432 NATURAL SCIENCE [June 



All this, however, is somewhat heside the present question. The fact that equally 

 plausible contrary positions may be taken up from the facts adduced by either side of 

 the counter-theories of evolution is a tolerably certain proof or presumption that the 

 real ultimate question at issue is not a scientific question at all, and cannot be settled 

 by science. It may possibly be proved, for instance, and I believe it has been scientifi- • 

 cally proved, that variations by direct adaptive modification are hereditary ; but whether 

 one species or definite type of organic life is transmutable into another by the ordinary 

 forces of nature is a question which biological science, as sirch, has got nothing to do 

 with. The unity of life, which underlies the main doctrine of evolution, may be a 

 magnificent transcendental conception sjiecially palatable to the poet and mystic ; but 

 to hold that many problems in modern medicine, etc. , must remain more or less incom- 

 prehensible until the evolutionists cease from troubling and the weary ^vl'anglers are at 

 rest, is rather too ridiculous. 



Would it not be more decorous if British scientists declared once for all that theories 

 of evolution are outside of their sphere 1 It has been held that the question of evolution 

 can be settled only l>y biological observation and experiment. Just so ; but why trouble 

 about the matter at all ? Why be enticed away from the true path of scientific investi- 

 gation by phantom hypotheses regarding the unity and continuity of nature. The 

 proper and fitting instruments and business of science are analysis, classification, and 

 the detection of causes. The synthetic strain after unity and the absolute involved in 

 evolution is distinctly hostile to the first, which carries with it also the second, viz., 

 taxonomy ; and of the four kinds of causes enumerated by Aristotle, the last, viz., the 

 final cause, is also the last with which true science has to deal. It has been remarked 

 that " final causes are the life which disturbs the prose of science " ; and this, no doubt, 

 is the reason why the poet and literate dabbling in scientific subjects turn first to tele- 

 ology so very complacently, e.g., the relations of flowers and insects. The poetic 

 pantheism of evolution in general and the poetic life involved in final causes are the 

 true and only mainstays of the terribly wasted and misguided energy of our pseudo- 

 .seientists. P. Q. Keegan. 



Pattekdale, Westmoreland. 



MR HOYLE EXPLAINS 



May I beg a few lines to explain two matters commented on in your last issue. 



1. (p. 348) As regards the discrepancy between the introduction to and text of the 

 paper on Lifu MoUusca, by Messrs Melville and Standen {not Standon), the former 

 refers to the whole collection, the latter to the portions dealt with in parts 2 and 3 of 

 the catalogue. 



2. (p. 352) The " Supplement to the Catalogue of recent Cephalopoda " was j»M&ZisA.(3rf 

 by the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh in part 3 of vol. xiii. of its Proceedings, in 

 December 1897. The Society was good enough to allow me to have a number of separate 

 copies, which are not published, but a copy has been sent to every worker on the 

 Cephalopoda, with whose name and address I was acquainted. The number of the 

 volume should certainly have been placed on the cover, it was on the signature of the 

 sheets, but the printer has lemoved it from the separate copies. Wm. E. Hoyle. 



May 11, 1898. 



i^OTICE 



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