36 THEORY OF EVOLUTION 



ing them to be due to an inner impulse, and 

 hence they furnisli no justification for such a 

 hypothesis. 



In his recent presidential address before the 

 Britisli Association Bateson has inverted this 

 idea. I suspect that his effort was intended as 

 little more than a four de force. He claims 

 for it no more than that it is a possible line of 

 speculation. Perhaps he thought the time had 

 come to give a shock to our too confident views 

 concerning evolution. Be tliis as it mav, he 

 has invented a striking paradox. Evolution 

 has taken place tlu'ough the steady loss of in- 

 liibiting factors. Living matter was stopped 

 down, so to speak, at the })eginning of the 

 world. As the stops are lost, new tilings 

 emerge. Living matter has changed only in 

 that it has become simpler. 



Natural Selection 



JDarxdu 



Of tlie four great historical speculations 

 about evolution, the doctrine of Xatural Selec- 

 tion of Darwin and Wallace has met with the 

 most widespread acceptance. In the last lee- 



