400 Bibliographical Notices. 



Mr. Darwin of anything like plan or design in nature. As far as one 

 can judge from his statements, all the diversities of form and struc- 

 ture that we meet with in organized beings are to be deduced from a 

 series of indefinite variations in the organism, accumulated through 

 countless ages, but subject to certain limits in consequence of the 

 greater or less degree of adaptation exhibited by the successive races 

 for the conditions to which they are exposed. Unity of type, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Darwin, is subordinate to the law of conditions of exist- 

 ence ; and in another place he remarks on the ease with which we 

 " hide our ignorance under such expressions as the * plan of creation/ 

 ' unity of design,' &c., and think that we give an explanation when 

 we only re-state a fact." How many of Mr. Darwin's "laws" may 

 fairly come under the denomination of "re- statements of facts" we 

 will not stop to inquire ; but there can be no doubt that to one of 

 them at least, that of "correlation of growth," as stated by him, 

 this term will apply most fully. 



The " law " of correlation of growth appears, in fact, to have been 

 introduced into his theory by Mr. Darwin for the express purpose of 

 accounting for any phenomena which it might be difficult to ex- 

 plain by any other means ; it is every bit as arbitrary and as com- 

 pletely a " hiding of ignorance " as any law of type or design that 

 has ever been laid down by naturalists ; it introduces into the hypo- 

 thesis an element both arbitrary and extraneous, independent of all 

 chance variations, impressed upon the organism by some superior 

 power, and consequently superior, and not subordinate, to all the other 

 elements in Mr. Darwin's theory. 



We find from Mr. Darwin's own statements that he regards cor- 

 relation of growth as the origin of what is commonly called " type " in 

 some instances ; but if in some, why not in all ? May we not assume 

 (taking the Darwinian hypothesis generally to be correct) that this 

 law, by which, as we understand it, changes produced in the organism 

 by variations in the conditions of life are accompanied by other 

 changes not attributable directly to that cause, must have been in 

 operation from the very earliest appearance of life upon the earth ? 

 that during the very first variations of the progeny of that "primor- 

 dial germ," which is not only the analogical, but the logical starting- 

 point of every system of evolution, this law must have been in 

 action ? and that by its means the variations of that progeny were 

 guided in definite directions until the production of those pheno- 

 mena to which we usually give the name of type ? But if this be so, 

 it imphes the impression upon the " {)rimordial germ " of the power 

 of evolution under certain conditions of existence in certain direc- 

 tions, and in no other ; in other words, that germ must have been 

 endowed with the potentialities of all the variations through which 

 its progeny could pass*; which, however, involves the notion of a 

 "plan in creation," treated by Mr. Darwin as a mere expression 



* Even iu the Darwinian sense, " eorrelation of growth " is clearly the 

 expression of a quality or force iiiheient in the organism, the action of 

 which under any given circunistani^es must have been predetermined at 

 the first creation of the primordial germ. 



