DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 130 



certain instances, is quite another thing : yet the Bos- 

 ton reviewers, we regret to say, have not been duly 

 regardful of the difference. Whatever be thought of 

 Darwin's doctrine, we are surprised that he should be 

 charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of 

 others, upon such a subject. Perhaps Darwin's view 

 is incompatible with final causes — we will consider 

 that question presently — but as to the Examiner's 

 charge, that he " sneers at the idea of any manifesta- 

 tion of design in the material universe," though we 

 are confident that no misrepresentation was intended, 

 we are equally confident that it is not at all warranted 

 by the two passages cited in support of it. Here are 

 the passages : 



"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not 

 know that there were many black and pied kinds, I dare say 

 that we should have thought that the green color was a beau- 

 tiful adaptation to hide this tree - frequenting bird from its 

 enemies." 



"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multi- 

 tude of inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells 

 us, though we may easily err on both sides, that some contriv- 

 ances are less perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp 

 or of the bee as perfect, which, when used against many attack 

 ing animals, cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward 

 serratures, and so inevitably causes the death of the insect by 

 tearing out its viscera ? " 



If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the 

 detached extracts (one of them wanting the end of the 

 sentence), it is, if possible, more imperceptible when 

 read with the context. Moreover, this perusal inclines 

 us to think that the Examiner has misapprehended 

 the particular argument or object, as well as the spirit, 



