THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND. 163 



Some months subsequent to the completion of the 

 foregoing chapter, and indeed just as this book is on 

 the point of leaving my hands, there appears in Mature * 

 a letter from the Duke of Argyll, which shows that he 

 too is impressed with the conviction expressed above 

 — I mean that the real object our men of science have 

 lately had in view has been the getting rid of mind from 

 among the causes of evolution. The Duke says : — 



" The violence with which false interpretations were 

 put upon this theory (natural selection) and a function 

 was assigned to it which it could never fulfil, will 

 some day be recognised as one of the least creditable 

 episodes in the history of science. With a curious 

 perversity it was the weakest elements in the theory 

 which were seized upon as the most valuable, particu- 

 larly the part assigned to blind chance in the occur- 

 rence of variations. This was valued not for its 

 scientific truth, — for it could pretend to none, — but 

 because of its assumed bearing upon another field ot 

 thought and the weapon it afforded for expelling 

 mind from the causes of evolution." 



The Duke, speaking of Mr. Herbert Spencer's two 

 articles in the Nineteenth Century for April and May 

 1886, to which I have already called attention, 

 continues : — 



"In these two articles we have for the first 

 time an avowed and definite declaration against 

 some of the leading ideas on which the mechanical 

 philosophy depends ; and yet the caution, and almost 

 timidity, with which a man so eminent approaches the 

 * August 12, 1886. 



