d difficulties
which have hitherto been advanced against the theory of natural
selection.

Very early in the day Owen hurled the weight of his authority against
the new theory, and this with a strength of onslaught which was only
equalled by its want of judgment. Indeed, it is painfully apparent that
he failed to apprehend the fundamental principles of the Darwinian
theory. For he says:--

Natural Selection is an explanation of the process [of
transmutation] of the same kind and value as that which has been
proffered of the mystery of "secretion." For example, a particular
mass of matter in a living animal takes certain elements out of the
blood, and rejects them as "bile." Attributes were given to the
liver which can only be predicated of the whole animal; the
"appetency" of the liver, it was said, was for the elements of
bile, and "biliosity," or the "hepatic sensation," guided the gland
to their secretion. Such figurative language, I need not say,
explains absolutely nothing of the nature of bilification[41].

[41] _Anatomy of Vertebrates_, vol. iii. p. 794.

Assuredly, it was needless for Owen to say that figurative language of
this kind explains nothing; but it was little less than puerile in him
to see no more in the theory of natural selection than such a mere
figure of speech. To say that the liver selects the elements of bile, or
that nature selects specific types, may both be equally unmeaning
re-statements of facts; but when it is explained that the term natural
selection, unlike that of "hepatic sensation," is used as a shorthand
expression for a whole group of well-known natural causes--struggle,
variation, survival, heredity,--then it becomes evidence of an almost
childish want of thought to affirm that the expression is figurative and
nothing more. The doctrine of natural selection may be a huge mistake;
but, if so, this is not because it consists of any unmeaning metaphor:
it can only be because the combination of natural causes which it
suggests is not of the same adequacy in fact as it is taken to be in
theory.

Owen further objected that the struggle for existence could only act as
a cause of the extinction of species, not of their origination--a view
of the case which again shows on his part a complete failure to grasp
the conception of Darwinism. Acting alone, the struggle for existence
could only cause extermination; but acting together wi