212 THE DARWINIAN THEORY. 
but if another “ differentiation” is to take place, that is, if another 
being is to be produced by natural selection, the same tragical occur- 
rence must be repeated, and, in order to effect the existence of C., 
there must be an extermination of B. We should then have C., the 
only form of life after the lapse of infinite ages. The same rule would 
hold good through all the alphabet,—the successful letter would have 
always exterminated its predecessor,—and by this time, following 
the rule of natural selection, we should have only one living species on 
the face of the earth! Such is the dilemma into which this theory 
has brought its learned author, who, in order to account for the exist- 
ence of organized beings by transmutation from one to another, has, in 
securing that object, given us one created spore and one uncreated 
species to possess the whole earth after thousands of millions of ages. 
Such, then, is the theory, with its contradictions, perplexities, and 
self-refutations, proposed to us as something far more reasonable and 
scientific than the received opinion, which holds that creation was 
manifold, that all the forms of life which infinite wisdom saw to be fit 
for the conditions of existence were, by an act of divine power, called 
into being, and to use Mr. Darwin’s words of a wiser era, were made 
by one hand. Whatever, therefore, may be the skill with which various 
expedients have been devised by the author to parry the difficulties 
which his theory had to encounter, it is manifest that in the one great 
point to be established,—that upon which everything depends, —there 
has been a total failure. 
The whole theory is expressed in the title-page of the book, ‘The 
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection ; or, the Preservation 
of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.” We have here more 
closely examined “ the origin,” and we find when we approach it— 
_ l. That the author says all speculations on the subject would be 
baseless and useless, which is, in fact, giving up the question. 
2. That notwithstanding this formal surrender of the question, there 
are two origins of species proposed ; the first form which was created 
and vivified by divine power, and after that progenitors of species pro- 
duced by natural selection. . 
3. The first form does not allow life to advance, and confutes itself. 
4. The first form vitiates the whole theory, and introduces a prin- 
ciple which natural selection was intended to discard. If creation be 
admitted at all, creation cannot afterwards be excluded. 
