70 EEV. CHANCELLOK LIAS, M.A., ON 



The learned author gives rather an extraordinary definition of 

 evolution, and he says, " Meanwhile evolution, in the sense of a 

 power working within, as distinguished from interferences from 

 without, is confessed on all hands." It may he "confessed on all 

 hands " that there is a power working within nature, working 

 according to what we call " laws "; but that is not evolution. Any 

 belief in a Divine working in nature is certainly not confined to 

 evolutionists, or confined to them principally. Farther on he 

 appears to regard evolution, as generally defined by evolutionists,, 

 as a process by which one species is transmuted into another, 

 " Evolution is plainly a law of the universe." It is not a law of 

 the universe, and there is no proof of it. It is an a priori 

 hypothesis. 



On p. 59 I find a curious argument : " The creative energy 

 can unfold from within as well as interfere from without. It can 

 graft new forms on old ones by a new impulse from within as- 

 easily as we can graft a rose bush or an apple tree." Undoubtedly 

 it can. Who can doubt that God could work by the curious and 

 grotesque method of evolution, or otherwise, if He so pleased ? 

 The question is, does He do so ? not whether He can do so ; and if 

 no new species can be found to be produced from previously 

 existing species, it is not credible to say that evolution is a law or 

 a fact. The evidence is all the other way. You must produce your 

 new sjjecies and not quietly assume that they are produced and 

 argue from that. Variety is produced, no doubt, but not species. 



It was Huxley, who is a pretty good authority for not accepting 

 evolution, who said in a letter to Faraday, " We cannot prove that 

 a single new species has been produced." The learned Chancellor 

 proceeds, " No other cause than that influence can, T think, be 

 assigned for the production of new species, especially when the 

 laws that regulate life seem to be directed towards the prevention,, 

 under ordinary circumstances, of the development of one species 

 into another." That was ably jiointed out by Lyall's experiments* 

 and those of Dr. Dallanger with monads, when it was found that 

 you could not produce new species from previously existing ones. 



At p. 61 of the paper the leai-ned Chancellor expresses his- 

 belief that we have no intellectual intuitions of God. Why not ? 



* Lyall was a great reasoner, but not experimentalist ; the reference is. 

 probably to some other authority, — Ed. 



