Proceedings of the British Association. 107 



mankind in general understand by explanation : as when we are told, 

 for example, that the successive appearance of races of organized 

 beings on earth, and their disappearance, to give place to others, 

 which Geology teaches us, — is a result of some certain law of deve- 

 lopement, in virtue of which an unbroken chain of gradually exalted 

 organization from the crystal to the globule, and thence, through the 

 successive stages of the polypus, the mollusk, the insect, the fish, the 

 reptile, the bird, and the beast, up to the monkey and the man (nay, 

 for aught we know, even to the angel), has been (or remains to be) 

 evolved. Surely, when we hear such a theory, the natural human 

 craving after causes, capable in some conceivable way of giving rise to 

 such changes and transformations of organ and intellect, — causes why 

 the developement at different parts of its progress should divaricate 

 into different lines, — causes, at all events, intermediate between the 

 steps of the developement — becomes importunate. And when no- 

 thing is offered to satisfy this craving, but loose and vague reference 

 to favourable circumstances of climate, food, and general situation, 

 which no experience has ever shown to convert one species into 

 another; who is there who does not at once perceive that such a 

 theory is in no respect more explanatory, than that would be 

 which simply asserted a miraculous intervention, at every successive 

 step of that unknown series of events, by which the earth has been 

 alternately peopled and dispeopled of its denizens I 



A law may be a rule of action, but it is not action. The Great 

 First Agent may lay down a rule of action for himself, and that rule 

 may become known to man by observation of its informity : but 

 constituted as our minds are, and having that conscious knowledge 

 of causation, which is forced upon us by the reality of the distinction 

 between intending a thing, and doing it, we can never substitute the 

 Rule for the Act. Either directly, or through delegated agency, 

 whatever takes place is not merely willed, but done, and what is done 

 we then only declare to be explained, when we can trace a process, 

 and show that it consists of steps analogous to those we observe in 

 occurrences which have passed often enough before our own eyes to 

 have become familiar, and to be termed natural. So long as no such 

 process can be traced and analyzed out in this manner, so long the 

 phenomenon is unexplained, and remains equally so, whatever be the 



