194 EVOLUTION [Chap. Ill 



Letter 132 by an intelligent cause ? " l By the selection of analogous 

 and less differences fanciers make almost generic differences 

 in their pigeons ; and can you see any good reason why the 

 Natural Selection of analogous individual differences should 

 not make new species ? If you say that God ordained that at 

 some time and place a dozen slight variations should arise, and 

 that one of them alone should be preserved in the struggle for 

 life and the other eleven should perish in the first or few first 

 generations, then the saying seems to me mere verbiage. It 

 comes to merely saying that everything that is, is ordained. 

 Let me add another sentence. Why should you or I speak 

 of variation as having been ordained and guided, more than 

 does an astronomer, in discussing the fall of a meteoric stone ? 

 He would simply say that it was drawn to our earth by the 

 attraction of gravity, having been displaced in its course by 

 the action of some quite unknown laws. Would you have 

 him say that its fall at some particular place and time was 

 "ordained and guided without doubt by an intelligent cause 

 on a preconceived and definite plan " ? Would you not 

 call this theological pedantry or display ? I believe it is not 

 pedantry in the case of species, simply because their formation 

 has hitherto been viewed as beyond law ; in fact, this branch 

 of science is still with most people under its theological phase 

 of development. The conclusion which I always come to after 

 thinking of such questions is that they are beyond the human 

 intellect ; and the less one thinks on them the better. You 

 may say, Then why trouble me? But I should very much 

 like to know clearly what you think. 



Letter 133 To Henry Fawcett. 



The following letter was published in the Life of Mr. Fawcett (1885); 

 we are indebted to Mrs. Fawcett and Messrs. Smith & Elder for 

 permission to reprint it. See Letter 129. 



Sept. 18th [1861]. 



I wondered who had so kindly sent me the newspaper, 2 

 which I was very glad to see ; and now I have to thank you 



1 It should be remembered that the shape of his nose nearly 

 determined Fitz-Roy to reject Darwin as naturalist to H.M.S. Beagle 

 {Life and Letters, I., p. 60). 



'' The newspaper sent was the Manchester Examiner for September 

 9th, 1861, containing a report of Mr. Fawcett's address given before 



