

THE DARWINIAN HYPOTHESIS* 

 DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 



THERE is a growing immensity in the speculations of science 

 to which no human thing or thought at this day is com- 

 parable. Apart from the results which science brings us 

 home and securely harvests, there is an expansive force 

 and latitude in its tentative efforts, which lifts us out of 

 ourselves and transfigures our mortality. We may have 

 a preference for moral themes, like the Homeric sage, who 

 had seen and known much : 



" Cities of men 

 And manners, climates, councils, governments " ; 



yet we must end by confessing that 



" The windy ways of men 

 Are but dust which rises up 

 And is lightly laid again," 



in comparison with the work of nature, to which science 

 testifies, but which has no boundaries in time or space to 

 which science can approximate. 



There is something altogether out of the reach of science, 

 and yet the compass of science is practically illimitable. 

 Hence it is that from time to time we are startled and 

 perplexed by theories which have no parallel in the con- 

 tracted moral world ; for the generalizations of science 

 sweep on in ever-widening circles, and more aspiring 

 flights, though a limitless creation. While astronomy, 

 with its telescope, ranges beyond the known stars, and 

 physiology, with its microscope, is subdividing infinite 

 minutiae, we may expect that our historic centuries may be 

 treated as inadequate counters in the history of the planet 

 on which we are placed. We must expect new conceptions 

 of the nature and relations of its denizens, as science acquires 

 the materials for fresh generalizations ; nor have we occa- 



* Times, December 26th, 1850. 

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