ADAPTATION AND SELECTION IN NATURE. 123 



to vary, and then a strong tendency that those creatures having 

 varied should vary no more " — so that from a few types you get 

 first multiplicity of species — then fixity. Supposing there were this 

 tendency in creation, then those tendencies are simply processes 

 in creation ; and you can never get rid of this — that all the 

 words, even such an impersonal word as " tendency," have behind 

 them the author of the tendency — the author of the law — the 

 author of order, and the author of adaptation of means to ends ; 

 and so we are driven back, by force of our reason, to recognize 

 Him who gave it to us. 



Dr. Walter Kidd. — I have very few adverse remarks to reply to. 

 I am very much obliged for your kind reception of my paper. 

 I quite agree with Dr. Walker as to the danger that comes in 

 through a word like "mimicry." It is only another instance, 

 added to those 1 mention here, of the way in which these 

 expressions are handled and wrongly handled, and different words 

 ought to be invented, though I do not care to undertake the task. 

 I think "fittest to survive" does not apply to the mass but to 

 individuals of any group, and that it is an unobjectionable term 

 which we must allow to the evolutionists. 



I quite think that Professor Orchard is justified in saying that 

 there is a kind of scientific immorality in the way in which some 

 of these terms are handled ; and yet it is very difficult for 

 evolutionists or ourselves to get rid of these terms, such as 

 " purposeful" and other mental terms. It is only another way 

 of saying that we are surrounded by divine mystery and purpose 

 and divine immanence in all the affairs of the world. The 

 illustration I gave of the fall of an avalanche is only a simple way 

 of putting what I have called " purposeless mechanical causes," 

 or what Spencer has called a power that sets going certain laws, 

 though he has not the grace to admit it in words. I should agree 

 with Professor Orchard that minute creatures like bacteria, as 

 their environment changes, are potentially adapted to the coming 

 change and are adapted from the first. 



I think diversity of sex is being made too much of. I was there 

 quoting Dr. A. R. Wallace, who states it so strongly, that he hardly 

 allows any other cause of variation at all, and many hold that en- 

 vironment does not affect the individual so that variations are trans- 

 mitted to posterity. Many of these are most eminent people, and 

 th ey have not admitted any instances in which their favourite theory 



