72 The Missing Evidence. 



brought about ; we know, as Dr. Martineau puts 

 it, the when of evolution, but not the whence. 



That the missing evidence in the evolutionary 

 theory of causation may yet be supplied, everyone 

 who has felt the divine impulse to science will 

 ardently hope, as the more enthusiastic, indeed, 

 confidently predict. In fact, the belief in the ul 

 timate perfectibility, if not in the present perfec 

 tion, of the doctrine has become a part of the 

 scientific fanaticism with which our age matches 

 the religious fanaticism of the sixteenth century. 

 And so it happens that the majority of readers 

 are scarcely aware of the hitches in the Darwinian 

 argument any more than they were formerly aware 

 of the intellectual difficulties in the way of many 

 accepted theological dogmas. For all such minds, 

 now, any inquiry into the ethical significance of 

 Darwinism will be without weight unless the 

 theory in its entirety be accepted as initial truth. 

 I propose, therefore, without further ado, to as 

 sume, for argument s sake, that the Darwinian 

 hypothesis has been completely established ; and 

 I would, then, invite Darwinists to join me in an 

 impartial attempt to interpret that hypothesis, 

 and to determine its bearings upon the problems 

 of morals. &quot;Whether there actually exists, as the 

 late George Henry Lewes imagined, a wide-spread 



