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explanation. But up to the present time this has not been 
accomplished.* 
All theories to account for what is not an object of direct 
observation, it should be remarked here, have to be supported 
by indirect demonstration, and hence, with perfect logical 
propriety, the supporters of the materialistic explanation of 
natural forms occupy themselves largely with the attempt to 
show the insufficiency of the idealistic explanation. Such is 
the method partly followed by Mr. Lewes in his articles on 
“Mr. Darwin’s Hypotheses,” in the Fortnightly Review for 
1868. I allude to him specially for the sake of getting the 
opportunity of saying what Mr. Lewes by his example illus- 
trates — that the advocates of materialistic hypotheses too often 
misapprehend the true position of their opponents, and hence, 
in combating it, are fighting a man of straw. Thus Mr. 
Lewes assumes that the theory to be disproved by him is 
that of “ creative fiats,” or that every new formation is the 
work of a demiurge, whose creative hand takes hold from 
without of inert materials and forces them into definite rela- 
tions and shapes. Great circumspectness should doubtless bo 
observed, when we attempt to define the mode in which a 
divine hand moulds the materials of nature into their definite 
forms ; for, that all natural forces and so-called “ matter ” are 
under the active control of the Deity, Christian idealism most 
surely holds, and must, as we believe, ever continue on philo- 
sophical and scientific grounds to maintain. Still, the concep- 
tion which Mr. Lewes asci’ibes to those whom he opposes, 
seems to me clearly to belong to a past century. If it is still 
held b}^ some, it by no means (we believe) indicates the ground 
occupied by the majority of intelligent teleologists at the pre- 
sent day. The latter must and do cheerfully admit that the 
order of things in the world is to be conceived rather as a 
continuous process than as a series of successive acts. They 
believe in the general presence of law. In fact, they accept 
nature just as science shows it to them. They regard their 
opponents as simply speaking truismatically, when they insist 
that the formation of every organism is an exceedingly com- 
plicated mechanical problem. They are aware that — since 
such, once for all, is the order of the universe in which we 
exist — nothing is to be accomplished in the world except on 
the basis of “ mechanical ” conditions, and they do not expect 
* Since writing the above, the third edition of Dr. L. Beale’s work on 
Protoplasm (1874) has come under my notice. What the author states on 
p. 333 of his work is strongly confirmatory of the statement which I make 
above, as to that which Materialism has or has not accomplished. 
