drifting and colliding and running on the rocks, in the hope that if
they continue to do their worst they will get Naturally Selected for
survival without the trouble of thinking about it.


THE HOMEOPATHIC REACTION AGAINST DARWINISM

When, like the Russians, our Nihilists have it urgently borne in on
them, by the brute force of rising wages that never overtake rising
prices, that they are being Naturally Selected for destruction, they
will perhaps remember that 'Dont Care came to a bad end,' and begin to
look round for a religion. And the whole purpose of this book is to
shew them where to look. For, throughout all the godless welter of the
infidel half-century, Darwinism has been acting not only directly but
homeopathically, its poison rallying our vital forces not only to resist
it and cast it out, but to achieve a new Reformation and put a credible
and healthy religion in its place. Samuel Butler was the pioneer of the
reaction as far as the casting out was concerned; but the issue was
confused by the physiologists, who were divided on the question into
Mechanists and Vitalists. The Mechanists said that life is nothing but
physical and chemical action; that they have demonstrated this in many
cases of so-called vital phenomena; and that there is no reason to doubt
that with improved methods they will presently be able to demonstrate it
in all of them. The Vitalists said that a dead body and a live one are
physically and chemically identical, and that the difference can be
accounted for only by the existence of a Vital Force. This seems simple;
but the Anti-Mechanists objected to be called Vitalists (obviously the
right name for them) on two contradictory grounds. First, that vitality
is scientifically inadmissible, because it cannot be isolated and
experimented with in the laboratory. Second, that force, being by