414 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 



Weismann's work — of the whole of which, and, indeed, even of 

 Weismann's existence, he seems to be profoundly ignorant — this 

 passage, and the whole of his article besides, would have remained 

 unwritten. It does seem to me rather hard that metaphysicians 

 who want to write about evolution will not take the trouble to find 

 out what evolutionism connotes at the present day ; but Professor 

 Schiller's ignorance of recent advances in biology is quite on a par 

 with the curious and fatal misconception of the processes and factors 

 of evolution that prevails throughout his article ; and the cue to his 

 philosophical status is afforded by his very theological conclusion, 

 from which we learn that, if the whole of his argument be valid, 

 evolutionism rather helps than hinders the teleologist, since he is no 

 longer compelled to attribute perfection, but only gradual perfec- 

 tioning, to this very imperfect scheme of nature, nor to saddle an 

 omnipotent deity with the responsibility for deliberately planning 

 and designing all the cruelty and suffering prevalent throughout the 

 world. In other words, he proposes, by the help of evolution, to 

 save divine morality at the expense of divine power ; his directing 

 Intelligence being, not an omnipotent fiend, but only an unpractised 

 though well-meaning bungler. I hope that the theologians will be 

 duly grateful to their very candid friend. 1 



lie theory of an innate tendency to vary in a definite direction of advance was, 

 e, advocated long ago by Nageli. In an article on "Evolution and Teleology " 



1 The 

 of course, 



that appeared in the Nev) Science Review of July, 1S95, I pointed out how strongly the 

 recent advances in botany have told against this theory, and how in nearly every line of 

 ascent evolution upwards has ended in a blind alley. 



F. H. Pekey Coste. 



