1 1 2 DISCRIMINATIONS CHAP. 



regard this as a weak concession on the 

 part of their great master. Darwin 

 himself, in a letter to Sir J. Hooker, was 

 weak enough to express his own regret. 

 And yet he went on publishing edition 

 after edition without changing his words 

 or withdrawing them, or offering any 

 explanation, or suggesting any alterna- 

 tive conception. And why ? Because 

 he had none to suggest. His followers 

 are generally silent on the significance 

 of this passage in their master's intellec- 

 tual experience. His instinct that life 

 must have had a beginning, as subversive 

 of the fundamental assumption of his 

 theory, they pass over in silence. They 

 never dwell on it. They never realise 

 that without it, or without some substi- 

 tute for it, the whole structure of what 

 they call organic evolution is without a 

 basis that it represents a chain hanging 

 in mid air, having no point of attachment 



