EDITOR'S TABLE. 



701 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE OPPOSITION TO DARWimSM. 



THE " Contemporary Review " for 

 June contains a timely article by 

 Mr. Romanes in reply to recent attacks 

 on Darwin and the Darwinian theory of 

 natural selection. Mr. Romanes first 

 applies himself to answering an anony- 

 mous writer in the ''Edinburgh Re- 

 view," who, not content with opposing 

 Darwinism, assails the character of Dar- 

 win himself. Here Mr. Romanes has 

 an easy task ; for, if anything is obvious 

 to an ordinarily candid mind, it is that 

 the author of the theory of natural se- 

 lection was a man of a rare elevation 

 and disinterestedness of spirit — a man 

 whom, so far as his personal attributes 

 were concerned, any school of thought 

 might be proud to call its chief. The 

 "Edinburgh Reviewer" tries to prove 

 from the " Life and Letters " that Dar- 

 win was a vain man, wedded to his own 

 notions, greedy of flattery, and impatient 

 of criticism. The record is there; he 

 who runs may read, and no one save the 

 reviewer has yet read what he professes 

 to have done. 



Mr. Romanes's more serious concern, 

 however, is with the criticisms of the 

 Duke of Argyll; and, to our mind, he 

 deals in a very effectual manner with 

 that writer's contention that natural 

 selection can in no sense be a cause of 

 the formation of species. Natural se- 

 lection, it is urged, does not produce 

 the variations that occur in Nature — 

 ergo, it can not explain the origin of 

 species. To this Mr. Romanes replies 

 that natural selection is precisely the 

 thing which gives vitality and perpetuity 

 to certain variations, and which causes 

 others to perish, and that, in that sense, 

 it is as truly a cause of species as any 

 one thing can be of another. If natural 

 selection is not a cause of species, then 

 neither is the intervention of the breeder 



a cause of the varieties which we know 

 his art produces among domestic ani- 

 mals; for the breeder does not make 

 the congenital variations upon which 

 he works; he simply chooses among 

 them those which he wishes to preserve 

 and, if possible, establish and develop. 

 If the reaction of the environment ex- 

 ercises a selective influence upon varia- 

 tions spontaneously produced, extin- 

 guishing most, favoring a few, we may 

 with perfect propriety speak of that as 

 "natural selection," and may regard it 

 as a cause of species just as we regard 

 any other necessary antecedent or con- 

 dition of a given phenomenon as a cause 

 of that phenomenon. We need not per- 

 sonify it in doing so, need not make a 

 metaphysical entity of it; all we are 

 called on to' do is to attest the fact — if 

 the facts appear to warrant it — that, 

 by a process of natural selection, species 

 are formed. 



But Mr. Romanes makes a very true 

 remark when he says that the Duke of 

 Argyll's quarrel is really not with nat- 

 ural selection as a special theory, but 

 with natural selection considered as ono 

 aspect of the general doctrine of evolu- 

 tion. What his Grace objects to is that 

 idea of natural causation which the 

 doctrine of evolution implies; for there 

 would be absolutely no advantage, from 

 the duke's point of view, in destroying 

 the theory of natural selection if the 

 scientific world were straightway to set 

 about discovering some other natural 

 hypothesis to take its place. What the 

 duke, therefore, has to show is that 

 nothing can be naturally explained, and 

 therefore that all attempts of the nature 

 of Darwin's are predoomed to failure. 

 The moment we admit the efficacy of 

 natural causes at all we start ufjon a 

 career of explanation to which, in the 

 very nature of things, there are no lim- 



