~~ ee 
1894. | WA [ Poulton. 
classes of facts with which no existing theory is, as they maintain, 
competent to deal. 
All we shall have time for to-night is briefly to compare natural 
selection, the Darwinian interpretation of evolution, with the 
Lamarckian theory. It is interesting to note that, although they 
are so essentially distinct one from another, in earlier times these 
two theories appear to have been entirely confused. Lamarckian 
evolution, Spencerian evolution, appeals to the mind of man far 
more strongly than Darwinian evolution. Any one of us, were 
we to have created the organic world, would certainly have 
created it according to Lamarck. We should have made evolu- 
tion by use and disuse of parts, and not by natural selection. 
However, we are not concerned with the sort of world that we 
should have created. The question before us as scientific men 
is not what might have happened, but what has happened. 
Nature, as I have heard Prof. Michael Foster say, has a very 
queer way of going by roundabout paths and refusing to take the 
roads we should lay out for her ourselves, and which we look 
upon as the most direct and obvious. The fact that the general 
aspect of the Lamarckian theory commends itself to the human 
mind affords no reason for Jooking upon it as the correct one, as 
opposed to the Darwinian theory. 
The Duke of Argyle, who is still strongly antagonistic to 
natural selection, 2 few years ago wrote an article in the Nine- 
teenth century called ‘‘The power of loose analogy.” By this 
title he intended to imply that those who believe in natural selec- 
tion have been led away by the specious character of the words 
themselves. I suppose that the Duke feels himself bound to 
account in some way or other for the fact that people believe in 
natural selection, while he does not, and accordingly he suggests 
that the seductive power of the title employed by Darwin has 
misled the scientific mind into a belief in the process itself, — 
only rare and subtle intellects like his own being proof against 
such an allurement. Nafural: a word expressive of familiar 
objects and processes always around us. Selection: a process 
with which we are all familiar. In this way it seems reasonable 
to the Duke of Argyie to suppose that men have been misled by 
the seductive nature of the terms employed by Darwin. The 
terms applied to processes familiar to every one, and therefore 
every one accepted them at once, without inquiring what they 
