104 DARWINIANA. 



" I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study 

 and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the 

 view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly 

 entertained, namely, that each species has been independently 

 created, is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are 

 not immutable ; but that those belonging to what are called the 

 same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally 

 extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varie- 

 ties of any one species are the descendants of that species. 

 Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been 

 the main, but not exclusive, means of modification." 



This is the kernel of the new theory, the Dar- 

 winian creed, as recited at the close of the introduc- 

 tion to the remarkable book under consideration. 

 The questions, " What will he do with it ? " and 

 " How far will he carry it ? " the author answers at 

 the close of the volume : 



"I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modifica- 

 tion embraces all the members of the same class." Furthermore, 

 " I believe that all animals have descended from at most only 

 four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser 

 number." 



Seeing that analogy as strongly suggests a further 

 step in the same direction, while he protests that 

 " analogy may be a deceitful guide," yet he follows 

 its inexorable leading to the inference that 



" Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on 

 this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into 

 which life was first breathed." ' 



1 Page 484, English edition. In the new American edition (vide 

 Supplement, pp. 431, 432) the principal analogies which suggest the 



