EVOLUTION AND THE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 715 



ble to imagine) that the present order of the universe were brought 

 to an end, and that a chaos succeeded in which there was no fixed 

 succession of events, and the past gave no assurance of the future, if 

 a human being were miraculously kept alive to witness this change, 

 he surely would soon cease to believe in any uniformity, the uniform- 

 ity itself no longer existing." 



It is true that in earlier times no absolute belief in the uniform- 

 ity of Nature existed, even among the select few. The Greek philos- 

 ophers, including Aristotle, recognized " chance " and " spontaneity " 

 as finding a definite place in Nature, and to this extent they were not 

 sure that the future would resemble the past. But as we have be- 

 come more familiar with a wider range of natural phenomena, and 

 with their mutual relations or order of appearance, so has the con- 

 ception of chance or spontaneity disappeared from the scientific hori- 

 zon — driven out of the field by the steady advance of Law and Order. 

 Those who embrace the Evolution philosophy are foremost in this 

 opinion — they believe that no effects of whatsoever kind can occur 

 without adequate causes, and, the conditions being similar, that the 

 same results will always follow the action of any given cause. Their 

 whole creed is, in fact, preeminently based upon this assumed uni- 

 formity of Nature. 



The present is essentially a time of transition in matters of opin- 

 ion. Men who have been educated in one system of beliefs are gradu- 

 ally being converted to another, because the new system is thought 

 to be more harmonious with the observed order of natural phenomena. 

 This has been the case even with the chief exponents of Evolution. 

 They have themselves had to unlearn much which they had previ- 

 ously learned. The doctrine of Evolution has thus been developed 

 only by the sacrifice of many previous early beliefs and modes of 

 thought. But it often happens that an old belief will — unknown, per- 

 haps, to the person himself — leave decided traces of its previous influ- 

 ence, and thus prevent for a time the full realization of all the logical 

 consequences of new views. This vestige of the old state of opinion 

 or habit of thought is, more especially, apt to remain in directions 

 where unexplained facts, or strong prepossessions and prejudices, bar 

 the way. Some modes of this inconsistency may become obvious to 

 one worker or thinker, and some to another, according to the particu- 

 lar direction which his investigations or thoughts may have taken ; 

 and such inconsistencies should be pointed out as they present them- 

 selves. So that, with the view of strengthening an hypothesis which 

 I, in common with so many other workers in science, believe to be 

 true, I now venture to allude to certain apparent anomalies in the de- 

 clared opinions of the most prominent upholders of the doctrine of 

 Evolution in this country. It seems all the more desirable that this 

 should be done, since the inconsistencies may be easily shown to be 

 wholly uncalled for, and to involve sundry unscientific conceptions. 



