OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 439 



and difference of two numbers is equal to twice the sum of their 

 squares," is not commonly called a law. Yet so far as the logical 

 value of the statement is concerned, it differs in nothing but rela- 

 tive certainty from this, " Equal volumes of all substances, when 

 in the state of gas, and under like conditions, contain the same 

 number of molecules." And this in the same way differs only in 

 degree of probability from the following : — " One cubic inch of 

 gas under one atmosphere and at the freezing point contains one 

 quadrillion* molecules." Or from this, " The mean velocity of 

 hydrogen molecules " under the same conditions "is 6097 feet 

 per second." These propositions may not be exactly true, but 

 they are definite, and therefore in the position of at least hypo- 

 thetical laws. But when Haeckel speaks of the laws of Inheri- 

 tance, of Established or Habitual Transmission, of Contemporaneous 

 or Homochronous Transmission, of Homotopic Transmission, of 

 Individual Adaptation, of Monstrous or Sudden Adaptation, of 

 Sexual Adaptation, of Indirect or Potential, or of Direct or 

 Actual Adaptation, one sees that he is giving the name of law to 

 a mere phrase. Here is the Law of Universal Adaptation : " All 

 organic individuals become unequal to one another in the course 

 of their life by adaptation to different conditions of life, although 

 the individuals of one and the same species remain mostly very 

 much alike." And this is, I believe, the most definite statement 

 of law which is to be found in Hseckel's " History of Creation." 

 I should be sorry to be supp osed to be in any way pretending to 

 criticise the theory of Darwin, which is, to say the least, a most bril- 

 liant, attractive, and fruitful hypothesis, and is in all probability 

 true, under various limitations which remain as yet undetermined, 

 and in combination with that belief in Design which it is supposed 

 by many to contradict. But I protest against the presump- 

 tion that it is a full statement of all the causes producing the 

 amazing and overpowering variety, beauty, and utility of organic 

 structures, from the exquisitely delicate tracery of the diatom, 

 which has only been detected by the most powerful instruments 

 which the science and ingenuity of the present day can invent, to 

 the prodigious complexity of the human system. " What a piece 



* 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. 



