98 Chauncey Wright. [vi. 



tic completeness belongs properly to metaphysical 

 theories only, or may sometimes also be found in 

 doctrines that rightly lay claim to scientific com- 

 petence, we may call attention to the interesting 

 fact that Mr. Wright's objection reveals a grave mis- 

 understanding of the true import of the doctrine 

 of evolution in general, as well as of the nebular- 

 hypothesis in particular. The objection — if it be 

 admitted as an objection — applies only to the crude 

 popular notion of the doctrine of evolution, that it 

 is all an affair of progress, wherein a better state of 

 things (that is, better from a human point of view) 

 keeps continually supplanting a less excellent state, 

 and so on for ever, or at least without definite limit. 

 That Mr. Wright understood the doctrine in this 

 crude way was evident from the manner in which 

 he was wont to urge his antiteleological objection 

 both in his writings and in conversation. In criticis- 

 ing the nebular hypothesis, for instance, he was sure 

 to, let fall some expression which showed that in 

 his mind the hypothesis stood for a presumptuous 

 attempt to go back to the beginning of the universe 

 and give some account of its total past career in 

 terms of progress. But the nebular hypothesis, as 

 it is now held by evolutionists, does not make any 

 such attempt at all. The nebular hypothesis traces. 



