106 G. cox BOMPAS, P.G.S., T.E.G.S., ETC., ON 



but only preserve such variations of growth as are best 

 adapted to the conditions of hfe. If the humming-bird's 

 bill, or the insect's proboscis grows longer, its better 

 adaptation to the flowers on which it feeds may cause that 

 form to prevail to the extinction of the shorter bill or pro- 

 boscis, but the flower does not make the bill or proboscis 

 grow, nor cause the offspring to inherit the more favourable 

 form. 



It may be that the desire of the parent is impressed on its 

 offspring — mother markings are well known. The eff'ort of 

 the humming-bird or insect striving to reach the honey of 

 the flower may tend to produce in the offspring a longer 

 bill or proboscis. Such unconscious maternal intiuence may 

 be one of the causes of diversity of species. But if so, this 

 cause is an attribute of life distinct from natural selection, 

 which is the direct action of circumstance. 



Whatever may be the nature and limits of hereditary 

 influence, a subject often debated, that nature is a character 

 of life, the limits are imposed by circumstance. 



Natural selection is therefore only a secondary cause of 

 the forms of life around us. It has moulded their present 

 shape by checking and limiting their growth and repro- 

 duction, but can neither cause nor explain the life on wliicli 

 it acts, or the laws of reproduction. The oiigin and first 

 cause of these is beside and beyond the interpretation of 

 science. 



I do not debate Avith those who deny the existence or 

 necessity of the Author of Life, who prefer to suppose 

 that matter created intelligence rather than that intelligence 

 created matter, thus deifying atoms while denying a God. 

 Such unreason does not belong to evolution as held by its 

 greatest teachers. " The birth both of the species and of 

 the individual," Darwin wrote, "are equally parts of that 

 grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept 

 as the result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at 

 such a conclusion, whether or not we are able to believe 

 that every slight variation of structure, the union of each 

 pair in marriage, the dissemination of each seed, and other 

 such events have all been ordained for some special purpose." 



And Wallace, who claims with Darwin the discovery of 

 natural selection, insists " that there are at least three stages 

 in the development of the organic world when some new 

 cause or power must necessarily have come into action " 

 namely when vegetable or unconscious life, when animal or 



