98 DISCRIMINATIONS CHAP. 



they are in full, and all -important, 

 functional activity. 



I accept all these five lines of evidence 

 as each and all confirmatory of the 

 leading idea of development an idea 

 which I hold to be indisputably appli- 

 cable to everything, and especially to 

 organic life. But Mr. Spencer is dream- 

 ing if he assumes that any, or all, of 

 these evidences prove either that par- 

 ticular theory of evolution which was 

 Darwin's, or that modification of it 

 which is his own. He seems to think, 

 and indeed expressly assumes, that the 

 only alternative to that theory is what he 

 calls the theory of " Special Creation." 

 But I do not know of any human being 

 who holds that theory in the sense in 

 which Mr. Spencer understands it. He 

 deals with what he calls Special Creation 

 very much as the late Professor Huxley 

 used to deal with the idea of a Deluge. 



