32 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



imply any objection to it as a scientific hypothesis. For 

 what appears to be chance, may be, so far as Science 

 is concerned to regard it, a real scientific cause. And 

 natural selection, with all its seeming chances, is un- 

 doubtedly a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Natural 

 selection is a vera causa, which we can now see actually 

 at work in the organic world, as well as in human societies 

 and nations. The best nations survive, and of these in 

 general the individuals best suited to their environment 

 continue the race. In such ways as natural selection 

 indicates, Nature must have travelled. By such a law 

 as natural selection she undoubtedly did do some, at 

 least, of her work in the differentiation and elaboration 

 of her species and varieties; the only question of im- 

 portance is Did natural selection, which did some or 

 even much of the work, really accomplish all ? Is it the 

 sole scientific cause sufficient to explain all the facts ; 

 and if it be so, is the scientific explanation also a full 

 and satisfactory philosophical explanation ? 



Even as a scientific hypothesis, natural selection is 

 far from being free from defects, which have been pointed 

 out by both friends and adversaries, and some of which 

 have even been admitted by its distinguished and candid 

 originator, Mr. Darwin himself. In particular, Mr. Wal- 

 lace, who shares with Darwin, though in lesser degree, 

 the honour of first propounding the hypothesis, thinks 

 it inadequate to account for the highly developed and 

 organized brain of the lowest savages a brain so far in 

 advance of any present needs to which they could apply 

 it, and which therefore it should have been beyond the 

 power of past needs to develop. And Hartmann, the 

 pessimist philosopher, while admitting that natural selec- 

 tion and inheritance were made use of by the Uncon- 

 scious Power in differentiating the species, and generally 



