CREATION BY LAW. 297 



their bill) to be ducks, and attain a maximum of 

 danger in the condition in which they begin to be 

 gulls ; and ages must elapse and whole generations 

 must perish, and countless generations of the one 

 species be created and sacrificed, to arrive at one 

 single pair of the other." 



In this passage the theory of natural selection is 

 so absurdly misrepresented that it would be amusing, 

 did we not consider the misleading effect likely to 

 be produced by this kind of teaching in so popular 

 a journal. It is assumed that the duck and the gull 

 are essential parts of nature, each well fitted for its 

 place, and that if one had been produced from the 

 other by a gradual metamorphosis, the intermediate 

 forms would have been useless, unmeaning, and un- 

 fitted for any place, in the system of the universe. 

 Now, this idea can only exist in a mind ignorant 

 of the very foundation and essence of the theory of 

 natural selection, which is, the preservation of useful 

 variations only, or, as has been well expressed, in 

 other words, the " survival of the fittest." Every 

 intermediate form which could possibly have arisen 

 during the transition from the duck to the gull, so 

 far from having an unusually severe battle to fight 

 for existence, or incurring any a maximum of danger," 

 would necessarily have been as accurately adjusted 

 to the rest of nature, and as well fitted to maintain 

 and to enjoy its existence, as the duck or the gull 

 actually are. If it were not so, it never could have 

 been produced under the law of natural selection. 



