22 



very absurd to suppose that crystals assumed their definite shapes (when 

 the liquid which held their molecules in solution is evaporated) under 

 the determining impulse of phantom-crystals, or ideas ; yet it has not 

 been thought absurd to assume phantom- forms of organizations." (p. 622.) 



Now, if we are to understand from this passage that the 

 issue of an organism, whether merely an oflfspring similar to its 

 parents, or the ultimate development of a new species alto- 

 gether, is in any way to be compared to the production of a 

 crystal from evaporation, the burden lies with Mr. Lewes to 

 show that the causative momenta are analogous or are of similarly 

 influencing power. In the one case there is life, in the other 

 there is not. Life may be nothing more than physical forces, 

 but no one will deny, as long as he can judge of it by its effects, 

 i. e. as long as the organism under examination is alive, these 

 eff'ects do not justify us in saying that there is any analogy 

 between them, or that they can be compared, any more than an 

 organic cell admits of comparison with a crystal. 



Mr. Lewes goes on to say that " the conception of type, as a 

 determining influence arises from the fallacy of taking the 

 resultant for a principle.^^ But is it a fallacy ? The whole 

 question of final causes depends upon the answer to this ques- 

 tion. Principles of nature are only deducible from resultants 

 or facts; and science can only reason from the known to the 

 unknown. It is from the facts of nature that the principle of 

 evolution has been deduced. The vera causa of evolution and 

 which includes all types and plans, is placed, however, in dif- 

 ferent directions by the teleologist and the positivist ; the 

 latter, ignoring any determining influence, puts it in the hands 

 of the " momenta or polarities of the'^organic substance ; 

 the former, recognizing some determining influence, places it 

 in the hands of God. 



The positivist, however, does not attempt, as far as I can 

 discover, to account for the '^momenta'' of nature; except as 



immanent iproperiiesJ' But whence came they, on the prin- 

 ciple of conservation of force ; what were their antecedents ? Are 

 they self-existent, eternal ? But as this question opens up the 

 deeper one as to whether God be Personal or Impersonal, 

 whether force be eternal or not, &c., I must leave the matter 

 there, only quoting one more sentence from Mr. Lewes, who 

 says : " Even Lotze, who has argued so victoriously against 

 the vitalists, and has made it clear ( ? ) that an organism is a 

 mechanism, cannot relinquish the conception of legislative ideas, 

 though he significantly adds, these have no power in themselves, 

 but only in as far as they are grounded in mechanical condi- 

 tions." Why '^significantly"? Surely we have here a wit- 



