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If, then, what I have said can be sustained, Mr. Darwin 
challenged the scientific world to find a phenomenon 
which could not possibly exist, and Mr. Romanes considers 
it one of the strongest arguments to assert that this 
challenge has never been answered and that this phe 
nomenon has not been found. Mr. Romanes demands of 
the advocates of the theory of beneficent design that this 
impossible phenomenon should have taken place ; and in 
addition first denies and then affirms that mutual co 
operation, followed by mutual advantage, which is all that 
the theory of beneficent design could reasonably demand. 
And not content with this, he quotes the conclusion of an 
article on “ Instinct,” which appeared before the publica 
tion of The Origin of Species, to show the change which 
Natural Selection has made in the universal opinion which 
prevailed previously, when in point of fact it had long ago 
been taught that there was a marvellous correlation be 
tween the instincts and the organisms and outward condi 
tions of animals ; and that it was absurd to suppose that 
the great globe and all its organic contents had been made 
solely for the benefit and advantage of man. Natural Selec 
tion could not have produced this total change of front, 
because no such total change of opinion took place at the 
crisis named. We should often be mistaken in the in 
telligence of an epoch or crisis in history if we were to 
judge it by the narrow and prejudiced views which even a 
writer in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica may 
happen to express, for apparently it is possible for such an 
author to write on such a subject as a partisan of a par 
ticular view, rather than as a compiler of existing opinions. 
And even if all this had taken place, just as Mr. Romanes 
supposes, proof would still be required to show that this 
change of opinion had taken place as the result of the 
propagation of the special doctrines of Natural Selection ; 
I