136 Bibliographical Notice. 



Now, when not pressed too far, so as to become ridiculous, there 

 is a speciousness, nay even a probability, about this theory to which 

 most naturalists would readily give assent. Although unquestionably a 

 mere theory, and incapable of proof when applied to the greater por- 

 tion of the feral world, there is a reasonableness about it which at 

 once commands our respect. It enables us to account for many a 

 trifling variation which, because permanent, naturalists have usually 

 regarded as of necessity aboriginally distinct, and smooths down 

 some of the minor controversies concerning the value of minute mo- 

 difications which may be properly referred to direct agencies from 

 without. Indeed we will go a step further, and affirm that there is 

 no reason why varieties, strictly so called (though too often, we fear, 

 mistaken for species), and also geographical "sub-species," may 

 not be gradually brought about, even as a general rule, by this 

 process of " natural selection:" but this, unfortunately, expresses 

 the limits between which we can imagine the law to operate, 

 and which any evidence, fairly deduced from facts, would seem to 

 justify : it is Mr. Darwin's fault that he presses his theory too far. 

 The mere fact of any such varieties thus matured (if they do indeed 

 exist in nature) being apt to be at times mistaken by naturalists for 

 true species, is surely no argument against the genuineness of the 

 latter: it merely shows the imperfection of our limited judgment, 

 and that the best observers are liable to err, and either not to 

 catch the true characters of a species intuitively (which, in point of 

 fact, they could scarcely be expected to do), or else to assign at times 

 undue importance to differences which they may afterwards detect not 

 to be in reality specific. 



We must candidly admit, however, that Mr. Darwin is most con- 

 sistent to his principles ; and for this we would give him every credit : 

 for if he objects to the inconsistency of " several eminent naturalists," 

 in the " strange conclusion which they have lately arrived at," that 

 certain species have been created independently, whilst they deny the 

 fact that a multitude of formerly reputed species are in the same cate- 

 gory (p. 482), we might fairly take him on his own grounds, and 

 cavil at his conviction (p. 484) " that all animals have descended from 

 the, at most, only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal 

 or less number," and contend that he is bound to advance even 

 still further than this, seeing that he objects to the existence of a limit 

 simply because we cannot (by the nature of the case, for, in its en- 

 tirety, it is not a "truth of sense") strictly define it, or (in our 

 short-sightedness and stupidity) are apt to blunder and oftentimes to 

 mistake its position. But he cleverly anticipates this objection (and 

 a very serious one, for him, it would have been) by nipping it in 

 the bud : " Analogy," he says, " would lead me one step further, viz. 

 to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some 

 one prototype." "Therefore I should infer, from analogy, that pro- 

 bably all the organic beings [i. e. animals as well as plants] which 

 have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primor- 

 dial form into which life was first breathed" (p. 484). This is plain 

 language, at any rate ! 



