It would be inappropriate, even if it were possible, to discuss
the difficulties and unresolved problems which have hitherto met
the evolutionist, and which will probably continue to puzzle him
for generations to come, in the course of this brief history of
the reception of Mr. Darwin's great work. But there are two or
three objections of a more general character, based, or supposed
to be based, upon philosophical and theological foundations,
which were loudly expressed in the early days of the Darwinian
controversy, and which, though they have been answered over and
over again, crop up now and then to the present day.

The most singular of these, perhaps immortal, fallacies, which
live on, Tithonus-like, when sense and force have long deserted
them, is that which charges Mr. Darwin with having attempted to
reinstate the old pagan goddess, Chance. It is said that he
supposes variations to come about "by chance," and that the
fittest survive the "chances" of the struggle for existence, and
thus "chance" is substituted for providential design.

It is not a little wonderful that such an accusation as this
should be brought against a writer who has, over and over again,
warned his readers that when he uses the word "spontaneous," he
merely means that he is ignorant of the cause of that which is so
termed; and whose whole theory crumbles to pieces if the
uniformity and regularity of natural causation for illimitable
past ages is denied. But probably the best answer to those who
talk of Darwinism meaning the reign of "chance," is to ask them
what they themselves understand by "chance"? Do they believe
that anything in this universe happens without reason or without
a cause? Do they really conceive that any event has no cause,