THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 187 
indeed, the progenitor has been imagined for the express purpose of 
dispensing with an act of creation, though the result is, that it has 
made the need of creation an evident necessity, from which there is no 
escape. And indeed Mr. Darwin seems to have felt that he has brought 
himself into this position by the language which he uses, for he tells us 
that the progenitor of the mammals had its limbs constructed on the 
general pattern. What then? can there bea pattern without a design, 
and can there be a design without a designer? If it had its limbs 
constructed on a general pattern, certainly there must have been an act 
of construction, and a predetermined plan. Neither could this have 
been effected by natural selection, whom Mr. Darwin frequently de- 
scribes as a wise artificer, for the progenitor was the first of ils class, 
and therefore it must have been produced all at once, and not worked 
out in millions of ages ; the progenitor came into the world the proge- 
nitor of a group ; it was ready made, the first of all the mammalia, and 
therefore again we say, that if ever such an animal existed, it was most 
certainly created, and really had its limbs constructed on a pattern as 
Mr. Darwin himself says, in words fatal to his own theory. 
Nothing daunted, however, with these difficulties, Mr. Darwin has 
fully persuaded himself of the real existence of these imaginary crea- 
tures, as we see in the following declaration :—* for myself Z venture 
confidently to look back thousands on thousands of generations, and I 
SEE AN ANIMAL STRIPED LIKE A ZEBRA, but perhaps otherwise 
very differently constructed, the common parent of our domestic horse, 
of the ass, of the hemionus, quagga, and zebra” (p. 195). 
If this inexpressible animal has thus really come within the field of 
Mr. Darwin's vision, if he can see it thus clearly athwart thousands on 
thousands of generations, why does he not favour us with a scientific 
description of what he sees? and why, instead of that which would 
a most valuable contribution to science, does he make this distressing 
confession, * We can never know the exact character of a common an- 
cestor of a group”? What! not when we see it? and when we have 
the imagination and natural selection to help us, which have together 
wrought such marvels for the theory ? 
We sadly fear, nevertheless, that Mr. Darwin’s telescope for investi- 
gating past ages has failed him, that it is a worthless instrument, and 
that he greatly deceives himself when he tells us that he sees this pri- 
mordial eguus. That the glasses must be faulty is evident as his.own 
