8 SPECIES NOT 



of it, as is evinced by their reviews. But when 

 the question is widened so as to attempt to 

 prove that by a new and partial law, a fish, a 

 reptile, a bird, or a mammal are merely different 

 expressions of the same thing mere modifications 

 by "natural selection" and "divergence of form" 

 of the same primordial organism, he opens a 

 question so vast and so utterly opposed to all 

 our preconceived notions so contrary, as I con- 

 ceive, to all the knowledge which Anatomy mid 

 Physiology teach us, and so utterly destructive 

 of all belief in the constant operation of a Great 

 First Cause, that it will be readily conceded before 

 we assent to such a doctrine, we have a right to 

 demand that it should be founded on some kind 

 of proof. Now I have carefully read over Mr. 

 Darwin's work, and I cannot from beginning to 

 end find one atom of proof of the transmutation 

 of species, upon which the integrity of the whole 

 doctrine depends. 



There is a great deal said, it is true, of such 

 arguments as are to be derived from the ready 

 belief that a flying fish might be converted by 

 "natural selection," etc., into a bird! How the 

 flying Lemur might have its membranous appen- 

 dage changed into the wing of a bat ! How the 

 eye of the eagle might have been "modified," and 

 "varied," and developed from the black pigmentary 

 spot of the crustacean; or, how a bear swimming 

 about with open mouth to catch flies, might have 

 been transmuted in due course into a mighty 

 whale! But when we ask for proof for facts 



