Appendix. 299 



queath. Clearly, the formula of 'descent with modification by 

 natural selection,' is, in its literal sense, utterly inapplicable here. In 

 whatever manner the cell-making faculty might have been acquired 

 by the first homogeneous swarm of hive bees, it must inevitably have 

 terminated with the generation with which it commenced, if trans- 

 nvssion by direct descent had been necessary for its continuance. 

 The only resource open to Mr. Darwin is to suppose not merely 

 (what is indeed, obviously the fact) that queen-bee after queen-bee, 

 besides generating each in turn a progeny of workers endowed with 

 instincts which their parents did not possess and could not therefore 

 impart, generated also princess-bees destined in due season to gene- 

 rate a working progeny similarly endowed with instincts underived 

 from their parents ; but to suppose, further, that all this has hap- 

 pened in the total absence of aim, object, intention, or design. 



"Now that all this should have so happened, although not abso- 

 lutely inconceivable ; nor, therefore, absolutely impossible, is surely 

 too incredible to be believed except in despair of some other hypo- 

 thesis a trifle less preposterous. It is surely not worth while to set 

 the doctrine 01 probabilities so completely at naught, for the sake of 



AN EXPLANATION WHICH AVOWEDLY LEAVES EVERY DIFFICULTY 



UNEXPLAINED, referring them all to causes not simply unknown 

 but unconjecturable. 



"What excuse then have philosophers, of all people, for doing 

 this in preference to the simple expedient of supposing that, although 

 the parturient bee, queen o. other, cannot intend that any of her 

 progeny should be more bounteously endowed than herself, ' there 

 is AN INDEPENDENT INTELLIGENCE that does so intend T "" Re- 

 cent Phases ot Scientific Atheism." 



NOTE J PAGE 190. 



THE FINE OLD ATOM MOLECULE. 



AlR." The Fine O id English Gentleman." 



(To be sutig at all gatherings Oj advanced Sciolists and 

 Scientists.) 



We'll sing you a grand new song, evolved from a 'cute 



young pate, 

 Of a fine old Atom-Molecule of prehistoric date, 



