Such are not by any means the only instances in which the Darwinist can appeal to Nature for facts with which his theory well agrees, and which therefore so far furnish a persuasive argument in its favour; but these are perhaps the chief ones, and the best known, and may serve as representative of their class which it is impossible for us to examine in detail. It now remains to enquire how far, from the point of view of Science, with which alone we are concerned, the Darwinian hypothesis can make good its claim to our acceptance. When we proceed accordingly to examine the grounds upon which it rests, it must be confessed that as we do so it becomes increasingly difficult to understand how such a theory has been able to obtain such wide acceptance, especially on the ground that scientific evidence is in its favour. On the very threshold of any such enquiry lies a difficulty the gravity of which seems to be strangely overlooked. Darwinism by its own confession knows nothing of Origins, not even of the Origin of Species itself. There must be life already existing before Natural Selection has anything to select; there must be eyes and honey-cells of some kind, before they can be improved; there must be Species, before one can be transformed into another. Is it not evident, however, that the cause--of whatever kind it may be--which brought any of these into being, must have _something_,--not to say everything,--to do with the capacities and potentialities by which its future history is conditioned? But this supreme and vital factor Mr. Darwin entirely eliminates from his calculation. In his system, the initiating force has no more to do with the subsequent career of its productions, than has the gas which lifts a balloon with the direction in which it travels. It is not, on his theory, as the impulse which, besides raising from earth an arrow or rifle bullet, directs it to a goal, but, on the contrary, an organism once launched on its course is left to be driven hither and thither and twisted into this form and that, as clouds are by the wind. For the variations through which transformations are wrought, Darwin could find no better epithet than "fortuitous," and it is laid down by his staunchest disciples that if such variations be predetermined towards certain results, there is an end of Darwinism. It is not easy to understand how any theory can be deemed satisfactory which thus ignores the initial force, of whose existence and potency we have far clearer evidence than of any other.