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CHAPTEE VII. 



{Intercalated.) 



Since the foregoing and several of the succeeding 

 chapters were written, Mr. Herbert Spencer has made 

 his position at once more clear and more widely 

 understood by his articles " The Factors of Organic 

 Evolution " which appeared in the Nineteenth Century 

 for April and May 1886. The present appears the 

 fittest place in which to intercalate remarks concern- 

 ing them. 



Mr. Spencer asks whether those are right who 

 regard Mr. Charles Darwin's theory of natural selec- 

 tion as by itself sufficient to account for organic 

 evolution. 



" On critically examining the evidence " (modern 

 writers never examine evidence, they always "criti- 

 cally," or " carefully," or " patiently," examine it), he 

 writes, " we shall find reason to think that it by no 

 means explains all that has to be explained. Omit- 

 ting for the present any consideration of a factor 

 which may be considered primordial, it may be con- 

 tended that one of the factors alleged by Erasmus 



