252 DARWINIANISM. 



for the Galapagos, if they point in that way to South 

 America, do they not point at the same time to a mere 

 possibility so far in the air ? 



It is natural to think that things so like each other 

 may be but modifications, the one, of the other this we 

 have granted and grant; but let them be so, let the 

 armadillos descend from the fossils, let all these " closely 

 allied " be really brothers and sisters, let South America 

 have sent a bird, or a shell, or a plant, to the Galapagos, 

 let bird, or shell, or plant differ slightly nay, greatly, if 

 you like on the different islands, let all that be, admit 

 it all we are still as far as ever from any solution of 

 the problem origin. 



We have no want of expressions of Mr. Darwin's own 

 to make this somewhat striking state of the case even 

 glaring. Thus he says once (ii 78): "Either species 

 have been independently created, or they have descended 

 from other species." This, while it is again his single 

 alternative of " creation or modification," gives species as 

 always already " to the fore." " I have a very decided 

 opinion," he tells Lyellat another time (p. 341), " that all 

 mammals must have descended from a single parent ; " and 

 further, " with respect to a mammal not being developed 

 on any island, besides want of time for so prodigious a 

 development, there must have arrived on the island the 

 necessary and peculiar progenitor." That is, for any 

 possible origin of species " a parent," " a progenitor " is still 

 required ! As one sees, islands, according to Mr. Darwin, 

 are to be regarded as geologically too recent to be argued 

 about in his way ; for Mr. Darwin, towards his own opera- 

 tions, never hesitates to ask for quite an infinitude of time. 

 But let him go back to any one point in his infinitude, 

 ten thousand years, a million years, twenty million years, 

 still he is only, so to speak, in his own middle. A stock 

 is always, as we phrase it, to the fore. Origin of species 1 



