Neither can it be supposed that the bee has always and everyw^here constructed its cell according to the nicest mathematical principles, under the guidance of an intel- ligent apprehension of those principles. These operations which are performed without instructions, and always from age to age in the same Avay, indicate a guidance which may be called blind in so far that those under its influence do not devise the plan on which they act, although they may know the end they have in view. But the intelHgence of animals goes far beyond these narrow limits. Not only does the beaver construct his dam according to the nature of the locality and the force of the stream on which he fixes his habitations, but we constantly see it, as well as other animals, varying its mode of operation to suit special emergencies. In- stinct, therefore, as designating the princii)le which controls the action of irrational animals, is not blind, but intelligent. It admits of the contemplation of an end, and of the selection and applica- tion of means appropriate for its accomplishment. Even admitting, therefore, that the intelligence manifested in nature is of the same kind as that manifested by animals, yet the difference in degree is infinite.
2. No measure, however, of intellect of the grade or character of instinct is sufficient to account for the phenomena of the uui-
1 Active Poivers, iii. i. 2, vol. iv. p. 48: edit. Charlestown, 1815
2 Natural Theology, chap, xviii.