The eye is formed before birth. This fact makes it clear that the alleged factors of evolution have nothing to do with its production.
It is obvious that the father takes no part in the construction of the child’s eyes; for he contributes the spermatozoön, only; and the formation of the eye begins a considerable time after the spermatozoön fuses with the ovum. It is equally clear that the mother has no voluntary agency in the production of the child’s eyes. In brief, the child develops and grows in the mother’s womb, as a parasite, she being merely its host. Moreover, the reader will readily admit that all the scientists on the earth, acting in concert, could not make a living eye for a toad.
Each human eye has the same parts, the same construction, form, and substantially the same size that every other such eye has; and performs the same functions. So all human eyes occupy the same relative position in the face. We are, therefore, compelled to believe that human eyes are not produced by accident nor by chance; but they develop and grow by force of a universal law; or that they are made by the Creator.
But the almost universal belief is that “heredity” or “nature” causes the child’s eyes to grow, as those of the parents grew.
A cause is described as: “An antecedent, upon which an effect follows according to the law of nature.” (Cent. Dic. 1, p. 868.)
Ordinarily, the word “cause” is understood to mean a force or agency which produces a given effect or result, which could not happen without that force or agency. Such a force or agency is termed an efficient cause. (Cent. Dic. 3, p. 1849.)
It would be absurd to suppose that the eyes of the father and mother cause or produce the eyes of the child. It follows that there is no causative relation between the eyes of the parents and those of the child. The most that could be said in this direction is that the same force or agency which produced the eyes of the parents, namely: the Creator, also caused and produced those of the child.
The fact that the father and mother have eyes is no reason why the child should have them; for the forces and motions which made the eyes of the parents ceased to exist long before the formation of the germ-cell from which the child is produced.
Each human eye is a new combination of the atoms and cells of which it is composed. No atom, in it, was ever a part of an eye of either parent. The atoms and cells, of which it is made, are grouped into new chemical combinations; and these are mechanically arranged in such a manner as to construct the human eye for the first and last time. The forces and motions, which build up each eye are peculiar to it. The work done in making the eyes of the parents, has nothing to do with the making of the eyes of the child; for the atoms and cells which are employed in constructing the child’s eyes must be assembled and grouped into the necessary chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements as if the father and mother had no eyes. In other words, each eye must be made anew, without regard to the eyes of the father and mother or any other person. If a man make a million bricks, it requires the same work to make the last one that it did to make the first one; so if a hundred million silver dollars are coined at a mint it requires, identically, the same work to coin each of them that it did to make every other; and so of the eyes.