eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the heat of popular prejudice, willing to accept any conclusion that science had to offer, provided it was duly backed by fact and argument, and who entirely mistook Mr. Darwin's views. In fact, the work needed an expounder; and it found one in Mr. Huxley. I know nothing more admirable in the way of scientific exposition than those early articles of his on the origin of species. He swept the curve of discussion through the really significant points of the subject, enriched his exposition with profound original remarks and reflections, often summing up in a single pithy sentence an argument which a less compact mind would have spread over pages." 1

Now the pithy sentence with which we are here concerned is this:

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties, blind faith the one unpardonable sin. The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification." 2

And with this Professor Tyndall agrees: "Without verification a theoretic conception is

1 "Address," ut sup., p. 38.

2 "Lay Sermons." Macmillan, 1871, p. 18.

a mere figment of the intellect."

""

Torricelli,

Pascal, and Newton were distinguished by their welding of rigid logic to verifying fact." "If scientific men were not accustomed to demand verification their science, instead of being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be a house of clay." "Newton's action in this matter is the normal action of the scientific

mind." 1 "There is no genius so gifted as not

to need control and verification." 2

What then becomes of "the Abraham of scientific men"? In the "Origin of Species Mr. Darwin tells us repeatedly, that it would be "fatal" to his theory if it should be found that there were characters or structures which could not be accounted for by numerous, successive, slight modifications"; and this candid admission is supplemented in the "Descent of Man," by another equally candid :—

1 "Fragments of Science." Longmans, 1871, pp. 59, 62.

2 Ibid., p. 111.

3 See especially, (First Edition,) p. 189, where, after attempting to explain the origin of the eye, he says, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

4 Murray, 1871, vol. ii. p. 387.

"No doubt man, as well as every other animal, presents structures which, as far as we can judge with our little knowledge, are not now of any service to him, nor have been so during any former period of his existence, either in relation to his general condition of life, or of one sex to the other. Such structures cannot be accounted for by any form of selection, or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts."

Here, then, we have the fullest recognition of the validity of objections which are absolutely fatal to his whole doctrine. But with this recognition, what becomes of "verification"?

Mr. Darwin's doctrine, however, constitutes a very small part of that "theoretic conception which, under the name of Evolution, is now declared by Professor Huxley to be no longer "a matter of speculation and argument," but on the contrary, has "become a matter of fact and history." "The history of Evolution," he adds, "as a matter of fact, is now distinctly traceable. We know it has happened, and what remains is the subordinate question of how it happened." 1

It is to be observed, however, that the "Evo

1 "Address at Buffalo," August 25th. Reported in The Times of Sept. 14, 1876.

lution" of which Mr. Huxley makes this affirmation, is something very different from the indefinite nondescript which in popular writings is often designated by the same term. Not unfrequently " evolution" means simply progress or advancement. It is even used when nothing more than growth is intended. It is employed as if it were identical with "natural selection," or "transmutation," or any other mode of "development." But with Mr. Huxley, evolution is something more than the emergence of the chick from the egg, or the oak from the acorn, or the frog from the tadpole. It is not a mere increase of bulk, nor is it restricted to any particular process, nor has it any special aim. It is a change from simplicity to complexity; from incoherence and indefiniteness to their opposites.

Thus, for instance, the nebular hypothesis supposes the evolution of the planetary bodies from incoherent atoms, which come not merely into mutual relation, but which also in that process become grouped together in such a way that the nascent mass becomes complex, consists of parts. Again: the homogeneous protoplasm in which all organized beings commence, shows, when under favourable conditions, first the elements of tissues. These elements are

afterwards grouped into tissues, and the tissues are associated into organs. The "indifferent matter is differentiated in various degrees, and the animal and vegetable series show many grades of difference.

Thus the Protamoba never reaches to the formation of tissues; the Hydra has tissues, but few organs; and, ascending in the series, the sharks, complex as is their organization, exhibit a less thorough differentiation of their hard parts, which are chiefly cartilaginous, than do mammals, in which cartilage is subordinate to bone. But the evolution of the more complex from the more simple organisms does not necessarily form a linear series; probably it never does so. Nor does evolution imply change of matter as well as of the relations of its parts; fresh matter is not essential to it, since the phenomena which it includes are, as matter of fact, rearrangements of that which was already existing.

Such are the principal facts regarding evolution; and from these it is evident that the phenomena themselves are absolutely independent of any and of every theory as to their cause. Thus understood and thus limited, Evolution,-i.e., the phenomenal sequence, not the ideal hypothesis-is a law the operation