Thus when Professor Mivart speaks of Evolution as "the continuous
progress of the material universe by the unfolding of latent
potentialities in harmony with a preordained end," the latent
potentialities, the preordained end, the procession of one species from
another, the extension of this law to every difference of time and
place--all are matters of hypothesis or intuition; but by no means of
exterior observation.
The most that observation gives us is the very imperfect suggestion of
the track that such a movement would have left behind it, not unlike the
scraps that boys litter along the road in a paper-chase. Similarly, if
in the case of organic Evolution we deny all latent potentialities and
preordained ends and throw the whole burden on accidental variations and
natural selection; if we regard the whole process as no more intelligent
or designed than that by which water seeks and finds its own level; yet
as in the case of water we must perforce introduce "a gravitating
tendency," so in the case of living organisms a "persisting" or
"struggling tendency," as an hypothesis to give unity to our facts or to
account for their uniformity.
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