THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 01 



Bion under natural agencies', we must reserve for some 

 other convenient opportunity. 



The work is a scientific one, rigidly restricted to 

 its direct object ; and by its science it must stand or 

 fall. Its aim is, probably, not to deny creative inter- 

 vention in Nature — for the admission of the inde- 

 pendent origination of certain types does away with 

 all antecedent improbability of as much intervention 

 as may be required — but to maintain that Natural 

 Selection, in explaining the facts, explains also many 

 classes of facts which thousand-fold repeated inde- 

 pendent acts of creation do not explain, but leave 

 more mysterious than ever. How far the author has 

 succeeded, the scientific world will in due time be able 

 to pronounce. 



As these sheets are passing through the press, a 

 copy of the second edition has reached us. We no- 

 tice with pleasure the insertion of an additional motto 

 on the reverse of the title-page, directly claiming the 

 theistic view which we have vindicated for the doc- 

 trine. Indeed, these pertinent words of the eminently 

 wise Bishop Butler comprise, in their simplest ex- 

 pression, the whole substance of our later pages : 



" The only distinct meaning of the word ' natural ' is stated, 

 fixed, or settled ; since what is natural as much requires and 

 presupposes an intelligent mind to render it so, i. e., to effect it 

 continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or mi- 

 raculous does to effect it for once." 



