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brought about that phenomenon. In point of fact, the 
arguments for the fact of Organic Evolution are perfectly 
independent of any particular method by which it was 
brought about. Now, it so happens that Mr. Robert 
Chambers, in his Vestiges of the Natural History of 
Creation, stated these arguments in language almost 
identical with those employed by Mr. Romanes in his 
Evidences of Organic Evolution—a work which professed 
to give a synopsis of Darwinism, but in which no proofs 
of Natural Selection are adduced. These arguments 
themselves, being identical in idea and very similar in 
phraseology, were as valid in 1844 as they were in 1882. 
If they were not accepted in 1844, the fault is not in the 
arguments, but in the receptivity of the minds to which 
they were addressed. And yet the book was read with 
interest by many cultured people. Why, then, were these 
arguments for Organic Evolution not accepted ? The 
reason, we are told, was because no adequate explanation 
was offered as to the processes by which this Organic Evo 
lution had come about. The reason seems to me to have 
been because the doctrine of the fixity of species died hard ; 
because it was still accepted by the overwhelming majority 
of scientific men ; because they overlooked the arguments 
for Organic Evolution, or judged them only by argu 
ments adduced for certain factors of Organic Evolution. 
Meanwhile, the theory of Natural Selection came upon 
the scene and triumphed, for the reasons already assigned. 
But in all this, a great injustice was done to those who 
promulgated the arguments for Organic Evolution as a 
fact of the natural world ; for if those arguments are 
logically sound, they ought to have been accepted, even 
if the actual factors could not be discovered. I know 
that the Eiffel Tower at Blackpool has been gradually 
produced, and that it did not come down from heaven