59 
knowledge of the properties of the molecules of that vapour 
have pr edict edj say the F Qf Britain . n lg(39 ^ ^ ^ 
hrSh ? ^ °m Can / a f ^ lat Wil1 ha PP en t0 the vapour of the 
breath m a cold winter’s day. Why limit the prediction to the 
xauna, it we be, as he says we are, machines as much as the 
fauna; why not have been able to predict this paper this evening 
and also the criticisms on it, if it be thought worthy of any ? 
Why not predict the state of every man’s mind and life at any 
particular moment ? The one ought, by his hypothesis, to be as 
possible as the other. But as regards teleology, are all the 
phenomena of nature to teach this, that by merest accident, 
according to Darwin, or by some unconscious force possessed by 
primitive nebulosity, according to Huxley, the eye for example 
just happens to be as it is, but that all the structure, every 
detail of which is so admirably adapted for seeing, had in its 
combinations no reference whatever to sight. That the fact 
that we are able to see with the eye and hear with the ear are 
only accidents in accordance, indeed, with law, as all accidents 
are, but not the purposes of either; in fact, that they have no 
purpose ; for if they have a purpose or end of anv kind, that is 
teleological. Are we also to infer that those cases of— adapta- 
tion 1 was going to say, but may not, as adaptation, Huxley 
says, has received its “ death-blow”— those cases where flowers 
and insects are mutually suitable, and which Tyndall himself 
quotes, are mere coincident suitabilities, the one having no 
( esigned relation to the other? All this may by its disciples be 
called inductive philosophy. Perhaps it is presumptuous in me, 
mt 1 would call it by another name, as I cannot discover the 
inductions, still less the philosophy. It is wholly unnecessary 
tor me, in this Society, to point out the overwhelming and 
accurate evidence in favour of teleology, which has super- 
abundantly every test of a true theory. There is another 
doctrine coming prominently to the front now, which was only 
alluded to in the Belfast address, but which formed the subject 
ot a masterly lecture by Huxley : I allude to automatism. There 
is difficulty in dealing with this subject, because the word has 
not yet been satisfactorily defined in its scientific application ; 
one tiling, however, is clear, that by animal automata are 
meant conscious machines. Huxley says “that consciousness 
is a spectator not an actor, that we are in fact conscious 
machines. ’ . The facts from which he infers this show a certain 
amount of involuntary, or what he calls automatic action ; but 
they do not warrant the further inference that, because some 
actions are automatic, all are ; that because our circulation, &c., 
is involuntary, our choice of evil rather than good is involuntary 
