CHAP. X.] SEXUAL SELECTION. 331 



itself to have a very secure foundation. In fact, reviewing 

 what has been said in preceding chapters, I am Conclusion & 

 confident in the belief, and I think it can be fully ZSL uaI 

 proved : 



1. That it is evident, on strictly scientific grounds, that 

 Mr. Darwin s hypothesis, sexual selection (the action of 

 which he now exaggerates as he formerly exaggerated that 

 of natural selection, according to his own present admission), 

 cannot be maintained, and refutes itself. 



2. That the opposition to Mr. Darwin s hypothesis of 

 sexual selection will be (like that to natural selection has 

 been) due to this exaggeration, i.e., to the representation of 

 it as a main cause instead of a merely subordinate aid. 



3. That Mr. Darwin utterly misses the point concerning 

 the real difficulty as to man s origin through evolution, and 

 consequently does not even tend, in the faintest degree, to 

 surmount the moral barrier separating man from brutes. 



I am also persuaded that the failure of Mr. Darwin and 

 his coadjutors in their attempt to establish a mechanical ex 

 planation of the phenomena of the living world amounts 

 almost to a demonstration of the impossibility of any such 

 explanation, and therefore that essentially distinct vital 

 powers and principles really exist in nature. 



Such powers may, I believe, be made evident to every un 

 prejudiced mind who studies the world of men, of animals, 

 and of plants the world of Biology. 



This is the lesson which nature seems to me to teach us 

 as to the processes of life in the living beings we see about 

 us. It remains to consider what, if anything, can be learned 

 from nature as to its own causes. 



