tS78 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



The question always returns : why have the antecedent conditions 

 been such as to give this present collocation, and not any other of 

 the myriad possible collocations or arrangements of material ? A 

 teleologist will say that the collocation which .c, y, z represent, was 

 planned by Intelligence. Stet fro ratiune vulmitas. Can Mr. Grant 

 Allen put his hand on any one of Charles Darwin's discoveries that 

 shall disprove this teleological explanation ? Unless he can, the 

 position that matter is prior to mind remains unproven. 



But the nebula spins on, cools down, condenses into liquid, 

 solidifies, till the tiniest and lowliest of vegetable organisms blooms 

 suddenly on the bosom of primeval mud. How is this ? we ask. 

 Some happy variation. A pretty thread to hang a whole philo- 

 sophy on, like an elephant from a horse-hau*. But there the 

 organism is, and of course it reproduces others, and they adapt 

 themselves to their environment, and some individuals are a little 

 unlike their progenitors, and this unlikeness proves an advantage 

 to them, and they transmit it to their posterity ; and those indi- 

 viduals who have this advantage, being stronger, supplant such as 

 have it not. So vegetation grows luxuriant and manifold. And 

 the lowest plants are very like the lowest annnals, often quite un- 

 distinguishable ; so that we may suppose both plants and animals 

 to have come from one humble source, that primitive organism, 

 child of happy variation. There is a good deal here debatable 

 enough ; and much that undoubtedly is true. The principle 

 of natural selection must ever hold its place by the side of the law 

 of universal gravitation as one of the grand laws of Nature. This 

 means that Darwin must stand with Newton, the naturalist with 

 the astronomer. In his capacity of naturalist he is worthy of no 

 less a place. Whether natural selection will account for the 

 variation of species to the extent which he cautiously implies, and 

 his disciples open-mouthed proclaim, is matter of much question. 

 A happy variation, as a shade of colour, or a slight increase of 

 neck, must be small to begin with, too small very often to be of 

 any assistance to its possessor in the struggle for life. Two beings 

 must unite, each with this happy variation, in order to transmit it 

 at all certainly and pronouncedly. Then there is the tendency to 

 atavism, or reversion to an earlier and less improved type. Like- 

 wise, catastrophes and wholesale devourings, which involve im- 

 proved and unimproved in a common ruin. So natural selection 

 works through a long chapter of accidents, and gets on slowly. 

 But has it not infinite time to work in ? No, it has not. Modern 

 research tends to show that at a certain epoch, a long way back cer- 

 tainly, but still a limited term of years, no life, or none but the 

 very lowest, was possible upon this earth by reason of the tempe- 

 rature. 



These are difficulties for naturalists. The teleological school 

 take their stand at three other principal points. The first is the 

 origin of all things : why this world with its collocations rather than 

 any other possible collocations, unless by the selection of Intelli- 

 gence. The second is the origin of life. These two points Darwin 

 has left as he found them. The third is the origin of man, and on 



