NATURAL SELECTION CRITICISED. 255 



may be to him, he must have this material to begin with. 1 

 He does, then, really give himself something for a com- 

 mencement; but it is as a mere postulate to start with 

 and presently be let drop. He may be found to con- 

 descend, then, for a moment, actually to creation. " Under 

 present knowledge," he says (ii. 210), " we must assume 

 the creation of one or of a few forms in the same manner 

 as philosophers assume the existence of a power of attrac- 

 tion without any explanation;" and (p. 329) he puts a 

 similar weight on " four or five primordial forms " and 

 " some single prototype." Words to a like effect are to be 

 found in the Origin, too. Nevertheless, all in that con- 

 nection must be conceived now to have reduced itself to 

 this single passage (iii. 18) : "I have long regretted that I 

 truckled to public opinion, and used the pentateuchal 

 term of creation by which I really meant ' appeared ' by 

 some wholly unknown process." Four years earlier, he 

 had already said (ii. 211), "I think that all vertebrata 

 have descended from one parent ; but how that parent 

 ' appeared ' we know not." 



There can be no doubt, in fact, that Mr. Darwin, at 

 first, and for long perhaps, never thought of a beginning. 

 His problem was as in the Pampas, as in South America, 

 as in the Galapagos how allied passed into allied. 

 " Without any explanation," simply to assume a be- 

 ginning appeared to him, as we see, even specially 

 " philosophical." As to the origin of the inorganic, he 

 (iii. 236) declares that he never troubles himself about 

 " such insoluble questions ; " and as to that of the 

 organic, he (p. 18) opines : " It is mere rubbish thinking 

 at present of the origin of life ; one might as well think 

 of the origin of matter." 



Mr. Darwin did, however, in the end, think of the 

 origin of life. From a note (iii. 18) we find him in 

 1 " First catch your hare," says the cookery book. 



