CHAP. IX.] NATURAL SELECTION. 299 



Darwin, in fact, thus silently introduces the moral element 

 into his &quot; social instinct,&quot; and then, of course, has no diffi 

 culty in finding in this latter what he had previously put 

 there. 



Mr. Darwin s hypothesis has been examined at length by 

 me in the Genesis of Species, and the causes have been 

 there assigned which have determined me to reject it in 

 favour of tbe conception of an internal force a conclusion 

 which has also been arrived at by various other naturalists ; 

 Professor Owen, as has been said, amongst them. 



Dr. Carpenter has observed (in a periodical called II 

 Earth ), of the origin of new species by the appearance of 

 modified individuals : &quot;Natural selection is asssuredly not 

 that cause.&quot; &quot;Consequently we must look to forces acting 

 either within or without the organism as the real agents.&quot; 

 &quot; This mucli seems to me clear : that just as there is at the 

 present time a determinate capacity for a certain fixed kind 

 of development in each germ, in virtue of which one evolves 

 itself into a zoophyte, and another (though not originally 

 distinguishable i rom it) into a man, so must the primordial 

 germs have been endowed each with its determinate capacity 

 for a particular course of development ; in virtue of which it 

 has evolved the whole succession of forms that has ultimately 

 proceeded from it. That the accidents of Natural Selec 

 tion should have produced that orderly succession, is to my 

 own mind inconceivable.&quot; 



It cannot then be contested that the far-famed &quot; Origin of 

 Species that, namely, by &quot; Natural Selection,&quot; has 



f HI i Conclusion as 



been repudiated, in fact, though not expressly, *H*fd 

 even by its own author. This circumstance, which 

 is simply undeniable, might dispense us from any further 

 consideration of the hypothesis itself. But the &quot; conspiracy 

 of silence &quot; which has accompanied the repudiation tends to 

 lead the unthinking many to suppose that the same im 

 portance still attaches to it as at first. On this account it 

 may be worth while to ask the question, what, after all, is 

 &quot; Natural Selection&quot; ? 



