54 DARWIN AND NATURAL SELECTION 



we might like to think " (May one interrupt 

 the Professor for one moment to ask why, when 

 we are discussing scientific problems, we " might 

 like to think " anything, and why in any case 

 might we not like to think that Creation has a 

 Creator and Lord ?) " it is not so certain as we 

 might like to think that the order of these events 

 is not predetermined. For instance, the original 

 ' pack ' may have been made in such a way that 

 at the nth division of the germ-cells of a sweet pea 

 a colour-factor might be dropped, and that at the 

 n -h nth division the hooded variety be given off, 

 and so on. I see no ground whatever for holding 

 such a view, but in fairness the possibility should 

 not be forgotten, and in the light of modern re- 

 search it scarcely looks so absurdly improbable as 

 before." Now, with all reverence, be it said, if 

 there is a Pack, it would seem to follow that there 

 must have been a Pack Maker. In the course of 

 the discussion which followed the series of lectures 

 given by Fr. Wasmann in Berlin, a series which 

 created so much interest on the Continent, and 

 of which the reverberations reached even to the 

 English papers, Professor Plate committed him- 

 self to the statement that " if there are laws of 

 nature, it is only logical to admit that there is a 

 lawgiver."^ The excellent Jesuit congratulates 

 himself on this admission, but surely it is a truism, 

 if not actually a platitude a statement which 

 can only be denied by a direct dislocation of the 

 intellect. At any rate, we may certainly claim as 

 incontrovertible that, if there is a power which 



* Wasmann, Problem of Evolution , p. 108. 



