144 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



because that quality is inherent in bulls is 

 certainly no explanation of how bulls came to 

 have the quality in question. 



If it be retorted that the upholders of a vital 

 principle or force in Nature are also guilty of 

 a mere verbal explanation, such a retort on 

 superficial examination would appear to have 

 some force. But there is really no resemblance 

 between the two conditions, as will be shown 

 in the concluding chapter of this book. 



To return to the question of adaptations; 

 when your hardened opponent of all esoteric 

 explanations is sore gravelled to account for 

 a fact " adaptation " is the steed on which he 

 usually declares to win. Thus Weismann, 

 endeavouring to account for behaviour on the 

 part of a tubularia, which, to say the least of 

 it, hardly seems to harmonise with the theories 

 of that distinguished biologist,* says : " This 

 also appears to us to be adaptive, and does 

 not surprise us, since we have long been ac- 

 customed to recognise that what is adapted 

 to an end will realise this if it be possible at 

 all," and again, in a passage in which we have 

 Nature brought in in the manner above alluded 

 to : "It was, so to speak, not worth Nature's 

 while to make such adaptations." It must be 

 quite obvious to any person who thinks that 



* The Evolution Theory, ii., 9. 



