CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 2/3 



casual or non-telic. The embryo is a wise little archi- 

 tect, who builds up a new life out of a speck of proto- 

 plasm by the help of nutritive materials. He makes 

 no mistakes ; he gives us new organisms each after its 

 kind, each perfect in every part, unless where mere 

 force damages his work. If this wise little architect 

 varies his plan slightly, it is far from being obvious 

 that he varies at random. If he knows so much as 

 he plainly does know, should we not give him credit 

 for knowing a little more ? If he knows enough to 

 keep him faithful to the plan of the specific type, 

 ought we not to believe that, when he introduces 

 variations, he knows what he is doing, that he makes 

 improvements, not random shots ? He is not a piece 

 of lifeless mechanism. He is a standing miracle a 

 " natural supernatural." We are confidently told that 

 the abandonment of belief in preformation and adop- 

 tion of the theory of epigenesis was a heavy blow to 

 teleological and theistic doctrines. I confess I should 

 have thought the opposite. Is there not more of the 

 likeness of miracle in the emergence of an organism, 

 true to its own type, from a speck of living jelly, than 

 in the growth of a detailed miniature by mere accre- 

 tion in bulk ? Be that as it may, there is at any rate 

 no literal preformation, and there is the fulfilment of 

 purpose. Then, if variation occurs spontaneously 

 from the resident forces of life itself can variation 

 be a thing of random direction ? 



Now random variations may become purposeful if 

 they are well weeded by natural selection. But varia- 

 tions which are purposeful from their very beginning 

 like those due to use-inheritance, if such are really 

 transmitted do not need to be sifted by the elaborate 



