TUANSMUTABLE. W 



another power or force, which he calls "natural 

 selection," which is nothing more or less, in plain 

 language, than transferring to nature the functions 

 of the pigeon-fancier. But then he is obliged to 

 add to the natural selection force such aids as 

 "use and disuse," "acclimatisation," "correlation 

 of growth," "compensation and economy of growth," 

 and the sum total of these forces he terms "The 

 Law of variation." 



And through the medium of these laws he 

 not only changes species, but genera, families, 

 and classes! Converts the fish into a bird, the 

 cold-blooded reptile into a mammal. By these 

 means he alters not only the form, colour, arid 

 habits of the being, its instincts, passions, reason, 

 but even its minute structure. He changes 

 the huge blood disc of the siren into the small 

 one of the goat or the dromedary, and all those 

 intermediate, with the capacity of the capillaries 

 through which they move! The form of the 

 fish's eye, which is adapted to allow for the 

 refraction of light, is only a modification of that 

 by which the eagle sees its prey in its lofty 

 flight; its gills, adapted to receive a supply of 

 air in water, but an altered phase in that which 

 breathes in the atmosphere; its egg and devel- 

 opment a "variation" of the same organisms which 

 have produced the uterine mammal. It is per- 

 fectly useless in such a system to look for design. 

 Such a thing could only exist by special crea- 

 tion, and this Mr. Darwin ignores with a vehemency 

 which is quite appalling. 



