each tree's growth, while the special details are determined by the action of external influences upon it. Just in the same way, I believe, that an innate predisposing cause produces the evolution of new species; the special details being determined by subordinate agencies, and amongst them that of Natural Selection. Mr. Wright's illustration suits me so well I will pursue it yet further. He observes:

'If we could study the past and present forms of life, not only in different continents, which we may compare to different individual trees of the same kind, or better, perhaps, to different main branches from the same trunk and roots, but could also study the past and present forms of life in different planets, then diversities in the general outlines would probably be seen similar to those which distinguish different kinds of trees, as the oak, the elm, and the pine; dependent, as in these trees, on differences in the physical and physiological properties of living matters in the different planets, supposing the planets, of course, to be capable of sustaining life, like the earth, or, at least, to have been so at some period in the history of the solar system.'

Precisely so once more! In each case forms would be evolved in accordance with that innate potentiality which God has implanted in each case in the matter of which such planet was composed. Not that there, any more than here, all that was potential would become actual, but that the innate potentiality, modified by external influences, would be determined in special forms in the production of which the innate power, not the external conditions, would be the main evolving agent.

Mr. Wright seems to consider that the use of such words as 'polarity' and 'luminosity' tends to discourage the investigation of the laws and conditions by and through which such properties are manifested. Mr. Wright tells us, somewhat dogmatically, that definite vital aggregations and definite actions of vital forces exist, for the most part, in a world by themselves.' I should be the last to deny the

distinctness of 'vitality'; but that certain conditions may determine its sudden and definite manifestation, is maintained by his friends as regards the earlier days of this planet. There is one expression of Mr. Wright's which it will be well to notice; he says: 'It is not impossible that vital phenomena themselves include orders of forces as distinct as the lowest vital are from chemical phenomena. May not the contrast of merely vital or vegetative phenomena with those of sensibility be of such order.' I notice with pleasure this hopeful expression. It is most true that there are these differences of order, but there is one more yet. The intellectual or rational order is as distinct from the merely sensible as is the sensible from the vegetative, or this last from the chemical. Here we touch the one great and fatal error of so many of our leading naturalists. The confusion of intellect with sensation, of reason with the association of sensible images, is, I am persuaded, the fundamental speculative vice of the day. Before concluding this reply there are a few more objections which Mr. Wright does me the honour to make, that must be noticed one after the other.

I am represented as passing an unfair judgment, because I say that though feeling myself incompetent to advance an opinion as to the correctness of Sir William Thomson's astronomical calculations, I yet assert that the fact that they have not been refuted pleads strongly in their favour, when we consider how much they tell against the theory of Mr. Darwin.' For my part I am unable to see how an incompetence for judging astronomical calculations necessarily carries with it an incompetence for judging of the probability of their truth, resulting from their non-refutation by those whose interest would lead them to refute, and who possess the knowledge and ability to enable them ably to handle the requisite questions and calculations.

Again, Mr. Wright does not see how, with such uncertain, “fortuitous, occasional, and intermitting" elements' I 'could have succeeded in making any calculation at all.' I venture to think, however, that an inability to determine the positive time required for the occurrence of certain phenomena in no way involves an inability to fix a minimum period for their development.

Again, in criticising the use of the words 'contrivance' and 'purpose,' Mr. Wright tells us, ' The relations of a machine to its uses may be considered in good sound English as contrivances and purposes, without thinking of what the inventor intended. Now I deny that we can so speak without implicit reference of the kind, though we need not make direct or explicit reference. We are also told that 'the proper meaning of the word "intention" is concentration, and the not intending of something else.' I should be glad of some reference to authorities as regards this assertion. As a fact the word is used in the sense I have assigned to it. Finally Mr. Wright gives us the application of these new definitions. He affirms that Mr. Darwin is not irrational in asking whether the Creator intentionally ordered' certain phenomena, because we cannot reasonably make use of the term 'intention' in reference to the Creator at all.

It is evident, however, that in Mr. Darwin's opinion we can speak of Divine intention in some things, otherwise he would not ask whether we could do so or not even in these. It would be quite superfluous for any one who believed we could do so in no case to ask the question with regard to certain special cases. The criticism merely amounts to saying that both Mr. Darwin and I, instead of using the word 'intention,' should employ some other, possibly 'advertence.' This leaves the substance of my remarks and my criticism of Mr. Darwin quite unimpaired and in full force.

Thus I venture to urge, in opposition to my critic, that

far from misinterpreting Mr. Darwin, I have been enabled to bring out more clearly what are his exact position and teaching now, by defining more exactly what was his original theory of the origin of species.

Also, that though by no means necessarily involving irreligious or anti-teleological conceptions, there is no slight danger of the strengthening of these errors by a certain use of the Darwinian theory.

My little book was directed to two objects,—one to show that Natural Selection is not the origin of species; the other that Evolution is perfectly compatible with the strictest Christian orthodoxy: and, in spite of my esteem for Mr. Chauncey Wright, and a careful and respectful consideration of all that he has urged, I cannot at present see my way to retracting or even modifying, in deference to his criticism, one single passage of my work on Specific Genesis.

HERBERT SPENCER.

1. Principles of Psychology. By HERBERT SPENCER. London, 1872. 2. First Principles. By HERBERT SPENCER. London, 1867. 3. Essays. By HERBERT SPENCER. London, 1868.

MR.

[R. HERBERT SPENCER has been termed by Mr. Darwin our great philosopher'; and there is no doubt that he is regarded by a select body of admiring disciples as the paramount authority on all philosophical questions. Nor are we disposed to question his intellectual achievements. Possessing as he does an acquaintance with almost all branches of physical science, together with a singular quickness in the detection of analogies, and much analytic power, he has the good fortune to be also able to manifest his wealth of thought by a corresponding richness of diction, his style being clear and forcible, abounding in picturesque illustrations, aptly chosen for the purposes they are intended to subserve, and often possessing even a poetical beauty. Vigorous and well-exercised natural faculties have enabled him to gather up within his delicate yet nervous grasp, not only the multitudinous threads spun by the various discoverers in physical science, but also those yet more subtle fibres which our recent best-known psychologists have drawn forth; weaving the whole, with dexterous skill, into an intellectual fabric of great delicacy and apparent cohesion.

Mr. Spencer has indeed so co-ordinated, supplemented,