DAKWINISM. 



THE object of this lecture is to explain, with as much 

 simplicity as possible, the opinions of Darwin on the 

 chain of secondary causes which has resulted in the 

 wonderful structures known to us as living creatures, 

 and including, in an almost infinite variety, lichen and 

 moss, mite and mildew, grass and flower and branch- 

 ing tree ; mollusk and reptile and fish ; the swan, the 

 petrel, the ostrich and the eagle ; the cunning ape ; 

 the faithful hound ; the elephant, sagacious and mind- 

 ful of insults; the lion, capable of generosity; the 

 horse, patient of labours and eager for victory ; and, 

 along with a multitude of others diversely qualified, 

 One, without doubt partaking of the animal nature 

 that lives and dies, yet seeming to partake of some- 

 thing beyond it, seeming to be distinguished from all 

 the rest by its postures, by its laughing, by its cooking 

 its food, by its articulate language, by its powers of 

 reasoning ; and yet linked and united to its inferiors by 

 a multitude of affinities and sympathies, resemblances 

 of form and nature, and by the very details of its supe- 

 riority. So ran the Pagan legend that Providence had 

 compacted man's moral nature out of particles taken 

 from each of the lower animals, giving him the wisdom 



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