520 ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



element of attraction; notwithstanding that Leibnitz for- 

 merly accused Newton of introducing "occult qualities and 

 miracles into philosophy." 



I see no good reason why the views given in this volume 

 should shock the religious feelings of any one. It is satis- 

 factory, as showing how transient such impressions are, to 

 remember that the greatest discovery ever made by man, 

 namely, the law of the attraction of gravity, was also at- 

 tacked by Leibnitz, "as subversive of natural, and inferen- 

 tially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine 

 has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that 

 it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that 

 He created a few original forms capable of self-develop- 

 ment into other and needful forms, as to believe that He 

 required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused 

 by the action of His laws." 



Why, it may be asked, until recently did nearly all the 

 most eminent living naturalists and geologists disbelieve in 

 the mutability of species. It cannot be asserted that organic 

 beings in a state of nature are subject to no variation; it 

 cannot be proved that the amount of variation in the course 

 of long ages is a limited quantity; no clear distinction has 

 been, or can be, drawn between species and well-marked 

 varieties. It cannot be maintained that species when inter- 

 crossed are invariably sterile, and varieties invariably 

 fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and sign of 

 creation. The belief that species were immutable produc- 

 tions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the 

 world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we 

 have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt 

 to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so 

 perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the 

 mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation. 



But the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit 

 that one species has given birth to other and distinct species, 

 is that we are always slow in admitting great changes of 

 which we do not see the steps. The difficulty is the same as 

 that felt by so many geologists, when Lyell first insisted that 

 long lines of inland cliffs had been formed, and great valleys 

 excavated, by the agencies which we see still at work. The 



