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tively repels anything which attempts to weaken 

 its convictions, or demolish the groundwork of 

 its faith. 



And before this can be finally accomplished, 

 there must be not only a rational and well-ar- 

 gued and convincing case made out by the assailing 

 party, but there must be a complete change in 

 the human mind ! The highest powers of its 

 reason, those by which the greatest triumphs have 

 been effected, its inductive faculties must give 

 way to a cold but implicit belief in assumed 

 facts, which that reason clearly tells him never 

 could have been realities. 



Mr. Darwin has presented us with what he 

 considers the first of these alternatives. I am 

 either unreasonably sceptical, or the change al- 

 luded to has not been effected in my mind. I 

 have read over his book most carefully, and I 

 am bound to confess that I am a stronger be- 

 liever in a first cause and a special creation than 

 ever; for I am now fortified with what I con- 

 ceive to be the failure of a man of deservedly 

 high reputation to convince me that I am in 

 error. 



In the passages above quoted from Mr. Darwin, 

 he states that he "believes that all animals have 

 descended from at most only four or five pro- 

 genitors, and plants from an equal or lesser 

 number;" and subsequently he "infers that pro- 

 bably all organic beings have descended from some 

 one primordial form into which life was first 

 breathed." 



