VI. HEREDITY AND " ARRANGEMENT ' 



SOME years ago, when I was delivering a 

 lecture at the Cathedral Hall of West- 

 minster, in the course of the questioning 

 which took place at the termination of the 

 discourse, which was on vitalism, I was asked by 

 one who signed his paper, " So and So, Atheist," 

 " What would you say if you saw a duck come 

 out of a hen's egg ? " I recognised at once the 

 idea at the back of the question and appreciated 

 the fact that it had been asked by one who, as 

 some one has said, " called himself an advanced 

 free-thinker, but was really a very ignorant and 

 vulgar person who was suffering from a surfeit 

 of the ideas of certain people cleverer than him- 

 self." But, as a full discussion of the matter 

 would have taken at least as long as the lecture 

 which I had just concluded, my reply was that 

 before I attempted to explain it I would wait 

 to see the duck come out of the hen's egg, since 

 no man had as yet witnessed such an event. I 

 do not know whether my atheistical questioner 

 was satisfied or not, but I heard no more of him. 

 But, after all, is it not a marvellous thing that a 

 duck never does come out of a hen's egg ? If 

 everything happens by chance, as some would 



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