THE 'ORIGIN OF SPECIES.' 2OI 



mathematical skill could account for, and indeed predict, 

 every one of these " chance " events. 



A second very common objection to Mr. Darwin's views 

 was (and is), that they abolish Teleology, and eviscerate the 

 argument from design. It is nearly twenty years since I 

 ventured to offer some remarks on this subject, and as my 

 arguments have as yet received no refutation, I hope I may 

 be excused for reproducing them. I observed, " that the doc- 

 trine of Evolution is the most formidable opponent of all the 

 commoner and coarser forms of Teleology. But perhaps the 

 most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology ren- 

 dered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and 

 Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, which 

 his views offer. The teleology which supposes that the eye, 

 such as we see it in man, or one of the higher vertebrata, was 

 made with the precise structure it exhibits, for the purpose of 

 enabling the animal which possesses it to see, has undoubtedly 

 received its death-blow. Nevertheless, it is necessary to re- 

 member that there is a wider teleology which is not touched 

 by the doctrine of Evolution, but is actually based upon the 

 fundamental proposition of Evolution. This proposition is 

 that the whole world, living and not living, is the result of the 

 mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces * 

 possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity 

 of the universe was composed. If this be true, it is no less 

 certain that the existing world lay potentially in the cosmic 

 vapour, and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a know- 

 ledge of the properties of the molecules of that vapour, have 

 predicted, say the state of the fauna of Britain in 1869, with 

 as much certainty as one can say what will happen to the 

 vapour of the breath on a cold winter's day 



.... The tcleological and the mechanical views of nature 

 arc not, necessarily, mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the 

 more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly 

 * I should now like to substitute the word powers for " forces." 



