92 



ACALEPIIS IN GENERAL. 



Part I. 



that lie has lost sii;'ht of the iiu^st striking of the features, and the one which 

 pervailes the whole, namely, that there runs throughout nature vnnuistakaljle 

 evidence of thought, corresponding to the mental operations of our own mind, 

 and therefore intelligible to us as thinking behigs, and unaccountable on any other 

 basis than that they owe their existence to the working of intelligence ; and no 

 theor\' that overlooks this element can be true to nature.^ It is true, Darwin 



tliat the most jierfect organs of the body of animals 

 are the product of gradual improvement ; when 

 eyes as perfect as those of the Triloliites are pre- 

 served with the remains of these oldest animals.— 

 He would have us believe that it required millions 

 of years to effect any one of these changes ; when 

 far more extraordinary transtVirmatioiis are daily 

 going on, under our eyes, in the shortest periods of 

 time, during the growth of animals. — He would 

 have us believe that animals acquire their instincts 

 gradually ; when even those that never see their 

 parents, perform at birth the same acts, in the same 

 way, as their progenitors. — lie would have us be- 

 lieve that the geographical distribution of animals 

 is the result of accidental transfers ; when most spe- 

 cies are so narrowly confined within the limits of 

 their natural range, that even slight changes in 

 their external relations may cause their death. 

 And all these, and many other calls upon our cre- 

 dulity, are coolly made in the face of an anumnt of 

 precise information, readily accessible, whicli would 

 overwhelm any one who does not place his ojiinions 

 above the records of an age eminently characterized 

 for its industry ; and during which, that information 

 was laboriously accumulated by crowds of faithful 

 laborers. 



' There are naturalists who seem to look upon 

 the idea of creation — that is, a manifestation of an 

 intellectual [lower by m.aterial means — as a kind of 

 bigotry ; forgetting, no doubt, that whenever they 

 carry out a thought of their own, they do something 

 akin to creating; unless they look upon their own 

 elucubrations as something in whicIi tlu'ir in(li\idu- 

 alitj- is not concerned, but arising without an inter- 

 vention of their mind, in conse(iuence of the working 

 of some "bundles of forces," about which they 

 know nothing themselves. And yet such men are 



ready to admit that matter is omnipotent, and con- 

 sider a disbelief in the omnipotence of matter 

 tantamout to ind)ecility ; for, what is the assumed 

 power (if matter to produce all finite beings, but 

 omniiiotence ? And what the outcry raised against 

 those who cannot admit it, but an insinuation that 

 they are non coiiipas / The book of Mr. Darwin is 

 free of all sucli uncharitable sentiments towards 

 his fellow-laborers in the field of science ; never- 

 theless, his mistake lies in a similar assumption that 

 the most complicated system of combined thoughts 

 can be the result of accidental causes : for he ought 

 to know, as every physicist will concede, that all 

 the influences to which he would ascribe the origin 

 of species are accidental in their very nature ; and 

 he must know, as every naturalist familiar with the 

 modern progress of science does know, that the 

 organized beings which live now, and have lived in 

 former geological periods, constitute an organic 

 whole, intelligibly and methodically combined in all 

 its parts. As a zoologist he must know, in par- 

 ticular, that the animal kingdom is built upon four 

 different plans of structure ; and that the reproduc- 

 tion and growth of animals take )ilace according to 

 four different modes of development ; and that, unless 

 it is shown that these four jilans of structure and 

 these four mixles of development are transmutable 

 one into the othei', ni' transmutation theory can 

 account for the origin of species. The fallacy 

 of Darwin's theory of the origin of species by 

 means of natural selection may be traced in the 

 first few pages of his book, where he overlooks the 

 difference between the voluntary and deliberate 

 acts of seleclidn applied methodically by man to 

 the breeding of douiesticaled animals and the grow- 

 ing of cullivatecl plants, and the chance influences 

 which may affect animals and plants in a state of 



