And this latter view may be disputed by considerations similar to those put forward by Mr. Lewes. That writer says:*—

"What is the plain inference from sensible experience? It is that both oxygen and hydrogen have in combination lost all their specific qualities, and have acquired new qualities. They have not only lost. that amount of molecular agitation which kept them in their gaseous state, they have lost those qualities, or modes of reaction, which distinguished them from other gases and solids. The oxygen will not now oxidize, the hydrogen will not flame. If this is not destruction, destruction has no meaning; if this is not change, nothing is changeable. Theory declares that the oxygen has not changed; and fact declares that the oxygen has utterly changed. Theory infers that oxygen is indestructible, in spite of the fact that oxygen has been destroyed. . . . . The surprising recovery of all the original characters, after the element has undergone a multiplicity of changes destructive of those characters, is supposed to prove that what is thus recovered could not have been lost. Hence the conclusion is drawn that throughout its apparent changes the element has really preserved its integrity. But looked at closely it is seen that all which remains the same is the possibility of restoration . . . . that what is now lost will reappear whenever the requisite conditions of its appearance are restored. The house will reappear when the bricks are re-arranged."

This is, once more, exactly the scholastic philosophy; form or force passes from the active condition ("in actu") to the condition of possibility (" in potentia") to re-emerge in act, simultaneously with the acquisition by matter of the condition proximate for its manifestation.

Conclusion,

We may here shortly survey the ground we have as yet traversed. The course we have already pursued has shown us that in each of us there energizes a force which feels, thinks, remembers and wills-that expresses its thoughts by external signs, can perceive amongst its perceptions moral worth, and is essentially the same in all men. Secondly, we have recognised that outside us really exists an external world, part of which consists of individual, active wholes-concrete unities, which live (as all plants), or which live and feel (as the dog and the bee), or which live, feel, and also think (as man). We have also seen that the force which

*Problems of Life and Mind,' vol. ii. p. 55.

energizes in each such irrational sentient being is one (as that which we know acting in ourselves is one)-a true unity, which manifests itself besides feeling, in organic activity (growth, development, and instinct), giving evidence to the intellect of rational man of deep and mysterious powers and tendencies. (expressed by us as the different kinds of homology and homoplasy as well as mimicry), and revealing to the contemplative mind which has risen to the recognition of a First Cause the existence of Divine prototypal ideas, capable indeed of being but very imperfectly apprehended by us, yet existing as the seminal principles of that teeming world of animals and plants which affords so vast and inexhaustible a field for the exercise of our delight and admiration as well as of our observing and reasoning energies.

CHAPTER IX.

NATURAL SELECTION.

"The hypothesis of natural selection originally put forward as the origin of species has been really abandoned by Mr. Darwin himself, and is untenable. It is a misleading positive term denoting negative effects, and as made use of by those who would attribute to it the origin of Man, is an irrational conception."

Futility of attempts to

AT the close of the preceding chapter, the outcome was glanced at of those lessons which had already been ignore inter-gathered from nature. They were recognised as nal forces. teaching that there exists in each animal and plant a unity of force corresponding with its unity of frame, each living organism manifesting, by unmistakable external signs, the presence of such internal power the mysterious nature of which it was sought to bring home by a consideration of those deep-lying tendencies revealed in the facts of serial and other homology.

This notion of an "internal force" is very repugnant to some contemporary writers. But it is absolutely impossible to get rid of the idea of innate powers and tendencies the existence of which is everywhere manifested, not only in the organic world but in the inorganic world also. To conceive the universe as consisting of atoms acted on by external forces but having in themselves no power of coherence or response to such external actions, is a manifest absurdity. No one thing can act on any other, except that in such other there is an innate capacity of being acted on. Mr. Herbert Spencer conceives each animal as being built up of a multitude of "physiological units," each of which is credited with

"an innate tendency" to evolve the parent form from which it sprang. Mr. Darwin conceives each animal and plant to be built up of a number of " gemmules," each gemmule being the seat of powers, special tendencies and elective affinities of a most complex kind. In fact, as Mr. Lewes says, we have thus "the very power which was pronounced mysterious in larger organisms." It seems, as before said, simpler and far more natural to regard each animal as the seat of one governing force than as itself made up of a number of living creatures so minute as to be invisible to the highest power of the microscope, and each animated by a governing force of its own. Surely this is to multiply difficulties of conception against both sense and reason alike.

The great question as to how the different kinds of animals and plants which now people this planet first arose has been answered at various times in various ways. My own view has been expressed as follows:*

Origin of species, the

view.

"It is quite conceivable that the material organic world may be so constituted that the simultaneous action upon it of all known forces, mechanical, physical, chemical, magnetic, terrestrial, and cosmical, together with other as yet unknown forces-which probably exist, may result in changes which are harmonious and symmetrical; just as the internal nature of vibrating plates causes particles of sand scattered over them to assume definite and symmetrical figures when made to oscillate in different ways by the bow of a violin being drawn along their edges. The results of these combined internal powers and external influences might be represented under the symbols of complex series of vibrations (analogous to those of sound or light) forming a most complex harmony or a display of most varied colours. In such a way the reparation of local injuries might be symbolized as a filling-up and completion of an interrupted rhythm. Thus also monstrous aberrations from typical structure might correspond to a discord, and sterility from crossing be compared with the darkness resulting from the interference of waves of light.

"Such symbolism will harmonize with the peculiar reproduction, before mentioned, of heads in the body of certain annelids, with the facts of serial homology, as well as those of bilateral and vertical symmetry. Also, as the atoms of a resonant body may be made to give out sound by the juxtaposition of a vibrating tuning-fork, so it is con

*Genesis of Species,' 2nd edition, p. 261.

ceivable that the physiological units of a living organism may be so influenced by surrounding conditions (organic and other) that the accumulation of these conditions may upset the previous rhythm of such units, producing modifications in them-a fresh chord in the harmony of nature-a new species!"

For the arguments by which this view is supported and antagonistic hypotheses contested, the reader is referred to the work from which the passage just quoted has been taken. Here it can be only incidentally defended, yet one passing remark may be now made. That characters of importance suddenly appearing are not really unlikely to persist, is confirmed by an observation made by Mr. Darwin himself, who tells us (in his 'Descent of Man,' vol. i. p. 233): "When any character has suddenly appeared in a race or species as the result of a single act of variation . . . . and this race is crossed with another not thus characterized, the characters in question do not commonly appear in a blended condition in the young, but are transmitted to them either perfectly developed or not at all."

The view of specific genesis which I support, though arrived at in complete independence, is more or less similar to that enunciated fifteen years ago by Professor Theophilus Parsons, of Harvard University in the United States. It also agrees in many respects with the views advocated by Professor Owen in the last volume of the Anatomy of Vertebrates,' under the term "derivation." He there says: "Derivation holds that every species changes in time, by virtue of inherent tendencies thereto."

original

Mr. Darwin, as every one knows, has attempted to account Mr. Darwin's for the appearance of new forms of animals and plants by a certain special process called by him Natural Selection;" an hypothesis which may be thus shortly stated:

view.

66

Every organism tends to multiply geometrically and to transmit a general likeness, with individual differences, to its offspring. No two individuals are quite alike. Past time is practically infinite. Each individual which survives to breed