Note B to Page 295. 445 



say : " If the objector were to suppose that plants were originally 

 fitted to years of various lengths, and that such only have survived to 

 the present time . . . as could be accommodated to it (i. e. the 

 actual cycle), we should reply that the assumption is too gratuitous 

 and extravagant to require much consideration." Was there ever a 

 more curious exhibition of failure to perceive the importance of a 

 "logical possibility " ? And this at the very time when another mind 

 was bestowing twenty years of labour on its " consideration." 



NOTE B TO PAGE 295. 



Since these remarks were delivered in my lectures as here 

 printed, Mr. Mivart has alluded to the subject in the following 

 and precisely opposite sense : 



Many of the more noteworthy instincts lead us from manifesta- 

 tions of purpose directed to the maintenance of the individual, to no 

 less plain manifestations of a purpose directed to the preservation of 

 the race. But a careful study of the interrelations and interdepen- 

 dencies which exist between the various orders of creatures inhabiting 

 this planet shows us yet a more noteworthy teleology the existence 

 of whole orders of such creatures being directed to the service of 

 other orders in various degrees of subordination and augmentation 

 respectively. This study reveals to us, as a fact, the enchainment of 

 all the various orders of creatures in a hierarchy of activities, in 

 harmony with what we might expect to find in a world the outcome 

 of a First Cause possessed of intelligence and will '. 



Having read this much, a Darwinian is naturally led to expect 

 that Mr. Mivart is about to offer some examples of instincts 

 or structures exemplifying what in the margin he calls the 

 " Hierarchy of Ministrations." Yet the only facts he proceeds 

 to adduce are the sufficiently obvious facts, that the inorganic 

 world existed before the organic, plants before herbivorous 

 animals, these before carnivorous, and so on : that is to say, 

 everywhere the conditions to the occurrence of any given stage 

 of evolution preceded such occurrence, as it is obvious that they 

 must, if, as of course it is not denied, the possibility of such 

 occurrence depended on the precedence of such conditions. 

 1 On Truth, p. 493. 



