22 A GREAT CONFESSION CHAP. 



been made against all phrases involving 

 the idea of creation that they are meta- 

 phorical is now unsparingly applied to 

 Darwin's own phrase "natural selection." 

 Its "implications" are pronounced to 

 be "misleading." The analogies it 

 points at are indeed definite enough, but 

 unfortunately the " definiteness is of 

 a wrong kind." "The tacitly implied 

 * nature' which selects is not an embodied 

 agency analogous to the man who selects 

 artificially." This objection cuts down 

 to the very root of the famous formula, 

 and to that very element in it which has 

 most widely commended it to popular 

 recognition and acceptance. But this is 

 not all. Mr. Herbert Spencer goes, if 

 possible, still deeper down, and digs up 

 the last vestige of foundation for the 

 vast but rambling edifice which has 

 been erected on a phrase. The special 

 boast of its worshippers has always been 



