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CHAPTER IX. 



NATURAL SELECTION. 



&quot; The hypothesis of natural selection originally put forward as the 

 origin of species has been really abandoned by Mr. Darwin himself, 

 and is iintenable. It is a misleading positive term denoting negative 

 effects, and as made use of by those who would attribute to it the 

 origin of Man, is an irrational conception.&quot; 



AT the close of the preceding chapter, the outcome was 

 Futmty of glanced at of those lessons which had already been 

 i a ore p inte?- gathered from nature. They were recognised as 

 teaching that there exists in each animal and plant 

 a unity of force corresponding with its unity of frame, each 

 living organism manifesting, by unmistakable external signs, 

 the presence of such internal power the mysterious nature of 

 which it was sought to bring home by a consideration of those 

 deep-lying tendenc-ies revealed in the facts of serial and 

 other homology. 



This notion of an &quot; internal force &quot; is very repugnant to 

 some contemporary writers. But it is absolutely impossible 

 to get rid of the idea of innate powers and tendencies the 

 existence of which is everywhere manifested, not only in the 

 organic world but in the inorganic world also. To conceive 

 the universe as consisting of atoms acted on by external 

 forces but having in themselves no power of coherence or 

 response to such external actions, is a manifest absurdity. 

 No one thing can act on any other, except that in such other 

 there is an innate capacity of being acted on. Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer conceives each animal as being built up of a multi 

 tude of &quot; physiological units,&quot; each of which is credited with 



