20 DARWINISM VERIFIED. [i. 



of special creations. For in considering nearly allied 

 forms, like the lion, tiger, and leopard, their actual 

 consanguinity would never have been doubted for a 

 moment but for the inability of naturalists to under- 

 stand how the type which appears so constant, when 

 viewed through a short period of time and amid un- 

 changing conditions, should after all be variable. 

 Unable to imagine any probable cause or method of 

 variation by which the descendants of a common 

 feline ancestor should have acquired the divergent 

 characters of lions and leopards, the naturalist either 

 gave up the problem as insoluble, or else retreated 

 upon the assumption that leopards and lions were 

 separately created. In either case science was equally 

 at fault ; for, as above argued, the hypothesis of 

 special creations, as referring a particular group of 

 phenomena to that Divine action which is the equal 

 source of all phenomena, is not entitled to be con- 

 sidered a scientific explanation. But when Mr. 

 Darwin called attention to the working of natural 

 selection, the difficulty was removed, and it at once 

 became highly probable that such allied forms had 

 diverged from a common stock through the accumu- 

 lations of minute modifications. 



Such being the conclusion to which we are led 

 by considering the process of natural selection, it 



