EVOLUTION. 5 7 



precise nature of the actions of the highest 

 parts ? Without being able to give us an idea 

 of the structure and arrangement of the appa- 

 ratus, they do not 'hesitate to assure us that its 

 action is mechanical and chemical, and that the 

 marvellous thinking instrument, whose intri- 

 cacies have never been unravelled, is merely 

 plastic matter, formified from its solution after 

 the manner of the deposition of a crystal from 

 its mother-liquor. 



Man, as well as man's brain, we have been 

 told, is formed by " evolution." His organs 

 result from " evolution," and the higher mental 

 faculties with which he is endowed, like the 

 instrument of which these are the supposed 

 function, are " evolved " from the more simple. 

 So that a complex structure may be " evolved " 

 from a simpler structure, and a complex action 

 from a more simple action. 



But " evolution," like many other terms em- 

 ployed in the science of our day for the purpose 

 of accounting for phenomena, has had no de- 

 finite meaning assigned to it. To say that a 

 thing has been formed by " evolution " conveys 

 information less definite and less correct than is 

 conveyed by the statement that it has been 



