182 WALTER KIDD, ESQ., M.D., V.'l.S., 



justly honoured as the joiut-cliscoverer of the tlieoiy of 

 natural selection, has strongly opposed the origin of the 

 higher faculties of man by natural selection, and has been 

 looked upon as a deserter from tlie ranks, claims for it an 

 exclusive prerogative in the field of organic revolution. 

 Romanes, the loyal and higlily cultivated follower of 

 Darwin, maintaincjd the joint action of natural selection and 

 sexual selection in tliis process. On the subject of the 

 inheritance of acquired characters, Professor Weissmann, as 

 ardent an evolutionist as any, is engaged in hot conflict 

 with ^Ir. Herbert Spencer, who himself took the field in tliis 

 fruitful subject before 1859, and who now claims " all 

 existence'^ as the province of evolution, with rig-id logic 

 spurning the notion that only " things that breed " come 

 under its action. The Christian evolutionism of the late 

 Professor Drummond, and the social evolution of Mr. Benjamin 

 Kidd, which sonie of our transcendental and severe scientists, 

 but not Mr. Wallace, Avould be for placing on the Index 

 Expiirgatorins of science, need only to be mentioned to show 

 that the younger followers of this school of biology see 

 plainly that synthetic philosophy will not satisfy the moral 

 and religious sense of this generation. 



The broad lines of evidence, which are supposed to favour 

 the tlieory of organic evolution, are well-knoAvn and have 

 been brought forward with v'aluable clearness by J\Ir. Herliert 

 Spencer, to the evideut advantage of both sides. The lines 

 of evidence, indirect or direct, for inorganic evolution, exist 

 only in the inner consciousness of ]\Ir. Herbert Spencei-, 

 Professor Karl Pearson,* and Professor Haeckel. Romanes 

 indeed said " it is now a matter of demonstrated fact that 

 throughout the range of inorganic nature the principles of 

 evolution have obtained,"! giving the geological history of 

 the earth as an instance. Such al)solutely vague statements 

 as to what constitutes evolution do not help the theory 

 much ; nor did sucili flashes as those of Tyndall at Belfast, 

 and Huxley,! being more in the nature of delicate touches 

 in the hand of an artist, when finishing off a picture, than of 

 sober argument. 



The five lines of evidence for the theory are : — (I) The 

 facts of classification; (II) Geographical distribution; (111) 

 Pala3ontology ; (IV) Rudimentary characters; (V) Embry- 

 ology. 



* Fortnighthj Review, November, 1895, jip. GTS, (579. 

 t JJ(cnvin and after Daiurin, j)art I, p. 17. 

 X Critiques and Addresses, pp. 238, 239. 



