Ixiv PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. 



the shallow, the marsh, and the inland ground ; how the temptation 

 of food or the pressure of population had probably been concerned in 

 this spread or advance of species ; how in such creatures as the 

 hermit crab, the pique-bosuf, etc., we could only rationally see some 

 ordinary kind of crab, some ordinary form of starling, etc., which 

 had become adapted "in the course of generations" i. e., gradually 

 to certain very special conditions ; all of these being views remark- 

 ably resembling his own. It seems to the author that Mr. Darwin 

 has only been enabled by his infinitely superior knowledge to point 

 out a principle in what may be called practical animal life, which 

 appears capable of bringing about the modifications theoretically 

 assumed in the earlier work. His book, in no essential respect, con- 

 tradicts the present : on the contrary, while adding to its explana- 

 tions of nature, it expresses substantially the same general ideas. 

 Even in its principle of" variability," since it makes this necessarily 

 involve advances of grade, as from the first organization to the reptile, 

 from the reptile to the mammal, it is difficult to see in what respect 

 it is at variance with the principle of " development," to which such 

 advances are here referred. The difference seems to be in words, not 

 in facts or effects. Neither since Mr. Darwin's hypothesis places 

 the advances and variations of organic being upon a natural basis 

 can it well escape the conclusion here presented, that the very first 

 appearance of organization on the primitive mineral surface was also 

 the result of a process in all respects natural, though not on that 

 account otherwise than divine. I860.] 



THE END. 



