142 Bibliographical Notice. 



of fact, never " created " at all, but was merely, in the fulness of time, 

 a development from an ape ; and not merely from an ape, but that he 

 was originally derived from the same source as bears, cats, rats, mice, 

 geese, mussels, periwinkles, beetles, worms, and sponges (nay, even, 

 perhaps, from the same as the very plants themselves) ; that, in all 

 probability, he will at length beget some higher creature still, and 

 will himself "become utterly extinct," like each of the beasts 

 (throughout time and space) before him ; and that, mpreover, " as all 

 the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of those which lived 

 long before the Silurian epoch,'* "hence [ a cold shuddering 

 comes over us at what we are compelled to regard as a glorious non 

 sequitur, and that, too, from premises which we cannot admit!] hence 

 (we repeat) we may look with some confidence to a secure future of 

 equally inappreciable length!" Hard doctrine, this, for " unphiloso- 

 phical " minds like ours ! And, were we inclined to be sceptical as to 

 the data on which this sweeping conclusion is built, we might naturally 

 ask, how is it, if the above premises be true (i. e. if it indeed be a 

 fact that man has been gradually qualified, by self-improvement, for 

 his advanced post, after passing through an endless array of lower 

 forms), how is it that no traditions whatsoever bearing on the pre- 

 vious and more simple conditions of the human structure (immediately 

 before it attained its climax of perfection) have ever been extant ; for it 

 is quite inconceivable that so radical an organic change could have been 

 slowly brought about without, at the least, some vague tradition of 

 it having become a fact of the human mind. When probed by such- 

 like inquiries, the entire theory (to the extent that it is pushed) fairly 

 crumples up. 



But we must conclude this notice. Did space permit, we might 

 have offered many remarks on the general tendencies of the Selection 

 theory, when carried out to its full extent. We might have dived below 

 the surface, to ascertain the main object of Mr. Darwin's clever and 

 ingenious volume ; and have asked, what it was that first prompted 

 him to undertake it. If it was the marvel of creation (and a real 

 marvel it assuredly is) that offered the primary stumbling-block to a 

 philosophical mind, we might have asked whether the marvel would 

 have been got rid of had we been able to reduce the number of the 

 separate, independent acts. To our mind, the wonder consists in the 

 act at all, and not in the number of times that it may have been 

 repeated : for a Being that can create may surely do so as often as 

 He pleases ; and we have no right therefore to limit that act, at 

 any rate on the question of its probability ; for, if we admit that it 

 has been exerted so much as once, there is no a priori reason why it 

 should not have been a million times repeated, or why, if He had so 

 willed it, it might not, at some period or other, have been in even con- 

 stant operation. Such an idea is difficult to conceive, we admit ; but (be 

 it remembered) it is not one atom more so than the process of creation 

 at all : and with respect to the marvel of it (so difficult, and impos- 

 sible, to understand), it may be well to recollect that it has been 

 contended by some of our greatest minds that even the sustaining 

 power of Nature is, in point of fact, as much of a miracle as the 

 creative power. 



