“It is well known that certain fishes (Pleuronecta) display the singularity of having both eyes on the same side of their head, one eye being placed a little higher than the other.  This arrangement has its utility; for the Pleuronecta, swimming on their side quite near the bottom of the sea, have little occasion for their eyesight except to observe what is going on above them.  But the detail to which we would call notice is, that the original position of the eyes is symmetrical in these fishes, and that it is only at a certain point of their development that the anomaly is manifested, one of the eyes passing to the other side of the head.  It is almost inconceivable that an intelligent being should have selected such an arrangement; and that, intending the eyes to be used only on one side of the head, he should have placed them originally on different sides.”

Then the waste of being is enormous, far beyond the common apprehension.  Seeds, eggs, and other germs, are designed to be plants and animals, but not one of a thousand or of a million achieves its destiny.  Those that fall into fitting places and in fitting numbers find beneficent provision, and, if they were to wake to consciousness, might argue design from the adaptation of their surroundings to their well-being.  But what of the vast majority that perish?  As of the light of the sun, sent forth in all directions, only a minute portion is intercepted by the earth or other planets where some of it may be utilized for present or future life, so of potential organisms, or organisms begun, no larger proportion attain the presumed end of their creation.

“Destruction, therefore, is the rule; life is the exception.  We notice chiefly the exception—­namely, the lucky prize-winner in the lottery—­ and take but little thought about the losers, who vanish from our field of observation, and whose number it is often impossible to estimate.  But, in this question of design, the losers are important witnesses.  If the maxim ‘audi alteram partem’ is applicable anywhere, it is applicable here.  We must hear both sides, and the testimony of the seed fallen on good ground must be corrected by the testimony of that which falls by the wayside, or on the rocks.  When we find, as we have seen above, that the sowing is a scattering at random, and that, for one being provided for and living, ten thousand perish unprovided for, we must allow that the existing order would be accounted as the worst disorder in any human sphere of action.”

It is urged, moreover, that all this and much more applies equally to the past stages of our earth and its immensely long and varied succession of former inhabitants, different from, yet intimately connected with, the present.  It is not one specific creation that the question has to deal with—­as was thought not very many years ago—­but a series of creations through countless ages, and of which the beginning is unknown.

These references touch a few out of many points, and merely allude to some of the difficulties which the unheeding pass by, but which, when brought before the mind, are seen to be stupendous.