518 * ORIGIN ' AND * TASMANIAN FLORA ' 



I believe we are all of us entirely at one about miracle, we 

 all think variation miracle in the sense you accept (or pro- 

 pose), and we none of us think N.S. miracle in that or any other 

 sense. I think I told Darwin over and over again that I 

 thought his title a mistake and would mislead ; his book by 

 no means carries out his title. I think still > however, that you 

 mistake his expressions and give an unfair interpretation of 

 his expression ' efficient cause.' Most people would say that 

 moisture was the efficient cause of luxuriant foliage, without 

 atheism being suspected, and in the present condition of 

 English thought and language I see no objection whatever 

 to the statement ; at the same time, in another higher and 

 the only true sense, moisture is not the efficient cause, nor is 

 even the property imparted to the plant of being affected 

 that way by moisture, but the will, or law, or call it what 

 you will, of the supreme Governor of the universe of mind 

 and matter. 



I see now that your objections are widely different from 

 what I supposed. I think they are peculiar to yourself 

 amongst naturalists ; and if you will kindly tell me how far 

 you think I am right in my interpretation of your objection, 

 I will re-read Darwin with the sole view of seeing how it may 

 be remedied. 



I doubt if any book that has discussed such questions is 

 free from this real or supposed objection, and of what may 

 be made out to be far worse. Throughout A. De Candolle's 

 Geog. Bot., Physical causes are treated as efficient causes in 

 the same sense ; and I have always been taught to regard 

 them as such, hut limited in their action to varieties ! a view 

 which, if logically carried out, always seemed to me irreligious 

 and nonsensical in the abstract. 



J did not, I assure you, interpret the Gooseberry season to 

 mean contempt. I wish I could join you, but have examina- 

 tions all July and August. 



Geol. Record meo sensu =±0. I have turned it, heavily 

 enough, against Darwin, as you will see. Pray do not accept 

 Siluria as the beginning of creation yet. 



Truly no, we are not obhged to accept either view to the 

 exclusion of any other, nor do I do so ; I only avow a prefer- 

 ence for, not a belief in, Darwin's, and expressly state I am 

 ready to lay it down for a better. There is a middle way, 



