790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



man has thriven mightily and prevailed, adaptation in general presents 

 itself to him in a favorahle light. Occasionally, when his crops are 

 destroyed by some insect-pest wonderfully adapted for its work, or 

 when his cattle are infested with deadly parasites, or when some germ 

 of disease is multiplying a million -fold in his own frame, he sees that 

 all adaptations are not yoked to his especial service. 



His lordship seems to suppose that the believers in the doctrine of 

 the survival of the fittest are bound to show that there has been a 

 steady improvement of type from the first dawn of life. To show how 

 gross and inexcusable a misunderstanding this is, I need only quote 

 two sentences from Sir Charles Lyell's " Antiquity of Man " : " One 

 of the principal claims," observes the great geologist, "of Mr. Dar- 

 win's theory to acceptance is that it enables us to dispense with a law 

 of progression as a necessary accompaniment of variation. It will 

 account equally well for what is called degradation or a retrograde 

 movement toward a simpler structure, and does not require Lamarck's 

 continual creation of monads ; for this was a necessary part of his sys- 

 tem in order to explain how, after the progressive power had been at 

 work for myriads of ages, there were as many beings of the simplest 

 structure in existence as ever." * 



Writing thus in ignorance of what the law of the survival of the 

 fittest, as formulated by Darwin, and accepted by modem men of sci- 

 ence, really means, his lordship is able to ask such pointless questions 

 as whether the law is illustrated in the slaughtering of the flower of a 

 nation in war, and whether it is the fittest who survive famines, pesti- 

 lences, shipwrecks, etc. His lordship evidently does not himself be- 

 lieve there is any provision for the survival of the fittest in the provi- 

 dential government of the world ; yet, strange to say, he taunts 

 evolutionists with this lack in the general scheme of things. If it be 

 an embarrassment to their theory, how much more should it be to the 

 bishop's theology ! The evolutionist might, however, turn round and 

 instruct the divine out of his own pocket Bible, where it is expressly 

 stated that the wicked shall not live out half his days ; and then out 

 of the newspapers which continually show us what happens to the 

 violent and bloody man, to the intemperate, and to various other classes 

 of evil-doers. The evolution philosophy does not guarantee, as has 

 been already shown, continuous progress in what, from the human 

 stand-point, may seem the best directions ; but evolutionists are able 

 to note, and do note with satisfaction, that the qualities which the 

 moral sense of mankind most approves do in point of fact tend to the 

 survival of their possessors. War itself illustrates the principle ; see- 

 ing that the most important element of strength abroad is cohesion at 

 home, a condition which must depend on a relatively high develop- 

 ment of social justice. To take an example from our own history : 

 English arms would not have been so successful as they have been 



* Fourth edition, p. 459. 



