ADAPTATION AND SELECTION IN NATURE. 121 



diversity of sex. 'No doubt it is the fundamental cause, tut I 

 suppose lie would not contend that it is the only cause. Variation 

 may be produced by an individual himself and, surely, by 

 environment also; though, doubtless, change of sex may be, as 

 he points out here, the fundamental cause. 



We might say it was almost comic, if it were not, in some 

 respects, really somewhat tragic, to read Professor Karl Pearson's 

 statement referred to by the author, which appears to be 

 really put forward as a scientific conjecture. I greatly 

 prefer such an expression as " special creation " to creation by 

 this imagination of Professor Karl Pearson's. Indeed it is 

 creation by imagination, because if this protoplasmatic mass 

 existed from all eternit}', then long, long ago it ought, according 

 to his theory, to have evolved into different forms. So he is 

 driven to assume creation somehow or other, and why should it 

 be thought that the Creator could not create anything more 

 important by His creative art ? It is not only opposed to 

 experience, but, with all respect to Professor Karl Pearson, to 

 common sense. Even his absurd theory could not have been 

 carried out actually — much less could the actual events have 

 taken place, without there being, what Dr. Kidd fo truly insists 

 on, when he says '" Purpose here, there and everywhere, Avhich 

 furnishes the missing link in man^v of the problems of Science," 

 I should say in all ol them. [Applause.] 



The Chairman. — Before I call on Dr. Walter Kidd to reply or 

 to make any further suggestions, I should like to point out that 

 what seems to me to be the gist of the paper is this — that 

 evolution, at any rate atheistic evolution, is not credible. 

 All the words that have been discussed to-day are words which 

 presuppose a designing mind : all this struggling — this selecting — 

 this surviving of what is fit, this adaptation and the rest are mental 

 processes. Take, for example, adaptation. We only see adaptation 

 in nature because we have in ourselves a process of adapting one 

 thing to another, and then we read into Nature what we find in 

 ourselves. It is ail mental, and the word " adaptation " implies 

 reason and purpose. 



Take another word that Dr. Kidd uses, though the discussion 

 has not turned on it, viz., " Beneficence." Beneficence is very 

 different to adaptation, although the two words go together so 

 well. When you find Adaptation combined with Beneficence, 



