664 
Mr. S. Butler's Contributions to the [November, 
On the contrary, the other portion of mankind, who enter 
into the race for wealth or power, are not willing to live and 
let live. It is they who are the invariable and necessary 
aggressors. 
We now come to the error, as it seems to us, which 
underlies Mr. Butler’s whole scheme of evolution. He 
writes : — “ A man shows that he knows how to throw the 
boomerang by throwing the boomerang. No amount of 
talking or writing will get over this.” On the contrary, it 
is easily got over ; the fallacy lies in the double sense of the 
word “knows." Mr. Butler continues, “ ipso facto, that a 
baby breathes and makes its blood circulate, it knows how 
to do so !” Now, if we compare this case with that of the 
violinist we see at once a world-wide difference. 
The violinist may be able to execute a difficult piece of 
music without conscious effort, automatically. But we 
know that there was a time when every note cost him a 
conscious effort. As regards the young animal, Mr. Butler 
admits that “ it is less obvious when the baby could have 
gained its experience, so as to remember exactly what to 
do.” We go much further; the baby can never have had 
a conscious knowledge of the processes of breathing or cir- 
culation, either in its own person or in that of its ancestors, 
human, semi-human, or brute. 
We now come to the question of teleology. In opposition 
alike to Charles Darwin, along with most modern biologists, 
on the one hand, and to Paley and his admirers on the 
other, Mr. Butler admits “ design,” but maintains that “ the 
design which has designed organisms has resided in and 
been embodied in the organisms themselves. 
This view, he contends, was first suggested by Buffon, 
improved and made “ almost perfect ” by Erasmus Darwin, 
and borrowed from him by Lamarck, “ though somewhat 
less perfectly comprehended by him than it had been by 
Dr. Darwin.” 
But how does he, an evolutionist not unversed in the 
truths revealed by embryology, succeed in saving the 
“design” idea at all? For he quotes that passage in 
which G. H. Lewes not merely crushes, but absolutely 
decomposes, Paley: — “None of these phases have any 
adaptation to the future state of the animal, but are in 
positive contradiction to it, or are simply purposeless ; 
whereas all show stamped on them the unmistakeable 
characters of ancestral adaptation and the progressions of 
organic evolution. What does the faCt imply ? There is 
not a single example known of a complex organism which 
