been called Darwin's inconsistency, but what seems to me more than anything else to prove his scientific conscientiousness, his admitting, not one, but a number of progenitors for the great genera of

nature.

differs from

Now that Darwin is no longer among us, it becomes How Darwin all the more incumbent on us to distinguish carefully between what he really taught, and what has been taught under his name by some of his followers.

the Darwinian.

First of all, then, Darwin remained to the end an upholder of the principle of Polygony, as opposed to Monogony. According to him there was not in the beginning one primeval cell which in time developed into every living thing, but four or five progenitors for the animal, and an equal or lesser number for the vegetable kingdom'. Analogy,' he continues, 'would lead us one step further, namely, to a belief that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide.' Nevertheless, all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals, or that the poison secreted by the gad-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose and the oaktree. Therefore I should infer from analogy that

Origin of Species, first edition, p. 484. Agassiz maintained that in the animal kingdom the possibilities of economical construction are exhausted in the four grand divisions—the Radiate, the Moluscan, the Articulate, and the Vertebrate. See Methods of Study in Natural History, p. 36.

probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.'

This is all very carefully worded, yet Darwin was not satisfied, and in later editions he has considerably modified this very paragraph. The later omission (sixth edition, p. 423) of the words 'into which life was first breathed' has been much remarked upon, as indicating on Darwin's part a surrender of a belief in some extra-natural powers. But if Darwin had really meant to surrender that belief, he would never have written the following words': 'I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one. . . . A celebrated author and divine has written to me that he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that He organised a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'

On this point I should feel inclined to go much further than Darwin. It seems to me that the question is not whether one conception of the Deity is more noble than another (how can even a celebrated author and divine decide that?), but simply whether in our conception of creation or development we are forced to admit any extra-natural influence or not. And if I interpret Darwin's words rightly, he seems to me one of those who admit, nay, who postulate the existence of some such extranatural cause, however much he may shrink from

asserting anything regarding the mode of operation. Darwin's books require to be read carefully, and from edition to edition. Let us look at the last words of his great work on the 'Origin of Species,' which no one would suppose to have been written at random. 'There is a grandeur,' he writes, 'in this view of life with its several powers, having been originally breathed [by the Creator] into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.'

In this passage the words 'by the Creator' were absent in the first edition, and were added in the later editions. Surely they were added with a purpose. And what could have been this purpose except to define his position as one of those who, however far their researches and speculations may lead them, feel and recognise that there is always a Beyond, whatever name we call it, a something that, even if we call it by no name, is yet for ever present and irresistible.

Why do so many who express the highest admiration for Darwin, ignore this and similar passages? How, for instance, can Haeckel call himself a Darwinian and yet maintain, as he does, that in the present state of physiological language, the idea of a Creator, a Maker, a Life-giver has become entirely unscientific; that the admission of one primordial form is sufficient, and that the first primordial form was a Moneres, produced by self-generation?

It is not my object here to pronounce any opinion on the philosophical value of these different views of the Universe. I am not frightened by Haeckel's

removes.

views, for the same views have been defended from the very beginning of philosophic thought by arguments perhaps more powerful than any adduced by recent philosophers. I am quite willing to admit that the idea of a creator, even in its least mythological form, causes far more difficulties than it But what I care for is historical accuracy, and I cannot bear the misleading statements according to which two systems of thought, so diametrically opposed on the most momentous question as Darwin's and Haeckel's, are allowed to pass under the name of Darwinism1. If Darwin, later in life, said, 'I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older), but not always, an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind,' who, as he grows older and older, would not heartily join in these words? Surely the more we learn what knowledge really means, the more we feel that agnosticism, in the true sense of the word, is the only possible, the only reverent, and I may add, the only Christian position, which the human mind can occupy before the Unknown and the Unknowable.

And here I may add at once that the theory of the development of all living organic Transition beings from inorganic matter is likewise from inorganic to organic. Darwinian rather than Darwin's. Νο doubt a discovery which would enable us to understand the origin of life, the change of inorganic into organic matter, would form the strongest foundation of the theory of development, and no one would have welcomed it more readily than Darwin, if he could have conceived it as possible

1

6

See, however, P. F. Underwood, in the Index,' Aug. 12, 1886.

in the present state of our knowledge. But while Darwin abstained, those who call themselves Darwinian have shown what they themselves seem to consider far greater scientific courage. When Dr. Martineau ventured to point out the existence of a chasm between the living and not-living as a fatal difficulty in the way of the general doctrine of evolution, he was severely taken to task by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Now I admit that the word 'fatal' might have been omitted, at least if it was meant to convey the meaning of irremovable. Whether that difficulty is irremovable or not, none of us knows. But Mr. Herbert Spencer would not be satisfied with this. 'Here again,' he exclaims, our ignorance is employed to play the part of knowledge. The fact that we do not know distinctly how an alleged transition has taken place, is transformed into the fact that no transition has taken place.' Can this be called argument? Why allege a transition? It is not in alleging such a transition that we raise our ignorance to the rank of knowledge? And if we do not know distinctly how even such a merely alleged transition has taken place, to say that it is possible means really nothing, unless we mean by possible no more than what is vaguely conceivable.

But what follows in Mr. H. Spencer's reply to Dr. Martineau is even worse. 'Merely noting this,' he continues, 'I go on to remark that scientific discovery is day by day narrowing the chasm (between the nonliving and the living). Not many years since it was held as certain that chemical compounds distinguished as organic could not be formed artificially. Chemists have discovered the art of building them up from the simpler to the more complex, and do not doubt that