inasmuch as he says a difference in degree does not so justify; and we have no hesitation in affirming (with Mr. Darwin) that between the instinctive powers of the coccus and the ant, there is but a difference of degree, and that, therefore, they do belong to the same kingdom; but we contend it is quite otherwise with man. Mr. Darwin doubtless admits that all the wonderful actions of ants are mere modifications of instinct. But if it were not so-if the piercing of tunnels beneath rivers, etc., were evidence of their possession of reason, then, far from agreeing with Mr. Darwin, we should say that ants also are rational animals, and that, while considered from the anatomical standpoint they would be insects, from that of their rationality they would rank together with man in a kingdom apart of rational animals.' Really, however, there is no tittle of evidence that ants possess the reflective, self-conscious, deliberate faculty; while the perfection of their instincts is a most powerful argument against the need of attributing a rudiment of rationality to any brute whatever.

We seem, then, to have Mr. Darwin on our side when we affirm that animals possessed of mental faculties distinct in kind, should be placed in a kingdom apart. And man possesses such a distinction.

Is this, however, all that can be said for the dignity of his position? Is he merely one division of the visible universe co-ordinate with the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms?

It would be so if he were intelligent and no more. If he could observe the facts of his own existence, investigate the co-existences and successions of phenomena, but all the time remain, like the other parts of the visible universe, a mere floating unit in the stream of time, incapable of one act of free self-determination or one voluntary moral aspiration after an ideal of absolute goodness. This, however, is far

from being the case. Man is not merely an intellectual animal, but he is also a free moral agent, and, as such-and with the infinite future such freedom opens out before himdiffers from all the rest of the visible universe by a distinction so profound that none of those which separate other visible beings is comparable with it. The gulf which lies between his being as a whole, and that of the highest brute, marks off vastly more than a mere kingdom of material beings; and man, so considered, differs far more from an elephant or a gorilla than do these from the dust of the earth on which they tread.

A

Thus, then, in our judgment the author of the Descent of Man has utterly failed in the only part of his work which is really important. Mr. Darwin's errors are mainly due to a radically false metaphysical system in which he seems (like so many other physicists) to have become entangled. Without a sound philosophical basis, however, no satisfactory scientific superstructure can ever be reared; and if Mr. Darwin's failure should lead to an increase of philosophic culture on the part of physicists, we may therein find some consolation for the injurious effects which his work is likely to produce on too many of our half-educated classes. We sincerely trust Mr. Darwin may yet live to furnish us with another work, which, while enriching physical science, shall not, with needless opposition, set at naught the first principles of both philosophy and religion.

EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

A REPLY TO PROFESSOR HUXLEY.

ON reading the criticism which Professor Huxley has done

me the honour to make upon a little book (the Genesis of Species) which I ventured to publish in the early part of this year,1 I felt that I was being severely reprimanded by my superior officer; that I might apprehend a sentence of degradation to the ranks, if not actual expulsion from the service. I found myself taxed, if not with positive desertion to an enemy with whom no truce is to be allowed, yet, at least, suspected of treasonable communication with a hostile army, and treacherous dalliance with ministers of Baal. Now, recognising as I do that, in physical science, Professor Huxley has just claims to respect and deference on the part of all scientific men, I also feel that I am under special obligations to him, both many and deep, for knowledge imparted and for ready assistance kindly rendered. No wonder then that the expression of his vehement disapproval is painful to me.

It was not however without surprise that I learned that my one unpardonable sin-the one great offence disqualifying me for being a loyal soldier of science'-was my attempt to show that there is no real antagonism between the Christian religion and evolution!

My Genesis of Species was written with two main objects:

My first object was to show that the Darwinian theory is

1 i.e. in 1870.

untenable, and that natural selection is not the origin of species. This was and is my conviction purely as a man of science, and I maintain it upon scientific grounds only.

My second object was to demonstrate that nothing even in Mr. Darwin's theory, as then put forth, and à fortiori in evolution generally, was necessarily antagonistic to Christianity.

Professor Huxley ignoring the arguments by which I supported my first point, fastens upon my second; and the gist of his criticism is an endeavour to show that Christianity and science are necessarily and irreconcilably divorced, and that the arguments I have advanced to the contrary are false and misleading.

Before replying to Professor Huxley's observations and misconceptions on this head, I may be excused for saying a few words as to my first point, namely, the scientific reasons which seem to oppose themselves to the reception of the Darwinian theory as originally propounded by its author; and here I claim to be acting, and to have acted, as 'a loyal soldier of science' in stating the scientific facts which have impressed me with certain scientific convictions (on purely scientific grounds), in opposition to Mr. Darwin's views.

Professor Huxley does not so much dispute the truth of my conclusions as deny their distinctness from those at which Mr. Darwin himself has arrived, or indeed originally put forth, asserting that my book is but an iteration of the fundamental principle of Darwinism.'

I shall then shortly endeavour to show more distinctly wherein my view radically differs from that first propounded by Mr. Darwin, and still maintained, or at least not distinctly repudiated by him; though I believe that the admissions he has of late made amount to a virtual, but certainly not to an explicit, abandonment of his theory.

The Professor expresses his doubt as to the existence of

an absolute and pure Darwinian,'-a doubt which is certainly a surprise to me, as I had always understood him as guarding himself carefully against the identification of his own views with those of Mr. Darwin, and as allowing that it was one thing to hold the doctrine of evolution and another to accept the Darwinian hypothesis. In a lecture1 delivered in 1868 at the Royal Institution, he observed: 'I can testify, from personal experience, it is possible to have a complete faith in the general doctrine of evolution, and yet to hesitate in accepting the Nebular, or the Uniformitarian, or the Darwinian hypotheses in all their integrity and fulness.'

It is plain then that up to a recent period Professor Huxley distinguished himself from thoroughgoing disciples of Mr. Darwin; implying by this distinction a recognition of the existence of such disciples, pure Darwinians, like those of whom he now ignores the existence.

The very essence of Mr. Darwin's theory as to the 'origin of species' was, the paramount action of the destructive. powers of nature over any direct tendency to vary in any certain and definite line, whether such direct tendency resulted mainly from internal predisposing or external exciting causes.

The benefit of the individual in the struggle for life was announced as the one determining agent, fixing slight beneficial variations into enduring characters, and the evolution of species by such agency is justly and properly to be termed formation by natural selection.'

That in this I do not misrepresent Mr. Darwin is evident. from his own words. 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.'2 Also: 1 See Proceedings of the Royal Institution, vol. v. p. 279.

2 Origin of Species, p. 208.