216 WALTEK KIDD, M.D., P.Z.S., ON 



great name and learning, and deprived of our weapons of 

 defence — or offence, without a little preliminary struggle in 

 the open. What right has Darwin, Romanes, or Milnes 

 Marshall to demand that we accept the arbitrary terms in 

 this duel whicli they choose to offer. What right have they 

 to demand that we show single adaptive structures or in- 

 stincts Avhicli are for the exclusive use of other species? Is 

 this the kind of peddling to which a Divine Being, concerned 

 in the age-long production and superintendence of the 

 inhabited world we see around us, can be supposed to have 

 condescended ! Even in a great factory such trivial contri- 

 vances are not carried out. Romanes himself, in the heat 

 of his triumph, furnished us with a passage of noble insight 

 as to what might have been, had beneficent design been the 

 rule of the universe. He said,* '• For how magnificent a 

 display of divine beneficence would organic nature have 

 afforded if all — or even some — species had been so inter- 

 related as to have ministered to each other's wants. Organic 

 species might then have been likened to a countless multitude 

 of voices, all singing in one great harmonious psalm. But, 

 as it is, we see absolutely no vestige of such co-ordination : 

 every species is for itself, and for itself alone — an outcome 

 of the always and everywhere fiercely raging struggle for 

 life." We might even present him with the beneficent action 

 upon the soil of the earthwt)rm and white ant, but prefer to 

 leave aside such details. Species indeed ! and why species 

 only! And Avhy not genus, order, family, class, sub-kingdom 

 and kingdom ? What possible claim can even the greatest 

 naturalist the world ever saw yet have upon the terms of 

 controversy, that he and his fulloAvers shall lay down im- 

 possible terms, and then blandly proclaim that the battle 

 goes by default. It is more arbitrary, even if conducted in 

 as dignified and calm a manner as the scene immortalized 

 by Scott, than the Grand Master's proclamation on behalf 

 of the persecuted and despised Rebecca, whose case so nearly 

 went by default. 



35 If we wish to give full weight to the objection here raised 

 to the argument for Design in Nature, we have a wider, a 

 greater, a more unimpeachable Avitness than aphides and 

 galls. We hardly need to dwell upon the admitted fact that 

 in the realm of nature the vegetable world stands in a 

 p)Osition intermediate between inorganic nature and the 



Darvjin and after Darwin, p. 288. 



