SOME UNSOLVED PROBLEMS IN GEOLOGY. 833 



ries of evolution suggested by biologists to give any substantial aid 

 to the geologist in these questions. In looking again at the points 

 there set forth, I find they have not been invalidated by subsequent 

 discoveries, and that we are still nearly in the same position with 

 respect to these great questions that we were in at that time a singu- 

 lar proof of the impotency of that deductive method of reasoning 

 which has become fashionable among naturalists of late. Yet the 

 discussions of recent years have thrown some additional light on these 

 matters ; and none more so than the mild disclaimers with which my 

 friend Dr. Asa Gray and other moderate and scientific evolutionists 

 have met the extreme views of such men as Romanes, Haeckel, Lub- 

 bock, and Grant Allen. It may be useful to note some of these as 

 shedding a little light on this dark corner of our unsolved problems. 



It has been urged, on the side of rational evolution, that this 

 hypothesis does not profess to give an explanation of the absolute 

 origin of life on our planet, or even of the original organization of a 

 single cell or of a simple mass of protoplasm, living or dead. All 

 experimental attempts to produce by synthesis the complex albumi- 

 nous substances, or to obtain the living from the non-living, have so 

 far been fruitless ; and, indeed, we can not imagine any process by 

 which such changes could be effected. That they have been effected 

 we know ; but the process employed by their Maker is still as mysteri- 

 ous to us as it probably was to him who wrote the words, " And God 

 said, Let the waters swarm with swarmers." How vast is the gap in 

 our knowledge and our practical power implied in this admission, 

 which must, however, be made by every mind not absolutely blinded 

 by a superstitious belief in those forms of words which too often pass 

 current as philosophy ! 



But if we are content to start with a number of organisms ready 

 made a somewhat humiliating start, however we still have to ask, 

 How do these vary so as to give new species ? It is a singular illusion 

 in this matter, of men who profess to be believers in natural law, that 

 variation may be boundless, aimless, and fortuitous, and that it is by 

 spontaneous selection from varieties thus produced that development 

 arises. But surely the supposition of mere chance and magic is un- 

 worthy of science. Varieties must have causes, and their causes and 

 their effects must be regulated by some law or laws. Now, it is easy 

 to see that they can not be caused by a mere innate tendency in the 

 organism itself. Every organism is so nicely equilibrated, that it has 

 no such spontaneous tendency, except within the limits set by its 

 growth and the law of its periodical changes. There may, however, 

 be equilibrium more or less stable. I believe all attempts hitherto 

 made have failed to account for the fixity of certain, nay, of very 

 many, types throughout geological time ; but the mere consideration 

 that one may be in a more stable state of equilibrium than another so 

 far explains it. A rocking stone has no more spontaneous tendency 

 vol. xxin. 53 



