THE PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE. 149 



explain and the thing that upsets you altogether. 

 There is hardly any hypothesis in this world which 

 has not some fact in connection with it which has not 

 been explained, but that is a very different affair to a 

 fact that entirely opposes your hypothesis ; in this case 

 all you can say is, that your hypothesis is in the same 

 position as a good many others. 



Now, as to the third test, that there are no other 

 causes competent to explain the phenomena, I explained 

 to you that one should be able to say of an hypothesis, 

 that no other known causes than those supposed by it 

 are competent to give rise to the phenomena. Here, 

 I think, Mr. Darwin's view is pretty strong. I really 

 believe that the alternative is either Darwinism or 

 nothing, for I do not know of any rational conception 

 or theorv of the organic universe which has anv 

 scientific position at all beside Mr. Darwin's. I do 

 not know of any proposition that has been put before 

 us with the intention of explaining the phenomena 

 of organic nature, which has in its favour a thousandth 

 part of the evidence which may be adduced in favour 

 of Mr. Darwin's views. Whatever may be the ob- 

 jections to his views, certainly all other theories are 

 absolutely out of court. 



Take the Lamarckian hypothesis, for example. 

 Lamarck was a great naturalist, and to a certain 

 extent went the right way to work ; he argued from 

 what was undoubtedlv a true cause of some of 



w 



the phenomena of organic nature. He said it is a 

 matter of experience that an animal may be modified 

 more or less in consequence of its desires and conse- 

 quent actions. Thus, if a man exercise himself as a 



