of four thousand years, we as children return again to the lessons of the youth of mankind. Will it be for the weal or woe of humanity if the universal military service, now taking place all over the continent of Europe be adopted? This no human mind can foresee.

But for England, is it for us to join in the universal dance of death and destruction? No, it cannot be, it need not be. Providence has defined our frontiers; and if there is one nation which more than another truly learns the lessons of humanity and civilisation, is it not dear old England? Thanks to heaven, we are not an enervated race; we are most manly; we love the fen, love the field, and love the ocean; our brawny arms and sinewy limbs show no symptoms of decay; and the ravings about a Battle of Dorking are like those of a delirious fever patient, who is ashamed when convalescent of the stupidity of his diseased utterances.

Did not Shakespeare say three hundred years ago, and may we not apply the same words to-day

"Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true."

ON THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.

BY ALBERT J. MOTT.

1. The strength and weakness of science must both be looked for in its axioms. Our inferences rest on our assumptions. We build on what we take for granted. And since the laying of foundations is a difficult and uninviting task, for we do not work by choice or easily where there is little light and less beauty, the most important questions in any branch of knowledge often receive the least attention. Theories agreeing with our experience are accepted as general truths, and propositions which support our theories are received as axioms, without that careful and discrimi'nating inquiry which is far more important here than in any subsequent reasonings.

And the power of axioms over our inferences is even greater than it appears to be, for besides the direct and necessary determination of consequences immediately flowing from them, they have an indirect but not less weighty influence on the judgments we form in other matters. When in the pursuit of science all the known facts relating to a given subject are collected together, it happens almost invariably that they admit of several explanations. Several theories may be propounded, each of which may be supported by the facts themselves, if nothing else is taken into consideration; and when we choose one of these as the true theory and reject the rest, it is because we already take for granted something which determines the choice and the rejection.

2. In those inquiries concerning the nature of living forms which have of late become so interesting, the immense

assemblage of facts, brought together by Mr. Darwin and others, has become the ground of a special inference. An inquiry, which at first referred only to the origin of species, soon extended, not only from species to genera, but from these to the greater divisions of the living world, and it now deals with the question of the origin of life itself, or at least of its chief manifestations. As usual, the facts may be Several theories will account

interpreted in several ways.

for them, each giving a full and rational explanation of the whole, provided that a certain something is first taken for granted. What is this something in the case of the Darwinian doctrine? What are the special assumptions by which the choice of this rather than of any other explanation is forced upon the minds of its supporters? Are they truths established beyond all reasonable doubt, so that we may properly build upon them as axioms? Any discussion to be decisive must be fundamental. The whole weight of an' argument is borne by the first thing taken for granted in it; and while there is any doubt about the strength of this original link, it is waste of time to test the others.

3. Now the assumption which really underlies Mr. Darwin's theory and is the true determining element in his conclusions, is one which he himself does not define, which is accepted with equal indistinctness of outline by most of his followers, but which is known generally as the doctrine of evolution. It is involved in the phrase, "The survival of the Fittest," which sums up Mr. Darwin's theory; for "fittest" does not here mean largest, or strongest, or most numerous, or most highly coloured, or anything which admits of equally positive definition. It is a relative phrase, and it assumes the existence of an order in nature, and of a destructive power associated with that order towards everything by which it is opposed.

It means, in the first instance, that the preservation of

ON THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.

organic life is dependent upon conditions; and that, in consequence of this, some of its forms will be preserved in preference to others. It is Mr. Darwin's great merit that he perceived this truth together with the fact that all organic forms are naturally subject to some variation; and that he drew the necessary inference, which is that there must be a constant succession of changes in the forms actually preserved from age to age.

This is no longer matter of dispute. It is when we inquire into the nature of the law by which these changes are governed, a step which was quickly taken, and which now absorbs all the real interest connected with the Darwinian doctrines,-that questions of vital consequence to philosophy arise.

4. It is assumed that the conditions on which the preservation of organic life depends, including of course the natural tendency to change of form, are the result of permanent laws on which the whole process hinges; that there is a natural fitness for preservation, and that changes take place in a necessary order; not that fitness is mere accident, or that one kind of change is as likely as any other. It is never supposed that sometimes jelly-fish are the descendants of men, and sometimes men of jelly-fish, but the supposed order of change is expressed by such words as progress or development. But these words represent popular ideas, not scientific definitions, and in subjects of this kind such ideas are invariably wanting in precision. The greatest difficulties arise from the employment of these terms without an exact conception of their value. Why should a change from reptiles to birds be called development, but from birds to reptiles, retrogression? And why should natural selection lead from the lower to the higher, rather than from the higher to the lower? By "higher By "higher" we do not mean simply that which will survive; but what then is our meaning?

Modern