DAEWIN'S HASTY GENERALIZATIONS. 105 



must be descended from fish. Have we such information? 

 No ; and when I do not admit that animals are thus descended 

 from one another, it is because I do not know how they orig- 

 inated, any more than Darwin does. It is a theory, perhaps. 

 I do not believe it is as much as theory. I believe it is a 

 brilliant expression of his magnificent imagination. And I 

 Avill not disparage that facult}^, for there is no science without 

 imagination. Imagination is that powerful faculty with which 

 we conceive of relations which are beyond the reach of our 

 perception, through the senses, and without imagination there 

 is no progress in science ; but it is in proportion, as imagina- 

 tion is constantly controlled by experiment, by experience, by 

 observation. Now, I know Darwin personally, and he knows 

 himself, too ; and early in his life, in his admirable narrative 

 of his journey with Capt. Fitzroy around the world, in which 

 he has disclosed so largely and so brilliantly that power of 

 observation which is so eminently his characteristic, he closes 

 that narrative, "The Journey of a Naturalist Eound the 

 World," with something like these words, which I cannot 

 pral)ably quite quote verbatim, but the sense, I know too well 

 to misquote him ; " That nothing is more profitable to a natu- 

 ralist than travelling, on account of the varied impressions, 

 and the varied opportunities aflbrded for observation ; but the 

 danger is in proportion to the opportunity. Seeing so many 

 things in rapid succession leads to hasty conclusions, and 

 passing from one hasty conclusion to another hasty conclusion, 

 the result may be an entirely wrong view of the phenomena 

 observed." The man who said that of himself at the close of 

 his first really great scientific survey has furnished in his own 

 life the evidence of his own propensity. It is hasty generaliza- 

 tion on some well-observed facts ; and that is Darwin all over. 

 I do not think that I have expressed anything disparaging of his 

 ability or his character, but I am satisfied that I estimate justly 

 his tendencies, and that we find him constantly making gener- 

 alizations for which there is hardly a shadow of a fact, the 

 natural consequence of which is, in my opinion, that the idea 

 of natural selection is entirely out of the question. But while 

 I do not believe in this theory of the descent of all organized 

 beings from a few primordial ancestors (and I will tell you 

 why I do not believe at all in the idea of " natural selection 



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