RESULT. 35? 



' Oriental Naturalist? with lots of imagination and not too 

 1 much regard for facts, is just the man to discuss species," 

 according to Mr. Darwin (ii. 41), that, evidently, is not a 

 sentiment that will, even half jocosely, recommend itself 

 to Professor Flower. 



All is due to natural selection ; and natural selection, 

 whether it is in the moment of variation, or whether it is 

 in the moment of application, is absolutely conditioned by 

 accident. When we consider this, can it be allowed us 

 to wonder that, somewhat profanely, as regards organisa- 

 tion, the Darwinian rationale of it in nature has been 

 termed " a fluke " ? 



This is strange, too in the whole Origin of Species 

 there is not a single word of origin ! The very species 

 which is to originate never originates, but, on the con- 

 trary, is always already to the fore (p. 249). Nay, as no 

 breeder ever yet made a new species or even a permanent 

 race ; so the Darwins themselves, both Charles and his 

 son Mr. Francis (pp. 268, 269), confess: "We cannot / 

 prove that a single species has changed." > 



It is curious to contrast these facts with what seems 

 the current belief of literature. In the books of the day 

 novels, say we are accustomed to come again and 

 again on " Darwin." And " Darwin " is something 

 mystic a prodigious knowledge and power, that, in 

 absolute intelligence of all things, has deposed the Deity, 

 and that is kept awfully under lock and key, only softly, 

 fearfully, to be flitted to in secret by hero and heroine, 

 who themselves, of course, are far too superior not to be 

 aufgeldart ! 



The knowledge as knowledge, then was it so pro- 

 digious? 



It was only the word origin did all this ; and the 

 word origin, strictly, was a misnomer; misleading, not 

 novelists alone, but the general public as such, into anti- 



