98 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



utterly blind and irrational manner, though now 

 and then evolving, as if by accident, temporary 

 combinations which have to us a rational appear- 

 ance. " Cosmical weather " was the tersely allu- 

 sive phrase with which he was wont to describe 

 this purposeless play of events, as if to liken the 

 formation and dissipation of worlds to the ca- 

 pricious changes of the wind. So strong a hold 

 had this* notion acquired in his mind that for 

 once it warped his estimate of scientific evidence, 

 and led him to throw aside the well-grounded 

 nebular hypothesis in favour of the ill-conceived 

 and unsupported meteoric theory of Mayer. In 

 Mr. Wright's mind it was an insuperable objec- 

 tion to the nebular hypothesis that it seems to 

 take the world from a definable beginning to a 

 definable end, and such dramatic consistency, he 

 argued, is not to be found amid the actual turmoil 

 of Nature's workings. It would be improbable, 

 he thought, that things should happen so prettily 

 as the hypothesis asserts : in point of fact, Nature 

 does so many things to disconcert our ingenious 

 formulas! To the general doctrine of evolution, 

 of which the nebular hypothesis is a part, Mr. 

 Wright urged the same comprehensive objection. 

 The dramatic interest of the doctrine, which gives 

 it its chief attraction to many minds, was to Mr. 



