EX-PRESIDENT PORTER ON EVOLUTION 585 



finding it uncommonly cloudy. We remember, of course, that our 

 author is not bound to furnish us with brains as well as with argu- 

 ments ; but, using such brains as we have, we venture to suggest 

 that the substantial meaning- of the sentence might better have been 

 expressed in the following words : " Perhaps, if he knew how to put 

 his case in the strongest form, he would urge," etc. We might then 

 with less distraction have admired the modesty which offers to assist 

 the Huxleys and Spencers, the Morses and Fiskes, to state their case 

 in the strongest form, and also the curious felicity of the adjective 

 " peculiar " as applied to the " indications " which the evolutionist, 

 duly instructed by the ex-president, would say are to be looked for. 

 A sentence or two further on we come across what may fairly be 

 styled a "peculiar indication," namely, the word "protean," used in 

 the sense of " most primitive," in the phrase " from the protean forms 

 up to the human." Haeckel and other naturalists talk of the protista / 

 and Dr. Porter apparently thinks that " protean " is the proper cog- 

 nate adjective. 



The biologist, we are told, " makes much of the existence of 

 rudimentary organs in the higher species of animals, and which 

 [sic], he contends, give positive evidence of a great number of inter- 

 mediate members or links in the great chain of progressive devel- 

 opment, which have left no remnants or traces behind." Does the 

 biologist really talk in this fashion ? We very much doubt it. How 

 can these " intermediate members " have left no remnants or traces 

 behind, if they have left rudimentary organs as memorials of their 

 existence ? Then what is the force of the word " intermediate " ? 

 Intermediate between what ? A rudimentary organ simply points to 

 some anterior form, in which the organ was better developed. The 

 word " intermediate " has here absolutely no application. Our author 

 is able, however, to give us the philosophy of the rudiments. It "can 

 not be denied," he says, " that they prove a unity of plan or of thought, 

 of beauty and order, in the production of the wondrous cosmos of ani- 

 mal life, including a dramatic order in the introduction of its families 

 and groups." When people say that a thing " can not be denied," 

 they generally mean that it must be admitted. If Dr. Porter uses the 

 words in this sense, he simply closes the whole case without further 

 argument. The same method applied to the question of evolution at 

 large would have saved him the trouble of writing his lecture ; though 

 possibly a brief oracular announcement might not have wrought in- 

 stant conviction in the minds of the Nineteenth Century Club. We 

 are going to be very bold, for our own part, and insist on treating the 

 question as still open. We say then that, in our opinion, Dr. Porter's 

 theory of " a unity of plan or of thought, of beauty and order," is not 

 tenable, and that the evolution theory alone meets the case satis- 

 factorily. There is no use in talking of beauty or order, unless we 

 mean such beauty and order as human faculties can recognize. Now, 



