260 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



It will, however, be replied that such an entity is no vera 

 causa ; that if the conception is accepted, it is no real ex- 

 planation ; and that it is merely a roundabout way of saying 

 that the facts are as they are, while the cause remains 

 unknown. To this it may be rejoined, that for all who 

 believe in the existence of the abstraction " force " at all, 

 other than will, this conception of an internal force must 

 ])e accepted and located somewhere cannot be eliminated 

 altogether ; and that therefore it may as reasonably be 

 accepted in this mode as in any other. 



It was urged at the end of the third chapter, that it is 

 congruous to credit mineral species with an internal power 

 or force. By such a power it may be conceived that crys- 

 tals not only assume their external symmetry, but even 

 repair it when injured. Ultimate chemical elements must 

 also be conceived as possessing an innate tendency to 

 form certain unions, and to cohere in definite aggregations. 

 This was considered towards the end of Chapter VIII. 



Turning to the organic world, even on the hypothesis of 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer or that of Mr. Darwin, it is impossible 

 to escape the conception of innate internal forces. With 

 regard to the physiological units of the former, Mr. Spencer 

 himself, as we have seen, distinctly attributes to them 

 " an innate tendency " to evolve the parent form from 

 which they sprang. With regard to the gemmules of 

 Mr. Darwin, we have seen in Chapter X. with how many 

 innate powers, tendencies, and capabilities they must each 

 be severally endowed to reproduce their kind, to evolve 

 complex organisms or cells, to exercise germinative 

 affinity, &c. 



If then (as was before said at the end of Chapter VIII.) 

 such innate powers must be attributed to chemical atoms, 



