He does not say "few will," but "few can" doubt, as though
it were only the enlightened who would have the power of doing so.
Certainly "nature"--for that is what "natural selection" comes to--is
rather an important factor in the operation, but we do not gain much by
being told so. If however, Professor Huxley neither believes in the
origin of species, through sense of need on the part of animals
themselves, nor yet in "natural selection," we should be glad to know
what he does believe in.
The battle is one of greater importance than appears at first sight. It
is a battle between teleology and non-teleology, between the
purposiveness and the non-purposiveness of the organs in animal and
vegetable bodies. According to Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Paley,
organs are purposive; according to Mr. Darwin and his followers, they are
not purposive. But the main arguments against the system of Dr. Erasmus
Darwin are arguments which, so far as they have any weight, tell against
evolution generally. Now that these have been disposed of, and the
prejudice against evolution has been overcome, it will be seen that there
is nothing to be said against the system of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck
which does not tell with far greater force against that of Mr. Charles
Darwin and Mr. Wallace.
REMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS.
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