specific Genesis 121 



' reason ' is supplemented by a fancy so active and unre- 

 strained. 



In reviewing my chapter on Independent Similarities of 

 Structure, Mr. Wright replies to my remarks as to characters 

 in placental and implacental mammals which are similar, 

 indeed, but not similar through inheritance : — 



' Our author . . . has incautiously left a hostile force in his rear. 

 He has claimed in the preceding chapter for Natural Selection that it 

 ought to have produced several independent races of long-necked 

 Ungulates, as well as the giraffe; so that, instead of pursuing his 

 illustrations any further, we may properly demand his surrender.' 



But such a demand would be futile; the cases, in fact, 

 being quite dissimilar. With regard to the Ungulates we 

 have the action of similar causes upon organisms which, by 

 the hypothesis, are closely alike; in the case of the car- 

 nivorous and insectivorous beasts we have similar causes 

 acting upon organisms which, by the hypothesis, are funda- 

 mentally different. 



Certainly, then, if Mr. Darwin's theory is true, we ought 

 to have, in the first case, many similar forms developed ; and 

 we ought not to have such in the second case. It is just the 

 difference between adding equals to equals and equals to un- 

 equals. 



Passing over Mr. Chauncey Wright's exposition^ of our 

 Lord's discourse to Nicodemus (in which, I fear, few Darwini- 

 ans will take any interest), I proceed to notice what Mr. Wright 

 exhibits as ' a good illustration ' of the origin of species by 

 Natural Selection in the shape of ' the growth of a tree.' It 

 is so, he tells us : — 



' For its branches are selected growth, or few out of many thou- 

 sands that have begun in buds ; and this rigorous selection has been, 



*Mr. Wright speaks of 'the symbols water and the Spirit, which Chris- 

 tians have ever since worshipped.' It is certainly difficult to remember the 

 multitude of sects which have appeared since the dawn of Christianity, but 

 the existence of any body of water -worHhippers strikes me as a novelty. 



