344 DARWINIANISM. 



prey, either dead or alive ; some inhabiting new stations, 

 climbing trees, frequenting waters, and some, perhaps, 

 becoming less carnivorous ! " Now all that is simply, as 

 Carlyle might have said, wind ; there is not an atom of 

 ascertained fact in it ; it is merely a promissory note on 

 a security in the clouds ; it is only Mr. Darwin in a haze 

 of idle speculation, of which such a man as he was^ught 

 to have been ashamed especially considering the gravity 

 of all that was involved. 



But, as regards Natural Selection in the same reference 

 (expression namely), it will be sufficient to direct atten- 

 tion back to the preface. There Mr. Darwin is seen to 

 have been at times in consternation, as it were, before 

 the impossibility of his getting people to know what he 

 meant specially what he meant by natural selection, 

 He was apt to " demur " when such experts as Lyell and 

 Hooker would put his theories into their own words. 

 "Even able men," he exclaims, "cannot understand at 

 what I am driving." Will it be thought impertinence 

 on our part if we venture to suggest here, besides the 

 language, the thing itself that was wrapped up in it ? 

 People could not see this thing itself, not for its com- 

 plexity but for its simplicity. For the theory that was 

 to be understood to explain such marvels, they looked 

 up to the skies or away to the infinite ; it never for a 

 moment dawned upon them that it could be that so 

 common, everyday thing that lay at their feet. Oh no ! 

 No, never ! That could not be all that was meant to be 

 understood. Do you mean to insinuate that, because of 

 such ordinary, trifling variations in organisms, plant or 

 animal, as we casually, from day to day, see the 70 o^ 1 f 

 an inch of additional length to the beak of a bird, say 

 only supposititiously assumed to accumulate, and that 

 only in a supposititiously assumed infinitude of time, do 

 you mean to insinuate that it is on that, this whole 



