7O De Vi Physica 



process, having learned from Lyell to regard 

 it as a permanent mechanical uniformity. 

 Thus he cut himself off a priori from the 

 possibility of reaching the truth. 



II. But Darwin fell into a still more 

 fundamental error in another point. Just 

 as he misconceived the essentially organic 

 nature of the geological process, so in 

 exactly the same way he arbitrarily denied 

 and ignored the organic power of Nature 

 herself. His theory is an endeavour to ex- 

 plain Nature per impossibile, to refer organi- 

 sation to the mechanical accumulation of 

 successive increments, impotent to produce 

 it: he treats animals as if they were rocks, 

 lumps of matter : he will not admit the for- 

 mative power of Nature. For him, there is 

 no organic power : there are only mechanical 

 powers. Like nearly all scientific men in 

 the nineteenth century, whose master of 

 method was that unfortunate being J. S. 



