ADDRESS. 15 



not provide a sound one. To the riddles which nature propounds to us the 

 profession of ignorance must constantly be our only reasonable answer. 

 The cloud of impenetrable mystery hangs over the development and still 

 more over the origin of life. If we strain our eyes to pierce it, with the fore- 

 gone conclusion that some solution is and must be attainable, we shall 

 only mistake for discoveries the figments of our own imagination. Pro- 

 fessor AYeismann adds another reason for his belief in natural selection 

 which is certainly characteristic of the time in which we live. ' It is in- 

 conceivable,' he says, ' that there should be another principle capable of 

 explaining the adaptation of organisms without assuming the help of a 

 principle of design.' The whirligig of time assuredly brings its revenges. 

 Time was, not very long ago, when the belief in creative design was 

 supreme. Even those who were sapping its authority were wont to pay 

 it a formal homage, fearing to shock the public conscience by denying it. 

 Now the revolution is so complete that a great philosopher uses it as a 

 reductio ad absurdum, and prefers to believe that which can neither be 

 demonstrated in detail, nor imagined, rather than run the slightest risk of 

 such a heresy. 



I quite accept the Professor's dictum that if natural selection is rejected 

 we have no resource but to fall back on the mediate or immediate agency 

 of a principle of design. In Oxford, at least, he will not find that argument 

 is conclusive, nor, I believe, among scientific men in this country generally, 

 however imposing the names of some whom he may claim for that belief. 

 I would rather lean to the conviction that the multiplying difficulties of 

 the mechanical theory are weakening the influence it once had acquired. 

 I prefer to shelter myself in this matter behind the judgment of the 

 greatest living master of natural science among us. Lord Kelvin, and to 

 quote as my own concluding Avords the striking language with which he 

 closed his address from this chair more than twenty years ago : ' I have 

 always felt,' he said, ' that the hypothesis of natural selection does not 

 contain the true theory of evolution, if evolution there has been in biology. 

 ... I feel profoundly convinced that the argument of design has been greatly 

 too much lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. Overpoweringly 

 strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie around us, and if ever 

 perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them 

 for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us 

 through nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living 

 things depend on one everlasting Creator and Ruler.' 



