116 WALTER KIDD, M.D.^ F.Z.S., ON 



in some fortuitous undirected change in the watery home of 

 those early ancestors of ours ! Well, it must be for each 

 of us to ask himself calmly if his fiith in the evidence of a 

 mechanical theory of life will bear a strain such as this. 



But Selection in course of long ages came into operation — 

 whether in producing new forms of life or simply in main- 

 taining, as I believe, certain breeds or groups of organisms 

 according as we are Creationists or Evolutionists — and then 

 took rank as a factor in the ascent of creation to its present, 

 phase. It is clear that at either end of the chain of life 

 the province of a merely mechanical selection is greatly 

 curtailed. 



The bearing on the question of design in Nature of these 

 two biological conceptions, Adaptation and Selection, is 

 obvious. The least significant uses of the words are the 

 most favoured in current science, as not postulating the 

 operation of any Mind or purpose in Nature, and I would 

 submit that our consideration of the former is eloquent of 

 meaning of a most far-reaching kind, and the latter has a 

 much curtailed province in which to operate. Professor 

 Henslow, a great opponent of Natural Selection in the 

 origin of species, goes so far as to say that Natural Selection 

 is unnecessary, and at any rate, only a supplementary factor 

 in organic evolution, and out of his immense knowledge of 

 the botanical side of biology refers nearly all evolution to self- 

 adaptation of plants through their protoplasmic response to 

 environments. He would of course apply this theory also 

 to animal life, and the conception finds a good measure of 

 favour with such eminent zoologists as Professors W. K. 

 Brooks of America, and J. Arthur Thomson of Aberdeen. 

 Professor Henslow being a theist sees in this mode, by 

 which organisms have developed to their present perfection, 

 the operation of Divine directing power. 



In the present consideration we are not compelled to 

 choose betv\een Creation and Evolution as rival theories of 

 the origin of living forms, but we surely must see the 

 necessity of admitting that Design is immanent in these 

 marvellous chains of life, whatever be the way in which the 

 links have been forged by the Divine Artificer. The ultimate 

 reasons for it all, the final causes, may not be clear to us 

 yet and may never be so, but the grand primary purpose 

 opens before us the greater the range and the more 

 profound the scrutiny of biological study. Whether it be 

 by creation of groups of organisms at successive stages, by 



