DARWIN. 93 



to those who might oppose him. Did they really believe 

 that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain 

 atoms had been commanded suddenly to flash into living 

 tissues ? Were animals and plants created as eggs or 

 seed or as full grown ? At each act of creation was one 

 individual or were many produced ? For himself, he 

 came to the conclusion that all organic beings had de- 

 scended from some one primordial form into which life 

 was first breathed. 



On this view Darwin predicted that a great increase 

 of interest in many departments of natural history would 

 arise. " When we no longer look at an organic being as 

 a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond 

 his comprehension ; when we regard every production 

 of nature as one which has had a history ; when we 

 contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the 

 summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the 

 possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look at 

 any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the 

 labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders 

 of numerous workmen ; when we thus view each organic 

 being, how far more interesting I speak from experi- 

 ence will the study of natural history become. . . . 

 The whole history of the world, as at present known, 

 although of a length quite incomprehensible to us, will 

 hereafter be recognized as a mere fragment of time com- 

 pared with the ages which have elapsed since the first 

 creature, the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living 

 descendants, was created. . . . We may look forward 

 with some confidence to a secure future of equally inap- 

 preciable length. And as natural selection works solely 



