31 



is the motto of my theory, like Crusoe's fable of old. Wisdom and 

 power have had nothing to do with the "wonderful works" of Nature. 

 Ex nihllo they all have come. All is the result of innumerable millions 

 of blunders. It is they that have filled the world with what you call 

 the wonders and beauties of Creation. 



I believe that natural selection is infinitely better adapted to the 

 more complex " conditions of life," and " of far higher workmanship " 

 than any thing man can produce ; and by " natural selection " I mean 

 the " sequence of events." Thus, you see, events are workers, and 

 causes are produced by results. This, even common sense will at once 

 tell you. 



1 believe that though Professor Phillips has said that the human 

 mind could not, even with the materials, have predicted the complete 

 arrangements we find in such adaptations as the various kinds of tails in 

 the falcons and the swallows, the woodpeckers and the divers, yet that 

 a monad could have a capability for the development of all such in the 

 "sequence of events." I hold it to be so, that is sufficient for me. 

 Let it suffice, I repeat, for you. 



I believe that for the formation of the most, complex form, it is 

 not necessary to know how to make it. That being so, because I say 

 it, there could not be supposed to be any All-Wise CREATOR. Q.E.D. 



I believe that by natural selection pairs of creatures appeared at 

 the same time suited to each other (and to my theory). How kind of them 

 I believe that it must have been so, because my theory would break 

 down if it were to be supposed that in any number of millions of ages 

 only one individual elaborated a tail, or a wing, as the case may be. 

 No ; there must have been two worked out for each other "just in the 

 nick of time," as the saying is. 



I believe that natural selection is the Great CREATOR. And why 

 not ? Ipse dixi. How do you get over that ? 



I believe that there was no intelligence presiding over the plan of 

 Nature. Cuvier, indeed, says that there was, but what do I care for 

 Cuvier ? 



I believe in many "beautiful contrivances," though I do not 

 believe in any contriver. It suits me to do so, and that is all I have 

 to say. 



I believe that the " struggle for life," which I have fancied, must 

 have " exterminated " millions upon millions of luckless failures. I 

 may be a mere assumption on my part, but 1 deal in assumptions. 



I believe that no explanation is at all necessary of my taking it 

 for granted that before the eye in its present state was formed there 

 must have been a " single rudimentary eye," able, but only able to 

 discern " light from darkness, but nothing else." How the first animal 

 came to have it, is not for me to say. It had it, I say. I cannot tell 

 you how natural selection made it, or made it to discern light from 

 darkness. All I can say, is, that. " he who will go thus far, ought not 

 to hesitate to go farther." (True enough !) "His reason ou^ht to con- 

 quer his imagination" (for all that Tyndall says about the "use of 

 imagination in science") "in extending the principle of natural selection 

 to such startling lengths:' That is my opinion, and opinion, mine at 

 least, is everything. 



I believe that I can give you a receipt like Mrs. Glass's one for making 

 an eye " Take a thick layer of transparent tissue," and so on. You 

 may ask me how the materials came to be at hand, and so readily 

 You may call this a pertinent question. I call it a very impertinent 

 one. I don't like it at all. It does not suit me. I altogether therefore 

 gnore it. 



