264: DARWINIANS 



full well that, tracing up the phenomena from cause to cause, 

 we must somewhere reach the more direct agency of a First 

 Cause. ... It is evident that, however species were intro- 

 duced, whether suddenly or gradually, it is the duty of Science 

 ever to strive to understand the means and processes by which 

 species originated. ... Now, of the various conceivable sec- 

 ondary causes and processes, by some of which we must believe 

 species originated, by far the most probable is certainly that of 

 evolution from other species." 



[We might interpose the remark that the witness 

 on the stand, if subjected to cross-examination by a 

 biologist, might be made to give a good deal of testi- 

 mony in favor of transmutation rather than substitu- 

 tion.] 



After referring to different' ideas as to the cause or 

 mode of evolution, he concludes that it can make no 

 difference, so far as the argument of design in Nature 

 is concerned, whether there be evolution or not, or 

 whether, in the case of evolution, the change be parox- 

 ysmal or uniform-. We may infer even that he accepts 

 the idea that " physical and chemical forces are changed 

 into vital force, and vice versa." Physicists incline 

 more readily to this than physiologists ; and if what is 

 called vital force be a force in the physicists' sense, 

 then it is almost certainly so. But the illustration on 

 page 275 touches this point only seemingly. It really 

 concerns only the storing and the using of physical 

 force in a living organism. If, for want of a special 

 expression, we continue to use the term vital force to 

 designate that intangible something which directs and 

 governs the accumulation and expenditure of physical 

 force in organisms, then there is as yet no proof and 



