SECONDARY CAUSES 259 



further than we had expected, and we begin to think 

 that all may be due to secondary laws. 



We cannot doubt but that the most complicated 

 cases of inheritance such as the growth of the 

 train-feathers of a peacock, or the gorgeous wings of 

 a butterfly are due to secondary laws, although the 

 processes are quite incomprehensible to us. We be- 

 lieve these to be due to secondary laws, because we 

 see them taking place in exactly the same order over 

 and over again ; and, in the case of the peacock, we 

 know that if we pull out the feathers, new ones, 

 similar to the old, will replace them. So that we 

 can bring these laws into play whenever we choose. 

 It is not sufficient, therefore, to say that an action 

 is not due to secondary law because it is so wonder- 

 fully intricate, or because it is incomprehensible to 

 us. We must be able to show, either that the action 

 is antagonistic to known natural laws, or that the 

 result could not be due to a combination of any 

 natural laws that we have already discovered. That 

 is, we must show a discontinuity in the phenomena. 

 Can any such breaks be discovered? 



The origin of the material universe, which was the 

 starting point of the present evolutionary process, 

 appears to us to have been a new departure in natural 

 law. For if the action of gravitation was suspended, 

 all those whirling balls in the heavens would scatter 

 into cosmic dust, and the re-imposition of gravitation 

 would start a new evolutionary movement. 



But we cannot feel certain about it, for we do not 

 know, and never can know, what went before. But 

 with the origin of life on the earth it is different. 



