PSYCHOGENESIS 361 



Butler deprecates as nmcli as did Darwin. Butler's strong 

 protest against the omission of every kind of "design" shows 

 his remarkable independence of thought and the fearlessness of 

 his attitude. 



The accumulation of accidental variations, which owed nothing to 

 mind, either in their inception or their accumulation, the pitchforking, 

 in fact, of mind out of the universe, or at any rate its exclusion from 

 all share worth talking about in the process of organic development, 

 this was the pill Mr. Darwin had given us to swallow ; but so thickly 

 had he gilded it with descent with modification, that we did as we 

 were told, swallowed it without a murmur, were lavish in our expres- 

 sions of gratitude, and, for some twenty years or so, through the mouths 

 of our leading biologists, ordered design peremptorily out of court, if 

 she so much as dared to show herself. Indeed, we have even given 

 life pensions to some of the most notable of these biologists, I suppose 

 in order to reward them for having hoodwinked us so much to our satis- 

 faction. 



Happily the old saying " Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque 

 recurret," still holds true, and the reaction that has been gaining force 

 for some time will doubtless ere long brush aside the cobwebs with 

 which those who have a vested interest in Mr. Darwin's reputation as 

 a philosopher still try to fog our outlook. 



His ideas about design may be said to culminate in the 

 remark that we must make the design manifested in organisms 

 more like the only design of which we know anything, and 

 therefore the only design of which we ought to speak, viz., our 

 own ! This has since been realised by other writers. 



Our own design is tentative, and neither very far-foreseeing nor 

 very retrospective ; it is a little of both, but much of neither ; it is like 

 a comet with a little light in front of the nucleus and a good deal 

 more behind it, which ere long, however, fades away into the darkness ; 

 it is of a kind that, though a little wise before the event, is apt to 

 be much wiser after it, and to profit even by mischance so long as the 

 disaster is not an overwhelming one ; nevertheless, though it is so inter- 

 woven with luck, there is no doubt about its being design ; why, then, 

 should the design which must have attended organic development be 

 other than this? If the thing that has been is the thing that also 

 shall be, must not the thing which is be that which also has been? 

 Was there anything in the phenomena of organic life to militate against 

 such a view of design as this ? Not only was there nothing, but this 

 view made things plain, as the connecting of heredity and memory had 



