Smithson's Theory of Special Creation

by Noble Smithson

While discussing “organs of extreme perfection,” and referring to the imaginary evolution of the human eye, in his Origin of Species (vol. 1, p. 228), Darwin says:

“Let this process go on for millions of years, and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds, and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might be thus formed, as superior to one of glass as the works of the Creator are to those of man?”

In brief, Darwin’s theory is that the eyes of each individual are better than those of his parents; and that he transmits to his child all the improvements made on his eyes during his life and so on to the latest generation. In other words, according to Darwin, the eyes of today are the “accumulated improvements” of millions of years.

Apparently Darwin thinks that each individual gets the benefit of all improvements made in the eyes of every other individual of all other species without regard to genetic relations, for he says, “on millions of individuals of many kinds,” etc. According to this view, a man would avail himself of any improvement that might be made in the eye of a fly, which is preposterous.

There would be some force in Darwin’s argument if it were possible to transfer the father’s or the mother’s eyes, bodily, to the child. But such a thing is too absurd to be dreamed of.

Every one knows that each eye, and every part of it, grows anew, as if the parents of the embryo had no eyes. Neither Darwin, nor any other man has ever shown how it is possible for the eyes of the father or mother to modify or affect the development, growth, form, size, color, qualities or characteristics of the child’s eyes. According to Darwin’s theory of “gemmules” the eyes of the father and mother give off gemmules which get into his or her blood and thence into the spermatozoön and the ovum and thence into the fertilized ovum and these produce eyes, in the child, like those of its parents. But everybody saw that these “gemmules” would have great difficulty in finding the spermatozoön and ovum, and in getting into them when found; and that after they reached the fertilized ovum, which divides into two, four, eight, sixteen or a million daughter-cells, these gemmules would have great difficulty in finding the orbit where the new eye is to grow; and that they were as apt to land in the back, heel or toe of the embryo as in the orbit.

Besides, if there were any such thing as Darwin’s gemmules there would have to be at least one for each coat, muscle, artery, vein, nerve and part of the eye; and it would be impossible for them to arrange themselves in the proper order in the embryo eye. Moreover, there might be too many or too few gemmules; some of them might get lost and leave the embryo eye without one or more of its coats or parts; then the gemmules from the father’s ayes might clash with those from the mother’s.

No other man has ever suggested any more plausible theory, than Darwin’s “gemmules,” of the manner in which the organs and parts of the parents’ bodies may be supposed to modify and affect those of the child. But this theory was rejected by every one, but Darwin, as absurd and impossible.

Every human being begins life as fertilized ovum, in which there is no eye. No part of the eyes of the father is transferred, bodily, to those of the child; nor is any part of the eyes of the mother. Every part of each eye must be made anew; each part must have the proper structure, form, and size; must be adjusted to and correlated with every other; finally, the several parts must be arranged in the proper order in the eye. In other words, two entirely new eyes must be made for each child.

Either the blind unthinking atoms and cells, of which the several parts of the eye, namely: the several coats, the aqueous humor, the lens, the vitreous body, the optic nerve, the muscles, arteries, veins, nerves, etc., are built up, do, spontaneously and automatically, and without the aid of any extraneous, supernatural, psychic and creative force, assemble and group themselves into the chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements necessary to construct the embryo eye; or the Creator, directly and specially, makes it. Which hypothesis is most plausible?