8CIKNCK AND MAN. 617 



cries ami denum -iations which rang discordant through the 

 hind for sonic years after the pu D of Mr. harwin's 



" Origin of Secies." Well, the world even the clerical 

 world --has f>r the most part settled down in the belief 



Mr. Darwin's book simply reflects the truth of nature: 

 that we who are now " foremost in the files of time" have 



to the front through almost endless stages of pro- 

 motion from lower to higher forma of i. 



If to any one of us were given the privilege of looking 

 hark through the axms across which life has crept toward 

 its p: ucome, his vision,;! to Darwin, 



would ultimately reach a point when the progenitors of 



assembly could not he called human. From that 

 humble society, through the int. -ruction of iu m.-mhers 

 and the storing up of their best qualities, a better one 

 emerged; fiom this again a better still; until at length, by 

 the integration of infinitesimals through ages of arm-lio- 

 ne to be what we are to-day. We of this 



ation had no conscious share in the production of 

 this grand and beneficent result. Any and every gener- 

 ation which preceded us had just as little share. The 

 favored organisms whose garnered excellence constitutes 

 our preset i -wed iheir advantages, first, to what w< 



in our ignorance are obliged to call "accidental variation; " 



-condly, to a law of hen-.lity in the passing of which 

 our suffrages were not collected. With characteristic 

 felicity and precision Mr. Matthew Arnold lifts this ques- 

 tion into the free air of poetry, but not out of the atmos- 

 phere of truth, when he ascribes the process of amel- 

 ioration to "a power not ourselves which makes for 

 righteousness." If, then, our organisms, with all their 

 tendencies and capacities, arc given to us without our 

 being consulted; and if, while capable of acting within 

 certain limits in accordance with our wishes, we ar 

 masters of the circuit i which motives and wishes 



iate; if, finally our motives and wishes determine our 

 actions in what sense can these actions be said to be the 



of free-will? 



II . i, we are confronted with the question of 



niora. ibility, which, as it ha.s been much tal 



loving 



the fear of our falling bark into :| M . rendition :' 

 and tiger," so sedulously excited by certain writers, I 



