Note 178 — Front matter (continued 3)

As to the term "Chance" which he frequently used, Mr. Darwin wrote in one place (Origin of Species, Opening passage of c. v.): "I have hitherto sometimes spoken as if the variations—so common and multiform with organic beings under domestication, and in a lesser degree with those in a state of nature—had been due to chance. This, of course, is a wholly incorrect expression, but it serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation." It is obvious, however, that this explanation only serves to show that, as we have heard him confess, Mr. Darwin was anything but a clear thinker, for it is absolutely meaningless if applied to his mention of "Chance" quoted in the text above. He could not possibly mean that the mind refuses to regard the world as the outcome of a cause whereof we know nothing, for that is just what he thinks it is. Mr. Darwin, in fact, instinctively recognized, as every man of common-sense must do, that if not due to purpose, the order of Nature is due to chance, according to the true and legitimate use of the word, and thus he commonly employed it. Occasionally however he endeavoured, following Huxley and others, to defend himself against the reproach of relying upon such a factor.—Vid. sup., c. xii.