150 DARW1NIANISM. 



directly or indirectly, are determined by it. Nay, even 

 in that respect, certain limits which we may observe 

 require or demand a particular explanation. 



The quarry, namely, which for our purposes we lay 

 very specially under contribution, is, The Life and Letters 

 of Charles Darwin, edited by his son, Francis Darwin 

 (seventh thousand, revised, 1888). But the other 

 relative works as the Origin of Species, the Descent of 

 Man, the Expression of the Emotions, together with that 

 admirable volume, the Journal of Researches have lain 

 with us equally continuously at hand. As is well 

 known, of theories of evolution in existence, there are 

 more than one ; and, in quotation from Mr. Darwin 

 himself, there has been, partially, to this effect, already 

 testimony (Lamarck shall have " done the subject harm, 

 as has Mr. Vestiges, and as some future naturalist will 

 perhaps say has Mr. D."). The theorists under the 

 two former names do not seem to desire us to under- 

 stand that they are in disagreement with the belief in the 

 existence of design ; and as for Dr. Erasmus Darwin, 

 who, according to the Krause-book, shall have antici- 

 pated and preceded his grandson in every single 

 element of the latter's theory except one, selection, 

 namely, as the special lever of the necessary modifica- 

 tion, he, for his part, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, must be 

 acknowledged to have been surpassed by no other such 

 writer (if by any at all) in the reality of his reverence 

 for design. But in this reference it is far otherwise 

 with natural selection ; and that is one reason why we 

 prefer here the Life and Letters as the relative quarry of 

 what for discussion is concerned. Eespective silence or 

 concealment, evasion or disguise nothing of the sort 

 is to be found there; there, on the contrary, all that 

 relates to design is matter of express statement and 

 open discourse. 



