PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 55 



ultimate units of organic being and are compelled to judge of 

 their actions by the general results. But Mr. Spencer went 

 further than any one had done before him and brought together 

 an immense array of the most convincing facts upon his side 

 of the question . Although he wrote before the new hypothesis 

 had been proposed he seems to have fairly anticipated it, and 

 one is surprised to find the objections of the Neo-Darwinians 

 clearly stated and squarely met. It would be needless to re 

 peat his arguments here, even if there were time, but I may 

 call attention especially to that which relates to the origin 

 of those correlated structures which are necessary to render 

 effective the modifications which natural selection or sexual 

 selection has produced. He shows that unless these are due 

 to inherited functional variations a series of violent assump 

 tions must be made which put one's credulity to the .severest 

 test not a pre-established harmony, but a multitude of pre- 

 established harmonies, all of which must co-operate with 

 unerring exactness. Under the hypothesis of the hereditary 

 preservation of the functionally produced modifications neces 

 sary to secure these correlations the explanation is perfectly 

 simple and rational. This argument, so far as I know, has 

 never been answered, nor has any attempt been made to 

 answer it. 



Early in the discussion of Weismann's theory and three 

 years before the appearance of the English edition of his 

 essays, Mr. Spencer seems to have foreseen their probable effect 

 in England, and he turned aside from his systematic labors to 

 reargue this question in the light of fresh facts and evidence. 

 This he did in two articles m the Nineteenth Century for April 

 and May 1886, which are characterized by an unfailing vigor 

 of treatment and all the philosophic power which he is wont to 

 display in the discussion of biological questions. I would 



