1869.] DAWSON — IDEAS OF DERIVATION, 123 



philosophical view, that which commends itself to the grander 

 and higher style of mind ; but neither he nor his opponent were 

 in a position to see fully the bearings of the question. Owen 

 himself, though largely in advance of most other writers of this 

 time, is not free from misconceptions. He clearly sees, with all 

 the more profound thinkers among naturalists, that whichever 

 view we adopt, the problem can be solved only on the hypothesis 

 of a " predetermining intelligent "Will." Without this, nature is 

 only a riddle without a solution — man himself a contradiction 

 and impossibility. But, admitting this, are those resemblances 

 which we call homologies, those adaptations which we call 

 analogies, results of direct creative acts or of the operation of 

 secondary causes? If the former, they are ultimate facts, 

 referable directly to will ; if the latter, we may study their more 

 immediate causes, and the laws under which these operate. 

 Cuvier and many of his most illustrious disciples have been 

 content to adopt the former alternative. Owen declares that in 

 this he has been led to differ from his great master. The reasons 

 which he gives under this head are, it must be confessed, feeble. 

 He found it necessary to assume an " archetype " or ideal type in 

 explaining the vertebrate skeleton ; but this would have been 

 equally suitable under the hypothesis of direct creation or that of 

 secondary causes. He saw in the recurrence of similar segments 

 in a vertebral column and other cases of repetition of similar parts, 

 something analogous to the repetition of similar crystals, as the 

 result of " polarizing force in the growth of an inorganic body." 

 But there is scarcely more philosophy in this than there is in the 

 process by which a savage, ignorant of manufacturing processes, 

 might explain, as the result of some unknown process of 

 crystallization, the recurrence of forms in the pattern of a 

 piece of calico or in the beads of a necklace. Still we are willing 

 to allow due value even to the impressions made upon the minds 

 of naturalists by such facts, and to go on to the next question of 

 the series. Before doing so, however, we must take exception to 

 one expression of the great English naturalist, which, in various 

 forms, recurs in several places. He calls the theory of derivation 

 a principle " more especially antagonistic to the theological idea" 

 of creation. Now, if by the theological idea he means that 

 promulgated in the first chapter of Genesis, he should explain 

 wherein the antagonism consists. The object of the writer in 

 is obviously to illustrate and enforce the existence and 



