6 A GREAT CONFESSION CHAP. 



" fortuitously arising " ; x and it is of this 

 theory, so defined and rendered precise, 

 that he admits it to be now commonly 

 supposed to have been " the sole factor " 

 in the origin of species. 



It is surely worth considering for a 

 moment the wonderful state of mind 

 which this declaration discloses. When 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer here speaks of the 

 " popular " belief, he is not speaking 

 of the mob. He is not referring to 

 any mere superstition of the illiterate 

 multitude. He is speaking of all ranks 

 in the world of science. He is speaking 

 of some overwhelming majority of those 

 who are investigators of Nature in some 

 one or other of her departments, and 

 who are supposed generally to recognise, 

 as a cardinal principle in science, that 

 the reign of law is universal there that 

 nothing is fortuitous that nothing is the 

 1 P. 575- 



