261 



ignorance of the cause of each particular variation.^' After 

 stating^ with great care all that is known about the causes, 

 Mr. Darwin fails to establish any law of variation. He 

 comes to the conclusion that our ignorance of the laws of 

 variation is profound. Not in one case out of a hundred can 

 we pretend to assign any reason why this or that part differs 

 more or less from the same part in the parents and he sum- 

 marizes the questions thus : — " Whatever the cause may be of 

 each slight difference in the offspring from their parents — and 

 a cause for each must exist, — it is the steady accumulation 

 through natural selection of such differences when beneficial to 

 the individual, that gives rise to all the more important modifi- 

 cations of structure by which the innumerable beings on the 

 face of the earth are enabled to struggle with each other, and 

 the best adapted to survive.'^ 



39. From the above quotations it is easy to tabulate what 

 Mr. Darwin means. 



1. The word chance is used instead of saying we 

 don't know.^^ 



3. We are profoundly ignorant of the causes of variation, 

 therefore, to cover our ignorance, he says, they vary 

 by chance.^^ 



3. All variations are governed by the same law. 



4. Natural selection is the power by which all such 



variations are accumulated for the benefit of the 

 creature, and to enable it to be among the " survivals 

 of the fittest.'^ 



40. Natural selection, therefore, is the keystone of Darwin^s 

 philosophy. But what, I think we may fairly ask, has become 

 of the potentially-endowed plasm ? Does it contain natural 

 selection among its " laws ? It cannot be, because the 

 imperfection of the power as a' means of creation has been 

 proved by Mr. St. George Mivart and admitted by Mr. Darwin, 

 and a Divine law must be supreme, perfect, unchangeable. 



41. It is, however, in his latest work^ the Descent of 3fa7i, 

 that Mr. Darwin has most decidedly rejected a Divine guidance 

 and power in creation. The limits of this paper will not allow^ 

 me to make many quotations. 



42. Perhaps the most significant utterance on this point is 

 that in which he argues (vol. i. pp. G6-7) about the proba- 

 bility of religion having its origin in dreams. It is probable, 

 as Mr. Tyler has clearly shown, that dreams may have first 

 given rise to the notion of spirits/^ and '''the belief in spiritual 

 agencies would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one 

 or more gods." And so, according to Mr. Darwin^s views, was 

 religion evolved." 



