THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE THEORY OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION. 113 



suggests that experiments made now with living forms to illustrate 

 the " Doctrine of Evolution " may not he satisfactory ; at least, we 

 cannot reverse the processes in their entirety j and since the condi- 

 tions of life on the earth are not the same now as in ancient eras, even 

 the very lowest forms of life may not be the same now as those in 

 primeval ages. I would suggest that, in the living forms as known to 

 us to-day. all potential factors for anything higher may have gone out 

 of them. Yet Haeckel mentions that a certain species of Triton which 

 breathed by gills only and had never developed lung tissue, did so 

 develop this tissue when the water in the basin in which it was kept 

 began to decline. Thus we have an instance of a gill-breathing water 

 dweller being changed into a lung-breathing land animal, through 

 change of its environment. 



The Rev. A. Irving, D.Sc: Sir Eobert Anderson has referred to a 

 lecture delivered by Professor G. Henslow at University College. I 

 had a son at the College at the time, and took the opportunity of hear- 

 ing the lecture. Professor Henslow gave us the word " directivity," — 

 which a few years ago was not to be found in any dictionary. It 

 expresses what Bergson has since taught us, and represents a something 

 behind all vital processes, directing those purposeful activities. It is 

 most important that we should have a clear idea of that " something " 

 behind all phenomena. Bergson has recognized it, and does not 

 hesitate to admit that we have in that something an influence which 

 can only be ascribed to transcendent God. This is expressed by the 

 term "Creative Evolution," and by Lord Kelvin's favourite phrase, 

 " Creative and Directive Power." It is to my mind an expression of 

 the Divine Immanence — the Divine Immanence in the universe — ■ 

 making use of the properties of matter to mould them to higher 

 purposes, though the "Directivity of Life." (See Henslow, 

 Trans. V., I., Vol. xliv.) 



The last thought that I would suggest is this : when people go 

 so far as to say, — as the Modernists do, — that what we include in the 

 terms " mental " and " spiritual " are mere by-products of the mechan- 

 ical action of the molecules of the human brain, as in the speculations 

 of Haeckel, and the empirical charlatanism of Loisy, it brings us to 

 the position which has found its redudio ad absurdum in the non- 

 sense which has misled the German people, and brought about the 

 present ddbdele ; nonsense against which their own great teacher, 

 Treitschke, warned them some nine years ago. (See Professor J. H. 



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