not be found
rather to encumber than to support the theory it was intended to subserve.
However, the work in question treats only of domestic animals, and probably
the next instalment will address itself more vigorously and directly to the
difficulties which seem to us yet to bar the way to a complete acceptance
of the doctrine.

If the theory of Natural Selection can be shown to be quite insufficient to
explain any considerable number of important phenomena connected with the
origin of species, that theory, as _the_ explanation, must be considered as
provisionally discredited.

If other causes than Natural (including sexual) Selection can be proved to
have acted--if variation can in any cases be proved to be subject to
certain determinations in special directions by other means than Natural
Selection, it then becomes probable _a priori_ that it is so in others, and
that Natural Selection depends upon, and only supplements, such means, {20}
which conception is opposed to the pure Darwinian position.

Now it is certain, _a priori_, that variation is obedient to some law and
therefore that "Natural Selection" itself must be capable of being subsumed
into some higher law; and it is evident, I believe, _a posteriori_, that
Natural Selection is, at the very least, aided and supplemented by some
other agency.

Admitting, then, organic and other evolution, and that new forms of animals
and plants (new species, genera, &c.) have from time to time been evolved
from preceding animals and plants, it follows, if the views here advocated
are true, that this evolution has not taken place by the action of "Natural
Selection" _alone_, but through it (amongst other influences) aided by the
concurrent action of some other natural law or laws, at present
undiscovered; and probably that the genesis of species takes place partly,
perhaps mainly, through laws which may be most conveniently spoken of as
special powers and tendencies existing in each organism; and partly through
influences exerted on each by surrounding conditions and agencies organic
and inorganic, terrestrial and cosmical, among which the "survival of the
fittest" plays a certain but subordinate part.

The theory of "Natural Selection" may (though it need not) be taken in such
a way as to lead men to regard the present organic world as formed, so to
speak, _accidentally_, beautiful and wonderful as is confessedly the
hap-hazard result. The same may perhaps be said with r