THE HORSE IN MOTION. I 7 



under the terms "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest." This 

 hypothesis does not presuppose design, and denies a Creator. Under 

 the name of "Darwinism" it has become popular and invaded all ranks. 

 It found the soil of Germany especially fitted for the propagation of a 

 theory of such an atheistic character, and it was proposed at a meeting 

 of the Society of Naturalists at Munich, a few years ago, to teach it in 

 the national schools. It has become so generally diffused in our own 

 scientific circles that a reference to a Supreme Being in an essay read 

 before a society of naturalists would be considered to be a poetic license, 

 if one had tlie courage to make it; and nature is usually personified to 

 meet the necessity. We have long been familiar with the reference to 

 the laws of nature, and we now begin to hear of the laws of evolution. 

 In all ages there has been a tendency on the part of the masses to 

 follow some leader whom they desired to do their thinking for them ; 

 to pin their faith to his, or what they supposed to be his: it is no less 

 so in the scientific circles than in the religious. Dogmatism seems to 

 be leaving the latter to attach itself to the former ; at all events, it is 

 inherent in the human mind; no person is utterly free fi-om it; and to 

 appeal to the opinions of those whom we believe to be better informed, 

 rather than to examine the foundations of those opinions, has been 

 the vice of all ages. 



It is well known that faculties and functions are strengthened 

 by use and weakened, or altogether lost, by disuse. We shall look 

 in vain for proofs of an organ changed in the mechanical principle 

 of its construction, or one evolved by imperceptible degrees where 

 none existed before ; but we shall, on the other hand, find proofs 

 in anatomy that the changes could not have been gradual. Every 

 stable-boy knows that qualities are transmitted by heredity, and that 

 desirable ones may be bred by judicious crossing within certain lim- 

 its; and he knows as much as any one of the force, or influence, by 

 means of which this is brought about. Speculation should not be con- 

 founded with science, as was said by Virchow, or science will lose its 

 claim to the respect of mankind ; and this whole question of evolution 

 is speculative when carried beyond proof; and science, when it crosses 

 the vital boundary-line, is lost in speculation. We know that organic 



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