PJ.AN AND PURPOSE IN NATUEE. 199 



tered faith in the other. Your average disciple, if you press 

 him will regretfully say, " The endless redistribution of matter 

 and motion in stupendous cycles of evolution and dissolution 

 would be a world without any justification to offer for its 

 existence — a world which might just as well not have been."* 

 No — let evolution be more philosophically confined to that 

 of the inchvidual — let Ontogeny be recognised for what it is, 

 the development of the individual plant or animal, and no 

 fancied epitome or picture of the development of the race 

 which has preceded the individual ; and let " phylogeny " 

 stand as but another name for the necessary relationships of 

 innumerable forms of life introduced successively in the past 

 ages of the globe, varieties and races, such as are seen in the 

 case of Man, climax of all this vast stream of life, serving to 

 fill the numerous gradations between species and species. 

 If the existence of a Divine First Cause be admitted, it is 

 difficult to see what a priori objection can lie against this 

 view of the seed-plot of life, of which this globe may perhaps 

 be but a part. 



6 It is not less difficult to see what ascertained facts as to 

 life and its manifestations forbid this view, harmonious at 

 once with Revelation, Reason, and scientific knowledge. 



7 When it is further borne in mind that cUgeneration plays a 

 part in life, and must have done so from its early days, of 

 profound and far-reaching importance, we feel we are not 

 shut uj) to the system, which has usurped for a time the 

 place of the doctrines of Creation and Design in Nature. It 

 was lately pointed out that in scientific questions, tlie argu- 

 ments — perhaps even the strongest — cannot always be stated 

 in express terms. And this consideration accounts partly for 

 the element of scepticism and amusement that an observer 

 detects in the tone of the man in the street when the 

 teachers of current science undertake to instruct him in 

 primers, periodicals, addresses and romances. Woukl not 

 the palladins of evolution who have passed away, and 

 perhaps some who are still living, sigh for the good times 

 when " natural selection " reigned in sole poAver — for the 

 early days when they had made of biolugy a solitude and 

 called it peace. But Ossa has been heaped on Pelion in 

 heroic fashion by the demi-gods, who would thus scale the 

 heaven of truth. Those simple times of the nonage of 

 Darwinism are no more. One " factor of organic evolution " 



-fr Professor Seth, Ma'fis Place in the Cosmos, p. 21 



