skill to repeat an operation, which according to the hypothesis it has once before performed. It cannot so determine the polarity of the molecules with which it is supplied by the arteries as to constrain them to group themselves into a new layer, instead of merely repairing an old one. A crab or a lobster, or a polype's molecules are clever enough for this, a man's not. Without pressing these objections, but on the contrary, conceding for the nonce and for argument's sake, to molecular polarity, to immanent properties, to Epigenetic evolution, all the efficacy claimed for them, I limit myself to inquiring what causes the various tendencies and directions which these imply. Tendency pre-supposes impulse; direction control. What is it that here imparts the impulse and exercises the control? Whatever else it be, it must, for reasons stated at length on a previous page, be something possessing at least enough of intelligence to exercise volition, and which at least intends that the movements which it originates shall take place, whether it further intends or not the ends which eventually result from the movements. To myself it seems barely conceivable that even the least marvellous of these ends should have been undesigned. Take, for instance, half a dozen _infusoria_ of some exceedingly low type, all individually single cells or sacs of matter perfectly transparent and destitute of any approach to structure that can be detected with a magnifying power of five thousand diameters. Observe how, after feeding for a while, and increasing proportionately in size, one will divide itself in half, each half becoming a separate and complete animalcule, another line itself internally and clothe itself externally with clustered cells, which, by a series of differentiations, traceable through a number of animalcular varieties, eventually exhibit the outlines of respiratory and circulatory systems. To me, I repeat, it seems all but inconceivable, and altogether incredible, that the intelligence which willed these cellular divisions, multiplications, and differentiations to take place, did not foresee what would be their results, and did not will them for the sake of those results. And if I do not deem it still more incredible that there should be _natural_ selection separating the fittest for survival by accumulating upon them slight advantages which qualify them to survive, without there being at the same time a _nature_, or other exalted intelligence, however designated, which selects, and which accumulates advantages upon the objects of its selection, _in order_ that they may survive, it is only because I consider the extremest limits of credibility to have been already passed. But I forget. On reflection I perceive that I am doing scant justice to the elasticity of philosophic belief. How far this is capable of stretching on occasion, let one or two notable Darwinian specimens show.