THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 273 
M. Pouchet, a more thorough disciple of Lamarck than Mr. Dar- 
win, feels this difficulty, and thus expresses himself in discussing it : 
—“ But there is a difficulty which shocks the understanding; how 
shall we explain an ascending and progressive system of varieties ? 
Must we believe in any final purpose, in an object determined before- 
hand? We do not think so. Finality is a sort of divine prevision, and 
the world, according to this hypothesis, is still in tutelage; we prefer 
believing in a creative intelligence.” And he then gives, as an in- 
stance of this, the increase of the human skull under the influence of 
civilization, * so that an organism may tend to modify itself by an un- 
conscious act of the will, "—* L'organisme peut tendre à se modifier 
par un acte inconscient de volonté " (p. 189). We know not what 
Mr. Darwin would say to an unconscious act of the will modifying 
organisms, but it is curious and very instructive to see one of his 
school troubled with these progressive and ascending beneficial varie- 
ties, as proving too manifestly a divine prevision, and thereby letting 
in the Creator, against whom the door had been carefully locked by 
spontaneous generation. 
But by all this we are enabled to understand the real meaning of 
secondary causes, producing, by divine appointment, all the forms of 
life; it is only a civil way of getting rid of that which is the great ob- 
stacle to the theory ; and yet, after all, it is evident that the Transmu- 
tationists are obliged to invest matter with divine power, which is, in 
fact, but a roundabout way of arriving at Pantheism.* 
Mr. Darwin, having secured a start for life, prefers a system which 
dispenses with the necessity of a cause; varieties arise dy accident ; 
but those of his school who think deeper on these matters, and are 
more careful of their logic, perceive that this is untenable, and thus 
* M. Pouchet obviously finds in Pantheistie notions the solution of the 
:— Dans presque toutes les cosmogonies on semble indiquer 
i dans chaque f nt de la 
tion. Jovis omnia plena, disaient les anciens. Cette pénétration indéfi- 
nite des parcelles de la divinité dans toutes les molécules:de la matière, ce pan- 
théisme, enfin, qui anime d'un souffle divin tous les atomes, ne au sem e 
l'antiquité et ressuscité par la moderne philosophie allemande, ne vient-il pas 
préter son appui à l'hétérogénie ? (i.e. génération spontanee. es 
immatériel, intimement uni àla matière, ne doit-il pas 
ments, en présider les transformations et lui imposer des lois ? Ja 1 
apparaitre par la succession harmonieuse de la génération, ailleurs animer 
spontanément.” (* Hétérogénie,’ p. 124.) 
VOL. VI. [SEPTEMBER 1, 1868.] 
