140 Bibliographical Notice. 



left in doubt — awaiting further evidence. So that, until this is 

 forthcoming, we cannot but feel that, whilst the theories are in one 

 direction (and made to dovetail into each other), the great body of 

 facts is imquestionably on the opposite side. More especially will 

 this apply to that gravest of all objections (as Mr. Darwin frankly 

 admits), the thorough and complete absence (both in geological 

 collections, imperfect though they be, and those, extensive and endless 

 as they are, of the Recent Period) of that countless host of transitional 

 links which, on the "natural selection" theory, must certainly have 

 existed at one period or another of the world's history. They may 

 be forthcoming some day ; we cannot tell (and so, truly, may many 

 other things, after the same fashion of reasoning !) : but at present it 

 is absolutely certain that we have not so much as a shadow of evi- 

 dence either that they do exist or have ever existed. On whichever 

 side we turn we find order and sj^mmetry to be the law of creation, 

 instead of confusion and disorder. To an uneducated eye, which views 

 things only in the mass, this may not appear prima facie evident ; 

 but those who have worked closest and longest at details, in the open 

 field of nature, know that it is true. Naturalists may quarrel and 

 blunder about the relative importance of minute differences, and 

 therefore about the limits of their " species " — and perhaps nearly all 

 of them have erred in drawing too tightly the boundaries between 

 which "varieties" are supposed to occur; but nevertheless the 

 plain fact remains, that, on a broad scale, more or less abrupt and 

 well-defined forms alone have as yet been discovered, and that they 

 do not shade off into each other by that legion of osculant infinitesimal 

 links on which the very life, as it were, of this ingenious theory 

 mainly depends. 



As to the evidence to be gathered from the endless phases which 

 have been gradually matured in our domestic cattle and pigeons by 

 the long and systematic efforts of man, we deny that any parallel can 

 be drawn from them, on a general scale, in the feral world ; for 

 everything tends to prove that the whole system of certain species 

 (though not, as it is admitted, of all), when imder domestication, 

 tends to become plastic ; whilst, moreover, we cannot ascribe to the 

 operation of a doubtful, unproved (and perhaps altogether imaginary) 

 natural " law " eflPects in any way analogous to those produced by an 

 active, living agent (and therefore an intelligent efficient cause) who 

 has been capable for centuries of concentrating his efforts with judg- 

 ment, caution, discernment, and skill, and of carefully selecting, by a 

 direct action o^ mind, all the various divergences that were favourable 

 for his pur])ose, and so of " adding them up " (as Mr. Darwin ha])pily 

 expresses it), one by one, in a given direction, beforehand decided on, 

 until he has at last succeeded (though at times, even then, with the 

 greatest difficulty) in accomplishing the purpose which he had in 

 view. And, besides all this, it is admitted tbat there are, after all, 

 some forms which he cannot succeed in modifying : which certainly 

 would tend to prove that even his most persevering efforts can only 

 avail with certain more or less naturally elastic organisms. And 

 that some undoubtedly are "naturally elastic," as compared with 



