THEORIES OF NATUKAi; SELECTION AND DESIGN. uO 



question of the meaniiif^ of the word Axiom. And another long one was 

 sent me from America which filled many pages with a prosy recital of the 

 old story of Lord Brougham's review in the Edinburgh of Dr. Young's 

 great theory of light, and then asked its readers to conclude that, because 

 that was ignorant and wrong and Dr. Young's theory is proved to the satis- 

 faction of every mathematician in the world, therefore the exposure of Mr. 

 Spencer's utterly unproved theory is probably wrong too. If one may use 

 a bit of very significant slang, we must keep the noses of these anti- 

 creationists to the logical grindstone, and make them prove every step of 

 their reasoning, instead of letting them wander off into abstract generalities 

 and giving ourselves the trouble to follow and disprove them. That is not 

 our business. Of course it is useful for those who are versed in particular 

 branches of physiology to point out from time to time how natural selection 

 fails to account for phenomena of various kinds ; and, if the Spencerians 

 or Haeckelites do not answer such charges, the logical inference is that they 

 cannot. People who set up a new theory of light or electricity with no 

 better proofs of it than have ever been given of theirs vrould be laughed 

 to scorn by the scientific world. In one sense, therefore, " our strength 

 is to sit still," and go on returning the verdict of " not proven " to 

 every pretence of producing the world by a series of accidental departures 

 from a state of dead uniformity of matter and force, until they can and do 

 produce a complete explanation reaching from that zero up to the present 

 infinity. As I have often said before, wt have a theory which is irdisputably 

 sufficient for the purpose, and which will include as much natural and 

 every other kind of selection as they can physiologically prove, and includes 

 also the prime cause of all such selections, and of every other change 

 and force, as to which they are utterly helpless, and indeed silent, and have 

 no theory at all to account for the origin of any one of the infinite varieties 

 of forces or laws of nature. Mr. Spencer is content to call them "un- 

 fathomable mysteries," and his disciples are foolish enough to accept that 

 for an explanation, and to call that a more probable theory than ours, 

 whereas it is mere nonsense, or words meaning nothing. May 3, 1885. 



BY THE REV. CANON C. POPHAM MILES, M.A., M.D., F.L.S. 



The subject of the paper is as interesting as it is important, and, 

 in my judgment, the position taken by Professor Duns is a strictly 

 scientific one. The paper is too brief; but I suppose this to be intentional. 

 I have long held that Darwin's facts are unassailable, but that the in- 

 ferences drawn by his more forward disciples are untenable. 



