i A MERE FIGURE OF SPEECH 23 



that it represented and embodied that 

 great reform which removed the pro- 

 cesses of organic evolution once and for 

 ever from the dominion of deceptive 

 metaphor, and founded them for the 

 first time on true physical causation. 

 But Mr. Herbert Spencer will have 

 none of this. The whole of this preten- 

 sion goes by the board. He pro- 

 nounces upon it this most true and 

 emphatic condemnation, "The words 

 natural selection do not express a 

 cause in the physical sense." 1 It is a 

 mere " convenient figure of speech." 2 



But even this is not enough to satisfy 

 Mr. Spencer in his destructive criticism. 

 He goes himself into the confessional. 

 He had done what he could to amend 

 Darwin's phrase. He had "sought to 

 present the phenomena in literal terms 

 rather than metaphorical terms," and in 



1 P. 749- 2 P- 750. 



