EvoliUion and its Consequences, 65 



being, as was shown, capable of reinforcement by others 

 drawn from the abnormaUties of monstrous births, and the 

 s}TQmetrical character of certain diseases. 



From all these considerations, a cumulative argument 

 seemed to me to arise conclusive against the theory that 

 species have had their specific characters fixed solely by the 

 action of ' natural selection.' 



The hypothesis which I ventured to offer as my view of 

 the evolutionary process was and is, that just as all admit 

 the universe to have been so ordered — or to so exist — that on 

 the mixing of chemical substances under certain conditions 

 new and perfectly definite species of minerals are suddenly 

 evolved from potentiality to existence, and as by the juxta- 

 position of inorganic matters under certain influences ^ a new 

 form of force — ' vitality ' — appears upon the scene — so also in 

 animals, the concurrence of certain external exciting causes 

 acts in such a manner on internal predisposing tendencies as 

 to determine by a direct seminal modification the evolution 

 of a new specific form. The action of ' natural selection ' I 

 admitted, and admit, to be real and necessary, but I ascribe 

 to it an altogether subordinate role. 



This view may be true or false, but it is a very different 

 one from that advocated by the author of the Origin of 

 Species, and I am at a loss to understand how Professor 

 Huxley can consider it identical with Mr. Darwin's, more 

 especially as (at p. 237) I have enumerated the points in 

 which my theory coincides with Professor Owen's Derivation 

 and differs from that of the author of the Origin of Species. 

 It seems to me strange that Professor Huxley should now 

 assert the ' very pith and marrow ' of Darwinism to have been 

 the afl&rmation that ' species have been evolved by variation, 



^ Though Professor Huxley is disinclined as yet to admit that such evolu- 

 tion of living thing takes place now, he none the less admits the principle, 

 though he relegates such evolution to a remote epoch of the world's history. 

 See ' Address to the British Association, Liverpool, 1870,' p. 17. 



VOL. IL E 



