But here the point is that, even if any one could assert the utility of such an elaborate and complicated development, and suppose it self-caused by accident or effect of environment, it certainly goes against the idea that all forms are due to an accumulation of small changes.  For these curious contrivances in the case of Salvia, Coryanthes, and other plants, would in any case have been no use to the plant till the whole machinery was complete.  Now, on the theory of slow changes gradually accumulating till the complete result was attained, there must have been generation after generation of plants, in which the machinery was as yet imperfect and only partly built up.  But in such incomplete stages, fertilization would have been impossible, and therefore the plant must have died out.  Just the same with the curious fly-trap in Dionoea.  Whatever may be its benefit to the plant, till the whole apparatus as it now is, was complete, it would have been of no use.  In the animal kingdom also, instances might be given:  the giraffe has a long neck which is an advantage in getting food that other animals cannot reach; but what would have been the use of a neck which was becoming—­and had not yet become—­long? here intermediate stages would not have been useful, and therefore could not have been preserved.[2] In flat fishes it is curious that, though they are born with eyes on different sides of the head, the lower eye gradually grows round to the upper-side.  As remarked by Mr. Mivart, natural selection could not have produced this change, since the first steps towards it could have been of no possible use, and could not therefore have occurred, at least not without direction and guidance from without.  Mr. Darwin’s explanation of the case does not touch this difficulty.

[Footnote 1:  This species was instanced because the lectures which form the basis of the book were originally delivered at Simla, in the N.W.  Himalaya, where, at certain seasons, the plant is a common wayside weed.  Mr. Darwin notices a similar and, if possible, more curious structure in a species of Catasetum.]

[Footnote 2:  See this fully explained by Mivart, “Genesis of Species,” pp. 29, 30 (2nd edition).]

(3) The third point, the occurrence of so much beauty in organic life, is perhaps one of the most conclusive arguments for design in nature.

Here, if possible, more clearly than elsewhere, I see a total failure of “natural causes.”  We are told that the beauty of birds (for instance) is easily accounted for by the fact, that the ornamented and beautiful males are preferred by the other sex; and that this is an advantage, so the beauty has been perpetuated; and the same with butterflies and beetles.

We are told also that bright-coloured fruits attract birds, who eat the soft parts of the fruit and swallow the hard stone or seed which is thus prepared for germination, and carried about and dispersed over the earth’s surface.  Again, showy coloured flowers attract insects, which carry away pollen and fertilize other flowers.