THE ATTEMPT TO ELIMINATE MIND. 165 



me which could cause fear in any ordinarily constituted 

 person. If, then, the Duke of Argyll is right in saying 

 that Mr. Spencer has shown a caution almost amount- 

 ing to timidity in attacking Mr. Darwin's theory, 

 either Mr. Spencer must be a singularly timid person, 

 or there must be some cause for his timidity which is 

 not immediately obvious. If terror reigns anywhere 

 among scientific men, I should say it reigned 

 among those who have staked imprudently on Mr. 

 Darwin's reputation as a philosopher. I may add that 

 the discovery of the Duke's impression that there 

 exists a scientific reign of terror, explains a good deal 

 in his writings which it has not been easy to under- 

 stand hitherto. 



As regards the theory of natural selection, the Duke 

 says : — 



" Prom the first discussions which arose on this 

 subject, I have ventured to maintain that . . . the 

 phrase ' natural selection ' represented no true physi- 

 cal cause, still less the complete set of causes 

 requisite to account for the orderly procession of or- 

 ganic forms .in Nature ; that in so far as it assumed 

 variations to arise by accident it was not only essen- 

 tially faulty and incomplete, but fundamentally 

 erroneous ; in short, that its only value lay in the 

 convenience with which it groups under one form of 

 words, highly charged with metaphor, an immense 

 variety of causes, some purely mental, some purely 

 vital, and others purely physical or mechanical." 



