underlain by a sustained general principle; but this subject will be
touched upon more fully later on.

The accumulation of accidental variations which owed nothing to mind
either in their inception, or their accumulation, the pitchforking,
in fact, of mind out of the universe, or at any rate its exclusion
from all share worth talking about in the process of organic
development, this was the pill Mr. Darwin had given us to swallow;
but so thickly had he gilded it with descent with modification, that
we did as we were told, swallowed it without a murmur, were lavish
in our expressions of gratitude, and, for some twenty years or so,
through the mouths of our leading biologists, ordered design
peremptorily out of court, if she so much as dared to show herself.
Indeed, we have even given life pensions to some of the most notable
of these biologists, I suppose in order to reward them for having
hoodwinked us so much to our satisfaction.

Happily the old saying, Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque
recurret, still holds true, and the reaction that has been gaining
force for some time will doubtless ere long brush aside the cobwebs
with which those who have a vested interest in Mr. Darwin's
reputation as a philosopher still try to fog our outlook. Professor
Mivart was, as I have said, among the first to awaken us to Mr.
Darwin's denial of design, and to the absurdity involved therein.
He well showed how incredible Mr Darwin's system was found to be, as
soon as it was fully realised, but there he rather left us. He
seemed to say that we must have our descent and our design too, but
he did not show how we were to manage this with rudimentary organs
still staring us in the face. His work rather led up to the clearer
statement of the difficulty than either put it before us in so many