easy enough, a rational creator produced a rational world. The philosophical explanation declines a creator, but finds it in consequence extremely difficult to frame any expression for what has caused order and purpose in nature. The foundation of all order in nature consists in what we call genera, and sub-genera (often called species), and the first question which philosophers have tried to answer has always been, whence the origin of species, whence those Broad Lines of demarcation which keep individuals of one genus or species separate from those of another, if only by their inability to maintain themselves or to produce offspring except within the barriers of their own kind? Even if we imagined that in earlier periods different genera were not so completely separated as they are now, and that even fishes, reptiles, mammals, and birds, which can no longer beget offspring with one another, may nevertheless have descended from common parents, and in the end from one common seed, the question would still remain the same, How did these genera branch off from one common stem, and how did they afterwards maintain themselves for ever as separate from each other? We can imagine with some effort a tree one branch of which should bear plums, another apples, another pears. But the fact would remain nevertheless that, as soon as they are ripe, plums would produce plum-seed, and plum-seed would grow into plum-trees; apples would produce apple-seed, and apple-seed would grow into appletrees; pears would produce pear-seed, and pear-seed would grow into pear-trees.

How is this to be explained?

Darwin, like Empedokles, imagined that the 'Sur

vival of the Fittest,' Natural Selection,' Influence of Environment,' and some other such names or powers would explain all that has to be explained; but if we examine every one of these terms more closely, we shall find indeed that they explain a great deal, but at the same time that they presuppose a great deal. We are not to speak of a rational creator, nor even of some primordial Nous or reason or will. But what does Natural Selection' mean? If we divest it of its metaphorical disguise, we find that Selection presupposes distinction and judgment, and therefore, unless all is chance, Natural Selection presupposes some kind of reason. 'Survival of the Fittest' again is sheer tautology, and simply returns us our question in the shape of an answer. We ask, Who is fit to survive? and we are answered, He who is very fit or the fittest. Lastly, if we ask whether that fitness comes from within or from without, we are referred to the Influence of Environment,' as if nature was not a whole, and the surroundings or circumstances in which each individual moves as much a part of nature and nature's plan as each individual, each and each species. genus,

out Genera.

I prefer to look upon those Broad Lines which Nature im- distinguish genus from genus or kind possible with- from kind as part and parcel of the whole plan of nature. I am quite aware of the immense advantages which the theory of a rational creator or even of a great primeval ancestor, some kind of Hiranyagarbha, possesses over all other theories, nor am I frightened by the many anthropomorphic disguises which it is apt to assume. But I consider it wisest to refrain from expressing any opinion on the problem of the begin

ning of all things. In this respect I follow the early Buddhists, who forbad all speculations on that point as irreverent, if not irrational. However, whatever opinion different people may feel inclined to adopt, one fact is certain that, as soon as we know anything of nature, we find that genera and sub-genera exist, that nature and genera are in fact inseparable. Whatever variability and pliancy we may ascribe to creatures belonging to the unknown ages of our globe, as soon as we know anything of that globe, and its inhabitants, we find them divided into plants and animals, and both again into a number of classes and varieties. Variation, which is but another name for what constitutes the essence of every individual, may account for varieties, but that process cannot be carried on ad infinitum, but only ad finitum, that is to say, varieties cannot transcend the limits of the genus without ceasing to be what they are, or what they are meant to be, without losing, so to say, their raison d'être.

I know it is this meant to be' which rouses at once the ire and suspicion of certain philosophers. As soon as they hear such words as 'meant to be,' or 'premeditated,' they smell the First Chapter of Genesis, they are frightened by the sight of the great Architect who made the world as a man makes a machine.

Mythological

inevitable.

Is it really necessary to say again and again what the Buddhists have said so often and well, that the art of creation is perfectly Language inconceivable to any human understanding, and that if we speak of it at all, we can only do so anthropomorphically or mythologically? But because we know this, and because we surrender that mythological language to those who were or who are

incapable of any other, does it follow that we must surrender at the same time all that was meant by it? The theory of a personal creator was meant to exclude the idea of mere chance, and it is the same idea which I wish to exclude when I speak of the Broad Lines of nature as meant or premeditated. There is no part of nature without these lines, nay, without them nature would cease to be nature: it would be chaos. Minerals, from the oldest to the newest, crystallise, but once crystallised, they cease to develop. Elements do not combine indifferently. If they did, there would be no fixed kinds of bodies. Salts and stones and ores would approach to and graduate into each other by insensible degrees, and all would be confusion and indefiniteness1. The colours of the rainbow, however close to each other, can be distinguished; the notes of the musical scale do not produce harmony unless they are kept distinct by the number of their vibrations. Water boils and freezes under well-defined conditions. There is order and beauty in the firmament, in the movements of the stars, in the revolutions of the earth, in the returns of the seasons, in the succession of day and night. All this together inspires me with a trust or faith-I shall not call it more that all around us has been ordered, or is meant and premeditated. And if with this faith, the best faith in the world, we look upon all living things, whether plants or animals, we cannot bring ourselves to believe that all is here casual and chaotic, that a plant was not meant to be a plant, but may transgress its limits and become an animal; that

1

See Whewell, as quoted by Mill, Logic, ii. 5. 6.

Lines of

Nature.

fishes, reptiles, mammals, and birds are mere lusus naturae, that may come and go; and that though at present plants and animals cannot produce offspring together, it is quite conceivable that they may have done so in prehistoric times and may do so again. It may be said that these Broad Lines of which I have been speaking are purely subjec- The Broad tive, that we, not nature, distinguish yellow from green, that we, not nature, distinguish high from low notes. This is true in one sense, namely in so far as the whole of nature exists for us only as it is conceived by us. But, on the other hand, we can only conceive what is conceivable and can distinguish only what is distinguishable, and when we apply to our conception of genera that old test of a descent from common parents, it must become clear that this generic concept of things is not entirely subjective, though, like all our knowledge, it rests on subjective perception and observation.

The Smaller

Lines of

Nature.

I follow Darwin with all my heart when he shows how many varieties have without any necessity been raised to the rank of species or genera; I admire his great sagacity in observing the influence which artificial selection, and likewise what he calls natural selection, can exercise in producing variation and making it more or less permanent. Even if he, or rather some of his followers, should maintain that the actual genera which we see in nature, from the days before or immediately after the creation, have all proceeded from one primordial Moneres, I can conceive such a theory, provided that we admit a power of differentiation in that primordial germ itself. But I confess I admire most what has