Note 270 — Chapter IX · ON THE BASIS OF ETHICS.

The empirical interpretation of evolution is that adopted by the majority of evolutionists, but is not essential to the truth of the theory. A protest against it is entered by Mr Wallace, though in the somewhat crude form of postulating supernatural interference for the production of certain classes of phenomena (cf. Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, p. 359), at the same time that his conception of nature does not seem to differ otherwise from that of Häckel.