4 SCIENCE AND MORALS 



that character in these addresses. " We go to 

 Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. 

 We would fain emulate his scholarship, his width 

 and his power of exposition, but to us he speaks 

 no more with philosophical authority. We read 

 his scheme of evolution as we would those of 

 Lucretius or Lamarck, delighting in their sim- 

 plicity and their courage " (M., p. 9). " Natur- 

 ally, we turn aside from generalities. It is no 

 time to discuss the origin of the Mollusca or of 

 Dicotyledons, while we are not even sure how it 

 came to pass that Primula obconica has in twenty- 

 five years produced its abundant new forms almost 

 under our eyes " (ib. 9 ib.). And so on. To take 

 one other example : there is nothing which was 

 more insisted upon by Darwinians than the fact 

 that all the various races of domestic fowl known 

 to us came from Callus bankiva, the jungle-fowl 

 of India ; in fact I think I have seen that form 

 enthroned amongst its supposed descendants in 

 more than one museum. " So we are taught ; 

 but try to reconstruct the steps in their evolution 

 and you realise your hopeless ignorance " (M., 

 p. n). If we cannot construct a "tree" for 

 fowls, how absurd to adventure into the deeper 

 recesses of Phylogeny. If all that Professor 

 Bateson says is true, is not Driesch right when he 

 speaks of " the phantasy christened Phylogeny " ? * 

 The addresses, however, were not solely con- 

 cerned with throwing contempt upon views 

 which were yesterday of great respectability, and 

 which even to-day are as gospel to many. They 

 1 Tbf History and Theory of Vitalism, p. 140. 



