RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION 521 



mind cannot possil)ly grasp the full meaning of the term of 

 even a million years ; it cannot add up and perceive the full 

 effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an 

 almost infinite number of generations. 



Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views 

 given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no 

 m.eans expect to convince experienced naturalists whose 

 minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, 

 during a long course of years, from a point of view directly 

 opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under 

 such expressions as the "plan of creation," "unity of design," 

 &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only 

 re-state a fact. Any one whose disposition leadr him to 

 attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the 

 explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject 

 the theory. A few naturalists, endowed with much flexibility 

 of mind, and who have already begun to doubt the immu- 

 tability of species, may be influenced by this volume ; but I 

 look with confidence to the future, — to young and rising 

 naturalists, who will be able to view both sides of the ques- 

 tion with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that species 

 are mutable will do good service by conscientiously express- 

 ing his conviction; for thus only can the load of prejudice by 

 which this subject is overwhelmed be removed. 



Several eminent naturalists have of late published their be- 

 lief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are 

 not real species; but that other species are real, that is, have 

 been independently created. This seems to me a strange con- 

 clusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, 

 which till lately they themselves thought were special crea- 

 tions, and which are still thus looked at by the majority of 

 naturalists, and which consequently have all the external 

 characteristic features of true species, — they admit that these 

 have been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend 

 the same view to other and slightly dift'crent forms. Never- 

 theless they do not pretend that they can define, or even con- 

 jecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are 

 those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as 

 a vera causa in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, 

 without assigning any distinction in the two cases. The day 



