totality of the faculties has been most favourably moulded by functional changes." For, as we have already shown, the application of different tests of fitness in the animal world would not produce Admirable Crichtons, but would tend to bring about a fixity of species rather than a transmutation of species possessing more highly developed organisms; and Mr. Spencer argues most conclusively to the same effect. It is true that civilised man has not yet adopted the merciless policy of permitting the survival of the fittest only, nor even of securing the elimination of the worst. But civilised life involves a subdivision of labour, and the consequent special culture of special faculties and aptitudes. If there is competition, it is among those who follow the same callings and develope the same faculties. Such a state of things does not promote the cultivation of the totality of the faculties. Success in life generally attends those who are the most accomplished specialists.

CHAPTER VII.

ORGANIC EVOLUTION WITHOUT NATURAL SELECTION.

"The playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out." -THE TALISMAN.

To those who believe that Natural Selection has been demonstrated to be a great law of nature beyond the shadow of a doubt, and who affirm that only those who are incapacitated by ignorance, misled by superficial knowledge, or blinded by theological prejudice, can hold the contrary opinion, it will seem an absurd thing to talk of the possibility of Organic Evolution without Natural Selection. It will seem as nonsensical as it is to talk of a representation of the play of Hamlet, the character of Hamlet being left out. And yet it is conceivable, to say the least, that a play might be designated by the name of a person who never appears upon the scene at all. That is actually the case in a dramatic representation known as Walker, London, of whom we hear nothing till the very last, when we discover that it is, or is pretended to be, the telegraphic address of the barber who has been posing as a world-renowned traveller. Nor does it seem to me inconceivable that a play of Hamlet Prince of Denmark might have been written, in which Hamlet should not appear; in which we might hear of his return home, of his interview with the ghost, of his immediate retirement from

the scene, either going back to Wittenberg or joining the forces of Fortinbras, and from the distance frustrating with his vacillating policy the action of the friends who were entrusted with the duty of discovering the guilt of the king and avenging the death of Hamlet's father. Nay, we might go even further than this. A play might be written, in which the whole plot turned upon the probable appearance of some quite supposititious character, and the dénouement of the play might consist in emancipation from a stupendous delusion.

Something very much like this must one day take place in the scientific world, if the opinions expressed in previous pages should ever prevail; and if arguments, better than I have been able to urge, should be adduced.

This audacious assumption suggests a difficulty at the outset. "How is it possible," it might be asked, "that such an error could have prevailed? Is it probable that the greatest scientific thinkers have been labouring under a delusion?" There are many reasons, it seems to me, to render such a phenomenon possible. First of all we

must remember that there was a time when the controversy lay between Fixity of Species and Organic Evolution by means of Natural Selection. Hence arguments for the fact of Organic Evolution and arguments for the process of Natural Selection, were treated as identical; nay, the arguments for Organic Evolution were quoted in confirmation of the hypothesis of Natural Selection. this way Natural Selection and Organic Evolution became almost convertible terms.

The second reason why this theory prevailed, arose from the fact that it offered an explanation which was easily intelligible, which could be expressed in epigrammatic phrases, which seized on the popular imagination, which became familiar in our mouths as household words; the

logic of which was irresistible, assuming the premises to be true. It left untouched some of the greatest difficulties associated with Organic Evolution-the origin of life, the laws of variation, the mysteries of reproduction. It explained all by assuming that the variations necessarily associated with reproduction were the source of heritable variations that selection in nature acted in the same fashion, for the most part, as selection in art; and that similar results might be looked for-nay, still greater, inasmuch as the works of nature are greater than the works of man.

The third reason for the success of this theory lies in the fact that it was promulgated by men who were not mere theorists, but careful observers of the actual world of nature. But experience warns us that scientific observers of the calibre of Darwin and of Wallace, who have done good work as careful observers of nature, have sometimes promulgated scientific theories which have not been sustained.

Another reason is found in the elasticity of the terms employed and the indefiniteness of the definitions which are often given. It prevailed moreover because the effect of its promulgation was to depreciate the influence of other factors of Organic Evolution. But I venture to go a step further back, and to say that the theory of Natural Selection has prevailed because scant justice has been done to the arguments for Organic Evolution, which were used before the date of the publication of The Origin of Species.

It is candidly admitted by believers in Natural Selection that, if it should be proved that Natural Selection was not after all a law of nature, it would not affect the arguments for Organic Evolution; it would only imply that some factors, other than Natural Selection, had

brought about that phenomenon. In point of fact, the arguments for the fact of Organic Evolution are perfectly independent of any particular method by which it was brought about. Now, it so happens that Mr. Robert Chambers, in his Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, stated these arguments in language almost identical with those employed by Mr. Romanes in his Evidences of Organic Evolution-a work which professed to give a synopsis of Darwinism, but in which no proofs of Natural Selection are adduced. These arguments themselves, being identical in idea and very similar in phraseology, were as valid in 1844 as they were in 1882. If they were not accepted in 1844, the fault is not in the arguments, but in the receptivity of the minds to which they were addressed. And yet the book was read with interest by many cultured people. Why, then, were these arguments for Organic Evolution not accepted? The reason, we are told, was because no adequate explanation was offered as to the processes by which this Organic Evolution had come about. The reason seems to me to have been because the doctrine of the fixity of species died hard; because it was still accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientific men; because they overlooked the arguments for Organic Evolution, or judged them only by arguments adduced for certain factors of Organic Evolution. Meanwhile, the theory of Natural Selection came upon the scene and triumphed, for the reasons already assigned. But in all this, a great injustice was done to those who promulgated the arguments for Organic Evolution as a fact of the natural world; for if those arguments are logically sound, they ought to have been accepted, even if the actual factors could not be discovered. I know that the Eiffel Tower at Blackpool has been gradually, produced, and that it did not come down from heaven