ii SOME DIRECTING POWER 91 



organs through many embryotic stages 

 of existence during which no use is 

 possible ; let us conceive, in short, an 

 agency in Nature which keeps, as it 

 were, a book in which "all our members 

 are written, which in continuance are 

 fashioned, when as yet there are none of 

 them," 1 then the phrase and the theory 

 of Natural Selection may be accepted as 

 at least something of an approach to an 

 explanation of the wonderful facts of 

 biological development. 



But this is precisely the aspect of the 

 Darwinian theory which Mr. Spencer 

 dislikes the most. It is the aspect most 

 adverse to his own philosophy. And as 

 " natural rejection " is a necessary cor- 

 relative of all conceptions of Natural 

 Selection, so Mr. Spencer's intellectual 

 instincts perceive this necessary antago- 

 nism, and lead him to dissent from 



1 Ps. cxxxix. 1 6. 



