202 Biological Controversy and its Laws. [April, 
it has thrown a flood of light over some of the most difficult 
questions in Natural History, and has brought into vital 
connection a previously incoherent mob of faCts, and that it 
is still a powerful and valuable instrument in the hands of 
the enquirer, we cannot forget that it has its difficulties. 
Some of these we have, on former occasions, endeavoured 
to point out. Hence we should cordially recognise any 
theory which should either supplement the doctrines of 
“ Natural Selection ” and “ Sexual Selection,” or modify 
them so as to get rid of their drawbacks and shortcomings. 
Nay, we should be well pleased to find them superseded 
altogether by a new hypothesis, adapted at once to the phe- 
nomena they have explained and the residues and anomalies 
which they have hitherto left unsolved. Such a hypothesis 
we thought Mr. Mivart might have produced, or at least 
have attempted; and the very attempt could scarcely be 
made, from a legitimate point of view, without leading to 
valuable results. Never were we more signally disappointed, 
although in these days the title of a book is often intended 
to conceal, rather than to reveal, its nature and objeCt. 
The strange dedication was, in truth, but too ominous of 
the contents. The work we found was not constructive, but 
destructive. It consists of a series of attacks upon a num- 
ber of men who have done good service in different branches 
of Science, such as Darwin, Wallace, Huxley, Tyndall, 
Galton, Lubbock, Helmholtz, Oscar Schmidt, — or who have 
dealt with methodology, such as Compte, Mill, Spencer, 
Lewes, &c. The doctrines of Natural Selection and Sexual 
Selection are indeed discussed, and a desperate effort is 
made to resuscitate the fast-fading notion of a “ great gulf” 
between man and the lower animals. It is a curious fact 
that in the old Natural History man is supposed to hold, in 
relation to other animals, a place very similar to that assigned 
by the Lavoisierian Chemistry to oxygen in relation to the 
remaining elements. Unfortunately in biology, passion, 
prejudice, and sophistry play a more important part than 
they do in chemistry and physics. The discussion is 
based upon false principles. We all know the passage in 
which Mr. Wallace specifies the kind of controversy which 
alone can be recognised. “ As his hypothesis is one which 
claims acceptance solely as explaining and connecting faCts 
which exist in Nature, he experts faCts alone to be brought 
to disprove it.”* This method of discussion finds here com- 
paratively little favour. Theories are tested by their supposed 
* Contributions to the Theory of Natural Seledion, p. 13, 
