174 A THEORY OF LIFE 



application of Darwin's great idea as expressed 

 by Herbert Spencer." But let that pass. In 

 another place the author makes it clear that the 

 explanations of to-day, including his own, do not 

 exhaust the subject, for he says " it is incumbent 

 on us to discover the cause of the orderly origin of 

 every character. The nature of such a law we 

 cannot even dream of at present, for the causes of 

 the majority of vertebrate adaptations remain 

 wholly unknown." In any case' we must account 

 for Natural Selection ; for if it is a Law as 

 some doubt it must have had a Lawgiver. The 

 watch must have been an Idea in some one's mind 

 before it became an accomplished fact, and 

 Natural Selection or any other " Law of Nature " 

 must unless all reason is nonsense and all non- 

 sense reason also have been an Idea before it 

 became a factor. Whose Idea ? Our author 

 does not help us to answer this question. On 

 the contrary he tries to set an unclimbable fence 

 in the way of any answer by telling us, though 

 without any convincing argument to support his 

 statement, that we may " exclude the possibility 

 that it " [the internal moving principle] " acts 

 either through supernatural or teleological inter- 

 position through an externally creative power." 

 But though he refuses to allow us to look in this 

 direction for a solution of our difficulties, it must 

 be confessed that he does not help us with any 

 other answer satisfying the question of the origin 

 and evolution of Life. 



