1893 ON SELF-ADAPTATION 331 



or three years past my health has been breaking up, 

 and several months ago I had a stroke of paralysis. 

 So I have had to knock off all work, and have just 

 arrived here to spend the winter — finding your letter, 

 forwarded from Oxford, awaiting me. 



It has interested me very much, and some time 

 I should like to see the paper to which it refers, 

 whether in MS. or print. As far as I can gather, 

 you are spontaneously following in the footsteps of 

 Asa Gray, Nageli, and some other botanists. But, it 

 seems to me, this self-adaptation doctrine is equi- 

 valent to an a jjriori abandoning of all hope to obtain 

 any naturahstic explanation of the phenomena in 

 question. It simply refers the facts of adaptation 

 immediately to some theory of design, and so brings 

 us back again to Paley, BeU, and Chalmers. As 

 when a child asks why a flower closes at night, 

 and we answer bim : Because God has made it 

 so, my dear. Cest magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la 

 science. 



But do not mistake me. My quarrel is with the 

 term self-adaptation, which seems to imply causes of 

 a non-naturahstic kind. Which, of course, is quite a 

 different thing from doubting whether the natural- 

 istic explanation given by Darwin is adequate to 

 meet all the facts. I am myself more and more 

 given to question 'the all-sufficiency of natural 

 selection,' and this, whether or not use-inheritance 

 is one of the supplementary factors. But that 

 there are some hitherto undiscovered factors of 

 this kind where many of the phenomena of adap- 

 tation are concerned, I am more and more disposed 



