8 A GREAT CONFESSION CHAP. 



any consideration of a factor which may 

 be distinguished as primordial " l Here 

 we have the mind of this distinguished 

 philosopher confessing to itself as it 

 were in a whisper and aside that 

 Darwin's ultimate conception of some 

 primordial " breathing of the breath of 

 life " is a conception which can only be 

 omitted "for the present." Meanwhile 

 he goes on with a special, and it must 

 be confessed a most modest, suggestion 

 of one other " factor" in addition to 

 natural selection, which he thinks will 

 remove many difficulties that remain 

 unsolved when natural selection is taken 

 by itself. But whilst great interest at- 

 taches to the fact that Mr. Herbert 

 Spencer does not hold natural selection 

 to be the sole factor in organic evolution, 

 it is more than doubtful whether any 

 value attaches to the new factor with 

 1 P. 570. 



