Ix. PREFATORY REMARKS 



less, we should mucli like to see it met in detail by some able. 

 living writer. So far as the principle of natural selection, 

 upon which he relies for the accomplishment of his theory, 

 depends upon natural causes, it might be shown that natural 

 selection works greatly more against the transmutation of 

 species than it operates in its favour ; while there are various 

 barriers in the shape of laws which Mr Darwin acknowledges 

 to be all hut insuperable, and which it would be no difficult 

 matter to prove are not almost, but altogether so. 



Again, it could be clearly shown that, when the cause of 

 this natural selection is occult, not natural and obvious, 

 — when it is a mysterious something, operating in all cases 

 for the good of the species, — ^if it is not an Intelligent 

 Cause, in which all the mental faculties which produce de- 

 sign as a result are actively engaged, then it must be synony- 

 mous with magnetism, which of all natural powers is the most 

 hidden in its operations. This is a blind power, analogous 

 to instinct, and admitted to act selfishly, and exclusively 

 for the benefit of its possessor. Such a position can surely 

 be best met, not by details of special design, which Mr Dar- 

 win throws more daringly, openly, and avowedly overboard 

 than even the author of the "Vestiges," — and herein is 

 his work especially dangerous, — but by such considerations 

 of special adaptation as are set forth, for example, in Dr 

 M'Cosh's admirable work on " Typical Forms and Special 

 Ends in Creation." We allude to such chapters as " Adap- 

 tation of Inorganic Objects to Animals and Plants," and 

 " Special Adjustments needed in order to the Harmony of 

 Cosmical Bodies." " If it could be proved," says Mr Darwin, 

 ' that any part of any one species had been formed for the 



