254 SPECIES NOT 



But "natural selection" does neither. It attributes 

 everything to chance. An imaginary power takes 

 the place of design; a series of imaginary laws, 

 which have no congruity, take the place of the 

 laws of life; wild speculation is made to supersede 

 proof, and the proof that is tendered is founded 

 upon a false interpretation of facts, or facts have 

 been imagined to replace realities. From beginning 

 to end the book is a cheerless, gloomy narrative. 

 It destroys every vestige of the beautiful from 

 the mind, without replacing it with even a plau- 

 sible or intelligent theory. It is the great mistake 

 of the age in which we live, and I hope, for his 

 own sake, and for those whose principles it is 

 calculated to unsettle, that not only will the 

 greater work, with which we are threatened, never 

 see the light, but that this will be speedily 

 withdrawn from circulation. 



Perhaps, however, I am mistaken as to the 

 effect which the opinions of such a book as this 

 may have upon the public mind. We live in a 

 remarkable age. We are told that, as a nation, 

 we are prosperous above all others in the world ; 

 that we are increasing in knowledge as a people; 

 that new discoveries in science and art are daily 

 proving the superiority of reason over the instinct, 

 which abiding, as it was first imprinted in the 

 nature of the animal, like the beaver, builds 

 its house as did the first betiver the world ever 

 >aw; or, like the gorilla, slings his hammock in 

 the trees of Africa, the same imperfect roofless 

 < I welling it has ever made. All this is true, but 



