I 



specific Genesis 1 1 1 



He says : — 



* Mr. Mivart has made the mistake, which nullifies nearly the 

 whole of his criticism, of supposing that "the theory of Natural 

 Selection may (though it need not) be taken in such a way as to lead 

 men to regard the present organic world as formed, so to speak, 

 accidentally, beautiful and wonderful as is confessedly the haphazard 

 result" (p. 33). Mr. Mivart, like many another writer, seems to 

 forget the age of the world in which he lives and for which he writes, 

 — the age of " experimental philosophy," the very standpoint of which, 

 its fundamental assumption, is the universality of physical causation. 

 This is so familiar to minds bred in physical studies, that they rarely 

 imagine that they may be mistaken for disciples of Democritus, or for 

 believers in " the fortuitous concourse of atoms," in the sense, at least, 

 which theology has attached to the phrase.' 



I feel a little difficulty in replying to this criticism, be- 

 cause I cannot bring myself to attribute to Mr. Wright such 

 a misapprehension either of my meaning or of that of the 

 school of Democritus, as seems necessary to explain it. 



I would willingly suppose that an obscurity of expression 

 on my part is alone to blame, but in using the word ' acci- 

 dentally ' I qualified it by the prefix ' so to speak.' But even 

 had I not done so, I could not have imagined that any one 

 would think me unaware that the various phenomena which 

 we observe in nature have their respective phenomenal ante- 

 cedents. It is extremely difficult to me to think that Mr. 

 Wright can suppose I held the opinion that the phenomena 

 of variation, etc., are not determined by definite physical ante- 

 cedents. Yet, if he does not so suppose, how can he assert 

 that when I use the expression ' accidentally ' I mean any- 

 thing antagonistic to physical causation ? 



On the other hand, Mr. Wright cannot suppose that the 

 old atheistic philosophy held events to be accidental in the 

 strict sense, for he knows very well that Democritus and 

 Empedocles and their school no more held phenomena to be 

 undetermined or unpreceded by other phenomena, than do 

 their successors at the present day. 



