i NUGATORY EXPLANATIONS 59 



it is important. An explanation which 

 is good for everything in general, is good 

 for nothing in particular. Explanations 

 which are indiscriminate can hardly be 

 also special and distinguishing. In their 

 very generality they may be true, but 

 the truth must be as general as the terms 

 in which it is expressed. Thus the 

 common phrase which we are in the 

 habit of applying to the wonderful adapt- 

 ations of organic life when we call them 

 " provisions of nature" is a phrase of this 

 kind. It satisfies certain faculties of the 

 mind, and these the highest, but it 

 affords no satisfaction at all to those 

 other faculties which ask not why but 

 how these adaptations are affected. It 

 is an explanation applicable to all adapt- 

 ations equally, and to no one of them 

 specially. It takes no notice whatever 

 of the question, How ? It does not 

 concern itself at all with physical causes. 



